Hello!!!!!!!! It feels like forever since I wrote, even though it's only been a couple more days than usual. Here are some categorized updates:
COMPANIONSHIP
I love my companion, Sister Frasier. We are very very different (I've probably said that about every companion...), but it's been so good for us to be together. We decided to read the entire Book of Mormon together this move, and it's really awesome. We read it during personal times, mostly on our lunch and dinner hour, or before personal study in the morning. We figured out that if we read about 18-20 pages/day, we'll get it done buy the end of the move. Also, Sister Frasier is a record-keeper extraordinaire (did I spell that right?). She is teaching me a lot about keeping good records and organizing things, which is really important when missionaries move in and out of areas so often. I'm doing my best as long as I'm the junior companion (every companionship has a senior and a junior companion--the mission president says which is which; typically, after someone becomes a senior companion, they stay that way until they go home) to adapt to my senior companion's style and figure out how she does missionary work and why she does it that way. So far it's saved me a lot of stress, not worrying about carrying over everything I've learned from move to move. As long as we're obedient and trying to be diligent, I figure it's a good opportunity to learn different ways of doing things. Then whenever I become a senior companion, I can figure out which parts will work best for me. There are a lot of things that all obedient missionaries will do the same, but also a lot of room for interpretation or "style", as Sister Frasier says, not to mention adjusting to the area and companionship needs.
ZUOYING
I'm definitely not in Kansas (read: Chaozhou) anymore. One of the coolest things about being in a more urban area is that there are almost always people to contact at traffic lights. I really like contacting at lights. I came up with this sweet thing for my bike box so I can always have fliers ready to handout when I'm on the street. Best case scenario we have 68 seconds to contact someone (if we get there right when it turns red), and we usually do it together.
Another huge plus: I can take out my trash anytime. It's amazing. In Chaozhou, we had to wait for the trash truck to come (at supposedly set times, but they varied a lot), and take our trash out to it as it passed. Here, our apartment has a dumpster AND a recycle bin. I love it. I take out trash all the time, and rejoice in empty trash cans.
Here we cover two church units (congregations), one ward and one branch. The church takes up one floor of an office building, above a bank. Because of the way the meeting times are, every week we just attend two sacrament meetings, and no other meetings. I sort of miss Sunday School and Relief Society, but it's like this for sisters in a lot of areas (because there are fewer sisters than elders, each companionship covers a larger geographical area).
