I Love My New Area!

Hi Mom and Dad!

How have you been?  How are you guys doing? We are doing awesome!  I absolutely love White Rock.  And my Comp is awesome. She is from Boise, Idaho.

SISTER GRIGG AND SISTER MANGUM - WHITE ROCK, NM

One of the things that we have noticed here is that there really aren’t that many people.  My area in Belen was huge and covered a monstrous area.  But here we run into the same people all of the time. So we have been forced to think WAAAYYY outside the box.  

So tonight at our youth Bible study we are doing a life sized board game where the goal is to get all the pieces of the Armor of God.  We got an apron with pink ruffles for the breastplate. A green frog/alien/Musinex germ thingy hat for the helmet. fuzzy slippers for the shoes.  It’s going to be awesome. I’ll be sure to get pictures.

We have been volunteering at a thrift shop. At the beginning of this transfer we sat down and had a discussion.  We could either fill out time with tracting, which would be almost pointless.  Or we could volunteer somewhere.  We knew that it wouldn't yield a lot of results at first but we have met a lot of people.  And it’s fun.  Trust me, we live in the weirdest town in all of the world. Some of the stuff that goes through that thrift store.... we found a 1000 dollar bike.   A whole bag of coats that were at least $800 apiece.  Name brand clothes, never been worn.  I’m on the lookout for something super sciency. When I find it, I’ll let you know.

SISTER MANGUM - WHITE ROCK, NM

 I’m so glad to hear that you have been having the missionaries over!

From what I’ve seen and heard, the typical ward has about 2 to 5 families that the missionaries know and love.  A family that is super good at missionary work.  Take the invitations to heart.  Gets to know the missionaries personally.  Have them over to dinner and actually care.  It’s nice to know that someone in the ward actually takes care of the missionaries.

We are teaching a couple people.  Hoping for a couple new baptisms this transfer.  There is a family that got baptized a couple months ago. A couple M and V, and one daughter, Mar.  But up until about a month ago the other daughter (Paz) has been very anti, but now she has started to be a bit more open and actually stays in the room and listens to what we have to say.  Last night she even participated!  Now we are teaching Grandpa. He is super sweet and loves talking about how the gospel has changed his family. But he is scared to get baptized because some of his other kids are being kind of mean about it.

BUUUTT! Huge miracle!  We had an awesome experience with some investigators and recent converts.  Please pray that it actually all works out all right.  We got a call from the Zone leaders asking if we had any recent converts or investigators that wouldn't mind speaking for a few minutes at Zone conference. M and Grandpa said yes!  We are sooooo excited about Grandpa!  Then, even better! Paz asked if she could come! Paz might be coming to zone conference if her mom can get off work! Can you imagine?!  A room full of missionaries and the mission president?!! We just hope that she and her sister and mom actually come.  Basically if the mom can get off work one of the daughters who has been anti until recently might be coming to zone conference!  We are so excited!! Pray that the mom can get off work and the Daughter will come! Can you imagine an investigator in a room with like 50 missionaries and the mission president! There is no way she won’t feel the spirit! :)

I'll be looking for the package! Really exited! It sounds like that is exactly what our ward here in White Rock needs.  It’s a very strange little ward. I’ve never seen anything like it. Most of the people are super geniuses and are really good member missionaries.  They share the gospel and are open and inviting.  You can tell they are super good at it by the nonexistent less active list and the huge number of dry Mormons.  But something is missing.  We aren’t sure what it is, but something’s not working right because we have almost no investigators. 

Hey dad! Are we related to a Ben and Dawn Mangum?  They used to live in this ward and everyone keeps asking if I’m related.  It sounds like we are, just from things that I’ve heard.  They are in their 30s and have little kids.

So we have been doing this awesome dinner message that involves rice and fears about sharing the gospel.  And we give the members all the supplies that we use.  It’s been awesome! Thinking outside of the box and being crazy seems to be something that Sister Grigg and I are good at.  And it seems to be getting the ward excited.

In my last area we had stake conference (Not Steak conference, I had the funniest conversation with an investigator recently about that) and the Saturday night session was amazing!  The Stake President spoke and gave the best talk about missionary work that I’ve ever heard. But in it he said something along the lines of not planting your rear end on the Spiritual bleachers. Be a spiritual cheerleader!  And how the spirit cannot inspire you to give away something if you don’t have it with you and always have it in sight.  I’ve seen a lot of good missionary quotes about stuff like that.  I’ll have to look and see if I can find them :)

Nope. No Walmart. Only a high end Smiths.  Not many restaurants.  20 miles away in Los Alamos there is a McDonalds. I’ve been there twice already.  And we have some fancy sit down restaurants. They are thinking about putting a Panera Bread in though! Which would be awesome! :)  No, the rich scientist’s kids work at the stores. That’s about it for things in town though.  Occasionally you’ll meet a teacher or a cop, but they are almost always married to someone who works at the lab. The Woman who joined the church a couple months ago, she is a maid. She cleans the people’s houses. 

Have you ever listened to John Bytheway's talk on the war chapters?  We found one. Its soooooo good! I would highly recommend it!  It’s really really good. Has lots of stories and what you can learn from them :) And it’s kind of funny.

WHITE ROCK, NM

Well last p-day we went down to Santa Fe and ended up driving around forever and not actually seeing anything because some of the sisters got tired.  So today we are all just going to the Los Alamos Sisters apartment and playing board games.  Should be a nice slow day :)

Mom, I think I left a suitcase of stuff in the garage.  I think in it should be a couple of CDs of piano music by Myleen Klass and Jim Brickman.  My comp wants a copy of some of that music but she can’t get it off my iPod. Would you be willing to mail it to me? Thanks :) 

Love you!
Em