Trio Life

Hello Hello Hello!

Wow. What a week it has been. Let's go through day by day, shall we? 

Monday: Whilst doing P-day activities President Hess called Hermana McCoy and I and told us to pack up our stuff and drive up to Morristown to be emergency transferred. We packed, cleaned up everything and then drove an hour and a half to the mission home. We slept over that night with Hermana Smith and her sick companion. 

Tuesday: Wake up and immediately drive the two and a half hours down to Toms River with all our stuff. Unpacked a little bit to get settled in and then we were off to some appointments! Hermana Smith is still in training (we came in from the CCM together), but leading out the area like a pro!

Wednesday: Our first full day as a Trio! Hermana McCoy and I tried to memorize all the names and people as we spent the day in appointments and learned how to work in a trio. The Sister Training Leaders, who had planned an exchange with Hermana Smith and companion before everything went down, decided to come and double work our area to help us out. So that night we had not three, but five sister missionaries sleeping in our apartment. Every inch of the bedroom floor was covered in makeshift beds to accommodate the visitors. Sleep over!

Thursday: Hermana Smith and I spent the day knocking doors with one STL, while Hermana McCoy left with the other (a major feat, considering neither of them knew the area at all). They left that night after a successful but somewhat stressful day. 

Friday: We made the hour drive up to my old area (Red Bank) for interviews with President Hess. This resulted in all three of us being very anxious about transfers next week. From what we were able to piece together from the different things he told each of us in our interviews, the trio will be dissolved after this week. We are all a little sad about this. 

Saturday: Up at 4:45 to get ready and drive back to Morristown for the all zone conference with Elders Buckner, and Bennett of the seventy and Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve! Super cool! We each got to shake his hand and take a picture with him as a mission. *Side note: For the picture they had us line up from tallest to shortest. And yes, in case you were wondering, I am the shortest missionary currently serving in the New Jersey Morristown Mission.* The coolest thing he said was near the end: "I want you to hear this from my own mouth, The Saviors voice is no stranger to the leaders of the church." Yeah. 

Then that night we had three dinner appointments in a row. So. Much. Food. I made the unwise decision of wearing a dress that was a little snug that morning because I wanted to look nice for Elder Rasband. During second dinner I was so full my dress was begining to really constrict my ablity to breath. So when the  member left the room for a second to get something I wasted no time in grabbing Hermana McCoy and having her help me unzip the death trap (yes, it was tight enough that I couldn't undo it on my own). Luckily I also had on a cardigan, so you couldn't see that my dress was fully unzipped for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I  don't think I will be wearing that dress again any time soon. Maybe fast sunday. We all felt super sick by the end of the night.

Sunday: Up early again to head up to stake conference in East Brunswick. We had to be there early because of the special guest. That's right, Elder Rasband chose our stake to visit out of the six he was offered. Why? Because it is where he served when he was a missionary. You can read a cool story about his experiences in Scott's Plains NJ in his last conference talk by "Divine Design". I have gone to that area twice on exchanges, so that's cool. The spirit was super strong when he gave an apostolic blessing to the stake. 

Other things:

*Transfers are next week. We will definitely be split up, because Hermana Smith has been called as a trainer! She is going straight out of her own training to teaching a new missionary! She is a rockstar!

*There are a TON of Jews in Toms River! It is one of the biggest Jewish populations in the world. 

*Hermana Smith told the ward my favorite food is vegetables and now all the members are making us veggies. They are so sweet! And we are a little bit healthier for it :)

Have a great week! 

Hermana Croft