Us is the Mission Mormonaries!

Hello, All--

So I don't have tons of time this week because my tablet broke and I can't draft out an email before P-day unfortunately. I love when technology dies because you literally just use it...yay!

This is a river about 20 minutes from our
apartment. It was an amazing day
so we HAD to stop by it!

I would like to emphasize this week that every mission has its struggles. Often times foreign missions struggle with bad food, getting sick, others have tough living quarters and stuff. As for Northern California: it's heat. Many of you know I love the cold, and kinda struggle with hot, so a few months of 100+ degree weather has been tough.

This is us waiting for a set of Elders we were
going to convoy with. Hood is not taking a
selfie while driving, don't worry

I've dealt with heat rash almost daily on my legs. Basically the itchiness of bug bites, without the bugs. I had the genius idea this week (I know, I've been out here for 2 transfers and I only just thought of this) that maybe there's an ointment for heat rash. Well I learned today that there isn't, so I just have to keep on dealing with it. My body just freaks out in heat--it's a blast!

This is a caterpillar I found while doing service.
It's got a funny tail.

In other news, this week was one of the weirdest weeks of my mission, because last Monday we drove down to Antelope and Rocklin to get a new TIWI, (our electronic reminder to drive safely). That's a one-to-two-hour drive, so we were WAY out of Chico for the day.

Had to take an awkward
sister/elder pic with Goodman!

And I got to see Elder Goodman again! (my mom's cousin's son, Ty Goodman, is serving in my same mission) So cool to see family. And I can just hang out with him throwing a ball or shooting hoops and just talking, without people spreading rumors about us being a thing. (To all those wondering, yes missions have drama like that sometimes. It's a pain, but not a huge thing, so thankfully you don't deal with it much.)

Red is where we went Wednesday,
and blue is where we went last
Monday: almost up and down
the whole mission!

Then Wednesday we had Zone Conference, my first official normal one! Zone Conferences happen once a transfer, usually. It's a longer meeting, where the Mission President talks to the missionaries in a few zones, and we do some role plays and we learn a bunch. They feed us lunch too, since it's usually 9a.m. to 4p.m., or around that time.

Detour to the lake in Redding!

This one happened to be in Redding, a little over an hour north of Chico. To put our week's travels in perspective, we usually put between 200 and 250 miles on the car each week, since our area is a bit bigger. This week, we had 594. It was a TON of driving! But Redding is amazing, and we stopped by a lake on the way home, which was also amazing. It reminded me of what it's like back home a bit.

If my tablet worked, I'd send a picture of where we drove this week, mapped out. I'll have to do that next week, if I can figure out the tablet by then.

Another cool thing I learned this week was a bit of humility. I was a little disappointed, as some missionaries are, to get called to a stateside mission, because I knew I could handle myself better than maybe some other Sister Missionaries in foreign countries.

Hay! (Hood and I thought
it was funny, ok)
P.S. note from Mom: it looks fake
because I quickly photoshopped
the sky blue. The sky was so white
you couldn't tell where the truck
top ended and the sky began

Robbie fell asleep while
we were showing him
a video. Definitely a first,
someone falling asleep
in a lesson...

But, I learned that I'm not here because I can't make it out in some crazy country; I'm here because there's work for me to do here. Heavenly Father has people here that I need to meet and find which is really cool! And I wasn't sure how he'd managed to get all the people I needed to see into this small area of the country. But then another little spiritual "shake" helped me understand that some of the people I'm supposed to help were also called to this mission. So originally, they weren't here but like me, they got called out here. That's so cool! Definitely an eye opener for me.

Struggles of having short arms

Final thing, Thelma, I've talked about her before. We've seen so much progress with her this past month! And now we're at a point where she's helping us teach her roommate Vivian. It's amazing to hear the comments Thelma makes, and the answers she gives to Vivian's questions. You get to see so much cool stuff as missionaries!

There's always more I can put in the emails and it's dumb that my tablet fried itself, not that I had anything important on there, really...it's FINE. (Some of you know the "It's Fine, I'm Fine" thing -- I got a few people to start saying that! ha.)

But hey, keep it real this week! Next week's will have better stories, I promise. Til next time!

Sister Whitesell

teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net

Sister Whitesell
244 B West 20th St.
Chico, CA 95928