Belated MTC pictures

Week 3 in Idaho - 1 month mark!

Wow. my 1st month mark is on friday! isnt that crazy! it feels like we were at peter and camis wedding just yesterday but it was a whole YEAR ago. i still find that insane. what are the odds that my first area borders the boise mission and its the closest area in the whole mission i can be to the Honns house. seriously its 14 miles to there house. i just mapped it! anyway... for the weekend update with sister wasden.
monday was pday and we went to costco and target with the elder and then played ultimate frisbee with the emmett missionaries. our district crushed it. we are boss. #humility then we got dinner at this cute burger drive in that has been around since the 1930s!

tuesday it was literally like i lived on a farm! we dug posts, picked up the eggs from the chicken coop, i fed baby goats and held them. we weeded for a few hours and had roley poley races. we chased chickens and pet horses
the lady we live with is sooo sweet and her husband travels a lot and she is an empty nester so she likes having us around. she gardens all the day long and made the best rhubarb crisp last night as a treat.

Wednesday night we did service for this lady who had a overgrown yard and the elders and priests helped too! we went back saturday with the elders and helped some more! we are starting a garden with her! and she is a non member so that is pretty cool. she didnt believe the elders were virgins so she made them look her in the eyes and swear they were it was hilarious!  we have another investigator he is a foster kid and 15 and wants to know about the church so that is neat!
we had dinner with a lady who reminds me of sister white. they have just an amazing conversion story and is the sweetest lady ever. she made us homemade challah bread! it was delicious. she wants my talk so i will try to get that to her! we had zone conference on thursday and that was super fuN! our car was so clean that out of all 30 cars sister dijkwel and i got the cleanest car award and got two gift certificates for a mr clean car wash! the elders were super mad about it but we all know that our car was cleaner.
for some reason i thought i should buy a diet coke saturday night i swear it was inspiration because i didnt sleep at all that night and had 6 hours of church the next day. so that was crazy!
talk about crazy... i think there is a ghost that haunts me. the other day i was in bed and i swear i felt someone shake me and i look around and now one is there. also we heard weird creaking noises i think its that ghost, and we got a flat tire today so im pretty sure that ghost let all the air out of our tire. there was a kid from byu hawaii and the PCC who spoke in the YSA branch yesterday. he sadi good morning and ALOHA and it made me miss hawaii a lot. i didnt think i would miss is as much as i do, but its crazy how many connections i have had in the last month just from BYUH alone. A LOT. oh i sometimes forget im on a mission and ill think of something i want to tell mom and ill start to dial her number but then i remember that im on a mission and cant do that hhaha oops. we do so much service. like 3 times a week and i am running out of clothes because we are getting so #dirty #idaho
yesterday we met the guy who invented the missionary name tag! he went on him mission in 1968 and when he got back decided we needed a way to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the people, proposed it to the bretheren and hey jack we have missionary tags. pretty cool.
sometimes sister dijkwel and i think we aren't doing enough and aren't very productive but then we talk with the bishops, ward mission leaders, and relief society presidents and everyone we already know their story and have already seen them and our progress records are full so we are actually crushing it and its satan that is trying to get us down on ourselves BUT HE CANT WIN! because like in hot rod i go to church every gosh darn sunday... im freakin pumped. also everyone in idaho is so behind when it comes to family history. they are just now finding out about familysearch and the changes that happened MONTHS AGO! but i offered my assistance because i took a class and am super skilled when it comes to family history haha jk jk but i didnt say i would help out because they are doing a big family history push with the families and youth. so thats cool. well thats about all i have to say for this week! but i love you all!
xoxo
sister abby wasden

got a flat tire! bummer.

Pictures! Part two.

Idaho: Week 2

Well Well Well
i got one letter this week one. from caity. my family is slacking. anyway im doing good! i think that the MTC was harder on me emotionally than the field will be. My mission president is really chill. we can listen to any music as long as its uplifting can invite the spirit is clean and makes us happy, and not about love. so i will giv ethe best reward to those who can send me the best CDs. or thumb drive either or. what to say well my companion is reall cool. she is half japanese and half dutch from mississippi crazy combo but we are on the same page about a lot of things. we are on a mission and we love it but we are going to kill ourselves over it and stress over the little things because then we would die. i love my thing make it to P-Day. thats the best. I am over all pretty goo, sunday was soooo busy, we have 2 wards middleton 8th and 9th and the YSA branch. so lots of work. we ahve some referrals  but most of our work is reactivation. its neat working with the WMLs because i just think wow people are working with caity and brad so i try to be the best missionary that i can be that would be good to work with brad. but we have some good WMLs, it is kinda strange because literally everyone is like omg finally we have the sisters back or we are so freaking excited that there are sisters here again. the previous elders must have really been bad. but from what it sounds like they were just really pushy. we have zone conference on Thursday so i get to see sister pritchard! yay! also i am 12 miles away from eagle aka camis house. so weird. and her parents can take me out to lunch it just has to be in my area. there is an awesome pizza place in middleton called garbanzos so tell them they are welcome to come if they want. i will invite them and erik schneiber when i have my first baptism for sure bc we can invite friends. so thats cool. ummmmm some neat experiences we went knocking on doors because we literally had no information about this area. the previous sisters basically left us with a blank area book.
This week I have learned how important prayer is. Sister Dijkwel and I pray about everything. We prayed before we went out to tract people in the ward. It just so happened that the majority of people we picked on the list were Less Actives. That is no accident.  When we finally met the ward leadership on Sunday we felt pretty good about the work we had been doing because we have visited a good number of people that they have brought up. I am learning a lot from Sister Dijkwel. She is a good trainer. I am having an easier time in Idaho than in the MTC. That brings me lots of hope. I can feel the prayers that my family and people have for me daily. I am out of time  but i love you all and cant wait to hear from you next week.
Love you so much
Sister Abby Wasden

Pictures! Part one.

Here are some snippets of Abby's first two weeks on her mission! Don't forget to send her some love!

Elders from Abby's MTC zone

Riding TRAX to the airport

Finally in Idaho!

Companions!

Because Justin.

First Day in the Field

sooooooooooooooooooooooo WE GET TO EMAIL YOU TODAY! The first day in the mission was long. I met sally reads cousin the one who owned her house before her and has the house at the end of the street on that airplane so that was cool he took a picture of me and sent it to sally. then the president his wife and the APs picked us up. we got to a church building and had lunch interviews and some training. then we went tracting. it was a lot better than I expected. I was silent for like the first 5 houses. but then the kind sister from tonga started asking some things that I was like hmm that's borderline rude #culturedifferences and then its was easy. I started taking the lead on speaking first at the door approach which was cool. we gave out 4 books of Mormon, 8 restoration pamphlets and got 6 return appointments in just an hour and a half so that was cool. oh and this lady from Bosnia invited us is and showed us all around her back yard and her roosters and then all about her family. she said she believed in all gods everywhere. we got 2 rude responses. 1. we are catholic and not interested go away. 2. oh they send out girls these days? well your Christ is different than ours and we don't believe in the same god. we are Christian and you Mormons aren't. you don't have the same god so go away and don't come back. she said that to us in front of her kids! she was rude. but I just laughed, then we got back talked about it and then had dinner, some more training. got our new companions and then drove to our areas. My companion is sister dijkwel pronounced dike-ville she is from Mississippi, her mom is from Tokyo and her dad is from Amsterdam. she is super sweet and cool and 2 months younger than me.:) she did a year at provo before leaving. we are living with a member and are the only sisters in our district. we are in a new area with 2 brand new wards like as of last week. we cover the middleton 8th and 9th wards and the ysa branch. so as you guessed it my area is Middleton a super small town outside of Nampa just north east of Caldwell. you could fit like 4 or 5 middletons in Caldwell. then we got to our house which is pretty nice and pretty big, like the CT house without the basement. we unpacked and went to bed. next day we woke up and went for a run, then we got ready! sister hallenback made us breakfast because we have no groceries haha. wow they give you 140 for the entire month but because I was in the MTC I only get 80 bucks. so we will see what happens. after our run we studied and then went to our district meeting and then out to lunch with out district and then here I am. emailing you! we are about to go to target and Costco. my district is sooooo happy that I have a Costco card hahaha. me too. itll be so much cheaper for eggs bread fruit and such. they elders were like WAIT you..... you have a  COSTCO card???? okay this is good. haha. so im fitting in already. but no its good. we have a few referrals but we just have to go crazy meeting people the next few days.  okay well im not sure what else to add but that I love you sooo much! ill chat with you on Monday!
love
sister wasden #baller #mycomphashtags #thanktheheavens

MTC: Week One

hello hello hello fam bam. 

 well you always hear missionary work is hard. but that my friends is so true. but really. i dont think i have ever cried so much in my life. ever. at times im sad and think about how much time i have until i can see my family for X amount of time but then ill teach a lesson to an investigator and its all better my own problems dont matter and im not worried about me. 

so for the nitty gritties. my comp is sister natalie pritchard from gilbery AZ facebook her! SHE IS THE BOMB! she is a year younger than me in school and like 9 months younger than me. she has never lived away from home and just turned 19 last month. but she is great we get along soooooooo well. for the first day we were in a trio with sister nelson bc her comp didnt come, sister fox, but she ended up coming the second day bc her flight had been canceled. so our branch president assigned me and sis pritchard to be you guessed it, the sister training leaders! there really isnt much we have to do but there are some extra duties! 

the mtc is hard. the change is crazy. daily i think to myself, why am i even here i cant do this but then i stop and either cry or talk with my comp. 

i have so much to tell you!! we get an hour on the computer and can email ANYONE! success. but i made a list of things throughout the week that should help me jog my memory.

teachers. i have 3 amazing wonderful teachers that make sitting in a classroom for 10-12 hours a day fun exciting with breaks and such. and then i have brother (NAME WITHHELD). i cant stand him. he is the worst ever. he never lets us takes breaks is insulting and down right stuck in the mission. he has been back over 1.5 years and im pretty sure he hates me. he picks on me all the time and then when i know the answer or he evaluates my comps and i companionship study and we are bomb so he has nothing to complain about but the way he goes into the questions is so accusatory. i just cant stand him. he told us that he falls asleep when missionaries teach him and we asked him did you fall asleep when we were teaching you, he said no bc thank goodness we only taught him for 20 minutes. well that was rude so we told our other teachers and he isnt allowed to single teach us anymore hahaha  but i have 5 more days and i am out of here! I leave tuesday morning at 9;50 i have to be at the travel office at 4:30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whose idea was that? bc its dumb. im shaking bc the laundry room is so cold. oh btw im doing my laundry right now and had to teach my comp haha 

omg we have this elder in our district named elder (NAME WITHHELD) and he is basically dwight k. schrute. no lie. its the craziest thing. one time he fell asleep in class and when he woke up everyone was staring at him, he had his hands up like he was driving and told us he had been in a car chase. another time they called him over the intercom and said his name wrong so he goesss its elder ...... said correctly and we didnt know the rooms were tapped so the lady on the intercom starts laughing and is like how do you say it and then they have this whole convo for the whole MTC to hear. its was hilarious. 

our (fake but real) investigators we teach joy and john. god has blessed sister pritchard and i with the gift of teaching seriously we are awesome. and we flow so well together. our teaching is just so great. john is committed to baptism for the 31st and joy went from no belief in christ or having a god as a father she just saw god as an intelligence not like a person to believing that christ really was her savior. what i have come to realize is that at the end of the day all we can do is what our purpose is, invite others to come unto christ, if helped our investigators even just learn how to pray then we have accomplished our goal. our first lesson with joy was hard and she was stuck in her own beliefs but through prayer we have been able to reach her through the holy spirit. its seriously such a change. we were so discouraged and then we realized that if we teach our best and tried our hardest then we should be happy with whats going on. 

omg guess who our tuesday devo was......... drum roll.  ELDER HOLLAND it was amazingggggggggg  i sang in the missionary choir and we sang his fav song 

omg and i saw the eddingtons twice. both times i started just crying and broke down. i dont know why but i was so excited and sad and the same time that i just freaked out. 

i have like 4 friends from BYUH here in the MTC so its been nice seeing them around and chatting because its feels a little more normal and familiar. please just pray that i wont be homesick and i know i will be able to do this. when i think about it i know i will but it gets hard. AND I WANT MORE LETTERS PLEASEEEEEEEE ok i love you all sooooo much. 

okay love  you byeeeeeeeee

Reporting for Duty!

Abby reported to the MTC yesterday afternoon! She will be there for 10-12 days learning how to be a missionary before embarking on her journey to Nampa, Idaho. Here are some snippets of her last minutes before reporting!

you can always write or send her packages at:

Sister Abigail Jane Wasden

Idaho Nampa Mission

Provo MTC

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604

United States