week 9...you know your a missionary when...

So A LOT has happened but everything is going great! I am still in the same area, my lovely trainer has just left us and we are off to fend for ourselves. We have had our ups and downs we have seen some weird things and we have enjoyed some of the most humbling experiences. It has really been great. Our district has changed so much. Elder Stoker got transferred to Milfred near Saskatoon. He is greatly missed but we know he is doing great things up there! We will see him again that's for sure. We got two new Gateway ward elders. Elder Moore and Elder Olguin, they are both wonderful! It also means we are working directly with nine elders. One of our London ward companionships got turned into a tri-pan. So many elders, so much work to do, not enough sister power but we are trying to represent the best we can. So I wanted to do this letter a little differently by making a list. Its a You Know Your A Can-Win (Canada-Winnipeg) Missionary When list... so here it goes

 

You Know Your a Can-Win Missionary When:

-You get anxious if you find yourself alone for more than five seconds.

-You start skipping songs on your LDS cd's because you think they may be inappropriate or against the white handbook.

-Your slang consists of words such as "pros, apostate, dramastic, and urch"

-Mondays become your favorite day

-You spend two hours of your day walking in the rain to get to an appointment who canceled but didn't tell you.

-9:30 officially becomes your midnight

-You don't dive for the volleyball during a pday activity because you might bump into an elder.
-That 10 min nap feels like a 4 hour coma

-You forget your planner at home and all of a sudden you have no idea what's going on, like a deer in the headlights

-If you aren't wearing your name tag you forget what your name is.

-In response to being asked on a date on the street you respond with the question "no but do you want to learn about the gospel".

-You hear the word 'awesome' and 'cool' and feel like someone just swore

-You went to the most simple, humble meal from a family who isn't doing well off but are filled all night and feel like the savior was present at the meal

-You get a text message from your mission president and feel like a celebrity just got ahold of your phone number.

-Getting mail makes you feel like a million bucks and then you realize you have NO time to respond

-Your dreams become lessons

-You realize you have eaten four balut eggs when in real life you wouldn't even want to eat one.

 

It really has been a great week. Amy surprised me by stopping by, she was visiting her aunt in Winnipeg... didn't even know she had an aunt in Winnipeg. It was a great surprise, a tender mercy from the lord. I have been given many tender mercies this week! I love my savior, I love this work, and I am proud to call myself a CAN-WIN missionary.

week#8 mothers day

Ummm can I just say MOTHERS DAY IS MY FAVORITE!!!!!!! I love being able to see your beautiful smiley faces and enjoy spending time with you even if it is only on skype. I also love being a missionary and man have I had some experiences to talk about. You know your a missionary when.... your idea of a daily prank is sticky notes of uplifting comments. That day we also walked an incredibly long amount!!! I gained a HUGE appreciation for walking missionaries... and I LOVE MY CAR!!! We named it, our cars name is Gaylin. Our car is beautiful, wonderful, and i will never take it for granted again. Well transfer calls came and as you know i get to stay with Sister Hutchinson! But it also means we lose sister Rush :( and elder Stoker :( so so sad. But thats okay elder Montoya couldnt get rid of us that quickly. I am so excited but so sad for this transfer. But when all else fails Phillipians 4:13 through christ anything is possible. I ate two baluts this week and ive actually grown accustom to them. They taste like turkey but a little bit more slimey. And I gave away gold stars this week. I LOVE MY STARS!!! Ok so right now my challenge is to not hug the elders... cuz i want to, so bad! Well... I feel like ive talked to much with today and yesterday. Whelp.... Have a great week! I love you!!!!! You will always be in my prayers.

and mom I got grandmas package! I LOVED IT!!!!!

week #7 Knock knock!

Ok here is a joke for you.

Knock Knock

Whose there?

Oink oink

Oink oink who?

Make up your mind are you a pig or an owl.

 

Funny huh?! One of the little boys in a less active family we are visiting told us that when we were over doing family home evening with. So cute! Ok so everything is random and out of order again but I remembered my notes at least!!!! YAY!!!! This week has been so much better. I have finally found my confidence and am able to start progressing now. It took a while but Im getting a hang of this missionary work and I LOVE THIS AREA! I would be willing to stay here my whole mission but I know change is inevitable, in fact we will find out where everyone is going to be placed this week! Its giving me butterflys already even though I know the lord wouldnt put me anywhere I couldnt handle. I think I have gained this confidence the most because we had another greenie day. This one was an actual 24 hours where me and Sister Hutchinson were on our own. I think it was what we needed to show us that we could do this without Sister Rush. That we are called and able to serve where-ever and in what-ever situation the lord wants us. Everything we did that day worked. We had spiritual moments and were able to accomplish real missionary work. It was wonderful.

Sooo I love Sister Rush but her driving is HORRIBLE! We believe that miracles are given with exact obedience because everytime we get out of the car without a car accident it feels like a miracle. She really needs to learn patience with her driving but like everyone keeps telling us she only has one speed and so we cringe in fear in the car.

 I have some moments from district meetings I wanted to share. "They wont care how much you know, until they know how much you care." Elder French (my district leader) was talking about our investigators but it works everywhere. No one really cares about all the knowledge that you may have until they know you are sharing it to try to help them. I think that will be a great improvement to my future family right there. Elder French is so inspired, I love our phone call check ups from him. Speaking of inspired elders.... Elder Montoya is SOOOO great! He came over one day and we were struggling on something and he just flat out looked at me and Sister Hutchinson and said, well just think what I would do, and decide from there. We both looked at each other, like if this didn't feel like a daddy lecture I dont know what would. It was wonderful, he is so encouraging and I LOVE IT! When it comes to our investigators we are having a hard time having people progress. Our one family from Sudan, three of them came to church with us, we had to take the bus with them and walk (we are trying to make them independent) but all of our other investigators have some hills we need to get over. The weather changes is having everyone's arthritis act up and so people dont want to meet. But it will happen, God has a perfect time for everything. Speaking of weather it was 25 degrees C today. It is beautiful and warm. I had a greenie moment this week. I went to go meet one of the investigators the elders are working with and was like "oh my name is jessa.... I mean sister harrison" talk about slightly embarrassing and the elders all wanted to know my name after that and called me a greenie. I just miss my first name so much.

 I made it to the center of Canada this week! Literally the center of Canada there was a sign and everything. We found a taco bell here. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven and so we have officially eaten there twice! It was like eating in rexburg all over again I LOVE IT!!!! We also went to the canadian mint and learned how the coins were made. It was a neat tour something really fun to do on pday besides just sports (even though I would prefer that). I got sick again and my companions sang me soft kitty. It made me tear up a little, they really care haha. I also found my favorite souvenier... it is a journal that is, ready for it, its a canada sweatshirt. Like literally its a sweatshirt shaped journal and I LOVE IT!!!!! We have had lots of pot lucks here and they are interesting. The amount of different cultures is incredible... We have hispanic cultures, phillipino cultures, and canadian cultures so Im sure you can just imagine the arrangement of food we are fed at pot luck. It is like a party in my stomach with all these delicious cultures I LOVE IT!!!! We also had this one saying which was really funny. We have a lot of one liners but my favorite was "where's my super suit". Sister Rush really has one speed and she thinks she can save the world but sometimes we are only human. So when she gets in her hero modes and we just cant follow we say "why do you need it" its a quote from incredibles (watch it, its hilarious, and then imagine a sister missionary trying so hard to find her super suit)

But Im going to end on a spiritual note. We went to this less active family, the one with the kids who tell jokes. Her son is adorable and we had taught them about prayer and had just stopped by randomly because it was the other kids birthday. We asked how they were doing on their prayers and he proudly said I have prayed every night. YAY!!! and then we asked if someone wants to say the closing prayer. His brother was goofing around so hes like FINE I WILL SAY IT! and he said the most beautiful humble prayer. It was just incredible. I LOVED IT WITH ALL MY HEART! Its moments like these where we see the importance of our work and bringing these families in and back to the gospel. I feel so humbled to be called to such an important calling. I love you all. Thanks for all your support!

week #6 Time flies and portion size...

 

Okay so I kind of forgot my notes again, Im getting kind of bad at that so I am going to try and remember EVERYTHING to tell you.... which is a lot! Its been a great week! We met this lady Im not sure if Ive told you about her but I think I have, her name is Maybel she is from Nigeria. Well we went to dinner at her apartment and she just fell in love with us. She gave us Nigerian names... Mine is Ose which means beauty. She just makes me feel so loved! She made the SPICIEST FOOD!!!! it tasted so good. Then she sent us home with his HUGE thing of spicy rice and we added it to our veggie chili that tastes mmhmmm sooo good!

I met with President Thomas this week. What is going to happen is either one of us (me or Sister Hutchinson) are going to have to train or they are going to have us finish our training and have Sister Rush train again. So i guess we will find out soon enough since transfers are like RIGHT BEHIND THE CORNER!!! It is so crazy how fast time flys. I feel like ive been here for years that have been squished into hours that are really only days and weeks.

 We met with this lady and when we asked her to be baptized she said "ya i knew i would be sooner or later"!!! yay! now we are setting up a date, today actually if everything goes as planned (cross my fingers). It makes me so excited when anyone does anything to come closer to Christ. That is the ultimate goal and some people go faster than others and some people have to go really really slow. We got to meet Janes baby this week (rosa)! she is so cute and so strong for everything she has been through. It cost a lot in parking to go see her especially because we went to the wrong hospital to start out with but its worth it. She means so much to her Mom and we were honored that she wanted us to be included in that part of her life.

The language barriers are getting really hard here. We have a couple of investigators who we want to progress but they dont understand what we are saying all the time, they just know that we have good stuff to say. With God we will get through it but it will take time. We did an FHE with this family. It was wonderful it gave us trust with the kids and allowed the mom to have a moment of real peace not just alone time with her kids. We also went and taught soemone who we found by a member moving and her moving in. She is very receptive to the gospel and it will be interesting to see where she ends up. Appointments have been falling through so we are trying to figure out what is making the difference because we want to be doing the Lords work and apparently we are doing something wrong. I guess we will figure it out eventually.

This hispanic family fed us this week... THE FOOD PORTION SIZES WERE HUGE!!!!!! but don't worry I can pack some food down ;).

OK so this weekend was stake conference and Elder Foster came down. He is amazing. He is from Rigby none the less and guess what, Grandpa Harrison taught him in high school. He said hi to grandpa and they were all excited because I reminded them of home. We then had a wonderful zone training with them and wow talk about feeling the fire of missionary work after that. We are going to have to kick it up if we want to accomplish everything we thought of, good thing im good at taking care of my body. We did a music number too at the zone conference, it was great! Speaking of which Sister Rush teaches lessons in her sleep. She got mad at me for not staying awake during the lesson and I was almost in tears until I realized that whelp, it was two in the morning and I have every right to sleep. She got sister Hutchinson this week too... There is no sleep for the working according to sister Rush.  Oh Elder Montoya, one of my zone leaders is from Virginia but he went to BYUI the same time I did... Weird connection, and I met an elder up here from Idaho Falls! It is funny the connections I find up here, oh plus I met Elder Barfuss! (mom's second cousin's boy) we didnt get to talk long but we met and we have plans to talk more next time so hopefully, he is SUPER nice! All the elders here are wonderful! I should write more next week when i have my notes but those were the highlights of my week! I love you all and hope you all the best, you are in my prayers and in my heart!!!!!!

Love Sister Harrison

Week#5 Answers....

This is Jessalyn's mom. I post on this blog for her. This week I sent her and her sister (also a missionary, in Provo Utah) a list of questions. These are Jessalyn's answers.

What do you do for daily exercise?

For us it depends on the day, we do yoga, circuits, and we train for dodgeball some days too

Is there anything you are really struggling living without?
I miss oreos, dr pepper haha, things I don't need to have. I really want my hair dresser too

Are you giving yourselves gold stars? (this is something we asked them to do to celebrate their accomplishments)

I started giving those but now it gets harder, the failures are taking over but I'm working on it

Which shoes do you wear most often?

my boots, there is still so much snow and I need them every day or my feet get wet and cold

do you need a hair cut yet?  is there someone in your wards who cuts hair?

I need a haircut but i don't know where to go, i need to start asking around

What do you eat for breakfast?

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Is there still snow on the ground?

yes but its slowly melting and then it snows again.... sister Hutchinson hates the snow

how are you BEING a good companion?

I am not taking charge. I am learning new concepts of how to do things.

do you get letters from anyone in our extended family?

I got an email from Rhonda.... i haven't ever gotten a hand written letter except for that very first one the day I got here.

what's an interesting fact about the city you live in?

You can only park on one side of the road

what's your district leader like?

He's smart and quiet he's tall and has dark brown hair,.... his name is elder French

What fun things do you do on p-day?

we play dodgeball and email

Do you ever see your mission president and his wife?

we usually see one of them once a week

Where do you think you will get to be on mothers day to call home?

 no idea sorry mom. But remember i have six hours of church every week so i will find time

How often do members feed you?

once or twice a week and they usually feed us really well

does anyone in your wards want to take pictures of you and email them to me?

i can ask but we are just trying to get to know members

And here is part of her letter.
Okay well like my lovely sister Harrison number 2 I also cannot believe its already monday.... We met this family from Sudan they are as dark as night and are all gorgeous she has seven kids and they are all listening into our lessons. They prayed about a prophet and knew it was true and know that what we are teaching is truth but the only problem is they think that EVERYTHING is truth and it all leads back to God no matter what path you are on, we are gonna have to work on that one. The elders got food dropped off to their apartment at six o clock in the morning because the wards don't know where we live, haha poor elders getting woke up, seeing all the food, then having to freely give it to us. Its a good thing they love us. Our relationships with the elders have improved a lot this week and it makes things easier when we are all working in harmony. Sister Rush went on a trip to Brandon this week, its another area in our mission. She went for a funeral and so that left me and Sister Hutchinson, newbies, to fend for ourselves. We decided that freedom came at a price, luckily it was only a parking ticket because the parking here is absolutely ridiculous. A van was covering the little machine that we have to pay a toonie in so of course the parking cops decided to pick on the poor innocent sister missionaries.
 I want you to know that i still get homesick but it helps to know that I have you forever. I bring my concerns to the Lord and he answers my prayers. My angels here are my fellow missionaries and I just love them. My companions are great and the elders are so supportive. Have a great week and BE GOOD.

Week #4 " I've never seen girl missionaries before"

Ok.... so Ive tried every week to attach pictures and have failed miserably, hopefully one of these days I will figure it out and be able to send you lots of pictures. And mom my memory is bad too I use my planner and make notes on each pday of stuff to send home to you guys. Ok so everythings not in order because I dont remember what happened on what day but it all happened I promise. We got to meet a lot of members of the two wards we are covering. Everyone is so excited that we are here because they haven't seen sister missionaries in like 15 years. So everyone is giving us lists of people to go see and offering to go on splits with us to help us cover more ground and we are getting lots and lots of hugs. My favorite is we went to this one family and this girl ran up to the door and ran off screaming at the top of her lungs the missionaries are here the missionaries are here... she absolutely loves us and its so cute! Then when we were talking she seriously looks into my eyes and says, "ive never seen girl missionaries before" its like we are disney princesses in her eyes and we are the most amazing thing she has seen. It was so sweet! We also had six straight hours of church with no lunch... welcome to sundays. Because we cover wards we go to one right after another and eat a granola bar in between to keep us going until dinner... hopefully that keeps working but it'll make fast sundays really easy. Sunday night we had a meal appointment and the people were super funny! They made a 'greenie' meal. At first I didnt know what was happening when i walked in the chicken looked green and i started of thinking of ways i could politely turn it down so i wouldnt DIE and then i realized that the mashed potatoes were green too! they are so nice they make green meals for every new missionary that comes into their areas. It was one of the nicest gestures.

So we have a senior couple living in our building for this past week, they are leaving tomorrow which is really sad because its like having a part of home (grandparents) that come in and check on us every night.  Ive been able to do splits with them most of the week and of course they reported back to the mission president that i was excellent and now im in fear that i will be cut short of my training to train new missionaries because we are getting so many new sisters. I need all the help i can get so cutting my training would be AWFUL!!!!  We are trying to become missionaries the lord can trust and that has been a little difficult. We keep messing up and learning new things   Im also pretty sure ive screwed up multiple times this week due to my lack of focus. and a couple of times I have questioned my being out here but the lord always kindly reminds me this is where I need to be even tho its been a more difficult week then normal... Im being exactly obedient and im trying hard to stay in missionary mode but there was one day where jessalyn snuck in a little too much and i wasnt given all the information and i think I kind of offended someone. Not so good at all. but luckily the lord helped me fix it the best i can and now she is willing to at least talk to me and she came to church on sunday so maybe things will get better. 

 Sister hutchinson is AMAZING! I love her and im pretty sure we are going to be friends forever! She is so funny, ditsy, and sarcastic and together we can sometimes act like three year olds (when its the apporopriate time to do so) and our 'mom' sister rush (thats what they call trainers here) pretty much shakes her head at us and wonders how we can ever be serious haha its wonderful! But her and sister rush have gone out on their own while I was with the Jacks. One of their appointments totally got snatched up by two female jehovah witnesses... haha sister Rush just sayed "those j-dubs just stole our appointment" soooo funny! I was able to go into this home where this older lady lived with her husband... it was such a humbling experience to hear her pray at the end it almost made me cry. She is so beautiful and i think she wants to be fully committed and because her husband isnt a member she has no support at home. I just hope she finishes strong.

Sister Hutchinson is so ditsy... her name is Taegan and i love her. She one day was walking and we were trudging through this snow pile to save time and she started running because for some strange reason she was wearing flats. She tripped while running and instead of her feet hitting the ground again it was her face. IT was SOOOOO funny! she totally did a superman into the snow and sat there for like two minutes just wallowing in her shame. Then she was able to get up and laugh about it. Seriously she is wonderful . Together us three are the 'secret weapons' and once everyone else figures that out we can use our super powers (such as sister Hutchinsons super man) we will CONQUER the world! or at least the two areas we are covering.

 I also met this woman at church she is new to the area because her daughter is recovering in the hospital from heart surgery. She is an amazing woman and I LOVE HER! Her daughter is three months old and she is currently away from her other kids to take care of her healing daughter. I asked if we could stop by frequently to make sure she is okay and she said she would love that then she came up after church gave me a big hug and said thanks i really needed a friend and so im glad you were here.... mom I was wondering if you could ask sister Summers if there was anything i could tell this sister to make her feel a little better since i have no life experiences of my own to fall back on.

Over all even tho there were a couple really negative things  I LOVE it.. it has been a great week full of personal growth and refinement followed by a great use of the atonement. Im excited to look for your letters.... hopefully i get them soon I dont know when the next time we see president is but we will find out soon enough. I love you all and you are constantly in my prayers and my heart! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love

Jessalyn

week #3 In the city in a tri-panionship.

Hello!

So this week has been full of real missionary adventures and exciting things to do! We made it safely to Winnipeg and I sat by Elder Casey from another district the whole flight so unfortunately (but im really fine with it) my missionary experience didn't start in the airplane. People looked at us funny though so I was able to start conversations and I am surprised with what I used to start conversations. I used lime green suitcases, pretty jackets, and even the weather. If you keep a smile on your face everyone is really nice. Of course with all these conversations I forgot the pass along card in my pocket, dont worry i've repented. When we got through customs (which mom you trained me so well i was silent all the way through and everyone was asking what was wrong haha) we were engulfed with the love of president and sister Thomas. I think we were missing that in the mtc our teachers can only do so much and i knew the minute sister Thomas hugged me this is where i needed to be. We were then given a REAL cooked meal followed by a REAL bed and a REAL nights sleep. Apparently everything in the MTC is fake in comparison. The next morning we meet our trainers. Me and sister Hutchinson (one of the girls from my district in the mtc) actually got to stay together! our trainer is sister rush, because there is an odd number of sisters one of us had to be in a tri-panionship haha but its actually been a blast and i think its what me and sister Hutchinson need to get through this awkward transition together. We got assigned in Winnipeg so we are in the city but after the road trip today i am realizing we are kind of in the ghetto part of the city. (mom sorry i dont know my address yet but hopefully next week) We are actually reopening the area and its the first time sisters have been there. Its crazy starting from ground zero in every aspect of your mission so i wonder why the lord wants me to start off so new. We work with two wards, the London and gateway, with six elders that are working with only one of the wards... We had our first lesson, it was a passing lesson meaning the elders were giving her to us for the rest of the time period. We also had ward correlation . We got through the business (which was easy we have none yet haha) and were surprised with a treat due to our lovely elders, elder stoker and elder Montoya. Brother D. our ward mission leader is from the Philippines and made us this treat called balut.... im using treat lightly because its rather disgusting actually. Balut is a fertilized undeveloped duck egg that is cooked and then eaten, little duckling and all. I was of course fearless and became the first sister the elders had seen eat balut (you should look up pictures on google) and then sister Hutchinson out of pride followed... sister rush got it into her mouth then spit it out almost immediately and later that night me and sister hutchinson wished we had done the same. but you know its all part of the experience. We then went contacting and even did a little proselyting which they don't really like to do here.  My mission also has this dignified language rule... that means no awesome or cool or ghetto (sorry i used that one, ooops) and sister Rush corrects us ALL the time... Its really really hard to try to get that stuff out of our lives. Oh more about contacting: we went to this one sisters house but we were faced with this HUGE dog..... it was a Newfoundlander and it was like the size of a mini cooper i swear it was HUGE! She of course made sure to call us to the back yard not through the front door so the big dog could be barking in my face... my thoughts were NO FLIPPIN WAY and a bunch of other undignified words but sister Rush had no fear she walked right up to that dog and the lady and shook her head... she is so brave for such a small girl... so ive had bad food, a giant dog, door knocking am i done yet!? jk its been a wonderful adventure and each day gets more fun. our apartment is nice even though our hallway smells like smoke so we put a towel by the gap at the bottom of the door to keep it out.... with three of us in a bedroom we feel a little like sardines in a  can which is uncomfortable until i realize im surround by two wonderful sisters and i feel more loved being close... we change in the storage room where we keep our clothes cuz our room has NO ROOM haha. Our trainer sister rush is smaller but full of power.... she has put us straight to work and makes each day go by so fast with how busy she is keeping us, sometimes we have to remind her that we need food too haha! This is already a wonderful area and it hasn't even been a week I'm excited for the three months ahead (oh ya mom if all goes well we stay in the same area for two transfers for training) I love you all so much! dad i will email you with those scriptures, boys ill get back to you, summer don't worry i wont forget you, kaylynn i pray for you! and mom ill send you a special note but this is my large letter to everyone so I LOVE YOU!