Sister Hannah Parks Mission Blog: North Orem, UT

Hi family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited to finally email you guys - I have so much to tell you!!!!!!!!!

So I made it to Provo! We got to meet the President and his wife and learned a lot about the Provo Mission (which is the biggest mission in the world so there's that). He obviously addressed the numbers, and I was surprised to find out that although there are lots of members, there are lots of less-actives/non members. In fact, it's about 50/50. Anyways, a lot of people we teach are members but are less actives so it's been interesting to see the difference in how we teach here than how I learned in the MTC (besides speaking Portuguese of course!).
Anyways, then we had a big transfer meeting, and we introduced ourselves in front of everyone. Then the mission president told us where we'd be serving and our new companion! So I am innnnnnnnnnn Orem! Hahaha but it's actually North Orem so I don't know the area or anything! And guess what?! Sister Kirkendall got called to the same area!!!!!! We see each other all the time!! It's awesome! We literally run to each other just about every day. She got put with the Spanish sister and is in a Spanish area!! I feel so bad for her!! That would freak me out and really mess up my Portuguese even more than usual.
So it started off a little rocky just because I was really scared and separated from Sister Kirkendall :( but my new companion is pretty cool! Her name is Sister Diuguid (pronounced Do Good!). She's from Kentucky and has been out 6 months. She's been really sweet in helping me with my language study. I almost always pray in Portuguese because I heard from some apostle that if you pray every day in your language, you'll never lose your language! How cool is that? Anyways, so I have an hour every day to do language study but it sucks being by myself. Sister Diuguid and Sister Kirkendall's companion are trying to see if we could meet up so that Sister Kirkendall and I can study together which would be awesome! Umm so we live with a member who is a legit cat lady......so there's that. But the cats are usually upstairs with her, and we close our door every time we leave so the cats won't get into our room. So I haven't had any allergies so far which has been awesome! But she's very nice.
One main cool thing that you probably already know from the pictures is that we're working the Payson Temple open house!! Literally almost every day! We're assigned 8-hour shifts. This is how it works: Visitors start at the chapel across the street where there's a bunch of video rooms, and we just say our speech at the beginning: we're going to watch a video about temples....etc etc etc. Then we dismiss them, they go through the temple, then there's a reception tent after with a replica Christus and a photo booth (did y'all get my pic??). So all the sisters in the Provo Mission work there. So this is literally the most unique first transfer EVER! My companion feels so bad because it's so crazy and different and messes with our schedule, my language study, 12 week (another study hour in the morning that's for trainers/trainees that we do for a missionary's first 12 weeks). It's been hard rescheduling appointments with our investigators and less actives! But it's super fun. Most of the time. The video room is my least favorite because I've seen the video about 30+ times now haha but it's good. So yeah, we switch from the video room to the tent, but we don't work in the temple. But we have gone through and WOW it's so gorgeous!! If anyone visits, ask some sisters if I'm there! Not everyone knows me yet, but they might! And they could tell you where I am :) I've run into Alina, the Wikle's, and Hilary's last companion in Phoenix!! It was so cool making that connection haha she even tried to call Hilary when she was with me.
Anyways, being in Orem/Utah in general is very different. It's funny I'm not used to being so loved. For example, one night we were walking home and a car pulls over right next to us, and my first thought is AH KIDNAPPERS WE'RE GONNA DIE but my companion's just like, "Oh they're going to ask us if we need a ride!" And they did. Should've known hahaha. But yeah, I can't tell you how many times people have pulled over and asked if we need rides. So funny. Also, for our first dinner appointment we accidentally had 2! Hahaha there's a Utah mission for you! We also have iPads, and they use Facebook (not currently but it'll be up again soon). I don't have an iPad yet but I will get one in a few weeks and won't have to buy it like everyone else. Also we don't have a car, we have bikes..... my companion said she'd like to ride bikes because it's faster but she won't make me. We tried the other day, and I fell over twice so ha....ha.... yeah I hate bikes.
Most of the people we're teaching are less actives and have been taught for a long time but wow they're all so great! Almost all of them are so great in that they know what they should be doing, and how to be better, it's just doing it. But they're all so nice and always letting us come in, come back, and I just love them all already! Teaching is honestly when I feel best. It's still hard being out in the field but working the temple is a nice break. Well, not always nice. I almost pulled a Hilary the other day and almost fainted......ha ha.... Okay, so we were standing at the opening of the tent, welcoming people as they came in. It was a really hot day and I didn't have much for breakfast or have my water on me. After a few hours my back and feet were naturally hurting but I thought it was just from standing. Then I felt really bad so I went into the tent and sat on a bench. My vision was really bright when I first walked in because it was so bright outside and so dark inside. So I was sitting on a bench and I was so embarrassed because so many people were around I was getting super hot and sweaty and I felt super faint, so then I went behind and sat down behind this stand that had pamphlets on top to hide myself. But this woman saw me and saw I wasn't looking so good and she's was like "Are you okay?! Can I get you anything? I live like 6 minutes away, can I take you back and you can rest? I'll bring you back!" Haha I was thinking she totally has her own missionary out right now. But I was like no that's okay, then she was like, "Do you want me to get a sprite??" So I was just like sure that would great! I just thought she had one in her car but like 15 minutes later, once my companion left to grab my lunch and water and came back and I was feeling better, she comes back with a to go cup of ice and a bottle of sprite! She was soo sweet. She again offered her house for me to rest and get some A/C hahhaa but yeah, super nice. Another woman saw me and gave me a string cheese. So nice! But yeah, I didn't faint!!!! Close, but not quite. Haha.

Sorry if I've forgotten anything but there's a little gist of my first week!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOO MUCH AND I'M SO EXCITED TO TALK WITH Y'ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EU AMO VOCES!!!! TCHAU!

- Sister Parks

Our last week there was a mouse in our room!!! We discovered it after gym one time and we have the FUNNIEST video - I'll have to send the SD card home so y'all can watch the whole thing hahhaha omg it was hilarious! It was under MY BED and we slowly, painfully pulled every single bag out from under the bed and it never moved till THE LAST ZIPLOC BAG hahahaha

Here's a pic of us all posing with my bed and the mouse hiding underneath