First Week In West Virginia!!!

LLLLLLLooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggeeeeeeeeessssssssttttttttt wwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk
eeeeeeeevvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr
oh my gooooooooooooooodneeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss.

I do have an hour and a half now that I'm out here which is GREAT because the hour they gave us in the MTC was NOT enough. :P I'm in the library in Ripley in Jackson County (zion :P) and this is where we'll write our little emails. :)

So, Monday we said our good-byes to the district and the MTC and stuff. I didn't smell the tree!!! I'm so upset with myself. But we didn't have time and I didn't wanna stop my companions so I could find a weird smelling tree. :P

Tuesday we woke up at 2:30 and got everything out and we went to the airport. Flew all day. Sat by a nice detective from Montana and a Catholic Pastor. Haha. I did bond with the pastor over the stories of Paul and how wonderful people's lives can be if they have the gospel in it. Met my Mission President and his wife (Salisbury) and they are so wonderful and sweet. They've been out for a year and are still getting the hang of it. :) The wife is so sweet, she is always looking at her husband for support and reassurance that she isn't saying the wrong thing or doing something wrong. And he was always like "you're fine, you're doing great dear." The sisters stayed with the Sister Training Leaders for 2 nights and the Elders stayed with.. some Elders... I don't know. :P

Wednesday we explored the WV history museum and learned about the different areas and the greatness of the work. Woot!

Thursday we went to the transfer meeting and I got my new companion! Her name is Sister Kirkby and she just got finished being trained herself poor girl. But that's a common thing here so when I'm done in October I'll likely be training someone right after. She is so kind and encouraging. I truly am so grateful for her. She has a very strong testimony and is not afraid of working which is good. Her last companion was a vegetarian so she loves me already. :P They sent us off, we had lunch, and immediately got busy visiting and teaching people. We've taught around 15 people so far and we would've taught more if people were home. :) I didn't think this would be a problem but it is a HUGE problem. People are never home. Gr. And there are so many Less Actives! If all of the members came to church, it'd be a ward instead of a branch. Come on people! Church is good for you! But really though, the people who live here have really hard lives and have gone through really tough trials. We are trying hard to teach them this message of happiness and help them see that there is a plan for everyone and they are not alone in their trials.

Friday we taught and visited all day. I am falling in love with the people here. Everyone is so kind and friendly. We ate dinner at a progressing investigator's house named Lisa. She and her husband are so great and I love them to death. While there I saw my first firefly/lightning bug! Woot! There are so many here! And we caught a frog. Pretty fantastic.

Saturday was the fourth of July! We had a district meeting then we went into town to talk to people. We had all of these American flags with a scripture about liberty form the Book of Mormon on them and we handed them out to the people around town while the parade went on. Apparently, Ripley has the biggest small-town 4th of July celebration in the country. So we saw lots of people. We walked and walked and walked and talked and walked and walked. We did get contact info from a few people and I'm excited to see if they accept our invitation to come unto Christ. We'll contact them this week.

Sunday we went to church! I definitely needed it. Our congregation has about 15 people in it and only one person knows how to play the hymns on the piano. :P And she wasn't there yesterday so we played a recording and sang to that. Sister Kirkby and I taught these two teenage sisters about preparing to go to the temple and then helped teach primary. After church we went straight to our first house to teach. A big problem was that a lot of people weren't home. Lots of people work on Sundays. We did visit with 5 people but were only able to teach 3 of them.

See? Told you it was a long week.

WV is kind of awesome. There are trees literally everywhere. We are in the middle of a forest. Sister Kirkby and I run on the track around the football field at the highschool which is surrounded by trees so it feels like we're right on the edge of a forest. We even saw two baby dear and some rabbits while running! There's as many Baptists here as there are Mormons in Utah so there's a church on every corner. :) It's also very sticky here. And my hair is freaking out because of the humidity.

I'm kind of getting into the groove now and am getting to know the area better. I'll most likely be here for 3-6 months so I'm trying to get a mental map of this place.

Hope you all are doing well!!!

-Sister Miller

This little manaquin at the museum totally scared me! I was walking towards it and then it suddenly yelled "Get Back!" It made the other missionaries laugh. :P

Sister Kirkby!

4th of July!!!