week 2 in Bedford

Hello Everyone--

To start off, Thank you everyone for all the birthday cards and wishes!!! I promise I will write you all back, it just might take a while. P-days here in Bedford are a little crazy, so we don't have much time at the end of the day.

So I turned 22 this week.... It seemed like just a normal day on the mission. I guess that is also just part of getting old! haha ;P

On Wednesday our cars were grounded. So Sister page and I spent the morning walking around Manchester trying to help people shovel their snow... no one would let us help. :( But we were able to talk to a lot of people, so that was nice! I will say, I miss our Subaru Impreza from Plymouth. It had 4 wheel drive, and our car here in Bedford doesn't. We got stuck trying to go up some hills this week. A few of them we couldn't make it up them. Some I was able to by driving back and forth up it. haha. Luckily no cars were coming the other way.

There is SO much snow here, it's not even funny. You can not see anything when trying to turn the corner. It's kind of scary actually. But we are being safe.

Thursday we went and did service at an assisted living home. We play scrabble with the old ladies. Oh boy, they are so funny. They always argue over the rules, and if words are actually words. Sister Page and I just go with the flow. We don't worry if they add up our score wrong or not, but the old ladies, they make sure it's exact. It is fun though. We are able to have good conversations with them.

Friday was a great day. Hannah Jones got baptized. We spent a good chunk of the day filling the font, and cleaning the church. It was so cute, after she came up out of the water, she said, "Yay! I'm so happy!!!!" After she was so excited. Then on Sunday before church she came up and was telling us about how she feels now! It was SO exciting to hear. She is only 17, and the only member in her family. She has such a solid testimony, and the spirit is just bubbling out of her. That was a really neat experience to see!!!

On Saturday we were able to go on line and check out mormon.org. OH MY GOODNESS, it is SO cool!!!!!! EVERYONE SHOULD GO AND CHECK IT OUT, CREATE A PROFILE, AND TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT!! We are going to be using it a lot more in our mission now. I am super excited about it! It's cooler than facebook!!!! :P haha.

Also on Saturday, I experience freezing rain for the first time. It was raining, but when it would hit the ground it would turn into ice. So everything was a solid sheet of ice.... it was weird. I could hardly walk with out slipping. But Sunday morning, when the sun hit the tree's that were covered in ice, it was SO pretty!!!!

Well that was my week! We are working hard, not getting as lost, and enjoying ourselves!!!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!

love, Sister Rankin

Sister Rankin after slipping

Transfer 8

Hello Everyone--


So not only did I shot gun, but I am also follow up training!!! I am serving in..... BEDFORD, NH!!! My mission president is in my ward, and the AP's. It is a big ward, and our area is tiny, but has tons of people. Oh my goodness, I went from the boonies of Sisters areas, to one of the biggest city sister's areas.

I am follow up training Sister Page from Nebraska. She has been in the field for 6 weeks. She is amazing!!! I swear she is not a greenie at all! I am learning so much from her already. So we got to our new area on Tuesday afternoon..... So we have 2 sets of missionaries in our ward... so we are allowed to go anywhere in the ward boundaries to visit members, but then we have to stay in our own to teach and find.... Well, we had two maps saying what our area was. We called the AP's, and they didn't really know either. So we sort of know our area (and we don't live in our area), but not really. We have gotten SO lost, but we are having fun! We are laughing a lot!

I will say, I don't like driving in a city!! It is so weird. Way too many cars, and people crossing the street, and where do we park???? But it is good. We don't really know what's going on still. We have only seen one of our investigators, a 17 yr old girl named Hannah Jones. We met her on Thursday and she had a baptism date for Feb. 25th.... well that night we were told that she is getting baptized on Friday Feb. 4th.... WHAT! So we have been trying to rush to get everything done, so that she can be baptized then.... And since I have no experience with that yet, I don't really know what I'm doing.

We have been doing a lot of trying to contact potential investigators, so we haven't done much tracting yet.... which is so weird to me, because that is pretty much all I did for 5 of my previous 6 transfers.

Shot gunning is crazy. Training is crazy. Luckily, my greenie is so good, that it's not even like I'm training. The only thing that is a little difficult here, is that our area borders the mission boundaries.... so we accidentally got lost one day, and realized we weren't even in our mission any more... :S But we quickly got back into it, and decided NOT to go that way again. We are both used to big areas, and our map scale was like 2 or more miles for each box on the map. Well here it is like 1/4 of a mile per box, and so we think we have a long ways to go, but really we don't. So we find ourselves way in the wrong direction.

Well we are still trying to find our way around, and meet our investigators, so I don't have much else to say. Other than it is weird to be in Bedford, because I feel like I know people here already. Sister Hill would talk about it all the time, and show me pictures (she served here for 7 1/2 months).... but in real life i haven't actually met them yet. haha. It's fun to also see other missionaries all the time!!!

Oh, PS.... SISTER HATCH IS IN MY DISTRICT! Yay!! (she was my MTC companion). We are in same district, so we see each other at district meeting, then we hang out on P-days, and we see each other at church on Sundays!!!! So awesome!!!!!!

Well I love you all, and I can't believe my birthday is tomorrow. It doesn't seem like it..... But I know I am old now, because this morning I was able to say... "I did that like 15 years ago." If I did something 15 years ago, and I still remember it, that means I am getting old now... the big 22!!!

Write me! :)

love, Sister Rankin


Mom,
I am so happy to have gotten transferred.  Our apartment is in the basement of a members home. It is weird, tiny, and dark. But we are making the best of it. We also have no door between our apartment and the members living quarters... that is awkward sometimes. The area is so small, but tons of homes and people. We have a big (for New England) ward. I am picking up my birthday package from the mission office today. I was going to get in on Friday, but I didn't want to be tempted to open it early.


I'm all better now.. no more sickness.