Well. I didn't get mugged.

Fambly!
So yes, my wallet was stolen. I’m a dumb bunny. I forgot I live in the third largest city in the world and that outside of cute little suburbias like Murray wallets get snatched all the time and it’s no big deal. The staff at the store were sympathetic but they basically just smiled and said, “Yeah… sorry about that. We don’t have cameras or nothing, so you’re kind of screwed sweety.” And went back to work.
I was just looking through the cards, trying to find an appropriate one for daddy, and we turned away from the cart for about 30 seconds. Maybe a full minute. And when we came back, our wallets were gone. Way triste. Everything in it can be replaced except for the gift cards that I had from birthday/Christmas (yeah, I’m sad about that), and the wallet itself, which I had actually made myself while I was due to train and freaking out a little and needed to do SOMETHING with my hands to keep from pulling my hair out. And there was some extra fabric and a zipper around that Hermana Forsling had left me, so I made a wallet. I was rather fond of it… and I’m sad that I didn’t get to enjoy the giftcards. I was actually planning to use one of them that day for something specific, but I didn’t end up buying it on account of getting robbed. But, I didn’t have any cash in there at all, and my social security card wasn’t there either. A la major they didn’t even find my cards since I made the wallet very cleverly and it’s got the missionary handbook in front, obscuring everything from view. It’s likely they saw that it was a book and just tossed it, but we checked the trash cans and didn’t find anything, and the Walmart people didn’t either. If they did keep in, then hopefully they read it.
It’s a hassle to replace everything, but it’s just stuff. I’m okay. Mommy! I got the new wallet you sent me! I love it, it’s soooo pretty! Gorgeous. I don’t have anything to put in it yet, but I’m slowly filling it. It’s a very nice wallet, and I love it! Thank you also from the Valentine’s day candy! And to Grandma and Grandpa too! My companion and I have filled ourselves with great amount of chocolate. It’s been wonderful.
Sunkitty and His Friends finally arrived! Turns out it was at the office at my apartment complex for a while now, it’s just that the silly office people there forgot to tell me about it. I even came by once and specifically asked if anything had arrived that they might have forgotten to mention to me, and they said ‘no’. Then the next day, I felt like I should ask again, and this time the lady looked at me all confused and was like, “You live in 509, right?” and we said, “Yes.” And she said, “Didn’t they tell you about that?” and went to go get my package which had apparently been there for several days. How silly.
Anyway, I finally got to see it! YAY! It’s beautiful! I can only recognize one editorial change, the word “vanquishes” in place of “kills”. I still prefer the word ‘kill’ there, but I suppose vanquishes is softer. It is a children’s book. But, yeah, I didn’t pick up on any others. I can barely remember writing a lot of these poems. I know I did, because it sounds like me, but I’ve just forgotten so much. Anyway, I LOVE it. It is lovely. I did lots of squealing and jumping up and down when it came. I also turned the comic strip into a bookmark since it was so very appropriately a bookmark for me.
By the by, I randomly remembered a flash back of reading the inside jacket of a novel that was Pride and Prejudice except Mr. Darcy is a vampire? Did I dream this up, or is it a real book? I’m pretty sure there’s about a hundred different versions of this story by now.
Your trip to St. George sounds SO fun. Temples and shoot-outs and good food and Grandma and Grandpa! Wonderful! I forgot about the Olympics. That’s so fun. All the PC stuff is pretty annoying. We very seriously offended two of our investigators last week when we told them straight-up that the other churches don’t have authority and teach false doctrine and are therefore Apostate. We explained to them about True Vs. Not True about ten different ways, but they still didn’t get it. This morning, I finally realized that the problem they were having was probably more that they think we’re saying that everyone else is going to hell because they’re in the wrong church—of course, we’re NOT saying that, but that’s probably what it sounds like to them, since all their previous experience with religion has including mass condemnation of everybody.
We might watch that clips of that Heavenly Father’s Plan is Big Enough for Everyone talk from last Spring’s conference with them and explain that being in the wrong church doesn’t mean you’re damned. It just means you lack understand and knowledge of God’s plan and thus, will have to eventually learn about all that. If not in this life, than in the next.
So you guys got a Plan of Salvation class this week? We had Ward Conference. I’m sorry to say that my relief society class sounded like it had some similar problems to yours’ mommy. Our topic was Reverence. Which is a really great and profound topic, and definitely could of gone somewhere, but instead everyone just went off on horror stories about investigators being offended by how loud the classes were etc. and how some horrible people can’t control their kids etc. For the WHOLE. HOUR.
She also made us take our shoes off. I didn’t mind that part, she was trying to make a point about Moises when he communed with God through the burning bush. It could have been good, but everything seemed to go wrong the second she had us put our shoes back on.
The Plan of Salvation, is so hard to teach sometimes. Because it’s SO important. And It’s so easy to fall back on the cutesy “My Turn on Earth” version of events. I try to teach exactly what Preach My Gospel says. People do often have trouble teaching the ‘Satan sought to destroy the Agency of Man’ part of the lesson. I almost prefer NOT to have members with us for that lesson. Same with Word of Wisdom sometimes, because more often than not, I have to pull the investigator aside later and say, “Hey… Coca-Cola is okay. That’s not actually in there—he’s just crazy.”
Law of Chastity on the other hand… It’s nice to have a cute older couple with you when you teach that lesson. Otherwise it gets awkward and often seems to turn into a challenge of “Well what do you know about it?!” and then I have to be like, “Well I—okay. Nothing.”
I’m so sad my valentines didn’t make it to you! Somebody got hungry at the post office I guess. I thought about sending them in a padded envelope, but my companion was able to successfully send a few off like that, so I thought it might be okay… That’s too bad. Did daddy like his card? It made me giggle. I still want to see a copy of that picture of the sister missionaries from his mission who dressed up like nuns. Also—could you guys e-mail me a copy of the picture of the Davis baptism from my camera that I sent home? I forgot to print out a copy of that one. It’s the last baptism photo on there. The only white people.
This week was… kind of rough. We taught a lot of lessons but none of our investigators are progressing and we didn’t find anyone new really. We did finally get the chance to teach the Jehovah’s Witness wife of an old investigator, which was awesome, but then, they didn’t come to church, which is depressing.
We’re working hard and I know we’re with the people who need us right now. I love you all, and I LOVE being a missionary in Texas!
I miss you and I love you! Hermana Lillywhite