June 29, 2015

 

Ya'll ever heard the term "hit the ground running" ? Yup. I did that. My first day

here I had 4 lessons and we knocked/talked to a bunch of houses! It may not

seem like a lot, but I didn't really have a whole lot of sleep to support me con-

sidering we woke up at 2:15 the day we left to Oklahoma.   I was EXHAUSTED

after that first day. And I'm learning that the tiredness doesn't really go away -

you just learn to live through it or you get these adrenaline boosts every so

often which helps but I'm definitely missing my naps. . . .

On Wednesday morning we met our trainers and President told us all that we

have no time to waste getting trained.  We have 30 missionaries coming in

next transfer and 26 the one after that and WE could be training them. YIKES!

Hastening the work for sure. His advice was to us to be roadkill, get out there

try and cross the road (teach the lesson) and have your companion throw you

under the bus (teach most of it) and you WILL get hit by the car and die (fail

miserably once or twice or perhaps lots of times) but the cool thing with mis-

sionary roadkill is that you get resurrected immediately and get do it all over

again! I've definitely taken that roadkill talk to heart and have been helping

teach the lesson as much as I can, it's still a little intimidating but do what

you've gotta do right?

My area is Sulphur and yes it does smell like Sulfer but I LOVE it!  It's out in the country and I could just live here if it weren't so dang hot!   I'm pretty sure I was meant to live in OKlahoma. I love the people, the sunsets are AMAZING, and sky is so beautiful it just goes on for miles and miles since there's no mountains. They do have some "mountains" here but they are like the size of the hill at Orchard Elementary or Rock Canyon.

 

My trainer is Hermana Johnson from Mantua, Utah. That's right! A Utahn! And also, yes she is a Spanish sister. No, my area isn't spanish BUT she is teaching me some. I speak Spanish almost as much as I speak english! Hah.. just kidding. I only know little terms in Spanish but I sure use them a lot. Also, I can feel my inner Okie coming through with their vocabulary.

 

So my mom (my trainer, I'm her baby) and I get along really well we have similar tastes, we both LOVE country music and we laugh all the time, Seriously all the time. the elders in our district think that we are crazy. We usually are with them, Elder Burdett and Hightower. They are so great I LOVE THEM.

So yesterday was my first sunday in my branch right? Well naturally the new sister missionary should speak in sacrament meeting right? So I spoke! And then taught sunday school right after. Our branch is pretty small, like 80 or 90 or so. All the missionaries in the branch (me and Hermana J and the two elders) are all from Utah so we get teased with a lot of Utah jokes but hey, when you live in the promised land.. you live in the promised land ;) haha just kidding
There was this sweet sister that I say next to in Relief Society and they just moved here from American Fork! Their son is going on a mission to the Atlanta Georgia North mission in 2 weeks, so I told her that we wanted to come and visit them later that day. We had dinner at the Tinney's (by the way the members LOVE to feed the missionaries and I mean FEED, "we'll put some meat on you sister" so basically they all want to fatten me up. It just might happen) Anyway. They had deep fried EVERYTHING. It was super good, super filling. I even tried pickled Okra, that was stuff was nasty...

After dinner we went to the Carnagees, the new ones from American Fork, and I immediately felt right at home because they had a big BYU flag hanging up and the dad was wearing a BYU shirt and I just felt so at home! I told him that and he said "You know, I don't really like missionaries but you've gone and changed my mind, I really like you Sister Dymock and I thoroughly enjoyed your talk in Sacrament meeting. I think your talk was the best part of church today!"  so so sweet.

 

Also, today after the lesson in sunday school, Jan came up to me and Hermana J and said (read this is a super hick Oklahoma accent please) "I think they've played a trick on you, this ain't no baby. She don't need no training" then she turns to me "have you been on a mission before?" Oh my heavens, I sure love Jan. She is so so nice to me. She's a real southern mama, she call us her babies. Oh I made brownies the other day and she said to me "now I don't like brownies.. but those were the best darn brownies I've ever had in my life" and then for the baptism I made homemade chocolate chip cookies and Jimmy said "so yeah, these cookies are the really really good. Best I ever had"  Soooo pretty much I'm an amazing cook now. I'm going to be one of those really fat but amazing cooks as a mother hahaha

We had a baptism yesterday, my first one!! And we also got a baptismal date on Satuday. THERE ARE MIRACLES EVERYWHERE!  It was a double baptism --Jan (our investigator) and Cadence (the elders investigator). Jan is about the greatest thing ever. She and her husband Jimmy (his baptism date in July 19) are the definition of the oklahoma stereotype. We went to their house for my first lesson and their front yard made me laugh right out loud -- all kinds of appliances, beer cans and pop cans, random junk just ALL over their lawn. I'll have to send a picture, it's just fantastic. They've both smoked since they were 14-15 and love coffee and tea but Jan quit cold turkey and hasn't had any desire for it ever since the word of wisdom lesson. Jimmy is slowing weaning off the cigarettes and is doing so awesome! Their son Jimmy scares me a little bit, he mouths off about the church, is usually drunk or high on pot. Don't you just love him? I do. Don't worry, Jan makes it so he's never there when we come over for a lesson. Their house is absolute chaos, all the cupbaords open, hot as Hades, food out everywhere, and AT LEAST 30-40 flies flying around. But man oh man, they have rock solid testimonies!
So the baptismal commitment we got on Saturday? That's Jessica, she's Jan and JImmy's daughter in law, Sammy's wife. She has a rockin' testimony and when we asked her to be baptized she said "oh I was already thinking about that" SO AWESOME! She wants to get baptized when her kids are in town, which is in two weeks, that's SO fast but we can make it happen! #miracles

Roadkill is a real thing, ALL kinds of critters cross the road. Snakes, turtles, armadillos, cats, dogs, skunks, and tarantulas. yup. tarantulas. YIKES. We ran one over the other day in our car, that was pretty fulfilling. TAKE THAT ALL 8 LEGGED LIFE. But seriously, all manner of life lives here, in my backyard we have two longhorns, Billybob and Ray. There are cows, sheep, goats, coyotes, bobcats, you name it.. it's here. Lots and lots of ticks, chiggers, SO many mosquitos and the scariest wasps you ever did see.

Oh my heavens, there's so much to write but so little time. I would LOVE for ya'll to write me letters, they are a little easier to answer. my address is:
1826 W Muskogee Ave
Apt #7
Sulphur, Ok 73086

Love ya'll!
Sister Dymock

PS I'm sure I left out TONS but know that I love it here and everything is hard but it's those hard things in life that are the most worth while ;)