March 24, 2014 Transferred to Austin, Minnesota!

its snowing! 

well! I am now in a new area! The wonderful town of Austin, Minnesota! Me and Hermana Maravilla had quite a fun road trip from Bloomington to Rochester (an hour and fourty minute drive) just to go eat with the district and then we drove to Austin (another fourty five minutes) it was about 140 miles total. But it was fun! and the sunset was gorgeous as we left the big city and drove through the snow covered countryside until we got to the small town of Austin where we met the sisters here and Sister Register, who is the member that we live with. 

okay... I. LOVE. AUSTIN. i think im going to stay here for the rest of my mission. or at least for three transfers (: its a small town and its got a really small town feel. we live with a member, sister register. and she is great! she is really interesting to! well everyone here is really unique in personalities! she was in the airforce, and she served two missions, her first one in billings montana. where did you live in montana again? and then she just got back from a mission in nauvoo shes got some fun pictures of that, i want to serve a mission in nauvoo! it looks like a lot of fun, she had to wear pioneer outfits all the time and she learned how to quilt. our ward is awesome! its a magnet ward so that means that we have english and spanish. right now they are mostly english with only a couple spanish families ( but that will change soon) but all of them are so gungho about missionary work. most of them are converts themselves actually so its been so interesting to hear there stories about how they met the missionaries and how they were converted. haha oh and me and hermana maravilla joined the choir and let me tell you the choir leader is a hoot! haha i have never met anyone quite like her! shes got such a bubbly energetic personality you cant help but love to sing haha mostly because shes pulling faces every five seconds telling you you look like your a zombie and to  smmmiiiiiile! (imagine that in a sing songy voice) haha and then when we do good she does this high pitched squeel letting us know we did good! haha its so fun. sister maravilla is awesome to. i am really grateful to have her (: she is really relaxed and thoughtful like me and just really focused on missionary work and shes just awesome all around. shes been out on her mission for 11 months and shes from washington but she was born in mexico, and shes a convert to, she got baptized 9 years ago.

So I'll tell you a little history about Austin. Austin is the SPAM capitol of the world, yes. we are priviledged to have the factory right here in our town and they even have a SPAM museum! we are going to go there sometime soon (: ill send pictures. That is where most of the people work at here, either that or QPP which is the factory that prepares the pigs for SPAM. Or they work and the Mayo clinic.

Like I said I love Austin already. Opening an area is pretty hard though. That means we start missionary work from scratch, but it has already been such an adventure and I'm learning a lot! haha so the other day we were out tracting a trailer park and the snow was frozen over so we just walked on the top of it and I told Hermana Maravilla in a surprised voice, "you're walking on water!" haha and then every couple steps your foot would fall through the weak parts of the snow and we'd say "ah! I lost my faith for a second!" that was our joke for the rest of the day haha. 

well, im out of time. but I want to let you know that this church is so true. Hermana Maravilla and I have been doing some history research on our church and other religions because we've had a lot of people question us about having the priesthood authority from God. I've come to learn why history is so important to know and why having knowledge helps you learn the truth! And I know without a doubt that this church is true!

until next time! love you all! 

Love, Hermana Ficklin