Longest Email Ever😵‍💫

Haha sorry for not writing last week. I've got a lot to catch up on, so go microwave some popcorn before reading this. 

I read it all in my own words tho!!! The word count of my post is nearly 6,000 words so I decided to speak it all for yall so you can multi task because for me, I love listening to podcasts while doing things! So feel free to do laundry or pick up your kids from school while I talk for 30 minutes.

I'd also like to explain the goal of my writing. 

I want people who haven't served missions the opportunity to hear some of the ins and outs of a mission. People told me it was going to be hard but also very fun and I tried to show what that means because I dont like it when people are vague haha.

And I didnt add photos throughout my post but I added captions to my photos on Google photos now!! So feel free to scroll through those while I yap.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dtg_FTK7Ul9_zf28Xz7Lo520_idV4xps/view?usp=drivesdk

What I spoke👇:

Okay, the major news is that I have a new companion! I hope yall are dying to hear about my new companion because I was dying to meet her! Her name is Sister Finch, shes from Arizona, and shes got a lot of cool fun facts!

She was a rodeo queen for her hometown! That means she was like a face of the rodeo and would actively endorse it so more people would go

She worked for USPS! So that means she knows how to drive on the right side of the car. Her route was driving in the boonies to deliver mail

And shes 22!! We shared some stories and when covid happened, I was in 7th grade and she was a sophomore in highschool😂 And when she graduated, I was finishing freshman year! It's so funny our age gap but shes not old by any means

Sister finch doesnt seem to openly share stories about herself like sister graham but she has told me some funny stories about her crazy family. For example, on Christmas at 6pm-ish her aunt calls her and says shes in Parker (our new area btw) trying to meet her to drop off some Christmas gifts for me and sister finch. Sister finch hearing her aunt is in our town, she starts cackling because of her aunts spontaneity and I think its so entertaining lol. I look forward to hearing more stories from sister finch and especially about her crazy family😂

Before I met sister Finch, Monday and Tuesday I was still with sister graham. 

December 15

It was my last Pday with sister graham and we spent it packing, returning a package and then we decorated a Christmas tree! They waited over half of December just so missionaries could decorate it. Ive never personally decorated a tree but its a big tradition in sister grahams family which she was missing so im glad we got to do it! It was lowkey stressful to decorate a tree because im a perfectionist sometimes and I was doing something new in front of people but it was enjoyable talking to the family that had us over and enjoying my last bit of time with sister graham.

December 16

This was our last 24 hours in Aurora so we spent the day stopping by our friends and saying goodbye. It was so sad saying goodbye to Sandra because she literally started crying as we left😭 I had to get out of there quick or I would've cried too. I follow her on Facebook now tho! I also follow some other members from the ward I was in now and they commented on my parents Facebook posts about how they loved having me and I think my parents probably cried on sight of seeing that haha

Sister graham and I also did our last weekly planning for the sisters coming into our area and we had our last companion council which was super sweet just talking about each others strengths and weaknesses and I got to hear more stories about sister grahams family. 

That night we stayed up pretty late because sister graham cant sleep when a big event (transfers) is about to happen so I tried my best to stay awake until I just couldn't anymore. To my core, I am a listener more than a yapper so I was so happy to listen to sister graham yap one last time before we parted. It felt like midnight when I told her I was too tired to stay up and I think she ended up falling asleep an hour later.

December 17

My mom's bday and transfers! 

We wake up so tired and quickly get ready then we bring down all our suitcases and boxes down in like 30 minutes (pretty quickly in my opinion). Our biggest hurdle for fitting everything in the car is that sister graham has a bike that folds in half so we cant stick it on a bike rack behind our car. Our STLs thankfully were able to fit her bike, and all of sister na'a's stuff and her and sister kooteti in the backseat of their car. 

Once we are all packed, we get McDonald's together for the last time. It sounds like a stupid thing to note but sister graham worked there for a while so we did a lot of contacting our friends, and other sit down things at McDonald's because it was an easy place to go to. So I liked going because sister graham liked going.

After McDonald's we listen to my music for the last time together. We came up with these mini dance moves during the transfer as we listened to the music I downloaded so we were able to do those together and it was fun. Im super emotional over everything im starting to notice so I had to hold back some tears because I knew I couldn't jam out with sister graham anymore.

Next thing I knew, we were at the mission office for transfers! I dont think I gave sister graham a proper goodbye because there's so many missionaries and things going on that I had to go a little tunnel vision to find my comp, find my new car, and take out all the stuff from my old car to put into my new car. 

We were at the mission office for 3 hours by the way so I started to get bored and anxious to start doing things pretty quickly, especially because I dont have any missionary friends at this point.

So I eventually meet sister finch and we are able to get the other missionaries’ stuff out of our new car and put our stuff in!

The drive ended up being an hour long and im not even driving this transfer😵 Im lowkey crashing out about it even still but its a good opportunity to practice stoicism I guess.

There's a little trouble finding our apartment once we get to the apartment complex but we do get there and start to put all our stuff inside. Next step is shopping! 💅 

I was able to call my mom on the way to walmart and we called for 15 minutes. Im disappointed in myself that i wasnt able to call longer but we were truly so busy and transfer day is just chaotic in general. Thank you to sister Yates and the others who took my mom out for her birthday! It makes me so happy to know that my mom has plenty of other people to celebrate her birthday with her while im gone.

For shopping tho we didnt get anything too fun, but i did spend over $100 on food that I apparently dont need because the members feed us LITERALLY EVERY DAY. Im super happy about that but I would've shopped differently. So my new goal is to not spend any money on groceries for the rest of the transfer if I can help it. 

We get back, unpack groceries, and I unpack the rest of my boxes and suitcases in like 30 minutes. I got warned by sister graham and now sister finch that I won't have this little amount of stuff for long because it's common to accumulate a bunch of junk over the course of a mission but I really don't want to! 🙅‍♀️ Because then I would have to pack this junk and take it to my next apartment. I don't even know what kind of stuff I would accumulate because I'm quite content with what I have now. If anyone wants to send me artwork though, I would love it! Sister Graham has a bunch of Jesus artwork that she hangs up every transfer and I think it would be cool to do the same so that's definitely not junk and very easy to transport so feel free to do so! My address is at the end of this post.

We clean out the car in preparation for zone conference (someone literally checks our cars during zone conference and we get treats left in them if they are clean enough), do companion study, then we go to our first member dinner of the transfer!

We are over two wards this transfer so I forgot which ward this couple is in but they used to be mission presidents in the 90s and early 2000s in Peru!! After we ate dinner they showed us their basement where they used to let a pair of missionaries live and also they showed us their mission memorabilia! Photos, artwork, a rug on the wall, and some other things.

Another interesting thing they showed us was the wife's current hobby: doll making. It was lowkey creepy but highkey funny. It's such an old lady thing to have one's hobby be doll making. So she had doll parts scattered on a table and a fully made one staring at us on a rocking chair. We were with the couple with the lights on so I felt fine but if I saw that downstairs at 3am, I would be so scared😂

This couple also had us decorate their tree too! So now I have photos in front of a Christmas tree with both of my companions!❤️

Oh also! We ended up staying for 3 hours with dinner, decorating the tree, seeing their mission memorabilia, and extra old people talk. Good news is that they gave us 5 names of people to contact to try and teach! So it was super long but kinda sorta productive.

December 18

We had a VERY early zone conference

Typically, zone conference is about a week into the transfer and its purpose is to train us and give us tools to be better missionaries. It's kind of hard to learn at a zone conference when you have no in field training so I felt bad for the greenies who are more green than me that had to go straight to training instead of finding and teaching.

I ended up crying a lot though at zone conference. We had a segment where sister clawson surprised all the missionaries with gifts!! It was a clear plastic bag wrapped with a bow and inside it contained a fresh book of mormon, a minky pillowcase, a Colorado themed suitcase tag, and letters from our family members😭 When I saw my moms envelope I immediately started crying. She always does these cool designs in her notebook during Sacrament meeting to focus and it took me right back to home seeing the artwork she made for me. Her letter kept me crying and so did the rest of the letters I received from my family. I legit couldn't stop crying I felt so homesick. 

Then to make matters worse, we had a testimony meeting with our zone. So, when it was my turn to go up in front of the 8ish people of my zone, I could only get a few words out between sobs and then sat back down. I could feel the stares which I hated but I just tried to quiet my sobs until they weren't audible anymore. 

I thought I was good after the testimony meeting but then as we were walking back to the chapel to continue training, sister clawson started talking to me about my moms envelope artwork and I immediately started sobbing again. It was embarrassing but I couldn't help myself. Sister finch took me to a room by ourselves and I cried on her shoulder for a while. She let me cry then gave me some time to express how I was feeling and gave me a pep talk which calmed me down enough to go back in the chapel. For the next bit I just colored on my phone as I tried to fully stop my crying.

What really helped me tho was president Browns training. It reminded me that I need to ground myself and kind of get me back in touch with the fact that im in colorado, on my mission and its where I want to be.

After zone conference, we had to rush to a member dinner that was short anyways and did some other uneventful things.

December 19

Im used to a busy area so this new one we are in feels SO dead. Im trying to remind myself that there's no slow areas, only slow missionaries so I am actively doing my best to always be finding someone to teach in one way or another.

One way that was recommended to us by our district leader, was to print our the ward directory and cross reference our digital area book (the preach my gospel app) and see what names appear versus don't. When names show up on the ward directory but not preach my gospel, that means they are either dead, divorced, or a non member! We did cross referencing for a few hours until we did caroling as a zone!

I've never actually gone caroling because ive avoided it with my LIFE but it wasn't that bad!

We picked three songs to rotate and sing as a zone then went knocking in a neighborhood of mine and my companions choosing and our zone sang christmas songs and invited people in our area to come to church with us. We got two people's phone numbers from that! They both ended up blocking us tho lol

Besides that, I had a good time! I like singing and it was my first experience having a zone that actually cares about zone unity so it was a good example to me on what a fun zone can look like.

December 20

I hit 2 months as a missionary!

We currently don't have anyone we are teaching but we have a good amount of people interested so I have hope 💪

We had dinner with President and sister Dunford! President Dunford is one of the councilors to President Clawson so it was super cool to be able to have dinner with them! Sister Dunford made literally the most delicious chicken pot pie ive ever had and then she invited us to practice some Christmas songs our ward would be singing the next day. We agreed and went downstairs to practice a few songs which was fun!

It was also nice getting to know President Dunford too because hes a very jokey kind of guy. He likes to tell a dad joke then look at you with the biggest eyes and increasing smile to show he wants you to laugh. It's very entertaining to witness and just the look he makes is funny in and of itself.

After dinner we went on our first split with our STLs!

I was with sister fowles and we did some knocking and got a yellow dot (someone who is interested in being taught /going to church)! It was also nice getting to know her as we walked to each doorstep. I could tell by talking to her that she puts 110% into every action she makes as a missionary and I really admire it. I could also tell she really wants to help me be a better missionary too! She also is good at wanting to get to know me too which I felt like I didn't receive from my other STLs very much.

December 21

Okay in the pinery ward we participated inpromptu singing with the choir some Christmas songs which was super fun!

We met a yellow dot at the trails ward Sacrament meeting!

Her name is Alison and she's a German from Russia so she has a Russian accent. She also has an 11 yr old son who is highly autistic. She has no other family to help her so I feel bad. But the miracle about meeting her is that despite her son's limited vocabulary, he asked to come to our church the past few sundays! She hasn't been able to stay because he literally runs up and down the isles of the pews with childrens songs on his phone very loud but yea he wants to be here I guess! Sister finch said the Lord is working through that boy to have Alison come to church and I agree! I have hope we can teach her but it will be very slowly.

And the best part of my day was the Christmas devotional!! We went to the northern one because sister finch was singing in it. Last time, I did not enjoy it at all because I didnt know anyone but I had a great time while gathering!

I got to see sister graham, my favorite missionary ever, and I met some new sisters which are super cool! I already met hermana maxey but shes so funny😭 She is a goofball and does nothing but joke when she can just be herself. I love it so much and id totally be down to be her comp if she wasnt spanish speaking.

I also met hermana Williams, she came out the transfer before me and is also super funny. Well even better, she thinks im funny! It's my favorite compliment hehe. So id be happy if I was her comp too

I also complimented sister utuatu (or however you spell her last name) on her song from that night! Shes half tongan, from Oregon, and plays the banjo. I think its a super funny combo and her voice is amazing!

I also am working on just being friendly to more people. I briefly talked to sister link, I talked to sister ablee, and id love to get to know sister barenaba better! 

All and all, the best gathering experience I've had so far.

I also had a bonding experience with sister finch hehe.

We get in the car after gathering and find out that my phone is at 7 percent!! This is bad because I have the phone with the sim card and we rely on my phone for directions while sister finch drives. Sister finch is nervous but im cool as a cucumber. My phone ends up dying on a highway, not an interstate and we pull into a McDonald's parking lot close to the building to get the free wifi temporarily. We're laughing and screaming because we are afraid of having no idea on how to get home. But yea we connect sister finches phone to the wifi, pull up the address and drive home with no problem! Sister finch is like upset but like in a funny way because shes upset at the situation of my phone dying but cant help but laugh. I think it was a good bonding experience for us, or at least me. I take a long time to warm up to people apparently so it was nice to kind of make that process go faster.

December 22

We went golfing with president and some other elders! Not top golf, like real golf!

Lowkey didnt talk to the elders at all but it was cool to golf with president. Im really bad compared to them but I enjoyed myself anyways. Oh also I lost like 4 golf balls haha

Then we headed home (it was an hours drive) and had our apartment loosely inspected by the STLs. They are super nice imo especially compared to my last ones so I asked if they wanted to get in n out with us because sister finch and I were going to go before they told us they had to inspect our apartment.

We went and I had a great time! I talked to sister weber a great deal and it was cool getting to know her. 

Sister weber from hawaii (why are there so many islanders in my mission) is into hello kitty and got two degrees in culinary school! Her dream is to open a hawaiian-Italian restaurant once she gets of the mish. And as the child of business owners, I think its super cool her concept because its something no one has done before and can totally capture a niche audience of foodies.

We had dinner with the Morgan's, they're super nice. The parents are quirky individuals, the dad looks like Billy Krystal with big thin hair and the mom is British haha. I noted my appreciation about their beautiful fixtures on their ceilings and whatnot and I think they got a liking to me pretty quickly. 

Anywho, we had an odd spiritual thought because the dad took our idea we were trying to teach them and totally jumped in the deep end. Sister finch seemed to not know how to handle his comments so I kind of took over the bulk of the conversation. We referenced the “come what may and love it” talk and about how we have things not go the way we wanted things to but we can just laugh at the situation. Brother Morgan turned that into essentially how we can still follow God when suffering happens and other ramblings that I didnt follow. It's an interesting topic I guess but it wasnt really focused on the Savior. I did my best to save it though and we basically didnt come to an answer lol.

I also just feel so homesick right now. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to process i think and it felt like zone conference and today i was hit by a truck with homesickness. I miss sister graham, my family, and my friends back at home so badly. They get me and they know how to support me. I dont know sister finch well enough yet and I want to but I dont feel like I can trust her yet. I want to tho! I am actively working towards it but its just so early in the transfer at this point.

December 23

We had a split with the STLs and i was with sister weber this time

We had lunch then comp study and then we went walmart finding and we got two dots!

She makes it more enjoyable too bcuz she asks about me and i ask about her

After that we got crumbl (for free🤑) and split back

We visited our yellow dot Charlotte! Shes a yellow dot that used to be on date but her mom won't let her get baptized for whatever reason. Our new goal is to get in contact with the mom to discuss how we can help basically.

After that we went to king soopers to buy some supplies for treats because sister finch had the genius idea of driving around to our yellow dots on Christmas eve to give them treats and try to set up lessons! I think its super smart because we were able to provide treats and like something fun when typically people dont want to see us because they want to be with their.

Sister weber made those treats for us!

The STLs were on a split with our quad mates this evening, sister songoimoli (shes tongan btw), and sister mkacknie (a palangi), sister weber was at our apartment all evening while sister fowles and mkacknie were out. So we asked sister weber to make the treats we wanted to pass out for us! She happily agreed because she loves to make stuff and she was just kinda stuck at home since sister songoimoli didnt feel well. She made a little extra so we could try/enjoy some of them and they were so good! They were sugar cookies with coconut frosting and im still thinking about them lowkey.

While she did that, we stopped by a pmf (part member family), with no success and then went knocking around their house and we found a couple who just moved in and we taught them a few principles and got a return appointment!!!! WE GOT TWO NPTS!!!!!! Im literally so excited bro

Im feeling super hopeful right now and I can only thank God for it.

December 24

Today didnt start off the best but it ended well!

I got my period today (sorry if that's TMI) and I was having CRAMPS like nobody's business

I really did try to do personal study but I was just in so much pain that I couldn't focus

We ended up starting daily planning at 10am and left by 10:30am. So that meant we were 30 minutes late to leave our apartment. Missionary rules state that we have to be out of the apartment from 10am to 9pm everyday besides lunch and dinner.

The STLs also came over to give us our mail! I got the rest of my presents and im so hype to open them tomorrow!

Then we did some stop bys and dropped off cookies for the people we want to start teaching and did some knocking around one of their neighborhoods

We went to dinner to a cool members house! They are also related to David and Charlene smith!! The Smiths helped us out a lot with lessons in Aurora and they had pictures of all their grandkids so the Niles kids’ faces were already familiar to me haha.

The dad is a great storyteller so he told us how he and is wife met, how his parents met, how his brother met his wife, how his sister met her husband and then we had to not talk about his last sibling because we were already going over haha. We talked about the 3 wisemen and how they gave their gifts but also their time to travel as a gift and asked how each of them can give a gift to the savior this year.

I enjoyed the stories the dad told especially because his daughters were so invested.

Next up, we did some knocking in a cul de sac in their neighborhood then we went caroling in castle rock as a zone!

I have a newfound respect for STLS and a new disrespect for elders lol. I had a lot of fun caroling with my zone but a DL in our zone was being a weirdo…

We were all proud of elder Simon for inviting people to church and this DLs version of congratulating him was basically dry humping him😭 Elder simon was uncomfortable, I was uncomfortable, and what made it worse is that this DL did it again! Bro needs a sit down talk or sm idk

We also got the police lowkey called on us

Elder Taggart knocked on a door kind of aggressively and an old lady literally screamed from the top of her lungs and told us she was going to call the police. She did and they police officer was very kind about it. They knew this lady and how paranoid she is and simply asked how late we would be out then went on her way

We did some more knocking and then called it a night! 

Sister weber and sister fowles also told us while on the blitz doing caroling that they are house sitting!! The senior missionaries in our zone asked them to house sit and president gave them permission! The STLs also asked to have a movie night and president and the senior missionaries gave permission to have it there as well! Im super pumped honestly. The STLs are so nice and genuinely want to hang out with us which I think is so awesome!

They also dropped of treats for tomorrow😭 they are so kind bro 

December 25

I couldn't sleep on on Christmas day because I was so anxious to text my parents and open gifts with them! I did that around 8 or 9 and chatted with them too then got ready for our zone white elephant gift exchange.

My gift was the hot commodity apparently which I thought was nice and I ended up getting sister fowles’ journal.

After that we went back to the apartment and I slept for 3 hours! It was so nice and thats why I wasn't able to post a blog that day so ill have to wait till pday on monday (this is what i wrote in my journal that day btw). After nap time, we headed to a member dinner who hosted their own family, me and sister finch, and sister songoimoli and mcacknie and elder preece and garritty. All of them are in YSA wards so they didnt have a place to go. I thought it was super nice! Once that was over, we went home, changed into matching pjs, and drove to the kaisers house where the STLs were house sitting for them and we watched the fighting preacher! Sister finches aunt also stopped by (with Presidents approval) and gave sister finch and I, a bunch of treats! It was super nice and we have so many sweets at our apartment now its kind of insane. 

We were only able to watch 2/3s of the fighting preacher then it was time to go. We got back home at 9:45ish and I tried to write my email but I had too much to write and it was too late. I ended up going to bed at around 11 which is no Bueno for my sleepy self.

December 26

Lowkey not much happened

Regular missionary stuff and I didnt feel that productive but everyday cant be a 10/10

December 27

We went to dinner at a member's house and they are obsessed with Legos like another family I had dinner with so that's funny to have that be a pattern for me.

 I thought they were nice, we had a fun conversation about music and we shared our spiritual thought and then right as we were about to leave the husband dropped a total juicy drama bomb that he was excommunicated previously!!!? And like he served a mission and everything too so im so curious as to what happened there. Like he said he never lost his testimony of the gospel stuff so I just want to know so badly😭 What im the most curious about is how the holy ghost is officially removed from someone permanently. Like thats so fascinating to me!

Anywho after that we went knocking for like an hour. Not a great amount of time to have our line in the water but im just glad we got some kind of finding time in that day because it was filled with a bunch of meetings. I also started to put Xs on houses that answered their door and said they weren't interested. I think this can help us because it shows us and future missionaries where to knock, and I get to feel productive weeding out people. I like being able to see our progress.

It was a solid day but I want to have our line in the water more.

December 28

Annoyingly, we had to leave by 7:50am to get out the door and remind our friends at church, but we were able to get in contact with a couple! The husband said his wife was sick though haha

WE TAUGHT ALISON!!! 

For context, shes the one with the autistic son who is very unpredictable 

We were able to teach her 4 principles from lesson 1 and told her that whenever she goes to the park by our chapel, she should call us and we can meet her there to hang out. So now shes a green dot (that means she is actively being taught)!!

During our companion study together, we switched the sim card from my phone to sister finch's because we were not receiving all of our message on my phone. Once the sim card was switched, we received 41 messages!!!😭 They were from like Christmas eve to yesterday. We couldn't do anything about it so we just laughed and responded to the ones that weren't too old.

We had dinner with a member, then we went to walmart to meet the STLs and we picked up a guy with sister weber's spanish! We hadn't even started the split and I just asked the guy if he wanted to come to church then when he said he couldnt speak english, I called sister weber over and she was able to teach him and get a return appointment!

Once we started the split, sister fowles and I got two phone numbers when it was just us and we did some knocking to no success but today was fun!! I enjoyed it thoroughly and I hope to mimic its success everyday if possible.

December 29

Pday!! 

We did daily planning, I did my personal study, then I went back to sleep at 7:30am. At like 10am ish I was able to call my mom for nearly an hour! It was nice catching up with her❤️

Then sister finch and I tried to go to Texas roadhouse for lunch but apparently they dont open till 3:30pm?? Didn't know that 🤷‍♀️ There was Crumbl nearby tho and the Crumbl in Parker gives missionaries stuff for free!! So we got dirty sodas (because apparently they sell them there now??) for free then shopped at walmart for weekly shopping and whatnot, got chickfila with gift cards we both conveniently had, and now im here back home finishing my email!

Holy Crap! 

Sorry if that's was a lot but it was an eventful two weeks I guess haha

My plan is to download a voice recording app and read all of this out loud so yall can just listen to it and hopefully the next time yall read my email you can read it like how I would speak in your heads so I can lovingly haunt yall.

And again, I LOVE emails from all of you! Even if you're my dad's friend I dont know very well, im happy to read any email! I'd especially love to hear your thoughts on how my writing is or some ways I can make these posts more interesting.

Okay, love y'all!

Sister Moghimi

1250 Main Street, Broomfield, CO

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K8riSQGsCa65xx9u6