Week #26 November 21, 2016 My P-day is now Monday

Hey family!
It sounds like you are all doing well and having fun together in
Houston! That is sad that Lisa can't make it but I'm sure that you will
still have a lot of fun together! Make sure to keep sending me
pictures and updates if you can, I love seeing you all!

This past week has been pretty crazy! I got called as a trainer this
week and I found out through some of the other sisters haha. We were
walking up to shift and 2 sisters were walking out and they were like
"congratulations on being a trainer!!!" and they gave me a big hug and
started walking off and I was like, what the heck are they talking
about. I didn't get a training call. And then I go in and all the
senior couples and other sisters start doing the same thing and im
like, what is this, some kind of joke?? Well, it wasn't a joke. Soon
after, the assistants to the president walked up the stairs and told
me that I would be a trainer! I was shocked but I felt good about it.
On wednesday we had departure breakfast for all of the visitor center
sisters that are going home. Departure breakfast is a time where all
the VC sisters get together and have breakfast and watch slideshows of
pictures of the sisters that are going home and they bear their
testimony to us one last time and stuff like that. I love it! Its a
time when i get to hear basically what their biggest takeaway or
lesson that they learned on their mission. Its awesome. But then we
went out and took a bunch of pictures so that is where most of the
pictures from this week came from. I love all of the sisters there so
much! They are all so sweet!

We also had zone lunch on wednesday so that we could all see each
other 1 more time before transfers and such and that was really good!
Then, we had transfers on thursday and I found out that I was leaving
the visitor center (😭) and that i am training in a trio for a week
until one of my companions goes home. It has been fun being in a trio
but it is kinda crazy at the same time. They are both really sweet. We
are now in Overland Park 1st ward and all of the members there are
awesome! We have had so much support from them in the past few days
and it is great!

We have some baptisms coming up on Friday which is really exciting! It
has been causing us a few headaches though because there is so much
confusion over who is doing what and who is speaking and who can go
and who is going to be out of town and its a mess. BUT we got it all
figured out and they have already done their baptismal interviews and
everything so they are good to go! They are so cute and are so excited
to be baptized! Stay tuned til next week...

I was sad to leave Riverview and all the miracles that are happening
there with Inocente, Pablo, Larry & Cecile and Glen and their baptisms
but I am excited to be here in Overland Park 1st ward and share the
gospel with people here! I know that the church is true, no matter
where you are.

I hope that you all have a good week and I look forward to hearing
from you soon! Thanks for all your love and support! Have a great
thanksgiving and dont forget to send pictures!

Love,

Erin

Week #25 November 17, 2016 TRANSFER

Hey fam! 

Just thought I would write you real quick and say I am being
transferred...AND TRAINING. Kinda nervous but excited at the same
time. 

Love and miss you lots!

Week #24 November 10, 2016 One a day...

We had a fun p-day today and went to the zoo.
I know I didn't usually like to go since I am not much of a zoo person but we had lots of fun!

This week was good! We saw a lot of miracles. Sister Rowley and
I have made it a goal to invite at least 1 person a day to be baptized
and so far we have been doing great! I keep forgetting to tell you
about it but we have been keeping it up for like 3 or 4 weeks now.
Sometimes we will even get 4 or 5 people a day. It is awesome because
it really helps us to search for those people and opportunities to
talk to people and helps us to become challenging and testifying
missionaries.

I had to give a training on how to be a challenging and testifying
missionary this week and it was a little intimidating because I still
dont know exactly how to do that but i am working on it! I think that
it went pretty well!

We had a breakfast with our branch president this past Friday and that
was great! We finally had like a real correlation! We haven't had one
in a long time because we have had stake conference and regional
conferences lately. We did some service for him and I got some nice
cuts on my hands that seem to open every single time I shake someone's
hand. And we do that a lot on a mission...

We met a man named G who is the real Santa Claus. He has a giant
beard. Ill try and get a picture next time I see him. He is so
prepared and has been taught all the lessons before and then all of a
sudden the missionaries just stopped coming. That was about 2 yrs ago
and he is still searching for a church and said that he really wants
to be baptized.

Great things are happening here in Riverview! Transfers are next
Thursday and I have no idea what is going to happen. Love and miss you
tons though!

Thanks for all the love and support!
Love and miss you!

Week # 23 November 3, 2016 Baptisms still on schedule.

Hey Family,

I am doing well! It sounds like you guys are all doing well! Thanks for all the pictures! You all look great!

That's great that you felt so good during this Ragnar! What do you think was the difference? Did you train more or eat healthier or just like trails more? I think that you can definitely do a marathon if you put your mind to it! You would have to find time to train in all of your traveling and busy schedule but I think that you would love it! Don't get too much faster than me, haha! I finally got to run a little bit more than normal this week though! Every monday we have a thing called "mospo" (aka. morning sports) where all the Elders and Sister in the zone meet at the Stake center at 6am and we play sports and its so fun! We have been having some conferences in our stake center though so we decided to do it in the Norfleet building instead, which is like 6ish miles away. We always run to mospo so I slightly joked (hoping that it would actually happen) that we were going to run to the Norfleet building too and to my surprise, my companion went along with it and so did another companionship! Everyone else thought we were completely crazy though. We decided to do like a ragnar idea where I would run the whole way but I would always have a sister with me and the car would meet us at a certain spot, the sister running with me would jump in the car and another would jump out and replace her. That way they didn't have to run the whole way and I would be able to run the whole way! It was a good idea but didn't work out too well in action. We woke up at 5:10 (a realistic time for the other sisters) and the first mile was great. I ran with Sister Rowley and then a mile in, the car pulled over and Sister S hopped out and ran with me. Only about .5 mi out (and up a big hill), she was already struggling and wanted to get back in the car, but when the car was turning around to come back to us, it lost us and could not find us anywhere. Sister S started having a panic attack or something and was exhausted and it was a mess. But she was a trooper and kept going, doing a walking/jogging thing. Eventually (about 3 miles later) the car finally found us and Sister K got to get out and run for the last few miles. I loved finally being able to run. I'll just be sure the next time we will carry a phone with us. Hopefully they let there be a next time. 

When does Jason find out about schools? Is he worried? Is Rachel sad that she will be all alone soon? She looked like a cutie for halloween haha! Ya she looks like something I would have dressed up as. Not much effort but enough for other people to tell who you are. 

I have really enjoyed having our family calendar and I get a lot of compliments on it from other sisters! I have it hanging on the wall right by my bed. 

I cant believe that there will be another president by the next time that I have pday. Im not supposed to talk politics so I dont know much but I know that both of those candidates will be bad for the country. It'll be crazy to see what happens. I am glad that I am on my mission right now and don't really have to worry about all of that (not like I was into politics before my mission though). 

I heard that all of the kids are getting together for thanksgiving! That is so fun! I wish that I could be there with you! You'll have to take lots of pictures and send them to me. Maybe I'll be home for next Thanksgiving. Im not sure when I go home because typically, they send the spanish missionaries home one transfer before all the other missionaries they came out with. If that happens, I would come home at the end of October but if they keep me then I will be home in the first week of December. That's still a while away but its crazy to think that if i do go home in October, I only have less than a year left of mission. Weird. 

As for J and L, the only problem is that they live in another stake but our ward building is closer to their houses so they come to our building but technically, because they aren't in our stake, the elders shouldn't be teaching them. So im not really sure what is going to happen with that. He is so ready to be baptized though. 

I.B. is doing really well! We had a little scare this week because he came to church with a member but when the member got to the church, he ditched I.B. And I.B. doesnt know any english. So he was lost and couldn't talk to anyone and no one knew where he was. We walked around for forever before, during, and after the meeting trying to find him and we couldn't find him until like 20ish minutes after the meeting ended. So he sat through the stake conference but he didn't have headphones so he didn't understand anything either. I know the spirit speaks all languages but it still helps when you can understand what the speaker is saying. He still wants to be baptized though, so that's exciting! We have a lesson with him tonight so I will update on that next week. Hopefully he will be able to be baptized next weekend!

C and L are doing well too! C has already quit all of her word of wisdom issues but L is still working on smoking. He has been smoking since he was 14 and he is almost 60 so he is having a hard time but he is doing great! They aren't married though and they are living together so we are going to have to address that when we see them this weekend. All is going well though! It is so crazy to see the atonement in action in all of these lives. I love it!

We have a less active girl in our ward named L that we have been able to see a lot recently and her parents are not members so we have been helping them too! The dad isn't super interested but the mom and L are doing personal progress together and have been loving it! 

Its been a pretty chill week though. Not too much has happened in the visitor center. We don't get very many people in anymore. We are lucky if we get 60 people. I cant even imagine how it is going to be in the middle of winter. I really want to stay in the VC for christmas though! I love it here and I want to stay as long as possible haha. We'll see though, transfers are on the 17th. 

Sister Rowley goes home next transfer (on December 31st) though so im not sure what is going to happen. I have been in Riverview branch for 3 transfers now and typically they kick you out of a ward every 3 or 4 transfers but because my companion goes home next transfer, I either have to leave this transfer so she can lead in the area, leave in December and Riverview gets whitewashed (2 new sisters get put in the area), or i stay for 5 transfers, which is not very common. We'll see. 

Love and miss you tons! Because this letter is so long, can you just take things from this to put on the blog? You are the best! Tell the fam I say hi and that I love and miss them!

Hermana Greenwood

See I told you I.B. was a cute little man.

Y.W. at Visitor Center