Soup and Eggshells

Hey Family!

Well, it's official! I have completed my first transfer in the field. Am I still a greenie? I don't know. My first transfer in the field is also my first transfer in America--but not my last. Yes, it's true. I have not received my visa to o to Taiwan and as a result, I am staying in Stansbury Park, UT for another six weeks. And as far as I know at this moment, Sister Payne is staying with me! So we get to have six more weeks of adventures together. In all honesty, I don't have much feeling towards excitement or disappointment. I knew my visa wasn't here yet so I wasn't really expecting to go to Taiwan yet, and I was happy to stay here in Stansbury or even go somewhere else in the mission (I was feeling Fruit Heights.) But here I am! And as soon as I finish this email we are going to Deseret Industries and Payless to find me some winter clothes and boots. We literally had snow on our car this morning. Awesome. #visaprobs.

Hmm what else. This week has been full of pumpkins, candy, and wind. Also soup. Seriously, is it a thing to make tons of different kinds of soup? We went to two trunk-or-treats and a Relief Society activity where they had everyone bring a different kind of soup to eat. (The chicken tortilla with avocados from Stansbury ward was the best.) Then on Halloween night a member invited us over for dinner where she had made broccoli cheese, potato bacon, and chicken tortilla soup. So delicious. She also made the best pumpkin bars I have ever had.

We also did a lot of contacting this week, as always. We still have long lists of names to knock on their doors and see how they are doing. One problem we have is we forget who the person is when we knock on their door, whether they are less active or just need somebody to stop by and give them love. So we do a lot of awkwardly standing on doorsteps until they invite us in or we ask to come back or they tell us to go away. But it's all good.

Friday was a pretty cool day! We had a district meeting in the morning and then a special meeting with just our district and the mission president, President Hansen. We were all a little bit worried (is chastisement upon us?) but couldn't figure out anything we had done wrong. Is my visa here and President needs to talk to all of us to tell me? Are we finally getting iPads? The answer to all of these questions is no. President and Sister Hansen are starting a thing where they go around to different districts literally to do a Q&A session. We were allowed to ask President anything we wanted. So that was awesome, he told us all about how deciding transfers goes and talked about how to recognize personal revelation. Then at the end they were about to leave and you could see President having an internal debate. Finally he goes, "Oh, I'll just tell you. No one in this district is going to be moving this transfer." So we knew that we were all staying, but couldn't really tell anyone until Sunday night. So that was kind of fun.

In the afternoon we stopped by the house of an older couple (still not sure why their name was on our list. They are less active?) and hcatted with them for a bit. Shared a scripture. After that the husband goes, "Well, now that we have religion done with, do you guys like Sudoku?" He was doing a really hard Sudoku and asked us to help him. Then he told us that he had been given all these Sudoku books by someone and that he had so many, "I'm not going to be able to finish all these before I die!" so he gave them to us. Nine of them. We decided we would make a goal to finish completely one book so we could bring it back to him and tell him we had helped him with his goal. So on Halloween night when we had to stay in after 6 pm we did our weekly planning, then did Sudokus. It was pretty fun.

Saturday was good too! Sister Payne has had this deal going with one of our less actives that he wouldn't drink until November 1st and she would give up McDonalds. They both made it, which is awesome! So he took us out to McDonald's in the afternoon, it was pretty nice. We decided we probably shouldn't take him out for a drink.

Saturday evening was way interesting too. We went to dinner then walked around the same neighborhood to contact some of the names on our list. The first people were an older couple who were way nice and very happy to see us. They told us about their ex-daughter-in-law who had remarried to an Irishman named Stephen and they lived just two doors down. They warned us that he was very straightforward but loved talking to the missionaries. So we took a deep breath and knocked on his door; boy, was he Irish. He was way nice, very friendly, and very smart. And very stubborn. After talking about who we are, where we're from, etc, I mentioned that I studied Anthropology. He wants to be a history teacher once he can do his schooling in the US and was very interested to hear that I study that. "Tell me this," he said. "with you studying anthropology, how does that tie into your belief in the Book of Mormon?" What a wonderful way to open the door to a gospel conversation! Well, let me tell you. Stephen is very interested in proof; other religions have so much evidence of their scriptures but the Book of Mormon has nothing (says he. I could have pulled out some Proofs of the Book of Mormon but I knew it wouldn't go anywhere.), so how can you believe it's true, with you studying the science of peoples and archaeology and all that? I basically told him this: the lack of archaeological evidence about this giant battle or that city in the Book of Mormon being found in Central/South America doesn't bother me at all. Archaeology is awesome, but it is so hard to get anything definite. If we were to take your garbage can and bury it for 1000 years do you know what would be left? Eggshells. Literally only that. What can you find out from that? Somebody ate an egg. No, not even that. Somebody cracked an egg. So pretty much nothing. So the fact that we haven't found giant battlefields and a "Welcome to Zarahemla" sign means nothing to me; all it means is that I want to study it more. Instead of making me doubt that the Book of Mormon is a true record, it makes me want to go be the person that finds that evidence (I don't really plan on going into archaeology directly, but don't tell him that). What it really comes down to is whether or not I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. To believe that I have to believe that God called prophets in ancient days. And to believe that I have to believe that God loves us. Guess what? I believe all that. I know that God called a prophet to restore His church upon the earth again and that that prophet was Joseph Smith. I know that God brought forth the fullness of His gospel through the Book of Mormon, and that it is the truest record that can be found. So what if we haven't found the temple Nephi built 2600 years ago. That was a really long time ago. My testimony of the Book of Mormon is not dependent on the work archaeologists, it is dependent on my faith in God and the Holy Ghost telling me it is true.

So there.

Stephen says he doesn't like to read and won't read the Book of Mormon until he knows it is true. (Anyone have any articles about evidence of the Book of Mormon in Central America?) But you know what, I am here for another six weeks, and maybe the reason I'm staying is so that I can help Stephen see that science and religion can totally go hand in hand. I knew I couldn't have been this smart for nothing :)

Well, love you all! You are great. Stay awesome!

Love,

Sister Cardon

PS bonus pumpkin carving pic.