Sister Training Leader

Dear Family

Hello!! So today is Labor Day and that means the library where we usually send e-mails is closed. Curses on who ever invented this holiday! Don’t they know that missionaries need to send e-mails???  Any way I just figured I would write a longer letter this week.

So how has everyone been? Mom I am asking you to some how get a copy of this letter to everyone else because I am writing this only once for multiple reasons: 1. It will be a very long letter and 2. I have really bad handwriting so I wont make more people suffer from having to read it!

So on to the stories:

Story 1: Sermon on the Mount

This past Friday was Elder Matheson’s last district meeting because he is dying this week (going home). He wanted to have an awesome funeral to send him off. He decided that we were going to have a Sermon on the Mount!! In other words we were going t go on a hike and have district meeting there in a mountain. On Friday morning we all went up to the mountains and started hiking. We got half way to where we wanted to be which was Mammoth Rock. It is a rock that coincidentally looks like a Mammoth.  I have pictures that I will send soon. Any way we got half way there when Sister Brown said she could no go any farther. We found a smaller rock and had our meeting there. It was really neat to be outside and Listen to Christ giving the Sermon on the Mount. On the way back down sister Brown “sprained” her ankle. Sp she and I walked down slower than the Elders, it was a pretty good hike nonetheless.

Story 2: The tale of the Epic Fail

On Wednesday we had a church tour for all of our investigators. We passed out flyers and had treats and loads of people promised to come. The night of the open house arrives and we get everything set up. You will never guess how many people came!! Guess!! If you said 100 then you are wrong, if you said 50 you are still wrong. Ok so the number of people we had was… wait for it… 1. Yep that is how many people came. The ward was great and helped out a lot but yea it could have been better. The ward mission leader said next time we would do even more to help people really know what our church is about.

Story 3: The tale of my new Amigo Mario

On Friday we were sitting in our car trying to decide where we should go next when someone knocks on my window. I turn to see a Hispanic man with a grocery sack. I roll my window down an inch or so and ask if there is anything I can do for him. He proceeds to talk 90 miles an hour in Spanish and the only words I can catch are “go to the bar, drink beer, and get drunk!” it was at this point that I realize that the man is a drunk. So I try to tell him we do not drink which I think he understood because he then starts speaking more Spanish and sys “wash tires and windows, car be very clean, no money it free.” We ask him his name and he says it is Mario and that he washes cars and tells us if we go to the house with the white dog and honk 3 times he will come out. We gave him a card and he again asks about beer and bar and drunk. I told him no again and he shakes his finger at me and says “ no, no smoochy, smoochy, just amigo’s” So I told him we could not go to bars even as amigo’s. We told him if he went to the web site on the card we gave him he could learn more about Jesus. He pulls the card out of his pocket and tries to give it back to us, we tell him to keep it and call the number on the card. (It is the Elders number J) we then told him we had to go, he says ok baby and pinches my cheek. Again he invites us to go drink beer and get drunk. We say no and try to drive away, he again tells us about how he washes cars. This pattern goes on for about 30 min. and only 10 or so words are in English. I don’t know why but drunken men seem to really like me and like to touch me! That is how we met my new amigo Mario.

Story 4: The tale of the Late night calls

On Saturday night after we had been planning and were getting ready to go to bed the district leader Elder Foulk calls and tells us the news on transfers. Sister Brown is staying here in El Paso and I am being transferred up north. I will actually get to serve in New Mexico. That is very exciting bit I will miss this area. I have fallen in love with all of the people down here and will miss them all. Then last night I received a call from the President, he asked me if I would accept the calling to be a Sister Training Leader (STL). That is like a zone leader for the entire sister missionaries in our zone. I accepted the call of course and will be going to the leadership conference on Thursday in Albuquerque. As a STL I will go on exchanges twice a week and will be over all of the sisters in the zone. I will help them solve their problems and help them to be better missionaries. I am very nervous and honored that the President thinks that I can do this.   I will have to work really hard and have to pray a ton.

Well those are the stories of the week, I am being transferred and do not know where I will be. I will try and send you an e-mail tomorrow so you can know sooner my new address.

I love you all, and miss you all so much. I hope to hear from y’all soon and I will get you my address as soon as possible. Hope y’all are having a great time! And I love you

Love Sister Chatwin

P.S. this letter comes with a disclaimer, that the writer is not responsible for any spelling or grammar errors in this letter!

Her mom fixed them all when I was typing the letter so all of you could read it J!!