Called to Serve: week 10: we are the VERNAL sistas!

One week done here in vernal and let me tell you, it is a whole different WORLD than Provo YSA!!!
-everyone wears denim and overalls and boots and I LOVE it! I DIED AND WENT TO COWBOY HEAVEN!

Here's a little rundown of what we have learned so far:

-half the town has lived here their entire life and owns family property and livestock(average cattle count is 300 family w LOTS of land!!! and our freezer is full of some nice meats from members!)

-lots of old people...they struggle to hear us with our masks and don't get out much bc of "the covid"

-there actually are dinosaurs all over. statues, murals, museums, and even a city named Dinosaur haha

-weather is pretty similar to Logan so we bundle up and run in sub 10 degree temps, but also freeze knocking doors

-our house is HUGE! we took the place of the 4 previous elders, so we have 2 showers, 2 huge bedrooms, a nice family room, and lots of space! I sleep on a queen bed and my comp has a fat walk in closet haha.

-there is SO much work to be done and SO much potential! once we get organized, we will be teaching off the wall! Vernal is a gold mine!!

So far, we are teaching 3 people:

KARLEE- she is a WILD child! 17 and graduating early to join the army. She has a bit of a bad language issue and a very confident personality for good and bad. She called the previous elders by their first names and that was funny to finally figure out who she was talking about when we asked who "Spencer and Jacob" were haha. We are trying to reign in her energy and help her to focus and feel the spirit in our lessons.

TRISHA- super sweet lady who is living with a member boyfriend and their daughter. She is ready to get baptized and is super receptive to the gospel, we just need to get her and her boyfriend married first.

GARY- honestly the coolest guy! His wife and kids are all members, but he says the cowboy religion of mountains, hunting, and trucks are more his thing. He hunts a TON and has deer, bears, moose, etc. all over his house. He wants to spend his time on earth enjoying the country life and then do "the heaven stuff" after he dies, but we are working with his family to encourage him to commit to scripture study, prayer, and church NOW haha. Great guy and great family!

We also walked into a baptism again(I seem to be good at that) for Kayli. She is the sweetest 13 year old girl and her family is half members. We are going to try teaching her 10 year old brother when we start doing her after baptism lessons. Her family is the sweetest!

And finally a good funny for y'all! We are sitting in church yesterday and look over to see this lady scrolling amazon for smart watches. Little odd, but nothing crazy. But then halfway through the meeting she pulls a red bull from her purse and starts downing that thing. I could smell it through the mask and was trying so hard not to laugh!! She introduced herself to us after as, "Mama Sunkees," so she may become a friend of ours lol. Gotta love these people!!

MIRACLE: We had a list of some people the elders had been previously teaching this year, but hadn't contacted in a while, so we decided to start calling. We called a 16 year old named Hunter and introduced ourselves and as soon as we said we were missionaries, he hung up. We started to call the next number and the phone started to ring. It was Hunter calling us back to apologize for answering the phone with a weird voice. He talked to us for about 15 minutes and mentioned that he was freezing from shoveling snow. SOOO we changed and went over to his place to join him! He opened up to us a ton while we helped shovel his driveway and we got a return appt to teach him some more!!! Great kid and can't wait to work with him in the coming weeks!

Merry Christmas!! Love you all!!

Sister Dougall :)