Dear Mom and Dad,
I don't even know where to start! I got to Georgia on Monday and the first night us new missionaries stayed in the mission home because they were having a big transfer meeting on Tuesday. The mission home is so nice!! It's in this cute neighborhood with lots of trees around it and it's just a beautiful house. There are SO many trees here in Georgia!! I never have any idea what direction I'm going but I think I'm slowly starting to get more oriented. I can now usually get back to our apartments once we get on the main road. Here in Georgia the roads are windy and the same road will have like three different names because back in segregation times the white people didn't want to have the same name road as the black did, it's crazy! My companions name is Sister Tevi (not Teri like I thought it was a typo) and she is part Tongan and Samoan, Kajsa would love her!! We get along really well. she is pretty chill but she likes to work hard so that is good. The ward boundaries here in Augusta are really big so there are actually three sets of missionaries in this ward!! That's a lot! There are actually almost 800 members in the ward but only about maybe 150 are active. Most of the active people in our ward live on the base. We have Fort Gordon in our ward. I don't know that I will be coming back with a nice southern accent because most of the members are actually from Utah. However I might come back with a ghetto black lady accent because that seems to be the only people we teach. Hopefully I don't offend anyone with that statement but it's true. I think there have been a lot of people baptized here that weren't really solidly converted when they were baptized. A lot of people also try to get into the church because they want money to help pay for stuff. We have already had that problem. We also talk to a lot of crazy people, we had a "lesson" with this lady named Cathy last week and she was CRAZY! I'm pretty sure she is actually bipolar or schizophrenic or a lot of things. So we get to her house and we sit down on the porch and she is running around trying to find her bible. she keeps going in and out of her house and one of the times as she is going back in she turns and looks at us and points to me and says "Samantha" and then she points to my companion and says "Tabitha" and then she gives this very decisive nod with her head and just walk back into house. I'm pretty sure she gave us new names. She also couldn't remember what our church was called so she kept calling us her "Saturday Lights" friends. all she wanted to talk about was proverbs so I don't know that we can say we actually got a lesson in. She also had a friend there who was all dressed up she had this sparkly shirt on and high heels and this fancy belt and then to top off her outfit she had on grey sweatpants! It was awesome. I really wanted to take a picture of her so you guys could see it. We do have this really solid baptism that my companion had in September and we'll call her S. S has had a hard life but she is awesome. She is really funny. she has a daughter we have been teaching we'll call her K and she is doing really well. she has a baptism date set for Nov. 23 but she has a crazy grandma who doesn't want her to get baptized and so we think that is swaying her a little bit but hopefully she comes through. We had a dinner on Thursday with some people on the base and they were really nice and then we had someone feed us lunch yesterday and someone feed us dinner yesterday also. Lunch was an older couple and they were super nice! Dinner was a family from Utah who lived in Clearfield and the dad is trying to get into dental school. They are awesome! I loved going over there because it felt like home. We had funeral potatoes and it was just like a dinner at home. I don't know that I'll be getting a lot of southern food because again most of the members are from Utah. They also made us homemade doughnuts and they were delicious! it has been kind of hard adjusting. I have been homesick a few times and sometimes all I want to do is come home! It's getting better though, it's just taking some time. One of the things I never realized though was how much the spirit is just in all of our homes! We go around to all of these investigators and we knock on doors and I never realized how much you can feel the spirit even just walking around in our neighborhood! I miss that! I feel so drained when I get home at the end of the day! It was so great to be able to go to the members houses and just feel the spirit there! It made me feel so much better. My companion does kind of snore and she tosses and turns all night, so I have been using ear plugs when I sleep. My bed was also SUPER uncomfortable so I went to walmart and just bought this foam sleeping mattress pad thing. That has helped a lot. Some of the people we teach only have about four teeth. That is interesting. Everyone smokes here so I feel like I always smell like smoke. Right now we are just trying to find all of the inactive people in our area so we can visit them. That is taking a while because there are so many! The people in the ward are nice. the ward mission leader is kind of useless. He isn't very helpful. The most helpful are actually the TEENAGERS! They come with us to lessons and they bring people to church! A lot of the ward is older so that makes it hard. My district leader is Elder Phillips and he is a short black guy from Australia. He has the thickest accent ever!! I can never understand him when we talk to him on the phone. I always have to ask my companion what he is saying. Oh and one of the zone leaders name is Elder Huntsman and he is from our Stake, he is the guy people kept telling me about and I had no idea who he was. Well now I know him. There is also a Brother and Sister Gowan that live on the other side of Gordon that are coming out for a wedding so they said they might try and contact you next Saturday.
Thanks Karen Harrop for the package, it didn't make it to the mission home but I got it last Friday at my apartment, It was great!! Love all the small acts of kindness they are really appreciated!!
Thank you so much for all the letters and emails I don't know how all the missionaries keep going when they don't have any letters or anything from Home!
Hope all is well, and hope Meredith is doing good in Washington D.C. I'm in her town sort of now. But the College campus is not in my immediate area but I do have the HUGE FANCY GOLF COURSE we drive past it a lot. We are having a big Zone conference tomorrow and someone from the Quorum of the Seventy is coming to talk to us, so that should be good.
Love you all,
Sister Price
I don't even know where to start! I got to Georgia on Monday and the first night us new missionaries stayed in the mission home because they were having a big transfer meeting on Tuesday. The mission home is so nice!! It's in this cute neighborhood with lots of trees around it and it's just a beautiful house. There are SO many trees here in Georgia!! I never have any idea what direction I'm going but I think I'm slowly starting to get more oriented. I can now usually get back to our apartments once we get on the main road. Here in Georgia the roads are windy and the same road will have like three different names because back in segregation times the white people didn't want to have the same name road as the black did, it's crazy! My companions name is Sister Tevi (not Teri like I thought it was a typo) and she is part Tongan and Samoan, Kajsa would love her!! We get along really well. she is pretty chill but she likes to work hard so that is good. The ward boundaries here in Augusta are really big so there are actually three sets of missionaries in this ward!! That's a lot! There are actually almost 800 members in the ward but only about maybe 150 are active. Most of the active people in our ward live on the base. We have Fort Gordon in our ward. I don't know that I will be coming back with a nice southern accent because most of the members are actually from Utah. However I might come back with a ghetto black lady accent because that seems to be the only people we teach. Hopefully I don't offend anyone with that statement but it's true. I think there have been a lot of people baptized here that weren't really solidly converted when they were baptized. A lot of people also try to get into the church because they want money to help pay for stuff. We have already had that problem. We also talk to a lot of crazy people, we had a "lesson" with this lady named Cathy last week and she was CRAZY! I'm pretty sure she is actually bipolar or schizophrenic or a lot of things. So we get to her house and we sit down on the porch and she is running around trying to find her bible. she keeps going in and out of her house and one of the times as she is going back in she turns and looks at us and points to me and says "Samantha" and then she points to my companion and says "Tabitha" and then she gives this very decisive nod with her head and just walk back into house. I'm pretty sure she gave us new names. She also couldn't remember what our church was called so she kept calling us her "Saturday Lights" friends. all she wanted to talk about was proverbs so I don't know that we can say we actually got a lesson in. She also had a friend there who was all dressed up she had this sparkly shirt on and high heels and this fancy belt and then to top off her outfit she had on grey sweatpants! It was awesome. I really wanted to take a picture of her so you guys could see it. We do have this really solid baptism that my companion had in September and we'll call her S. S has had a hard life but she is awesome. She is really funny. she has a daughter we have been teaching we'll call her K and she is doing really well. she has a baptism date set for Nov. 23 but she has a crazy grandma who doesn't want her to get baptized and so we think that is swaying her a little bit but hopefully she comes through. We had a dinner on Thursday with some people on the base and they were really nice and then we had someone feed us lunch yesterday and someone feed us dinner yesterday also. Lunch was an older couple and they were super nice! Dinner was a family from Utah who lived in Clearfield and the dad is trying to get into dental school. They are awesome! I loved going over there because it felt like home. We had funeral potatoes and it was just like a dinner at home. I don't know that I'll be getting a lot of southern food because again most of the members are from Utah. They also made us homemade doughnuts and they were delicious! it has been kind of hard adjusting. I have been homesick a few times and sometimes all I want to do is come home! It's getting better though, it's just taking some time. One of the things I never realized though was how much the spirit is just in all of our homes! We go around to all of these investigators and we knock on doors and I never realized how much you can feel the spirit even just walking around in our neighborhood! I miss that! I feel so drained when I get home at the end of the day! It was so great to be able to go to the members houses and just feel the spirit there! It made me feel so much better. My companion does kind of snore and she tosses and turns all night, so I have been using ear plugs when I sleep. My bed was also SUPER uncomfortable so I went to walmart and just bought this foam sleeping mattress pad thing. That has helped a lot. Some of the people we teach only have about four teeth. That is interesting. Everyone smokes here so I feel like I always smell like smoke. Right now we are just trying to find all of the inactive people in our area so we can visit them. That is taking a while because there are so many! The people in the ward are nice. the ward mission leader is kind of useless. He isn't very helpful. The most helpful are actually the TEENAGERS! They come with us to lessons and they bring people to church! A lot of the ward is older so that makes it hard. My district leader is Elder Phillips and he is a short black guy from Australia. He has the thickest accent ever!! I can never understand him when we talk to him on the phone. I always have to ask my companion what he is saying. Oh and one of the zone leaders name is Elder Huntsman and he is from our Stake, he is the guy people kept telling me about and I had no idea who he was. Well now I know him. There is also a Brother and Sister Gowan that live on the other side of Gordon that are coming out for a wedding so they said they might try and contact you next Saturday.
Thanks Karen Harrop for the package, it didn't make it to the mission home but I got it last Friday at my apartment, It was great!! Love all the small acts of kindness they are really appreciated!!
Thank you so much for all the letters and emails I don't know how all the missionaries keep going when they don't have any letters or anything from Home!
Hope all is well, and hope Meredith is doing good in Washington D.C. I'm in her town sort of now. But the College campus is not in my immediate area but I do have the HUGE FANCY GOLF COURSE we drive past it a lot. We are having a big Zone conference tomorrow and someone from the Quorum of the Seventy is coming to talk to us, so that should be good.
Love you all,
Sister Price
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