Hospital Fun.

Hi everyone!

So this was an interesting week.  Last Monday I had to take my companion to the ER.  She was so sick and her appendix burst.  I have never seen anyone in so much pain before.  We got to the ER at like 1:30 and then they didn't do surgery until like 10 that night! It was horrible!  I was calling the nurses and asking what the hold up was and when she was going in and the whole thing was so frustrating! They were SO slow and no one seemed to care.  I'm pretty sure her appendix burst while she was waiting for surgery too because at about 6ish she got REALLY sick.  Her fever was 104 and she was like screaming in pain.  I called a nurse and they didn't seem to care and were like "well we are waiting for the doctor."  I honestly thought she was going to die.   I realized that I have only known her for a 3 weeks, but when you literally spend EVERY moment with someone you really care for them and I was so scared for her.  She eventually went to surgery and everything went well.  We then we hung out at the hospital for three days where I was basically her nurse, because this hospital staff did nothing.  I learned how to work the machines and took care of her because we would call the nurse and then wait an hour for them to come.  I now am positive that I will not be a nurse or do anything in the medical field.  Anyway, on Thursday we were released and have just been taking it slow since then.  We go out a little and then come home and rest.  We haven't done much missionary work, but she is getting better each day.  So soon we will be back to normal. the one good thing about all this is we haven't been able to tract. Haha - which is awesome because this week has been in the hundreds and we don't have to be out in it. :) 

On Thursday I taught a lesson on my own though!  I went with a member to teach and a member stayed back at the apartment to be with Sister Kellogg.  We had to start getting babysitters!  I went and had to teach basically all by myself.  I'm still in training, but now I've got it down!  I am a fast learner.  It was hard to not have my trainer to rely on, but I think the lesson went well.  

So remember that investigator that I told you about who was getting baptized? Well she didn't come to church yesterday which means she cant get baptized for another week.  We are meeting with her tonight and I'm really worried that she is backing out.  Hopefully all goes well tonight and we can reset her on date, but we just have to wait and see. 

So that was honestly my week.  Not much to report on.  I was really just at the hospital most of the week.  It really wasn't that bad.  I feel like the week flew by actually.  Today is Sisters P-day so all the sisters in the zone are going to get together and we are going over to this mansion and making pizzas. I'm excited for that!  

Well I love you all!!! Hopefully I will have a more interesting week to write about next Monday!

Love,

Sister Lawson

Thanks to Dad, kaiya and Kenna, and Grandma for the letters this week!!

My hospital bed!  Super uncomfortable.

Monthaversary!

Hey everyone!!!

That's right I've been gone a whole month! Can you believe it?!?!?
Because I sure can't! Only 17 more months to go! I'm going to be home
before you know it! The time is just flying here! I'm still loving it
and everyday I'm becoming a better missionary.

So this week we met with T. She's the lady that I told you about
last week who was yelling and wanted to talk about Jesus with us. Haha
so she is a crazy lady, but so fun. I love talking to her. She told us
she didn't know if she could come to our church because we don't have
a choir that sings songs with soul. She said our songs are all to
boring for her and that the best way to show god you love him is to
sing praises to him. She wants to keep meeting with us though and says
that she will come to our church if we go to hers. I'm going to get to
experience a real southern baptist church and I'm pumped!! Not sure
when we will make that trade but it will probably happen in the next
couple of weeks.

Also this week we set one of our investigators for baptism! Been out
only a month and already have a baptism scheduled! The gospel is
moving fast here! I'm so happy to be apart of it! It's so cool to see
someone want to get baptized. When I first got here she didn't think
she would ever get baptized, but now she is excited about it.
Hopefully all goes well with that!

So I officially hate my iPad. Haha it's really handy to have, but
because of them we have to input our whole area book into an app. That
means we have to enter all the information (name, address, lessons
taught, notes on how people receive the lesson, etc) on every person
that has ever had a lesson with the missionaries that lives in this
area. Our area book is a Hugh binder. It sucks. Once it's all entered
it will be awesome, but right now I'm hating transitioning everything
online. It's totally #FirstWorldProblems haha but it's a pain believe
me.

So funny story time! We have a door in our apartment that leads to a
little balcony. Well we have never opened it so one night we decided
to. The door was jammed shut so us being stupid decided we should push
it open. Well it opened, but we couldn't get it to shut again. The
office was already closed so we couldn't tell anyone. So we dowsed the
door in bug spray and prayed that no bugs would get in.  (We are high up
so no one could break in.)  In the morning the bug situation wasn't
that bad and when we told the front desk our problem they said that
the door swelled from the humidity! Only in the east can your door
grow!

Another story is that I got chased down by a dog this week. We were
walking into this neighborhood and this dog runs out of the front
yard. I step into the street thinking that the dog was on a leash and
would stop, but it charged after me. Sister Kellogg ran to the car and
I ran to the other side of the street. The dog started chasing me down
and was about to bite me. I was terrified. But then the dog just
walked away. Weirdest thing ever. The lord protects is all I can
say... And that I am never going down that street again. But the dog
situation here is crazy. Everyone has dogs and they all jump on us and
bark at us.

So the last two days have been pretty bad. Sister Kellogg is crazy
sick so we can't leave the apartment. So I am deathly bored. I have
literally cleaned and organized every inch of our apartment. I have
even played card games with myself. There is nothing to do. I'm
supposed to just read scriptures, but there is only so long that I can
do that. That's why this email is going to be so late today. I'm
typing it on my iPad, but have no wifi to send it. Hopefully she will
feel better soon so I can at least send this. When you aren't staying
busy and have no one to talk to you start thinking of home and it gets
hard. I love the mission, but that's just it. I love doing mission
work. Being trapped inside for two days now is making me start to go
crazy. I didn't think it was possible to miss knocking on doors in 90
degree weather, but I really do. I would give anything to be in the
heat right now. I also have never missed TV/Internet so much in my
life. What did people do before it? I would just die if I had to live
like this all the time.

But this is good for me. It's helped me realize why I'm out here. I
have had a lot of time to think and even though I'm crazy bored, I
don't want to come home. I'm not ready to. I still have 17 more months
of teaching and I still have a lot I need to accomplish. It's been a
real wake up call. I'm ready to give my mission everything I've got. I
don't want to be lazy. I want to do work. hopefully my companion gets
better and we can go out preaching tomorrow.
Sorry this email is so long! I always hated when missionaries wrote a
ton. But there is just so much to say. If you made it through this
long email just know that I love and miss you all!!

Love,
Sister Lawson

P.s. Thank you to grandma for the package and Dad for the letter!!

UPDATE FROM MOM:  Abby's companion was sick enough that Abby finally convinced her to go to the hospital.  That's where she accessed wifi and was able to email me and send a few pictures that were on her iPad.  (A month and still no pictures from her camera!!)  After waiting all day and having many tests, they found out Sister Kellogg's appendix had burst!  The last I heard the poor girl was headed into surgery and Abby was required to spend the night in the hospital with her.  I'm sure there will be plenty more boring days for Abby ahead as her companion recovers.

Transferring the area book on to the iPad.

You Would Not Believe Your Eyes, If 10 Million Fireflies....

Hi Everyone!!

I can't believe that I whole week has already gone by! The time here is flying!  So I have developed a love-hate relationship with Virginia.  I love it because the people here are so cool!  If you want to only go to one place and travel the whole world then come to Virginia.  It's such a melting pot and I have learned so much about different cultures here.  I have eaten a French breakfast, a Mexican dinner and tonight I have an African dinner.  I'm excited and scared for the meal tonight.  I don't know what an African dinner consist of, but hopefully its good!  So the people are all super cool.  I also love the fireflies each night!  My companion laughs at me every night because I get so excited when the first fireflies come out.  They look so cool, but I tried to catch one and up close they are the ugliest bugs ever.  Virginia is pretty awesome though.  I have to say its not bad here.  The weather is the only thing that's hard.  We go tracting every day and the other day it was 99 degrees with 89% humidity.  Nothing is more fun than walking in that. Haha but its all good.  We make it fun and play games as we walk.  

So last Monday we got to go to the mall here.  I guess its like the biggest (or longest or something like that) mall in the U.S which is pretty cool.  (Abby has been to this mall when she was a little girl.  It's an outlet mall that is literally a mile long.)  We also met this new lady to teach last week.  That was a cool story.  We were leaving the neighborhood and Sister Kellogg stops the car (she is the designated driver) and says "let's knock on that door real fast."  So we get out and knock on her door and this lady starts yelling at her son to go get the door so I turn to Sister Kellogg and go, "It's your house, you talk" haha, so the son answers the door and we say we are sharing a message about Christ and this lady starts yelling at her son asking who is at the door.  We tell her we are missionaries and she's like "well come in then" and I did not want to go in.  This lady was a yeller, but we came in and she had all these questions and was Super cool!!  We are meeting with her again tonight.  I'm excited to see her again.  Tonight is going to be an interesting night to say the least.

So this week we also tracted the longest street in our area.  It's about 3 miles and that doesn't sound that long, but when you knock on every door it takes forever.  But it was a cool accomplishment and we met lots of people doing it.  Tracting is actually kind of fun.  You get to just walk outside and you meet so many people.  So many people are so open with strangers on their doorstep that its actually hilarious.  They tell us all kinds of things and I'm just like, "I don't even know you" haha but its fun.

We had an investigator show up to church yesterday!  We have been meeting with her a lot and teaching her, but she finally came to church!  We are meeting with her again tonight and hope that we can set her with a baptism date.  Yesterday in church I also had to give a talk.  It was scary because its the church's first impression of me, but everyone said that I did great!  Well that was my week!  I hope to find some more people to teach, but I am loving it out here! Even when I feel like I'm melting I'm still finding ways to stay positive and have fun!  I'm getting better at teaching everyday and I am no longer scared to talk to people.  Being shy is a thing of the past.  Haha, well I love you all!! 

Love,

Sister Lawson

P.s. Thanks so much to Aunt Sarah and Uncle John for the card and to mom for the package!!!

Waiting in the car for the rain to stop.

Tracting!

We're Not in the West Anymore!

Hi Everyone!!!

So very much to tell and again so little time!  So I'll start with last week at the MTC.  So after I emailed on Wednesday they called all the sister missionaries into the gym.  We were all kind of freaking out because no one was telling us what was happening.  People were worried that the age change went back to 21 or that girls couldn't go out on missions anymore or something along those lines.  It was so scary.  Adults were running all around the place and then once everything had settled they finally told us what the deal was.  We had bats in our dorms. hahaha all this worry for bats!  It was actually hilarious.  So because there were bats we all had to go back to the dorm and pack up EVERYTHING and move out.  We got moved to these Horrible dorms.  They looked like 70 style motel.  It was scary.  It looked like where a murder would take place.  It was all dark wood with stains on everything and was just nasty.  The bunk beds didn't have railings on them either so we pushed the two bunk beds together so that we wouldn't roll off the edge in the night.  they were planning on completely gutting these dorms, but because of the bats we had to move into them.  They were bad, but we survived! the rest of my time at the MTC was pretty normal.  I still had classes and taught fake investigators.  I got one of my investigators to commit to be baptized so accomplishment!  haha but I think they always get 'baptized' at the end.  Its like you passed but there's no way to fail the MTC.  

Then last Monday we headed out at 3:30am for the airport.  I spent the whole day flying.  It was a long day.  We landed and I met the mission president and his wife.  I LOVE them!  I honestly think that I was called to Virginia just because of them.  He is the sweetest guy in the world and so full of love!  He told me too that if I'm ever assigned to an area with an ice skating rink that I can go skating on P-days!!  I almost started crying at that news!  That Monday we also got iPads.  They are trying to get every missionary in the U.S. iPads to use.  They are like super locked so I can only do church stuff on them, but they are handy because we can show videos in our lessons.

On Tuesday I met my companion.  I seriously love her.  She is awesome.  We get along so well and she has made me love being out here.  She knows what she is doing and is a really good teacher.  I will be with her for 12 weeks in the same area.  We are in Northern Virginia.  Like 30 minutes from D.C.  We live in a nice apartment, but the area we actual teach in is pretty ghetto.  We have lots of trailer homes and town houses in our teaching area.  Many people here are Hispanic which I'm happy about.  I'm trying to learn a bit of Spanish, but the struggle is real.

So everyday we get up and go to the gym and then study.  We then go out and if we have lessons we teach and if not we go knocking on doors.  I have knocked on SO many doors.  We only have one investigator because the first day I came three investigators dropped us.  haha "Abby luck"  but the one girl we are teaching is doing really well and I think she will be baptized.  But really for the most part I spend my time trying to knock on doors and find new people! We are one of the last areas to still knock on doors.  Most missions in the U.S don't do that anymore, but we do.  But luckily we have a car.  The Elders have to walk everywhere, but we get a car to go from neighborhood to neighborhood.

It's REALLY humid and the bugs attack.  Its not even that hot.  Since I've been here its been cloudy everyday, but the humidity just kills me and when we are out walking its death.  I'm covered in mosquito bites.  But it's fun too.  I get to talk with my companion and she has some funny stories from being out here.  I can't wait until I have some of those, but so far we haven't knocked on anyone's door who's crazy yet.  

Well i'm doing great and loving it out here.  It's so much more fun than I thought it would be!  

Love you all!!!

Sister Lawson

P.S. My address is 

15125 Beacon Ridge Dr. Apt 111

Woodbridge, VA 22191

My room before the bats.

Leaving because of the bats. (I'm supposed to be a bat!)

My district with our first teacher to the right.

My district with our second teacher.  (She has no name tag!)

Last temple trip with the district.

Me and Grant together again!  He's headed off to Taiwan.

He's gonna TOWER over the petite people there!

Travel companions

With my new companion, Sister Kellogg from California

With President and Sister Wilson

 Getting our iPads set up.

All ready to get to work!

Fourth of July outfit

Mission Control

Hey Everyone!!!!!!

AHHHH I have so much to tell you and so little time!  Well to start out I am Loving it here at the MTC!  I'm actually really sad that I leave Monday.  I just got here and got used to everything and now I'm heading out to leave.  

When I got here I got to meet my district (that's just my class).  There are 10 people in my district.  6 boys and 4 girls.  3 of us are going to Virginia, 3 to Boston and 4 to Hawaii.  I spend ALL my time with these 9 other people.  Here at the MTC we are in class for 10+ hours and so I have really gotten to know all of them.  On the day I came in, 600 other missionaries came as well.  75% of those missionaries are English speaking like me.  It was also the first time in months that the elders (boys) outnumbered the girls.  The first two days here felt like months.  Last Friday I was talking to someone and said "a few weeks ago when I was home... I mean two days ago when I was home..."  The days are just so LONG!  When you are literally in class all day the time just drags.  By Saturday though I was so used to things and knew all the kids in my class that everything was much more fun.  In class we are supposed to just study and we do role plays on how to teach, but my class really just goofs off.  We do get work done, but we also tell stories and draw on the board.  Its not the best preparation, but if we didn't have fun then I would not survive it here.  

Everyday we wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast and then study/plan for what we are going to teach later that day.  Then we eat lunch, go to class and have a lesson, go to gym, eat dinner, teach a fake investigator, and then have class again until 9:30.  That's my life for the past week.  I share a dorm with the girls in my class.  They are great girls.  My companion (girl I have to be with all the time) is nice and very spiritual.  She doesn't like to goof off and tells the class to be quiet a lot, but it's all good.  I'm still finding ways to have fun and once I get to Virginia I will get a new companion.  

Well, I don't really know what else to say.  I'm happy here and have learned A LOT in just a week, but I guess that happens when you are in class literally all day long.  I leave for Virginia on Monday VERY early in the morning.  We head to the airport at 3:30, but I'm excited to get out and teach real people and not just role play how to teach.

I love you all!!!!!

Sister Lawson

P.S.  Thanks to everyone who wrote me letters!  I have the record in my district for most letters received while being here! :)

Pictures taken before she left, at the airport, and dropping off at the MTC:

I'm all ready to go!

Last look up to Mom!

Arrived at SLC.

Saying goodbye to Tyler.

First night in the MTC.

Tiny classroom!!! I spent all my time in there. (That's my companion, Sister Halls.)

My district in the tiny classroom.

Cafeteria.

My zone.

Temple trip with my district.

Sisters in my district.

Me with my companion Sister Halls.

So happy to see McKenna!  She's going to the Philippines.

Forever BFF's.

With all the sister's from my zone going to Virginia.

Me and my twin Sister Lawson. Haha, just randomly met her but same nametag!