This has been an absolutely insane week. Last Monday after I found out about transfers Hermana White and I went with Sister Jensen and Charlotte to have a picnic at Lake Harriet. It was lots of fun! I love the Jensen's and it was hard saying goodbye to them. It was also very sad saying goodbye to Mi and Alma and their family. I have come to love them so much!
The day of transfers came quickly and it was probably the longest day of my mission. One thing that made the day super great though was that I got to see Sister Hyland who is in my same zone now!! We get to do exchanges too and we are very happy. Sister Hyland and I were in the same district up until this past transfer.
I feel like a brand new missionary. I am meeting tons of new people, getting used to a new area.. oh and I'm also learning a new language! There was another set of sisters here, but they got transferred to so we are taking over their area, but also keeping the area the Spanish sisters had before. But, half the people the sisters were teaching speak French or another African tribal language, so Hermana Maravilla and I are trying to learn French. I can already understand most of it when I read it, but the pronunciation and understanding it when it is spoken is the hard part. We are going to try and have one of the less active French speakers teach us.
Thank goodness that Hermana Maravilla has been here for a while and at least kind of knows who some of these people are! She is awesome. I already love her so much. She is very patient and nice but a bold missionary as well. We have set some goals for this area and I'm really excited to work with her on them! This is her last transfer before she goes home. :/ Which means for me that I will most likely be staying for at least the next one.
The first night I got to Austin we taught this awesome man named Ma. He is from India, but speaks English perfectly and is a doctor for a branch of the Mayo Clinic here. He is SO smart. He has awesome questions and has done a lot of research into religion. He loves the Book of Mormon so far and has already found a lot of answers to his questions! We taught him again on Friday and it also went really well. Teaching him again tomorrow!
One of the greatest cultural moments so far in Austin was going to the house of some recent converts, Ajulu and Odonga. Ajulu is the mom and speaks absolutely 0 English. She speaks some Arabic and Anyuak. Odonga is 16 and speaks English but how they were both able to learn the gospel still is the biggest question I have. We went over Thursday night and unfortunately Odonga wasn't home. Ajulu had us come in and sit down and then she brought us bottles of water on a plate and put it on the ground by our feet. She is a very spiritual person but we had no way of communicating. She comes to church every single Sunday, but doesn't understand a thing!
We had a great miracle the other day. We were out tracting when we found a man from South Sudan named King. He asked us what church we were from and when we told him his eyes lit up and he said, "I'm a member!" He had been baptized in Seattle about a year and a half ago, but then had moved around a lot and kind of lost track of where the church was. We told him there was one here and he was excited to come! Unfortunately, we had a mix up with his address so the person who was going to pick him up couldn't. But, afterwards we found his place and talked to him. He had been all ready to go! He will be there next week for sure!
Sorry this is super long. There are tons more things to say, but I'll tell you more next week! Love you all! Have a great week :)
♥Hermana Pierce
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