So i'm officially in Las Vegas, specifically in a town called Paradise, (pretty much right by the strip) and I am loving it! It's like 75 degrees all the time and super sunny.. pretty much feeling like paradise right now quite literally. I'm serving in a singles ward so we only teach people ages 18-30, which makes it a little harder to get through to them ( young adults can be pretty immature and self-centered sometime..haha ;) but it's really fun too. My companion's name is Sister Crane and she is super cool! We were besties in the pre-life for sure. The first day we got to stay with President and Sister Neider and they are also so amazing. President Neider used to be in the general Young Men's presidency and even spoke at general conference one time! Love them :)
Well the people here are pretty.. interesting and apparently we're serving in the ghettoish part of Las Vegas. But every day is full of excitement. We've been teaching quite a few less actives that are starting to make a lot of progress so that's pretty sweet! We've had the coolest experiences while contacting so far..we met a 6'6 black man who pretty much taught us about Jesus for 20 minutes and why there doesn't need to be any churches and that we all just need to love one another..and he definitely has a point, but we're hoping he'll open up and want to listen to us because he would be a solid member. We gave him a Book of Mormon and are gonna check back with him soon! We went and visited a former investigator who had recently gotten out of prison..he opened the door holding a bong, he works as a dubstep dancer on the strip, but apparently wants to change his life around and said he'd be interested in coming to church.. so we'll see! There are quite a few people around here that are in that same situation, and quite a few of them want to change so we've got lots of work to do! We also met a couple of Romanians while contacting and they were SUPER nice. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and talked with them about their crazy lives. The wife has 9 brothers and sisters and only a couple of them are still alive because of fights and other crazy things that happened when they were living in Florida. So many people around here are looking for something to explain why they're here and where they are going so it's pretty effective to just talk to people on the street. I'm really learning how to not judge people on their appearance and just picture them in white, because almost everyone has is decked out in chains, tats and smells like marijuana.. it definitely doesn't look like BYU around here..haha. Anyways, the Romanians invited us in and fed us some.. interesting food (Me and Sister Crane practiced our secretly spit out in napkin skills) and we are coming back on Tuesday to pull weeds and teach them more! We had 6 people come to church on Sunday so that was pretty exciting!! I never thought I would care so much about someone else was thinking during a meeting as I did sitting right next to our investigators. It was cool to answer their questions and see their reactions to certain things. For the most part they really enjoyed it so hopefully they'll be back next week!
All in all, it's been a long but amazing first 5 days and I'm so glad i'm out here! Being a missionary really is super fun :) (except the waking up early part.. still getting used to that). Love you all and hope things are going great! Ohh and I got a violin to borrow and I'm playing at the Sisters lunchin on Friday where all the Sister missionaries from the mission get together so that should be cool!
-Sister Kraus
Ps. Something I learned in the MTC: God doesn't stress, so we shouldn't either. whatever you're worrying about right now, take a deep breath and remember..life is so good and the church is true! :)
Pss. I saw a mormon message video at a members house with Jason Hinds in it..and a bunch of other friends from Provo.. Small world! Also, I listen to Nik Day's song "Good Friends" like every day. Someone should tell him that for me. Thanks :)
No comments:
Post a Comment