Telephone Conversations
So basically she and her two companions are in a tiny town and they drive all over on the dirt roads in their pickup truck. They don't go tracting because of all of the member referrals. If they have time to tract, they go to Tombstone which is about 20 minutes away, but so far she hasn't tracted yet. They get fed almost every night and sometimes even for lunch. Their stake has a goal of 111 convert baptisms this year. Apparently, this is the area that everyone in the mission wants to serve in because of the great member involvement.
The house that she is living in has a grand piano that she can play. She loves playing the piano. The member she lives with is a piano teacher. The missionaries live in the basement and share the kitchen with the member couple.
The church building is brand new and is exactly the same as her church building in Highland except it only has one set of doors in the foyer (as opposed to double doors to keep out the cold) and there's no coat rack--because why would you need a coat rack in Arizona? They go to the church to use the wifi to call home. The trio only has one sim-card and so only one of them has cell-service. They all have their own Samsung phone. They use the Google hangouts app to call home. It uses wifi and it's pretty cool because she can call us wherever we are at. Aaron can join in from work and I can join in the conversation from home. It's like Apple's Facetime only more flexible.
She also mentioned that she randomly met a sister missionary in the bathroom at the MTC going to Florida who was from a small town east of Tucson. Well, she has been to that random girl's house a couple of times because she's from St. David. She thought it was funny that she randomly met her in the MTC and has been to her house now.
From 3/11/2019 conversation: She told us that she is trying to learn either ASL or Spanish (or a little of both) to be able to speak with investigators and members.
April 22nd: Katie mentioned that St. David is really green for Arizona, even though nobody has grass. They talked with a pilot and he told them that pilots use St. David as a ground reference--they see the green area and know it is time to turn to head to Tucson.
May 27th: Katie said that it rained for three days straight in May, and it never rains in May. She also said that they had nothing to do today for p-day. They had done all their shopping and everything and so I told her to practice the organ and so they practiced the organ. Her companion is from Samoa and her family is a day ahead. She has a strong accent and is a lot of fun.
June 3rd: Katie mentioned that everyone is related down in the St. David area. She said that there are no less than 15 families with the same last name in just one ward.
From June 17th: Katie seemed a little nervous about transfers. She really loves St. David and says she could picture herself living there in the future. She got to call home for Father's Day on the 16th as well. Basically when she calls she just likes to hang out with us with whatever we are doing. There isn't much at all to do on P-days in St. David so she likes to hang with her family for a while. One thing they do is practice the piano and organ. In the evenings on Monday they go to FHE where there is a potluck dinner every week. She also said that the washer wasn't working in the house she's at so they had to do their laundry at the parents' house across the street.
While on the phone she and her companion were trying to get a fly that was bugging them. The companion was chasing it with a flip flop. Katie was just laughing away. She seems really happy.
From July 8th: One really funny thing Katie said was that last week when they were killing the trees it wasn't the first try. On a previous day they had worked so hard to drill holes into the trees but the drill bit would only go into the trees about an inch and it was smoking. The homeowner got a hold of them later and told them that her husband discovered that the drill was on REVERSE! They went back and were able to drill the holes a lot faster!
From July 22nd, 2019: While we were talking on the phone it was pouring rain outside where she is. Temperatures aren't quite as high in St. David as they are in Tucson. In fact, they are just in the 90's this week with three days of rain forecasted. She almost always calls from the church building, which is almost an exact replica of our church building here at home.
From July 29th, 2019: She said that she saw three tarantulas this week. Two in a driveway and one on the wall by the entrance to her house. She also said that the mission president said she would probably be transferred this next transfers which is in a week. He told her companion that Katie would probably be transferred to Gila Valley where the temple is or North Tucson. Katie and her companion get along really well. We learned that the only store in St. David is Dollar General and that she bought a St. David t-shirt from there this week. There are no stoplights in the town and the only sidewalk in town goes from the post office to Dollar General.
From 8/12/2019: She has a brand-new car with only 5,000 miles on it. She is the driver. Her companion is from Pocatello, Idaho. The Elders didn't leave them any help at all. Katie and her companion got to the area and didn't even know where the church building was! They drove around and found a church but it was in another area. They eventually find the right one by driving around. They have done some tracting and Katie has been okay with it (she had anxiety issues in the past). Her companion is super healthy and they usually go walking/running in the mornings. They have a piano in their apartment but it is out of tune. Their new place has air conditioning and so it's easier to sleep at night. Their old place had a swamp cooler upstairs and the cold air never made it downstairs where they lived and so it was really hot at night. One last thing that she said is that they don't have cell service in their apartment so if they want to make a call they have to go outside next to the two saguaro cacti to get service. You can see a picture of them in the photos.
From 8/19/2019: Katie has a year left on her mission. She says the past 6 months have flown by. She told us that a member has a cross-fit gym in their backyard and the member is going to be the sisters' personal trainer three times a week. They will be playing volleyball the other two mornings.
From 9/2/2019: Katie sent videos of it pouring and pouring. They also went over their allotted miles by a lot. They do a lot of driving I guess. I don't know what the reprocussions are for going over their miles, but it was funny to see them stress in the video about how many miles they went over by and they still had three days left in the month. They are allotted 1300 miles a month. A lot of the time she mentions that she sees tarantulas on their house in the evenings. She is also still working out with her companion at the member's cross-fit gym.
From 9/16/2019: A couple of weeks ago they went over their allotted miles and so the mission president told them to pick a day and go on a "car fast". So they couldn't do any driving that day. For dinner, the members picked them up and took them to their house which was pretty far out in the boonies. When they got there they looked into the backyard and saw a bunch of flames coming out of the barbecue grill. The family had made two chickens with a special sauce and thought that it would be fine while they went to pick up the sisters. It was charred black! They took off the burned parts and ate the middle which Katie said was really good.
From 10/14/2019: Katie said that they found out today that they are free to call grandparents and brothers and sisters and that there's no limit to the number of close relatives they can call. They also dropped the 90-minute time limit that they have on p-days to use their email to write to friends. Katie was able to call both sets of grandparents and so she was so excited!
She also talked about the refugee center. She mentioned people from Guatamala, but I'm not sure if there were people from other countries as well. The refugee center is an old juvenile detention facility and they have converted the "cells" into bedrooms that the refugees can stay in.
Another thing she talked about was Bentley the Lizard. They found it in their apartment and it was just about 2" long. They made a "cage" and had it for a few days. They said it changed color from when they first found it. It used to be brown and the picture shows it more tan with polka dots. They eventually let it go because they didn't know what to feed it. Also, Katie admitted to being very distracted by it.
From her transfer to Duncan at the end of October 2019: This wasn't really a phone conversation, but more of some information I got behind the scenes. A woman in Katie's new area texted us a picture of Katie and her new companion, Sister Bohrer. The lady said that she made sure the Elders cleaned up the apartment (especially the bathroom) before the sisters got there. She said it's a tiny apartment. Also, there are NO grocery stores in the town. And no stoplights. The closest grocery store is 40 minutes away. She is on the border of New Mexico. Her companion is from North Dakota.
From 11/4/2019: Katie spent the morning in Silver City, NM doing zone stuff and having a sports day. She sounded really upbeat and excited for the work to progress in Duncan.
From 11/25/2019: Katie discovered that her companion, Sister Bohrer, knows Noah Brown (Katie's cousin) from BYU. She also said that the mission president told them that they were staying put for the next transfer and that after that Katie would probably remain in the area--so she's there for the long run. The church also got a new missionary handbook and she was excited that they now get an hour for lunch. She said a half-hour wasn't enough time to make lunch, eat it and clean up.
From 1/6/2020: Katie did "the most spontaneous thing in her life" by getting some whispy bangs today. Today they also went to Silver City, NM for zone sports and played a version of basketball, ultimate frisbee, and soccer all in one. One Elder got a gash in his face and so they called a senior missionary couple where the sister is a nurse and she came and looked at it and told them to use super glue to stick it back together. The weather was really nice today--in the 70's. The temperature gets to below freezing most nights.
From 1/14/2020: Katie is so excited that Elder Uchtdorf will be coming to the mission on January 25th. She says that Elder Uchtdorf is her favorite apostle and really "speaks to her".
From 3/2/2020: Transfer day is tomorrow and Katie is staying in Duncan, which she is so excited about. Her new companion is Sister Vanderwiel, which she is also excited about because they were in the MTC together. Today a member lady, whom they have grown to love dearly, took them on a hike to see the California poppies cover the hills. Her name is Teri and she regularly texts me and Sister Bohrer's mom with pictures and updates. It's been great. She has really taken care of Katie and her companion and I'm so grateful for that.
From 3/16/2020: Basically Katie is stuck in her apartment until she gets better. She has a sore throat, cough, and her ears are badly plugged. To make matters worse, the night before she called she didn't get much sleep because they found bedbugs in their apartment! Apparently it's a common thing with missionaries' apartments since they go into a lot of houses and stuff. They stayed up late trying to temporarily kill them and then they had to borrow air mattresses from a member to sleep on. So far her companion hasn't gotten sick. She goes around disinfecting everything that Katie touches.
From 3/30/2020: Katie has had four companions in the last month. With everything going on with COVID-19 and missionaries being sent home, she has seen a lot of changes. She is happy to stay in Duncan for now and loves it there. She loves to go out to the poppy fields and get some fresh air rather than being cooped up in their house. It's funny because every time she gets a new companion they go and do a new photo shoot in the poppies. According to Teri, the missionaries' best friend in Duncan, the flowers haven't been this beautiful since their temple was dedicated back in 2010. Apparently they got a lot of rain this spring. Katie has been sick for three weeks with a cough, congestion, and her ears are plugged up. The ear thing is what is bothering her the most, as it's hard to hear out of one ear and the other is starting to plug up as well. On April 1st she gets to start wearing sandals again, as per mission rules. They went and played in the cotton seed again today and had fun. It turns out that they don't have bedbugs. They are just little bugs that are getting in from cracks in the window.