So I'm here! I've been here a little bit less than a week (but for all you visitors, as far as you're concerned, "under a year" haha). It's been quite cool and stressful and different and tiring and awesome. I got here on Wednesday, met with the mission president and his wife, had orientation with the assistants to the presidents, and had an opportunity to talk to people on "the square" for about 2 hours that day to introduce us to the work.
I got my trainer whose name is Sister Kwok. She's from hong kong and is this little asian who is awesome. She's been out for 6 transfers now (a mission is 12 transfers) and she's great. She's not subtle in correcting me, which I appreciate; a good slap on the wrist is much better than little hints or sugar coating it. It's cool working with her because she speaks both cantonese and mandarin so I get to go with her when she does tours in either languages. I follow behind and stand there to smile sincerely as I hope that she's telling them something good about the buildings and such. I also get the opportunity to testify about what I know is true at the end and it's just a great opportunity. I can see that she's very effective in her teaching/guiding.
Here on temple square I occupy the south zone which includes the tabernacle, the assembly hall, and the south visitor's center. So for all of you familiar with the square, I do get to do the pin drop demonstration. I get up in front of the tabernacle every fifteen minutes for an hour and introduce myself, rip a piece of newspaper and
"drop three straight pins and, in contrast, a small nail". haha, it's cool. The rest of the time I get to talk with the people in the tabernacle, answer any questions they have and try to see if they are interested at all in learning more about our church. Our mission here is to find people. It's hard. It seems like it's 1 out of every hundred people we talk to are interested in learning more.
Often we'll walk around trying to talk to people walking around; we don't like to pester people and it's common that people don't want to talk to us. Most people come wanting to just walk around. But we chat with them and find out more about them. Most seem to be afraid that we'll try and pressure them to be baptized, but we're just there telling people about what we know and have and how it's affected our lives so positively. Kind of like cake, right? Ah well. I do go home about every night sore from having to stand and walk around literally all day. It's a good sore though; the feeling that you did something.
Yesterday President Monson (the prophet and leader of our church) was at the Music and the Spoken Word (the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance that is broadcast every sunday) and I saw him through the window. It was pretty cool!
I'm very happy to be here though. I've met some really awesome people and I'm excited to be able to continue doing so. No really awkward people yet but I was walking back to the apartment and a guy on the street told me "you dropped you pocket". I whipped around trying to look for whatever I dropped and he repeated himself. I looked at him confusedly and he was like "You can't drop a pocket" duh! yeah. not my best moment.
anyway, I hope all is well. life is good here.
sister Hulet
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