hello from racine!

i'm here in the lovely little town of Racine, WI, and the missionary work is just grand :) also my companion/trainer Sis. Casdorph is wonderful, AND she's from worland, wyoming. so that's fun :)

Racine is kind of the ghetto which is kind of hilarious. Don't worry we're very safe, we just can't go on this one street & we're supposed to take members with us other places & be home after dark etc. Sometimes I laugh because we're just two little white girls and other people don't have teeth.

Yesterday in church I saw someone yawn and their jaw moved but their teeth didn't. (dentures.)

Hopefully this will be a very uplifting letter eventually haha.

anyways it's fun here, and i think it's really pretty so it's lovely :)

it's definitely different than home/utah though... first off it's SO weird being the missionary now & i can hear people talking about "the sisters" and i'm like oh that's me... I'm not really a person anymore I'm a Missionary if that makes sense? which gets me into strangers homes (so weird) and also makes some people hang up on me or shut the door in my face haha. it's funny. tracting hasn't been too bad, we don't do it very much since it's not very effective but sometimes we knock on doors looking for people and then try to get in & then they shut the door. but everyone's really friendly about it!! haha it makes me laugh. such funny people.

the ward here is very small (exactly 20 sisters in relief society yesterday including we two missionaries) & i can hear like one other person singing during sacrament meeting haha. but they're good people & the church is true in wisconsin too! also the income level here is pretty low, a lot of people are unemployed/underemployed/on welfare/etc. so it's a very different dynamic. way fewer white shirts & ties. a few more tattoos & piercings haha.

I was sitting in Gospel Principles yesterday kind of thinking about that actually and wondering where Jesus would go if He came to church and I feel like He wouldn't go to Gospel Doctrine, He'd go to Gospel Principles. If you think about who Jesus spent time with while He was alive, it wasn't the people who had it all put together, it was the poor & the sinners & the people with issues they were dealing with. So it's cool to be where (I think) Jesus would be if He were to visit the Racine Ward.

Every day I get to ask myself the questions, "what am I doing to invite others to come unto Christ?" and "what am I doing to become more like Christ?" every single moment is a WWJD moment when you're wearing His name on your name tag. which is kind of awesome. and intimidating haha. also the Atonement is awesome. also Preach my Gospel is awesome. it has EVERYTHING WE NEED in there. & the little ones are so cute :) read the 3rd lesson of the 3rd chapter. it details how to access the Atonement of Jesus Christ. hello, where have you been all my life. why did i not know this existed. the awesome thing about the gospel is we can have DAILY repentance. we can access the Atonement DAILY and make changes to become better through Jesus Christ. how awesome?? if you're not repenting every day........ what what what are you doing. don't let the Atonement go to waste!!

also it's fun to have a Christmas message of the gospel of Jesus Christ & how EVERYONE can come closer to Him & how His gospel is restored & Christmas means so much more than just presents & dinners & getting fat :)

my first lesson EVER, literally 2 hours after we left the stake center where we met our trainers, was on the Law of Chastity. we taught A***, who is living with her boyfriend & raising two kids with him. {note: mom please don't post any details about investigators online... i don't care if people read MY personal stuff, but not other peoples'. :) ) it was good actually, but pretty intense for a first lesson haha i had nooo idea what i was doing. she has a baptismal date set for december 29th so we're trying to help her either have J**** move out or marry him before that day. Also, real investigators are 3309480283 times more complicated than the ones at the TRC haha. but she's great & we love her :)

also my first member meal included purple potatoes. which are actually really delicious. they're like sweet potatoes kinda. & it was fun because we ate with a new family in the ward, they have an 8 yr old daughter who reminds me of myself at that age & then two little boys. we watched a nativity video from mormon.org/christmas and the little girl Alayna said she felt "amazed & happy" so we talked about what the Spirit feels like & how we can make Christmas more about Jesus :) even though "lex is mean sometimes we still have to be nice to him" haha

which reminds me, VISIT MORMON.ORG/CHRISTMAS. it's really cool & also whenever someone in our area requests a missionary visit we get a text & then we go visit them & it's really cool :) so check it out & share it on facebook etc :)

also I love this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugV6QGcafEE & you should share it on facebook since I can't :)

We live in a member's home on the upper floor, it's a middle-aged couple, the wife works a lot & the husband works really far away so he's only home on the weekends, so we usually have it to ourselves. but last saturday i heard the husband talking downstairs and he sounds E X A C T L Y like, i mean EXACTLY like Mr Hamm/the abominable snowman/the circus flea/Mac etc from all those pixar movies. it is unCANNY. so if you're wondering about what the people sound like, that's it.

also the accents here are WONDERFUL hahaha i have to keep myself from laughing sometimes :) yesterday at dinner Sis. June said "ahrson scaatt cahrd" and i almost didn't register that as "orson scott card" haha. I'm the one with the funny accent here so that's weird. anyways the accents are just as strong and prevelant as anyone could ever hope for :) it's wonderful. basically every vowel becomes either "aaaaaaah" or "uuuuuuuuu". okay that's hard to type but hopefully you get it. :)

also awesome thing! Alma 8:19 - Alma met Amulek because he was hungry. What a human weakness! and yet the Lord used it to make MIRACLES happen :) we pray for miracles every day here & just hope that we're not getting in the way of God doing His work here in Racine :)

there's a man here at the library who looks precisely like that evil guy from LOTR who whispers in the King of Rohan's ear & then kills Saruman. the library's having HobbitFest & i hope that's who he goes as. He could also pull off a great Smeagol though, so it might be a tough choice.

ALSO I NEED TO TELL YOU THE MIRACLE OF YESTERDAY. so tracting is fine, like whatever, except it never ever works & no one lets us in & sometimes they're grumpy BUT THEN. after church we were going to stop in & visit a less-active member who no one's ever seen named J*****. also it was raining. & we have a car but limited miles & there was no legal parking in this neighborhood (?) so we parked really far away at a nursing home & walked in the freezing rain. whatever, we're missionaries, nbd. so we knock on the door, no one answers, we wait a while, knock again, we hear some swearing from inside haha and then the door opens & it's a lady in a green bay packers shirt (people here LOVE THE PACKERS SO MUCH) and she's like oh i thought you were someone else so we're like uhhh no haha does joshua live here, no he doesn't but can i help you anyway? oh no, we're just looking for him... actually, we're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we have a message about Jesus Christ, would you be open to hearing more about it? and she says............ YES come on in I could use a little more God in my life right now can I get you something to drink here have some cookies do you want some homemade fudge can I make you a pizza. ??????? this NEVER happens hahaha so we obviously walk in and just take a drink of water from her and she tells us a lot of stuff but the gist of it is she just ended a 24 year marriage because he cheated on her and she was sitting in a pit of despair writing out Christmas cards when we knocked on the door so she knew we were sent from God. and it was just SO AWESOME, God's timing in leading us to D*** (that's her name) at that exact moment & everything about it was just a miracle & we gave her a Book of Mormon & when we asked her to be baptized she said "absolutely, what day?" and then said "you know who else would like to hear from you guys? my neighbor, S****..." and we went and talked to S**** & set up an appointment with her for next saturday to share a Christmas message. ANYWAYS it was just a miracle & such an answer to prayers because i prayed that someone would let us in the house because it was cold & we prayed that whoever lived in the house would have an open heart and they DID. God answers prayers!! Hurrah for Israel! So that was cool. We're not sure how well she exactly understood our message because she mostly just talked and cried, but we prayed with her (twice) & set up an appointment to come back on thursday :)

We do a lot of praying with people... sometimes they won't let us come in but they'll let us pray with them, so we do doorstep prayers which are pretty cool. it's just awesome to be God's hands in His amazing work :)

I love being a missionary!! and I love you!!!

 

:)

if you send anything to the mission office make sure it's united states postal service not FedEx or anything, or else they can't fwd it to me & i won't get it for a long time haha

thanks for the oatmeal & cookies mom!!! they saved my life haha we haven't been able to go grocery shopping yet :)

pray that the hearts of the people of Racine will be open & that Sister Casdorph & I will have the faith to work miracles here!!! and read preach my gospel!! and the book of mormon!! they're the greatest!!


Jesus Christ is born! & He lives! Hurrah for Israel!!

xoxoxoxox

sister proffit :)