Not Your Regular Mission: Site Training Week

Hi everyone!

Things have been good in the NYRM (New York Rochester Mission, pronounced by everyone here as the Nurm). So this week has been lots of training at the sites. I've served everywhere now and can
officially give a tour anywhere (no matter how unqualified I feel to give that tour), which is sweet. The Visitors Center site directors, the Bradfords, led the training and Elder Bradford gave super in depth tours. We were told lots of super fun stories about the Smiths and the very early days of the church.

This is our trio in front of the Jesus bust at the Whitmer farm. Fun fact, that

is actually a time capsule. The general authorities put a bunch of stuff in

there for general conference on the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the

church and will open it in a little over 13 years. Also a fun little story:

Sister Bradford was talking about how during Pageant time sisters get kind of

brain fried and say odd things. One sister had given so many tours she pointed

to the statue and said "and here is the bosom of Jesus". It was pretty funny!

By far my favorite place to serve is the Smith farm. On Friday my companions had MLC (mission leader conference) all day because they're sister training leaders, so I went on exchanges with the other sisters in our district, sister Packard and Andersen. They live with us in our apartment, so I've gotten to know them pretty well. We served on the Smith farm together and did studies in the grove that morning (it so so cool to be able to say that.) I gave my first solo tour and didn't mess up anything! It was to a group of four old people, and one lady said they were going on a road trip to visit 65 temples, because it was her 65th birthday, and her husband wanted to do something special
for her. When I'm 65, that's going to be my goal in life (maybe even earlier than that).

Me and sister Topham at the top of the Hill Cumorrah

The trio at the top of the Hill

That same day, Bob, the keeper of the grove, gave us apples. Bob is a sixty something year old man who maintains all the forest of the sacred grove and all the sisters love him. He has such a strong
testimony of the First Vision, but surprisingly isn't a member. There have been generations of sisters determined to baptize him, but no luck so far. But really, he is the sweetest person ever, and yeah, he
gave us apples which was nice.

I found this in one of the site guides (the guides we get all our history info

from). It gave me a good laugh for the day!

In terms of tracting, we met a woman named Lesta we found in the area book. She really is so prepared, but we haven't been able to consistently teach her. We have a lesson with her today though, so pray that goes well! Also, there's a woman named Marneil I have yet to meet, but we're going to be teaching her soon, so that's really good! Tonight we're also going to meet a referral with a Spanish name, so pray they speak Spanish, because I have been really wanting to use
that!

Now that site training is done, were still given shifts at the sites, but there's not much to do because it's really slow this time of year. So we usually end up watching some church movie in the theater when things get really slow. Lots of good restoration videos. Either that or sit in the Christus room and weekly plan, we try to keep productive:)

Sorry there aren't as many pictures this week, I need to be better at taking them. Anyway, I love you all and pray for you! I hope you all have a great week, write you next time! Hermana Abreu