Bath, Maine ❤️

I LOVE MAINE!!!! I'm in my very first area of Topsham, Maine..but I'm living in a cute little apartment/house in Bath, Maine :) it's BEAUTIFUL here..so many trees, it reminds me of Oregon/Washington and I'm just in love. my companion is Sister Crook and she's great! She's been out for almost a year and she's from Star Valley, Wyoming. We are finally getting used to living together and what not..it was a struggle at first but I'm getting used to it. She's a great trainer and I'm learning a lot!

We've taught and met a lot of members and less-actives this week, but not very many investigators yet. We had to meet with the sisters that were here before us (they were senior/old sisters) and they told us about who we needed to meet up with and stuff. Their main focus was the less-actives which is nice, it's just different missionary work than I had been expecting! We're getting there though :)

My first full day here, we were walking around the neighborhood visiting the people we had planned to the night prior. On our way, we saw three men in a yard working on something so we stopped to talk to them. I was scared to death because this was my first "street contact" or whatever but he was very kind and was willing to listen to what we had to say! We told him a bit about the Book of Mormon and he said he was willing to read it!! We didn't have one for him in our bags at the moment and he had to head off so he said we can drop one off on the porch for him to grab later. We ended up getting one and writing our testimonies in it and dropping it off at his house. SUCCESS❤️ that first experience got me soo excited to teach other people.  

Next we go knock on a member's door to meet them but they weren't home so we continued down to the sidewalk and an older lady was next door gardening. My comp turned to me and said "this one's yours" and I was panicking...but I agreed and we went up to her and introduced ourselves and she was just as receptive as the other guy! She said she was a Methodist though so that was pretty hard. When we were about to leave, I bore my testimony to her and basically said that change is difficult, especially with religion, but I knew that it would be worth it because her relationship with Jesus Christ and God will be strengthened (which was her main thing in her life) and she will live such a happy life etc. Something like that! So we left her with a pamphlet and left. My comp could not believe how well I did..it blew her mind how "profound and great and straight forward" I was. I WAS SO HAPPY. These experiences were exactly what I needed to start my first week as a missionary :)

The people here are.....fun :) I taught two different women this week who both had beards. Yes...beards. And nobodyyyy wears bras so that's also thrilling. (I do, don't worry)

Also, these people LOVE TO TALK. They can tell stories for hours and hours and they don't even care! They'll spill their entire soul to you in your first visit. It's fine, it just makes it difficult to get a word in :) I love them ALL though. It doesn't matter what they do, how ancient they are, what they're wearing (or what they're not wearing), or how their house smells (awful most of the time), or how they speak. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. It's so weird how it happens, but I just feel such a love for every single person I come into contact with.

I just shopped FINALLY for food because I've been living off of clam chowder and rice crispy treats for the past week. The sisters before us didn't leave us any food and we couldn't go shopping until today (P-Day). But we went and got food, and I got to hear M U S I C :) I heard one directions song One Thing, a Shawn Mendes song, and Firework by Katy Perry. BLESSED.

Ohhhh and my comp is a runner.....so there's that. If you need me at 6:30 in the morning, that's where I'll be....ha hahaha haha okay. 

I also went door to door tracting for the first time the other night. Got turned down everyyyy single time but it was a great experience! They were all respectful and didn't say anything degrading or rude so that's good. Maine people can get offensive but I guess we got lucky!

We walked past some guy sitting on a curb the other day and we went and introduced ourselves to him and asked him if we could share a message about Jesus Christ and he's like "well, I'm about to smoke some weed so..." And my comp panicked and didn't know how to handle the situation so she just walked away yelling "K GOOD LUCK!!" It was so embarrassing and SO funny...I was dying. Maybe it was a 'had to be there' experience but yeah...anyway.

I love you all so much and I can really feel the prayers in my behalf.
I do get homesick and discouraged, but that's okay.
Missions are great, God is great, life is great, and the pics I'm
gonna send are great. LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH❤️

We biked to a house the other day!!!! We couldn't stop laughing the whole way. We were such missionaries :)

 Random House?

Sister Youland randomly giving us a tour of her house/yard...they love to do that. She's less active and her husband isn't a member. VERY kind woman! Here are something things in her yard that I thought were cool :)