Just Arrived....pictures from Lauren

Most of these are pictures during her stay at the MTC.

It is a tradition at the Misssionary Training Center or MTC to stand in front of the wall map and point to the country and place in which you will be serving. There are missions literally all over the world.

Letter from Lauren : Dear Mom & Dad & family & friends, It sounds like you had a great time up in Tahoe,except you haven't given me alot of details. I hear I have a package but my Zone leaders have not gone to the mission home to get it. I received everyones' letters--Erin,Savannah,Will and Coles'. (happy face)I'm in a new place. It's an apartment above a members garage. It's nice but we don't like being seperate from the members so much. We liked living with the members so we can use some of their things. However, it is also nice that we won't be bothered by the members so much. The lady we were living with before was a little weird but nice. She would wake us up in the middle of the night to give us a letter we missed or to make sure we were ok. Ahhhh Oh well! Our place now has bunk beds and i'm on the top. Whoohoo! Not! We have a porch which is nice. It looks over their hugh yard and humongous trees! Seriously, the trees here are huge!

How was your 4th of July? I can't wait to hear. Ours' was alot of fun!! Except we had none of our investigators come to Church but 2 of them. Ahhh it was So frustrating and sad! They promised they would be there and they weren't. We even went to their houses to wake them up. We rang and knocked on their doors a couple of times. But on the plus side,we had a bunch of inactives from the Branch come to Church. We say reactivation is better than a baptism. Okay, now for the 4th of July stuff. So fireworks are a huge thing here. They can buy the BIG STUFF. Everything is pretty much legal here! It's sweet! So the members that we are staying with put on a big fireworks preshow on Saturday. It was awesome!!! It was huge like the ones we see from our backyards and we were super close so of course it was loud. Sunday we went over to our Branch Presidents' home for dinner and lit offsome fireworks. We had to be in by 8:30 which is late normally for the 4th of July. I guess our new Mission President doesn't know that missionaries should probably be in by 6:30 p.m. People here in Wa. are crazy especially with fireworks.There were loud booms and pops everywhere you were last night. As the night went onon it would get louder and louder. We felt as if it was a war going on. Hugh ones! No joke. At 10 p.m. my comp(companion herein will be referred to as comp.) and I walked out to the hill near our house and watched all the millions of fireworks going off. Huge ones! We couldn't see alot of them because the trees were so tall, but the lights in the sky would flash up everywhere. I have some fun pictures to show you but you probably won't get them until next week. Lets see, last week was not a very good week missionary wise. We didn't find any new investigators. Alot of our appointments were canceled and just people flaking out. grrrr... But this week we have set alot of goals to help us findnew people and ways we can get the members more involved. It's the members that need to find, not us! We need to do more of the teaching according to Elder Ballard! It's really cool what our mission has set up to get members involved. Elder Ballard said to members that if they set a date to find someone that wants to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, he will put someone in your path by that date. So far the new mission president is nice & cool. He's definately different than our last mission president. He'll do a great job! Our elders in our district are crazy! They are pretty disobedient and they wonder why their members are always zero! We do have one Elder who is pretty obedient and they have ok numbers. I have such a testimony of how obedience truly brings success and more abundance of the Spirit with you. It's very evident in the mission. However, you do see disobedient missionaries baptize people... Anyways I'm having fun. There are some tough tiring moments though. People here are not receptive much at all. Howerver, there are some who are. (smily) We get doors slammed in our faces all the time. Nobody even wants to hear what we have to say. Actually, we are having a harder time finding new investigators in the Branch ,but we are seeking and we are wanting to know who they are.It is usually those who have had a really rough life and who have not been happy at all. Those we teach are those who need to change the most. I'm learning ASL(american sign language). It's really cool! It's hard for me to pick it up,but I know a few things. My name is pretty cool in ASL. Anyways I don't know what else to say except that I miss you all tons! I love you mom & dad! How are the kitties? There are so many cats here. I just cling to them. Then I am covered in dog & cat fur. It's so gross! I'm so glad we don't have indoor animals.Yuck!(unless they don't shed) I'm sorry my letters are so boring. Oh wait, just kidding! We have one new investigator this week. I totally forgot. His name is George and he is 18 yrs old. He has been in & out of prison since he was 10. He wants to chage so much. He believes! We are excited to teach him. Love you guys so much. Thanks for all you do for me. Love, Sister Kimball