HO! HO! HO!

I am just going to start off by telling you that yesterday Sis. Escalante and I were walking along in the parking garage of the Church Office Building and guess who come strolling by??? PRESIDENT MONSON!!!! He smiled and said hello to us but I don't even know if anything came out of my mouth because I was in such shock to see him close up and everything. We also saw Elder Nelson getting on the elevator, so cool. The cafeteria at the COB is AMAZING food and nothing is over $3. It is only for Church employees and missionaries. The whole place was General Authorities galor..so the other sisters I was eating with told me. I'm not to familiar with the faces of the 70's yet =) haha. So fun! L. Tom Perry Spoke in their Sacrament meeting last week, I'm sad I missed that. Our sacrament meeting is just the Sisters, Sr. Couples, and the Mission Presidency. It is @ 7:30am and Sunday School is with our Zone some time during the day. Relief Society is on Monday. Weird. Ok so the first day we had to wake up at 4am to check out and go take other missionaries to the airport and before we went to Temple Square. When we got there we had a short meeting where we met President Stuart and his Wife and the rest of the mission presidency. Then we got our name tags, debit card, insurance card, and did some paper work stuff while we waited for our interviews with President and his wife. I was so nervous but they are seriously the nicest people ever. They just kind of got to know me in order to pick my companion. So after that we went to the temple and had a fancy lunch. We were in the special Temple Presidency banquet room which was really neat with the mission presidency and their wives and just got to know them. After that we went and read some rules and stuff like that while the presidency and AP's picked our trainers. The minute I met my companion I knew she was who I was praying for! Her name is Sister Escalante and she is from Honduras. She served her outbound mission in Denver, CO and has 3 more transfers left. She is so crazy adn fun to be with. Enthusiastic is an understatement. She talks so fast and has such a strong accent I can only understand about 1/2 of what she says but she has taught me a lot of Spanish which I was one thing I was praying for. We work really well together and I am learning a lot from her. She is a really good rule follower, which is good for me =) ---Just a side note: Her family is really poor and she has never gotten a package before and she seemed really sad when I got all of my presents last night so I bought her a shirt, CD, coke, card, and chocolate at Walmart today. We don't have very much money so sorry if I run out and you see a walmart charge at the end of the month...you'll be blessed =) Temple Square has been pretty good but the first few days have been hard with lots of training and getting use to how missionary work, works here. One thing that has made it really great is mail! The first day I got here I had a letter from Nicki, 2nd day a huge package from Grandma Hansen that had TONS of delicious Christmas goodies, and day three I got my Christmas package from Santa! Thank you so much to everyone. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family!So I wanted to open the box but I wasn't sure if my gifts were wrapped so I asked Sister Escalante to open it for me and tell me if it was wrapped. She goes, "No I am affraid of rats!" and I said "No if it is wrapped!" And she made the most terrified face as she opened it. ahhahah. She opened up and checked every single piece of newspaper you had crumpled on top to make sure there weren't any rats! ahaha I kept trying to explain that there weren't any rats that I was saying wrapped but she didn't understand. Finally I decide not to torture her anymore and just walked over and check for myself =) Thank goodness they were wrapped! I read Grady and Alex's cards because I couldn't resist but I'm holding out on the presents until Christmas...its so hard!!!So some experiences I've had... It is really hard for me here right now because it just isn't how I pictured being a missionary. All day long there isn't anyone there until about 6pm when the lights turn on and there are TONs of people but 90% of them are members who aren't super nice to us for the most part. We are out on the Square from 9am to 9pm every day. So from 9-6 I start to feel pretty discouraged. I know normal missionaries probably still don't get to teach as many people as I do in a night but its weird to be standing around waiting for people to come to me. I want to be working and nocking doors so I don't feel like I am wasting my time. President told us this is a hard time of year and that Summer there are just as many people but 75% of them are non-members. I really look forward to that! One thing I have started to really like is talking with inactive members. I have met a few people that I had really great conversations with and shared my testimony with them and commited them to finding there own testimonies once again and going back to church. A guy that I met last night was 21 and hadn't been to church since he was 11. He just moved to SLC to go to UofU and said he had a great memory of coming to see the Christus statue when he was 3 and really wanted to see it again. I asked him when the last time he prayed was and he told me it was when he was in jail recently. I asked him if he felt someone was listening to him and he teared up as he said 'yes'. When I have these moments where I am not sure what to say to people and the Spirit directs me, I know God is working through me. It just shows me how well our Heavenly Father knows each of us and is so aware of what we need. One guy that I taught in the Tabernacle was named Mohammed and was Muslim and he is living in California now and accepted to have the missionaries! He was so sweet. Yay! One thing I think about as I get frustrated with not very many non-members being here to teach is how Christ left the 99 to find the 1. That is what I try to do every night. Find that 1 person who needs to hear my testimony. Its is a frustrating yet extremely rewarding job at the end of the day. I feel so blessed to have this opportunitySo we still only have 30 minutes to write emails or I would tell you more. =( And they said that on Christmas we can only talk on the phone for 30 minutes! My companion said she talked for an hour and a half last Christmas though so we'll see what time permits. I am pretty sure I'll be able to call you @ 8:00am on Christmas morning. I hope that works for you!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!! Oh ya we get to call Mother's Day and Father's Day! And when we are at the airport going on our other mission which for me will be some time this summer I'm pretty sure. WOOHOO!I love you very much! Please be praying for missionary opportunities for yourselves and don't be affraid to share your testimony =)

All my love,

MaegO