First week in the Mission field

Let me just start by saying, I am in the best mission in the world! No but really, the Santa Rosa mission is one of the most obedient missions in the whole world. This mission is a pilot mission. We were one of the first to get put on Facebook and will soon have iPads as well. With that in mind, all of the Santa Rosa missionaries are facebook missionaries and therefor have to disable our facebook accounts. 

 

I love it here! I have officially been in the mission field for 5 days. I am serving in Windsor in the Shiloh Park ward. If you want to send any letters the fastest way for me to get it is by mailing it straight to my apartment. If you mail it to the mission home it could sit there for weeks. My address is:

 

Sister Malia Carter

5203 Old Redwood Hwy

Apt 43

Santa Rosa, CA

95403

 

If you love me, you will send me mail ;) Not to guilt trip you or anything. 

 

Well I am officially known as the Canadian Missionary. I get laughed at for all sorts of things that I say. I get laughed at for saying "washroom" instead of "bathroom" for taking my shoes of at peoples front doors. for getting caught saying "eh?" at the end of sentences, for saying pasta, bag, flag, tag, wagon, and other 'ag' words funny, for pronouncing foyer the way it SHOULD be pronounced, and for calling it a "garborator" instead of a "garbage disposal". I have provided so much entertainment for these blessed Americans. One of the elderly couples know how to make Nanaimo bars so they brought my companion and I over what they called "American style Nanaimo bars." They have peanut butter in them, and were super tasty. My companion can never remember what they're called so she calls them "Namaste bars".

 

I love my companion. She is SO easy going and awesome. She is the sister training leader (STL) in our zone, and she is training for the first time after only being out for 3 transfers. She is a rock star. I am so lucky! Oh and just to brag a little, I am serving in the leading area in all of the Santa Rosa mission. Kind of cool! Another fun fact, Robin Williams (the actor) lives right across the street from one of the members in our ward, and Guy Fieri (Not sure how to spell his last name) from diners, driv-ins and dives (or whatever that show is called) lives here too. His very first restaurant is in my area and apparently the food in amazing. Yeah don't be too jealous.

 

These past few days have been so crazy! I feel like I am basically learning to walk all over again. I am so outside of my comfort zone all the time. I had to laugh yesterday at church when I was asked to read a quote and almost had a mini panic attack because of it. Normally I would not be scared at all. This mission is bringing out all sorts of insecurities. but then at the same time I have been SO blessed. I went on what is called a blitz 2 days ago where one missionary partners up with one member in the stake and goes to less active and potential investigators homes. SCARY!! I had no idea what I was doing, but neither did the member I was with, haha so I had to pretend I knew what I was doing. I prayed so hard and asked for strength, and I ended up having such a good experience. no one was actually home, but we ended contacting a number of new people, giving out Book of Mormons, and pamphlets. I really left the Lord guiding me. Oh my first day here the mission president, President Alba, challenged all the new "green" missionaries to invite someone to baptism before Saturday (this was on Wednesday). I was so freaked out, but kind of excited at the same time. Turns out I was the very first person on the very first day of 30 new missionaries. Haha, I was kind of proud of myself. But I have such a great trainer, she has a lot of faith in me.

 

There are SO MANY Native Americans here. They are mostly Pomo. On of the main families that we teach are of the Pomo tribe. It is so exciting!  It is so exciting for people when I tell them my father is Cree. I really think it would help if I had a little bit better knowledge of who I am and where I came from as far as my Cree heritage so I am trying to learn more from my dad (hopefully he will send me letters with our cultural traditions so I can learn even more.  People want to see pictures of him all the time. And they always want to see pictures of my family. It boggles their mind that my father is Native American, and I have blonde hair. Well it boggles my mind too actually.

 

Everything in my apartment squeaks. You name it, and it squeaks. trying to be quiet in the middle of the night to go to the washroom is an epic fail. We get a pretty good laugh out of it all the time.

Haha, sorry, my thought's are all over the place. I say that cause I was just thinking about how the Elders live only a few doors down from us, so it is a constant pranking war between us. Elder Tubbs and Elder Makoni are super fun. they have 4 elders in their apartment. them, and 2 other Spanish elders. We went over there yesterday with a plate of 2 Nanaimo bars for the Spanish elders and gave them the plate right in front of Elder Makoni and Elder Tubbs. It was pretty funny. We also find every opportunity to park right in front of them so that one of them is forced to get out and back them up. It's pretty funny.

Anyway, I love you all and miss you. I am so happy being here. This week so far has been amazing!

Sister Carter.

Malia can be found in the center -The blonde in the Black and white polkadot dress with a grey cardigan.