"Hi, I'm picking weeds!"

Kirksville- Letter# 3

So I've heard there is some serious unrest here in Missouri that has lead to national news and riots and curfews and craziness. I'll have you know that I am safe and well up here in Kirksville! Like i've said the people here are nice and inviting for the most part.

A few funny tidbits to tell today. The other day Sister Ramsey and I were walking down the street and we saw this older lady picking weeds on the side of the raod, not even near a house. We get closer to her and she turns around still in her crouch and exclaims, "Hi, I'm picking weeds!" She was picking the weeds down the street from her house so that they wouldn't spread to her lawn! That is some dedication to lawncare. We talked to her a bit and when she realized we were missionaries she wasn't as friendly but it was such a funny experience! Sister Ramsey and I have a good laugh with that line every once and a while. We go to the nursing home, Kirksville Manor Care, twice a week for service. We paint old lady's nails and help them play bingo. Bingo is fun if you're sitting next to a funny and snarky old lady, but when they're all quiet you could hear a pin drop in there between bingo calls. All you hear is the monotone bingo czar calling out numbers "B-19. B-1-9. Alright, clear your cards. Bueller. Bueller." I don't know how many times I've yawned or daydreamed in there! It is super funny though and sometimes I just laugh at the situation.

There is a sister that we visit at Manor Care that we love. she doesn't play bingo but she is an older sister who is too ill to make it to church. Her name is Sister Williams. She is not doing well and has a lot of hard days of being sick and not having visitors. But her smile always beams on her face when we appear in her door. She makes us happy and is a pleasure to be around. If we could we would just spend our whole day there talking and visiting with her. Last week Siser Ramsey had a great idea and we made her cards just to tell her how much we love and care for her. She was so happy to have them. I know that as we serve others and brighten their days the Lord blesses and brightens our days as well. He cannot make cards for those who need it, but we can. We are His hands here on the earth and it is through service that we can bring about His great works.

I love it here in Missouri, I know I say it every week but I really do. The heat and humidity make my hair almost unmanagable sometimes and I sweat a lot, but the Lord's work is so enjoyable and makes it worth every minute. Just fyi, at Walmart today I saw three different men wearing overalls. I love the people out here and their kind hearts even if they do shut the door in our faces.

God bless you all,

Sister Skaggs

Just a bit of clay...

Kirksville letter #2

My second week here in Kirksville, Missouri was an interesting but very good one! I am so happy here and loving the work. Sister Ramsey and I have been busy with appointments and a lot of finding (aka knocking doors). We have a handful of investigators but are really looking for more people to teach. The members in the ward might be annoyed because we ask for referrals so much!

On Wednesday we went to Brashear, a town just 15 minutes out of Kirksville. It used to be the elder's area but we took it because they are strictly walking now. We went out there to find their old investigators and look for some new ones as well. Lets just say that the town sign says "Pop. 297" but probably one third of the houses are abandoned. You get the picture. One paved road. It felt like a ghost town. We turned down a dirt road the elders told us go find and investigator on and it wasn't dirt. Thick and tack clay mud coated our tires. We got to the top of this little hill somehow and saw there wasn't a house for a good mile! So I got out to help Sister Ramsey turn around! Thick mud coated my little city girl flats and I was soon sliding around. We turned around eventually after a 15 point turn on the small road and I took of my shoes to get in the car and they each weighed two pounds! No joke. We were laughing so hard and just having fun with our plight as we were scraping the mud off of my shoes and the car behind the public school while the large bearded janitor man was watching us and laughing too. Finding Brashear was definitely a hard time as it was 95 degrees and humid and we knocked on abandoned houses. The Lord blessed us though with two potential investigators so we will probably go back later this week when we get the car back.

Speaking of getting the car back, we lost our beloved vehicle to the elders in the other ward on Thursday and have had quite the experience walking. My little iPod shuffle has come in handy. We did a lot of finding on Saturday and at the end of the day we had walked ELEVEN miles and 24,000 steps!! We were so tired and when we got home we gorged ourselves on leftover frozen food from the previous sisters that left and candy. Then we just laid there on the couches as our legs lay limp. We are not in walking shape evidently. But we really like it because it gives us opportunities to talk to people and knock doors to meet people. The other night as we were getting home after a long day we saw fireflies! They were so pretty and cute just hovering over the grass.

There are Amish and Menonite people here, fyi. On Thursday we were sitting in Dairy Queen and there trots by a horse drawn carriage on the main street of town! I was looking around like are we in the 1800s?! They had just gone to Walmart and had all their bags of stuff in the back of the carriage flapping in the wind! Culture shock. No but I want to talk to one of them sometime. I heard they make great pastries and are really nice.

Like I said the people here are the best. I love them so much. If you are over 60 and still have teeth it's an anomaly. They love sitting out on their porches and just visiting with you for hours. We visit lots of old people and are just so sweet and feed us a lot.

Something cool I learned this week was that humility + faith = access to grace, or the enabling power of the atonement. Try it, it works. I have leaned on the atonement so much for added strength my whole mission. When I was having a hard time studying all day in the MTC or out here in Kirksville walking eleven miles in church shoes. Our Heavenly Father wants to help us, we just need to ask for that extra strength, or grace,  in humility and with faith to get us through our personal trials.

The gospel blesses families, it is the way to find happiness in this life, and the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

Love you all,

Sister Skaggs

Kirksville MO letter #1

My last few days in the MTC were really good. I had learned so much and had some really cool experiences teaching and learning. We left at 2:30 on Wednesday morning and got into Des Moines, Iowa just after noon that day. Everyone, including myself, was dead tired. President and Sister Jensen and the assistants picked us up from the airport and took us to the mission home. There we had some training, interviews with President Jensen, a testimony meeting, and of course a delicious dinner. President and Sister Jensen are awesome! They are so nice and just willing to help us missionaries so much. T

​he next morning we went to Iowa City for transfer meetings and I met my trainer, Sister Ramsey! She is from Brea, California originally but had moved to Utah in high school. She is just great and super nice. We get along well and she has taught me so much already. Her favorite food is doughnuts. So naturally we get along.

In transfer meeting I also found out what area I would be serving. We are in Kirksville, Missouri. Try and find that on map without using Google! Kirksville is a small town of only 17,000 people here in northern Missouri. It is three hours from Iowa City, Des Moines, St. Louis, and Kansas City. There is not another sister missionary for 200 miles! Ya we are kind of in the middle of nowhere. But we do have a Walmart, multiple grocery stores, and some okay food. We ate at a Mexican place after district meeting on Saturday and they served ground beef tacos. Yum, my favorite. Also, there are two small universities here, Truman State University and AT Still which is a medical and dental school. It'll be good when school starts again because there will be more people around to talk to. But there are a lot of farms out here, mostly growing corn, soy beans, and hay. On our way from Des Moines to Iowa city I fell asleep to corn outside my window. Two hours when I woke up there was still corn going by. So it is true, there is corn everywhere, even here in Missouri. It is really warm and humid here and it threatens to rain almost everyday. It reminds me of Hawaii weather a bit and I don't mind it. Sister Ramsey and I have a car but share it with the other missionaries, so maybe I will mind it when we have to walk everywhere for a week. There are two wards here in Kirksville and five sets of missionaries! Yup, five. There are three in our ward. Us and two elders cover Kirksville, and another set covers two outlying towns that are in our ward, Edina and Memphis.

The people here in Kirksville are so great and sweet. They are just good country folk who like to tell it how it is. I have sat in more lazy boy recliners in the past four days than I would have in a year back in San Diego.

Yesterday we had church and some great testimonies were given. We had an investigator at church, Barb, who we had also taught on Saturday about the Book of Mormon. She is so sweet and great. We have a date set for her to be baptized, October 4th, so hopefully we can keep working with her so we can reach that goal.

I am just so happy here in Missouri (kind of ironic if you enjoy word play), but I really do love it! I have learned so much here already and can't wait to meet more people.Read the Book of Mormon! I love it and my testimony of it has grown so much out here as I have turned to it for answers and help. I've seen what the gospel and Jesus Christ can do for people and my conviction in my message has only been strengthened here.

Love you all,

Sister Skaggs

MTC Letter #2

Well I have been here in the MTC for over a week now and I'll be off to Iowa in less than a week! It is crazy how time works in here. the days feel like weeks but the weeks go by so fast! It's definitely a huge bubble here, I really have no idea what is going on in the real world. It's nice sometimes but Sister Robinson and myself had to catch ourselves daydreaming and watching the cars drive by when we walked out across the street for gym time. 

Today is preparation day, but it is also Pioneer Day, something they actually take really seriously here in Utah. So everything is closed here, including the temple. We were supposed to go this morning but were only were able to walk around the outside. That was a bummer but I already took a nap today and it has been so great to hear from family and friends!

This week I had to write down a few funny stories as they came to be sure I remembered to include them in this letter. So much is always happening here that all the days kinda mush into one and I it's hard to remember noteworthy things. 

So on Monday Sister Robinson and I went to the mail room so she could pick up a package and I saw this Auntie there! This lady looked like she was straight of the plane from Hawaii. Short with a long black skirt hiked up with a purple aloha shirt tucked in. Old lady hat and all! So I had to talk to her! I said " Auntie, you from Hawaii?" and she said "no, but I attended school there back when it was Church College of Hawaii!" Oh we had such a fun conversation! She was actually headed to Nauvoo that afternoon and she was so so happy she was going to be able to go to the temple! It was so cute. It reminded me of Hawaii and all the Tutus as she just naturally made me smile and laugh. 

That was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord because that day Sister Fetter from our district went home. She didn't get sent home but decided to go because her boyfriend said "either we get married now or in 18 months." It was a stressful and sad day because Sister Fetter was such a great missionary and friend to me in the few days we had together. But seeing that lady and talking to her just shortly after Sister Fetter left was such a blessing and really helped turn my day around. 

A funny story! So on Sunday we went on a temple walk with our zone. We walked up there and everyone was taking pictures. There were a bunch of other zones there too. Up near the temple there are fountains and there were four sisters sitting on the edge of a fountain taking pictures. There was one sister with a serious model pose going on, an intensely horrible face reminiscent of blue steel with her hands propped up on the knee of her crossed leg. I was laughing in my head because I thought she was joking around. But no! Three, four, five pictures in a row, the same face and pose after she would break in between the different cameras. She was the only one doing that while the three other sisters in the photo had beaming smiles on! It was so funny and Sister Robinson and I were trying so hard not to bust out laughing. 

So I told you last week about another Sister Skaggs! We see each other all the time now and it is so sweet. I don't remember if I mentioned it but she is headed to the Temple Square mission. She is so nice and just great. We always yell "Sister Skaggs!" when we see each other. 

I was able to sing in the choir for Tuesday night's devotional and it was so amazing! We sang "Lead Kindly Light". Look it up because it is such a beautiful song. The director practiced with us and he was a great teacher. He really knew what he was talking about but it didn't really help my performance I don't think. Regardless, we as a whole sounded really good and it was a great experience. Yesterday we welcomed new missionaries to our branch/zone, 14 elders and 4 sisters. We had a little meeting with them and gave them a short tour of the campus. They all looked so overwhelmed and confused but we got to know them a little better later at night. The sisters live right next to us in the residence and it was nice to have zone prayer with them and the other sisters in the zone. I remember just a week ago when I felt the same exact way. Wow that seems like such a long time ago. 

As I mentioned before Sister Fetter went home earlier this week, so now her old companion, Sister Kurt, is with Sister Robinson and I in a trio. Sister Kurt is from Los Angeles and is super funny with remarks and comebacks that just come so quick! It's an adjustment to having three and teaching together, but it's a good change and challenge. 

I have learned so much here already but I feel like I need to learn so much more to be ready to go to Iowa. As a companionship we teach a "progressing investigator" (who is really our teacher in a role play) and it is such a great experience to get to teaching almost everyday. Things are going well and next time I email I will be in Iowa! 

Unfortunately the computers here aren't allowing me to upload pictures, so I am sorry for that. I will be sure to include a few of the MTC next week.

Love you all,

Sister Skaggs

MTC Letter # 1

I am here at the MTC and still alive after two full days. Everyone has told me to just make it to Sunday and everything will be fine. But I am loving it here! They keep us super busy with classes, study time, and orientation. Yesterday we left our dorm at 7:15 and didn't get back until 9:30 at night! Crazy busy and crazy awesome. Full of spiritual experiences! It is so so tiring. Think when you go to church for three hours and get home and immediately wanna take a nap. Well we are at church for 14 hours. So when we got home yesterday all I wanted to do was take a huge nap! I know it's an adjustment to the schedule and my spiritual muscles will grow though. It's crazy because even though I am incredibly tired and overwhelmed at times, I am so happy. It can't be described. The experiences I've had in workshops, classes, and with my companion have just been the best. 

My companion is Sister Robinson from Alpine, Utah. I was scared I would get a 19 year old companion and I did. But she is so amazing! She has been prepared so well for this work and she is so fun to be around. We really are around each other 24/7. It's weird to be honest. But I'll get used to hovering and telling her when I need to use the restroom. I'm glad she's so pleasant to be around.

The cafeteria is cool here, much better than I ever experienced at BYU-Hawaii. I had some dank curly fries for lunch yesterday, and yes mom, I ate salad! The salad is actually really good here and I ate it for lunch and dinner yesterday. It's definitely not on my list to get fat here. 

Tonight we have our first lesson with an "instigator". He's really our teacher and we'll be role playing but we're going to teach a legit lesson! I am nervous kinda, but mostly excited. They tell us that from here on out we will be teaching everyday. 

Crazy story! When I got here someone told me that there was another Sister Skaggs coming the same day! What?! And just a few hours ago I ran into her in the hall! We talked and she took a picture. She's from Temecula and we both worked in the San Diego temple before coming on our missions. So so crazy and cool. Her classroom is right down the hall from mine so we're going to bring our genealogy with us tomorrow and figure out how we're related.

This place is great, tiring, overwhelming, and one big spiritual high. I am loving it and couldn't be happier! 

Love you all,

Sister Skaggs