My first email! Hip hip hooray! I have successfully made it to Ohio. Let's start from the top:
Tuesday November 8:
Our bus to the airport left at 4 am! Yikes. I had to wake up at 3 and finish packing. It was not fun. My eyes were burning. My travel group consisted of me and my companion, Sister Ence, and 3 elders. I had made a goal the day before that I was going to talk to 4 people about the gospel and hand out 2 Book of Mormons. When I told this to my travel group they were shocked. They could not believe that I already wanted to start missionary work. I was kind of bugged that they didn't want to do it with me. I decided to go ahead and do it on my own. It's really awkward walking up to random strangers, but I did it! I talked to 6 people and gave out both Book of Mormons. I got their information and I've been staying in contact with them. The missionaries in my group couldn't believe how much success I had. It was really cool. When we got to Ohio the mission president and his wife picked us up. They are both really fun and they love to joke around. When we got to their house the senior missionaries had a FEAST prepared for us. I was so sick of the MTC food and they had the best meal for us- steak, potatoes, salad, carrots, rolls and pie. It was so nice of them. After dinner we had interviews with Sister Vellinga and then President Vellinga. I spent my whole interview laughing with President. He took the picture I mailed in and colored my hair brown with a marker and added bangs. It was really funny. We were able to go to bed really early that night because we were dead! I got the letters that Mom Dad and Dallin sent. It was really cool to have those my first day in Ohio.
Wednesday November 9:
We wont up at 5 am and we were off to Kirtland by 6. They first took us to the Kirtland temple. It is so cool!!!! The Community of Christ owns it and they were nice enough to let us get in for free (it's usually a $3 charge). We were able to see the whole temple. It's basically a large chapel with a few small rooms upstairs. Karl Anderson (I don't know who he is but I guess he is famous) taught us all about the temple. After about an hour in the temple we walked across the street to the sites. At the visitors' center Sister Neslen was waiting for me. I jumped out of the car and we both ran to each other and screamed and hugged. Everyone else just stood there starring at us. It was great. They took us to the Newel K. Whitney store. Upstairs in the store is the room where the school of prophets took place. They took us up there and Karl Anderson taught us for about an hour. He told us that the Savior and Heavenly Father have appeared in that exact same room. It was really cool. He also showed us in the scriptures about how we were called to come to Kirtland. When the saints had to leave Kirtland and go to Missouri they were really stressed that the church would die in Kirtland. Joseph Smith told them that one day their ancestors would come back to Kirtland to build up the church. He then asked if any of us had ancestors from Kirtland- all of us raised our hands. Not one missionary, as far as they know, has been called to this mission that didn't have an ancestor that was from Kirtland. How cool is that???? I thought it was pretty sweet. We were then told that we would have 15 mins in the school of prophets to start our mission. We all kneeled down and said our own prayers telling Heavenly Father that we are ready to start our missions. It was a cool experience. After that we went to the church to meet our companions. I'm OBSESSED with mine. Her name is Haley Hansen. She is from Sandy and went to Hillcrest-Mccall she knows all your friends from Winner School that were on Drill. We had to get up in front of the whole mission and introduce our new companions. After I introduced mine everyone kept coming up to me and telling me that I am twins with Sister Hansen. She is super super cute. She has a Betsy Johnson coat and I have a Betsy bag. We were meant to be. I felt really bad for Sister Ence because she got a really quiet companion and everyone was saying how lucky I was to get Sister Hansen and no one told Sister Ence how great her companion is. I could tell that she felt bad. After all the new transfers were announced, the sisters ate lunch at the Edman's. They were excited to know who Grandma and Grandpa were. All of the sisters here are so nice! After lunch two sisters gave me and my companion and Sister Ence and her companion a full 2 hour tour of the sites. I can't believe how much information we have to learn in order to give a tour. Yikes. It was our day at sites so after the tour Sister Hansen gave me the run down on how everything works at sites. After that it was already time to go home and FINALLY go to bed!!! We are living in Hyrum Smith's house.
Thursday November 10:
We didn't really do too much on this day. I unpacked and we had a 3 hour planning session. We had to plan for the whole week. After that we went to the hospital to visit a lady names Kathy, she's an investigator. We had dinner at a member's house. They were a young family with 2 little girls. As missionaries we aren't allowed to really touch kids. I basically died because I wanted to hold their baby SSSOOOO bad!!!!!
Friday November 11:
We had sites this day. No one comes on tour anymore so the missionaries just sit upstairs and call people and email. It's not as exciting as it sounds. It's actually really, really boring. Sister Hansen took me out to the Newel K. Whitney store and had me practice giving a tour of a few rooms. There is sooo much information we have to know.
Saturday November 12:
This is when missionary work really started. We tracted for 3 hours. I had tracting. People are so mean! I am in a tiny town called Painesville. It is soo ghetto. Everyone is a hill billy. We literally had people yell at us to go away. For lunch we met up with the elders in our area and had really good mexican food. The elders are spanish speaking and they know the owners. After a short break we were off to find people. I had to go to the bathroom so we went to Rite Aid. Outside of Rite Aid we met a mother with her 2 daughters. We talked to them and set up an appointment to come over on Friday. I guess our bathroom break was inspired. There is a less active sister in the ward named Sister Silvis. We thought that a way we could fellowship her would be to do some type of service. We went with our rakes over to her house and started raking her lawn. She ran out her front door and told us to go away and that they church is sufficating her. Needless to say- we did not see her at church on Sunday. We decided to track 2 more hours on her street. The people were equally as mean as Sister Silvis. We said a prayer and asked if we could be directed to a nicer street. We decided to head over to a street called Sanford. On this street we were able to find 5 people that would set up appointments with us! Jackpot!!!! We had an appointment with a less active so we went over there and watched a conference talk with her. The people here are struggling so much with the gospel. Sister Wheeler is in the Stake Primary but yet she is a less active. They don't have enough members so they start calling unworthy or less active people. It's weird. We then were prompted to go visit a less active family, the Rodriguez family. They live in a tiny apartment. I was super surprised that they were home and they answered the door. My favorite thing so far has been going to a less active's house or an investigator's house and seeing them hide from you. I want to yell at them "hello I can see you" but I'm serving the Lord and he prob wouldn't do that. Right? The Rodriguez family let us in. It's a mom and her two teenage sons. LOVE THEM!!!! She is a huge Puerto Rican lady. They are straight from the hood. So ghetto. We talked with them for an hour. The boys explained to me all of the "ghetto talk" that I will hear here in Painesville. I'm now prepared to serve here. For instance a "hood rat" is the name of a teenager that lives in the ghetto. Good to know!
Sunday November 13:
Wow!!!! The Perry ward is not the 28th ward. No Sir!!!!!!! They have about 50 members in the ward. Everyone smokes. It smelt so bad in sacrament meeting.
Well... My internet time is up!!! I guess I will continue next time. I love you all and miss you. I'm doing great here! I love it so much!!
Sister Frampton
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