She made it to Ohio!

HI EVERYONE!

Let me give you the lowdown on the past week .

So last Saturday (the 17th) I got to go to the Referral Center in the MTC and make calls. I called Sister McAlister’s friend Torie and she was so receptive! She was super nice and asked me what my favorite part about what we were doing was and I told her my favorite part was studying from the Book of Mormon. Then I asked her if she had one and she didn’t so I told her about it and I told her that we would send her a copy and she offered to buy it! She was so cute! I told her absolutely not! We would send it for free and Sister McAlister would even mark some of her favorite scriptures in it and write her a note along with it. She was excited. I want to meet her one day after the mission. I really hope she embraces the gospel! Later that day, we got to go to Temple Square and go on splits with one of the sisters up there. On our bus drive up, I remember how Chase was going to LDSBC and thought “wouldn’t that be cool if I ran into him”. But, I hadn’t talked to him since he went to Utah so the chances of that were slim to none. When we got to Temple Sqaure, I was paired up with Sister Giang (pronounced Young) from Canada. It was neat to spend a few hours with her, walking around, giving tours. It was cool and like 20 minutes after we started, we went to the South VC on the square and guess who I ran into?! None other than Chase Marstella himself. That was a little tender mercy because I was nervous to go be a real missionary for the first time so it was nice to have a small piece of familiarity.

Skipping a couple of days that weren’t really important….

So…Tuesday was my birthday! We had to be at the travel office at 5:00 am so I woke up at 3:30 to finish packing and doing my hair. I know, I’m so vain right? The girls going to Kirtland with me left me a candy-gram outside my door to say happy birthday so that was really sweet! I had a layover in Minneapolis and I thought of you Mom.  It was weird being in Minneapolis because for the first time EVER we were getting looks. Obviously at the MTC everyone’s a missionary so no big deal. And in SLC, everyone is used to having Mormons and missionaries around so they don’t even notice your tag…but in Minneapolis, we started getting double-takes that said “why are there a group of 15 young adults dressed up in suits and skirts with black name tags on?” It was weird to be noticed. Sadly, on both of my flights I sat next to all missionaries so I didn’t have any opportunities there. When we arrived at the Cleveland Hopkins airport, President & Sister Sorensen were there to meet us, along with the A.P.s. Because there were 15 of us, they brought a U-haul to put all of our luggage in! Crazy. I screamed when we got off the escalator and the mission president was standing there. Don’t worry, it wasn’t too embarrassing because the 9 other sisters did too! We first embraced the humidity that was found outside (think Houston humid!), and then drove to the mission home where we were fed a yummy meal. They also served cake and ice cream. While they were in the process of serving that, Sister Manwaring was like “You’re the only one without cake and ice cream and it’s your birthday!” I didn’t even realize that was the case. Then, they brought me out a piece of cake with a candle in it and sang happy birthday to me! It was so nice! I did not expect that at all. After that we had an orientation meeting and a testimony meeting. The testimony meeting was really really powerful. Ah! I’m so excited to serve in this mission. We have an Ohio Cleveland Mission song and I don’t have the words with me and I don’t remember all of them but I know one part. It’s sung to the tune of “We’ll Bring the World His Truth” in the children’s hymnbook:

We have been called to serve in the place

Where Christ our Savior has shown His face.

We know the words the Lord has proclaimed,
“Kirtland will be built up again!”

We are in the Ohio Cleveland
We have prepared since our youth
And we are in the Ohio Cleveland
To bring Ohio his truth.

It gave me goosebumps just typing that! I didn’t realize how blessed I was to serve here until I got here. Jesus Christ has appeared in my mission 4 times! The Savior of all mankind has stood in some of the very rooms that I’ve been in now…I’ll tell you more about that in a minute though.

Sister Webb and Sister McAlister arrive!!!

So back to orientation night…President Sorensen is really intense and he kind of scares me and stresses me out a little, I’m not going to lie, but I like him. They kept us up really late though just because there was a lot to go over so I didn’t get to bed until like 11:00pm and I had gotten up at 3:30am. Nooo bueno! I got your package that night Mom. Thank you soo much! I LOVE the watch!  The lotion smells so good and thanks for the colored pencils too. I have used them frequently.  Oh…and, they don’t want my mail going to the mission office. They want it going to the Visitor’s Center. This is the address:

Sister Alicia Webb

7800 Kirtland-Chardon Rd.

Kirtland, OH 44094

I’ll most likely be serving around Kirtland all of the time so it’s faster for me to get it here than in Cleveland.

Kirtland Temple

Whitney Store

Okay…Wednesday morning (the 21st), well first off…I dropped my retainer case on a concrete floor and my nightguard fell out and broke. It’s just the back part on my left side so after sanitizing it the best I could, I’ve still been using it. What should I do mom? Moving on, then we got to take a tour of the Kirtland Temple. It was SOOOOOO neat. They even took us in a room that usually people don’t get to go in. It’s the top room and Jesus Christ appeared in that room one of the times. AMAZING. It’s a beautiful structure and still an amazing place. On the bottom floor, we all stood up and sang “The Spirit of God” which was sung at the dedication of the Kirtland temple. It was really powerful and really cool. BAH! I love it. Then, we went to the School of the Prophets, located above the Whitney store in Kirtland…another place where Jesus Christ showed His glorious face. President Sorensen gave us the opportunity to dedicate our missions in that room. It was a great experience. I promised Heavenly Father that I was going to give my all for the next 17 months teaching His children about Him and Jesus Christ.  

Then, we went and met our trainers. Mine is Sister Natalie Park from Sandy, Utah! She is so cute, we get along great, and I already love her!! We are serving in the Lyndhurst area, but our apartment is in Mayfield. It’s just the 2 of us that live here.

Companions Sister Park and Sister Webb

My schedule for this transfer is:

Monday: P-day

Tuesday: ½ day at sites (meaning in Kirtland), ½ day in our area

Wednesday: sites all day

Thursday: full area day

Friday: full area day
Saturday: sites all day
Sunday: church, and then we rotate being at sites or in our area every week

It’s not like this for all sisters. Sister McAlister and lots of other sisters live on site in the Hyrum Smith home and the Boynton home. Then they have to commute to their areas. They do half a day in Kirtland, half a day in their area usually. Some other sisters serve at the John Johnson farm in Hiram so they never come into Kirtland yet. They do tours out there…that’s why the letter from the mission president wasn’t more specific because your schedule just depends on what area you’re serving in!

Oh, also, I’m driving our car already because Sister Park’s drivers’ license expired while shes’ been here…she’s been out 10 months….and also, she gets anxiety when driving, especially on the freeway. We take the freeway to get to Kirtland so that’s a problem. In our car, there’s this thing called a Tiwi (like kiwi with a t). It’s like a police man in a pocket and it says “Speeding violation” if you speed and/or “aggressive driving”. At the end of each month, it prints off a report for each driver. If you’re green, you’re good to go. If you’re yellow…that’s bad. And if you get 2 red reports, you can’t drive for the rest of your mission. Yeah! That little guy is obnoxious but I guess he’s keeping us safe. Oh, and I figured out why I needed to live in Miller last year! My apartment doesn’t have a dishwasher. Imagine if I had never had to do dishes by hand before! Ha…miss high maintenance would have had a few problems. But it’s okay because I know what I’m doing and at least we have a garbage disposal here!

Alright…still on Wednesday, after getting our new companions, we went and ate at the Butterfield’s house. They live on site. Elder and Sister Butterfield are the Visitors’ Center directors. THEY ARE ADORABLE AND SO NICE! I love love love them already. Plus, I get to purchase a cool name tag that says “Sister Webb” with “Historic Kirtland” underneath it. How neat is that?!! I’m stoked.

Okay Thursday (the 22nd): It was a full area day. We did weekly planning for 3 hours…it was long. Then we got to go into our area. We taught Kia, a 13-year old girl in the area (who’s aunt is a member & she lives with that aunt) who was supposed to get baptized this Friday. Details coming. Then, we ate with the Messegee’s, the ward mission leader and his family. They are super nice and really young. There are a lot of Jewish people and black people in my area….it’s interesting to say the least! The miracle of the day was that Carl Carver, a less-active, and his nonmember girlfriend Amy remembered the appointment that Sister Barker & Park had set last week and even though we couldn’t get in contact with them, they still showed up at the library on time. We have to teach him at the library because apparently his roommates are like SUPER SKETCHY, SCARY guys and the people in the ward told us never go to his apartment. The appointment went well…I let Sister Park do most of the talking because I was a chicken. But I did bear testimony a couple of times and we have another appointment with them next week. Oooh and Sister Park told me a cool fact. A general authority came and talked to them at a mission conference or something and told them that Joseph Smith has to approve any missionary that serves in Kirtland. I don’t know how exactly that works…but I believe it. This is such a special place!!!

Friday (the 23rd): My miracle of the day was that I survived the first month of my mission!

We do service on Friday’s at an old folks home. We set up bowling pins in the hallway and they have a little bowling game. It was fun. Then we went and talked to Kia…she was acting really strange and she would barely talk to us. We got out of her that she doesn’t want to be baptized on Friday but she still wants to be baptized eventually. We were really devastated. This is one of God’s precious daughters! Her soul is important! She told us that she stopped saying her prayers though. PRAYER IS VITAL! That is our communication with our Father in Heaven! He needs to hear from us and we need to ask Him for blessings. Lots of blessings are conditional on our asking for them! Simple. So family and friends, sincerely, earnestly, honestly talk to God this week. He wants to hear from you because you are His child and He loves you. When we left, it was POURING rain. We had parked a little ways away so we had to run to our car. As we sat, bummed out of our minds and soaking wet, I felt like a legit missionary. Wet and sad. We decided to drown our sorrows in a big burrito from Qdoba. Yep, they have those here. Who knew? Then Sister Park got really nauseous and sick and she threw up so we went home. I studied for a bit while she laid down and then we planned and went to bed.

So on Saturday, I was at sites for the first time for real. Dad, I got the birthday package you sent me!!! THANK YOU! And I LOVED LOVED LOVED all of your letters! I’ll be writing you back later today. On our first tour, I only talked about referral cards and let Sister Park do the rest of the talking since I knew nothing about Kirtland really. When we’re not taking tours, we’re in the call center, located on the top floor of the VC. We call the people that are left on the comment cards as referrals, as someone who could use the blessing of the gospel in their lives. This part really scares me out of mind, I’m not going to lie. I’m sticking to the motto though “Replace every fearful thought with an act of faith.” Sooo when my heart is pounding, I press the number into the phone. Hopefully, as I do it more, I’ll become more comfortable. When I was up there, I got paged and they said “a lady that knows you that is not related to you is down here”. So I went down and saw my friend Haley Vande Merwe from my ward at BYU this last year!! She lives in Cincinnati and her singles ward came up to see Kirtland. Guess who one of the counselor’s in her bishopric is? President Ward’s brother-in-law…as in Janice Ward’s brother and Staci Ward’s uncle. Small world! He took a picture of me and Haley and sent in on his phone to President Ward. Maybe you could ask President Ward to email it to you?

Anyway, I decided that since my friend was in that tour, I should have something to say soo while they were watching the 25 minute movie about Kirtland that plays first, I went and learned 4 of the rooms in the Whitney Store. It felt good to actually talk on that tour! Sister Park still did most of it, but I mean come on, it was only my second time! It was really fun. I like giving tours a lot. That night, all the Kirtland sisters and senior couples had a barbecue to celebrate Pioneer Day. That was fun to see everyone again! Lots of my friends from the MTC work at the Johnson farm or just aren’t on the same schedule as me so I don’t see them much. Sister Park says the Kirtland sisters are very spoiled and treated very well. Also, there’s always junk food in the kitchen of the VC so I’m like paranoid about getting fat on my mission. I do not want any of that!! Nooooooo thank you.

Yesterday was church. I got to meet lots of people in the ward. We serve in the Mayfield ward. It’s full of lots of young families. I guess Case Western is a university around here that lots of people go to for dental and medical school? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it of it but apparently it exists. Sacrament meeting was so loud with all of the kids! It was weird because D4 isn’t that loud and BYU wards are especially quiet. It was good though. Then we went into Kirtland because we read the schedule wrong and thought we were supposed to be at sites. We weren’t. Oh well, they let us stay.

Oh, something else that’s funny. People from Ohio definitely have an accent! Ask Misty to say “mom” or “dollar” for you. I bet you’ll hear it. J It’s funny. I don’t really know how to describe it without doing it…they say their o’s and a’s strangely.

But really, I LOVE OHIO! It has been so wonderful so far. I am happy, I am loving it, I love my companion, I love the other visitors’ center sisters….it’s so good!

I know this church is true! I know that God is involved in our lives. I know that Christ is our Savior and that He is the only way we can make it back to live with our Heavenly Father. I know that God needed me in “the Ohio”. So here I am. He is the reason I’m doing what I’m doing. I love you!

Leash aka Sister Webb

July 24th Pioneer Day Missionary Barbeque