Hi everyone!!

It has been another crazy week but I feel like I'm finally starting to get used to the missionary schedule, our area, and everything we have to do. We have a couple of investigators now! They have busy schedules so we haven't taught the first lesson yet so hopefully this week. Also one of them is an eternigator (eternal investigator) who has had missionaries coming by for about 5 years. Missionaries haven't visited her for the past year so we are hoping she will finally be ready for baptism. Other than that we have just been going by less actives and meeting everyone in the ward. Also I have a watch tan!! I'm pretty excited because its been a while since i had a tan to begin with. The other day I was doing my preach my gospel study in the living room of our apartment. I was setting down my book when I noticed there was a lizard under our desk! It was pretty big (at least 9 inches) anyways my companion freaked out and we didn't know how we were going to get it out of our apartment. Luckily the elders in our complex hadn't left yet so they came over and got it out, but it bit one of them before they could catch it! It was crazy but they finally got it. Needless to say we don't keep our screen door open as much any more. Our ward is having a chili cook off this weekend that they do every year so people are excited for that. Also everyone here has a dog or a cat, it crazy how may pets i have petted in the past few weeks. (i leave the cat petting to my companion) The other day we had dinner with a young couple in my ward. They have a little baby and I found out that the wife is 21, so that was a little weird but then it just felt like I was a college again. The other day Sister White and I were going to our evening appointments. The person we had planned to visit wanted to reschedule. We felt like a lot of the less actives we visit don't really want to change and sometimes don't really benefit all that much for our visits. (they just mostly like to talk) We were feeling discouraged but then we remembered that President told us if we were having a bad day we could go get some ice cream, figure out what we need to change, and then go back to work. So we took advantage of that and it helped! We figure that we need to find those who want to make the changes their lives. Our district leader always tells us to "look for the elect" the people whose hearts have been softened and are ready and willing to come closer to Christ. We are going to commit more of our less actives and if they won't progress we will focus more on investigators. I think that this will help us become more effective missionaries! On a random side note the library where we write our letters is super nice! There are tons of computers and the kids section is really cool there is a t-rex skeleton, a huge fish tank aquarium, a tree house, and outside there are water fountains and a sculpture garden, it's really cool. This week our new mission president comes so it will be good to meet him and his wife!!

Hope you all have a good week!!

love, Sister Washburn