Sleep-deprived & Loving It

This week has been super great! I'm sorry these letters are always so long but so many things always happen and I have a hard time picking which things you guys would want to hear/care about.

Obviously this letter has to start off with Sister Joseph. She gets crazier every day. We were driving through a Jewish neighborhood the other night and we hadn't said a word in like 15 minutes. All the sudden she just blurts out "I wish they'd make a movie "Meet the Jews." I'd watch it." Ahahahaha Meet the Jews, I seriously died it was sooo hysterical. And then we got onto an on ramp and it kept spinning around, like it was a full 360 spiral, so after we'd been turning for a couple seconds she was like "this is like a curly fry from Arby's!" I'm pretty sure we are out of our minds and so I'm sorry that's probably not funny to anyone else, but I find her hilarious. I'm so glad she's my companion. After being the "designated driver" for 2 days she threw me the keys and was like "I've had enough, you're driving." Which is good cause she almost killed us like 4 times. What better way to die though than with someone you love? Haha JUST KIDDING. 

The YSA is good, I had to give a talk yesterday so classic Sariah ... I just gave the one I gave in Belle Harbor. I ain't no spring chickun anymore I can't be writing a new talk every week. Nah I wrote a new one, I'd attach it but it's just a bunch of random thoughts that make no sense. Basically I just talked about the commandments and why it is hard for us to keep them, I talked a lot about self-justification cause I'm pretty much an expert on the subject haha. I shared this scripture in Alma 18:5 "Now this was the tradition of Lamoni, which he had received from his father, that there was a Great Spirit. Notwithstanding they believed in a Great Spirit, they supposed that whatsoever they did was right;" cause I feel like we all profess to believe in God but we think that because we already believe we can do whatever we want. It was good, I learned a lot from preparing the talk. It's crazy that we know the commandments are there to protect us and make us happy, yet so often we try to get around, under, or over obeying them. I know that obedience brings blessings. 

We had Eduardo's baptism last night, he was supposed to get baptized last week but got sick. But the baptism was soooo good! Lots of fellowship action going on. I don't think members realize that nothing happens in missionary work until they do something. We literally cannot do effective work without the members. The covenants we make really are the most important things in our lives. 

Probably one of the funniest things here is the diversity. When we go out street contacting we get rejected in pretty much every language. I've wondered though, are they rejecting us because they don't like Mormons or because we can't speak their language? Both? I dunno. We have taught some interesting people...I actually have quite the list. My favorites so far have been the the model, the clown, the "exotic dancer", and the guy who runs The Today Show. There's a guy in the ward who works at the same Brooks Brothers where Abe Lincoln shopped. LEGIT. Anyway I never thought the hardest thing about spreading the gospel is that you can't spread it because you don't speak the same language. The elders are teaching us some Spanish so hopefully that'll help. So far I can say "I'm a missionary" and "free English classes at the church, here are the directions." And then I hand them a card and walk away haha. Also, I went on an exchange with the Spanish Sister Training Leader (STL)...AWKS. I sat through 5 lessons and a branch council, all in Spanish, and the only word I understand is "casa" which I think means "house" but I dunno why they said it so many times, I swear it was every other word. I felt super stupid for like 24 hours cause I couldn't say anything. Now I know what it's like to be dumb...literally. 

But yeah it was a crazy week, having 2 pools is really stressful just cause I can't keep the members or the bishops or the people straight so I'm always making really stupid mistakes. It's good to know that the Lord will accomplish His work whether I know what's going on or not, so I am just trying to keep up! I'm learning a ton and am so glad to be here. This gospel is absolutely amazing! 

I love you all,

Sister Wadsworth

It's gettin crazy

Dear Fam,

Oh my goodness, where to begin? I should probably start with my companion, now that I know all her dirty secrets I can spill the beans. She's one of the coolest people ever. She has this black woman sass that just spills out on occasion and it seriously slays me every time. We'll have a song on in the car and she will just break it down so hard core, like she seriously is Shakira in the car guys. The next Beyoncé. When she gets mad at something she rolls up her sleeves and is like "hold me back sister" and I'll be like "calm down" and she'll be like "NO!!! Hold my earrings!" Dude I cannot even describe her, but hysterical could maybe begin to explain how my days are. She doesn't like to drive so she lets me. Except then the car supervisor made "designated drivers" a thing so now she HAS to drive and she pretty much kills us every day. I don't know why, but I've felt sooo scared this week. We've been in Brooklyn a lot and have just been around some creepy people. I just feel like we get jumped it's over cause I'm pretty much a hipster by now. I gave Sis Cox my pepper spray cause she was scared since I wasn't there to protect her. Pa if you could send me some? I've been eating spinach but I don't think that's gonna cut it.

This week was so exhausting. Monday and Tuesday we did straight lookups and had some appointments, all of which cancelled, and not a single person was home (get the pun, cause we're in the YSA...SINGLE. Okay I'll stop it wasn't funny). But Shakira would sing to me in between appointments so it wasn't too bad. We were tired of trying to find parking on Tuesday so we set out on foot across the wilderness of Long Island City. We walked 20 blocks to a house only to find it was in the projects and it was like 8 at night so we got to the street corner, looked at the sketchy, unlit buildings, stepped over all the crack addicts, and turned right back around and walked 20 blocks back to our car. Exhaustion set it and even scripture power couldn't keep me from nodding on the way home. That's when we ran into the fire hydrant. Okay just kidding, but we were soooo tired. And we've lost our car like 4 times, so maybe them taking it away wouldn't be such a bad idea. On Wednesday I had a new experience. I sang and an elder played the guitar to the people of New York on the streets while some other missionaries talked to people and we had a Mormon.org sign up. They have some crazy ways of finding new investigators here that's for sure. 

I keep finding cockroaches in and on my stuff. Does anyone know what to do to get rid of them? Like I kill them but that doesn't really fix the problem. Anyways that doesn't matter. What matters is that we went into Manhattan. On accident. You guys it was a bad day already, and we are driving to a meeting at the ward mission leader's pad when all the sudden we find ourselves on the triborough bridge. We would have enjoyed the nice view of the city, but we were too busy ripping the fur off our cats because of the $15 toll we had to pay. I've never seen Sister Joseph so riled up. Someone honked at her and she FLIPPED. She literally screamed SHUT UP!!!! She's always so calm so it was hysterical to see her upset. I love her. But then we went into Manhattan for real on Saturday to take Macy to the temple. We went with her and 5 of the guys in the branch. They are all cool kids, they took us out to dinner after at this SUPER good burger place. It was probably the best burger of my life.  I have so much to say about the YSA, but basically I feel like I'm just chillin with friends all the time. They treat us like people, not nuns so that's refreshing. I feel at home here and I love the Astoria ward as well. 

Elder Perry came so there was a special fireside. It was way cool. One thing I liked that Elder Hallstrom said was that "A temple recommend is not just an entrance ticket to the temple. It is a sign that we are living true to the covenants we have made." Elder Perry talked to us about a website faithcounts.net, it's to help us mesh with other religions. You guys should go check it out and post your favorite video on faithbook, cause Elder Perry said so. Oh and there's a link to a mormon message about a lady in our ward, she's the stake presidents wife..SO COOL. Anyway it has been probably the hardest, greatest week ever with trying to keep up with the 2 different pools, driving all over Queens and Brooklyn, and all the meetings we have. I don't know what I'd do without Shakira ... I seriously love her. Oh and we made this really good lasagna. Dude this letter is all over the place..but I guess that's how our week was so it fits! Thanks for all your support! I love you guys a ton!

xoxo

Love, Sister Wadsworth

I'm a Mormon, New York Mother, and Forgiving Daughter

Photos:

1. Couldn't stay away from my girl for a whole week...so we went back on P-day

2. I guess you could say this describes us..haha

3. ...or this.

4. Taking Macy to the temple

5. The cockroach situation is real

6. Nightly planning ... We ran out of chips and salsa :(

7. Who knows what we were doing.

Still in Queens...with a bunch of teens

Well it's a lovely day today here in Queens! This past week has been pretty wild but to start off, we had the greatest p-day of my life on the beach. It was literally a perfect day. The weather was perfect and being with the besties playing football and volleyball was a perfect end to a perfect area. Did I say perfect yet? But we go to transfer meeting, which was awesome, and they're calling out the areas and who is serving there and for some reason when they said Queens YSA: Sister Joseph and.... I just like said my name aloud as they announced it at the same time it seriously came out of nowhere but when they said it I just knew. Crazy. Anyway so we are in Astoria which is basically Forest Hills which is basically Rego Park (they all blend together if ya know what I mean), but we cover the entire borough of Queens. I'm only about half hour north of where I was in Rockaway. I'm with Sister Joseph, she is from West Valley, UT and it turns out we worked at the Lion House at the same time so that's way cool! She hit a squirrel driving our first night so she's already cool in my eyes. Haha jk I hope I can be good enough for her, she is awesome and a hard worker. The coolest thing about it is/are the roaches in the apartment! I instantly have become a big fan of closing everything I open cause I'm like paranoid that they'll get into my stuff. 

Wait rewind back to transfer meeting, we saw Meet the Mormons, even though it isn't out yet! Such a good movie, it's a big deal here so they wanted us to know about it. And it was great cause I got to watch a movie with Sister Cox before we were separated. Probably never gonna get over the heartbreak of that, just being honest. She is literally the greatest person I have met so far on my mission and I love her so much. *sniff* 

So Queens YSA. This is a whole different ball park, pretty much a different country than Belle Harbor. We teach all the young people in Queens. That's a lot of people guys. First thing we find out is that the other sisters in the Astoria are being blinded out and their pool is getting dumped into ours. #doubleduty so we are in charge of the Astoria Ward and the YSA Ward. Second thing I find out is that our area book and all the people in it keeps getting completely wiped (it's an app on our iPads) so we don't know where half the people live or who they are and Sister Joseph has only been here for 6 weeks so we are kinda lost (literally and figuratively speaking). I am assigned to one area and she is assigned to the other so trying to coordinate all that gets confusing. We spend most of our time driving cause with traffic it takes like 1/2 hour to get everywhere. And the APs just told us they're gonna take our car away? No clue how that's gonna turn out haha. It's hard to feel like we're getting anything done but the work is just different now so I'm trying to get used to it. Sister Joseph is like my mom, she keeps making me dinner and it's really good so I seriously feel so blessed to be with her. We laugh a lot together. She is half Hatian and has some real sass going on and a cool fro.

We went to visit a lady in the Astoria Ward to help her start progressing towards the temple. She was all set (we thought) and as we were leaving she offered us iced tea. Awks. Guess we'll have to postpone that trip haha. That took all afternoon, and then we drove an hour to pick up a member for a lesson and drove another half an hour to get to the lesson, and then taking her back and driving home took another hour and a half. So that's like 4 hours for one lesson. Haha. Welcome to our life! We also went teaching with a girl in the Ward who is a model. Pretty legit. I like the new district and Astoria is really pretty with all the trees and we have a beautiful view of the city. Being in the YSA makes me feel like I'm in normal life haha. We just spend our time with people our age and I'm already pretty good friends with a lot of them. It's a different kind of party than it was in Belle Harbor but I'm falling in love with it pretty fast! 

Here's a little spiritual nugget for your week: I have this bathroom bag that has a mesh cover and it has my toothbrush and stuff in it-stuff I wouldn't want cockroaches crawling over. Every Time I get something out I close it, even if I'm going to the bathroom real quick just to brush my teeth. It got old real fast so I was like "oh I don't have to shut it this time." Guess what was crawling over it when I got back? Yep. Roaches are like satan, they are ready and waiting to mess up your life, and the second you give them a chance, they'll jump at it (or crawl I guess). We can't for one second let our guard down or satan will jump right in and take the opportunity. He has no respect for our agency and will dance at every chance to wreck us (that rhymed)1 Peter 5:8: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour". God on the other hand respects our ability to choose and will not step in unless we ask Him to. It is our conscious decision to choose to have God's influence in our lives. Hope everyone enjoyed conference, my favorite part was "selective obedience brings selective blessings." 

All my love!

Sister Wadsworth

Ps just calling it right now that Travis gets transferred...#prophecy 

1. Me and my new pal!

2. Still my numba one girl Cox, and some other girl who just stepped in our pic, I have no clue who she is.

3. Got all theses fresh fruits, veggies, and nuts at a super cheap stand for like $20!! 

4. It was Sunday and I realized I hadn't taken any pics this week so I took a selfie. Probs shoulda fixed my hair but that's what ya get. 

5. Went to a brunch at the church before conference, turns out the person in charge bailed, so we ended up making breakfast for all these YSA guys...hah never thought my mission would be that. 

6. Saying goodbye to these sweet girls last Monday was hard, I will already miss my Belle Harbor family!