Two Little Caesar's Pizzas...! - July 25, 2016

                    Hello and Happy Monday Friends and Family! Sister Ritchie just gave me a hug from her family because they think we are doing a great work here. I like to think we are too. Being in Saco is going pretty great. In honesty, last week was kinda a blur. We had district P-Day, Zone Interviews, and exchanges. So we were pretty scattered around southern Maine this week. But it was all good. And like the title indicates, we ended up with two Little Caesars pizzas by the end of the week so that's a win for any college age person.

                    Like I said, Monday was District P-Day in Windham. Well, mostly. Sister Ritchie and I originally weren't planning on going but we made time to go last minute, unannounced to us that it was cancelled. Luckily the Cornish elders were with the Windham elders so when we called at the Windham chapel they left Wal-Mart and met us at the chapel with a Little Caesars pizza for lunch (which we paid them back for) and the coolest Nerf war ever. It's always fun to pelt your mission leaders with Nerf bullets. Sister Ritchie and I held our own pretty well, I mean, I hit a lot of elders in the head. So good times.

                    Tuesday and Wednesday were normal missionary days. One cool highlight was we were out Tuesday morning and we talked to guy sitting outside and we asked if he believed in Christ and he said yes. We told him how the Book of Mormon is another Testament of Christ and we gave him a copy and before we said anything else he said he would read it. Missionary win! But that night the members that were signed up to feed us forgot! So they went out and got us, you guessed it, a Little Caesar's pizza. And crazy bread. Can't complain much.

                    Wednesday we caught a former investigator we hadn't been able to catch my entire time here so little blessings.

                    Thursday was zone interviews in Portland. As always they went long so my interview went a little into lunch hour. And President and Sister Blair have had a lot on their plates with sick missionaries going home and other general mission crises so interviews were really kinda hectic. But we had an awesome training from the zone leaders about being yourself but a missionary and why we need to get along as companions. And that evening we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders where I received Sister Rogerson to be in Saco. So Sister Rogerson came out with me and we were even in the same MTC room so we had a lot of fun catching up and talking about our missions so far.

                    Friday Sister Rogerson and I hit Saco hard with the gospel. Everyone we saw we talked to. What was funny was the first guy we saw (who we could tell was joking around) ran away once he saw Sister Rogerson trying to hand him a Book of Mormon. Like, literally ran. It was hilarious. But everyone else we talked to, whether they were interested or not, was pretty sweet and we were able to leave them with something to learn from. I even gave a Book of Mormon and testified to someone who said they were atheist. It was a great time.

                    We had our usual Friday lunch with the Walkes but this time we had it at their old beach cottage where Buffles (remember, she is 107) would spend her summers growing up. We had lobster rolls, ice cream, and just too much fun on the beach. Did I mention I serve near a beach? Yeah, Saco is pretty cool.

                    Compared to that, the rest of our weekend was pretty boring. We did a lot of weekly planning, helped at the food pantry in Arundel, and avoided a storm that apparently was having quarter size hail hitting a lot of southern Maine. But not Saco! We just got scattered showers. And yesterday I totally forgot was Pioneer Day. No one did anything related to it at church so sorry if you're expecting a cool story for that...

                    So that was the week of the Saco 2 area. I hope your week was pretty great and are enjoying the summer. I love and miss you all and pray you have a good upcoming week!

Love, 

Sister Wright

On the beach with sister Rogerson

Six Months Left?! - July 18, 2016

With Captain Eli's Blueberry Pop - "Thanks for the suggestion Hardy family in Brewer"

                    Hello and happy Monday friends and family! Yes, you read that title right. I only have six months left out here in the NHMM and it's still blowing my mind. The fact I've been out a year blows my mind. For all you Asdf Movie fans, I really feel like Desmond the Moon Bear. "How did I get here?" THE END. That's really what the mission is friends. Too fast.

                    But enough about my exit able demise. I'm sure you are all wondering how this week went. I'm gonna be honest, it was just another missionary week. Unexciting to hear, I know, but I mean, I did missionary things. I invited people to learn. Watched people play Pokemon Go. Did my best to stay cool. Typical 2k16 summer missionary things. But there are some cool highlights so I'll share some of those.

                    We started off the week dropping both of our "new" investigators". They weren't really new anymore considering we hadn't seen either of them in about a month. One actually texted us to drop us so that was a hard way to start a week. But we went forward in faith that things would work out. And allowed ourselves to enjoy Zone P-Day at Portland Headlight again. After P-Day we were called by a member's husband that his wife needed a visit in the hospital so we were able to visit her right in time for her to be awake. She was so glad to see us because she appreciated the comfort. And on the way up we caught another member we work with who volunteers at the hospital! So no new investigators but we felt like we left people feeling loved.

                    Tuesday was crazy. We watered flowers for Heart of Biddeford again but besides that all our appointments (even our member dinner!) fell through so we spent a lot of time scratching our heads going "ok well". As always, it worked out, because we got to stop by a less active man and cheer him up for the day.

                    In review now I'm looking at what happened Wednesday and we yet again caught another less active member to establish contact with. I'm seeing a pattern here.

                    Thursday I got the chance to help two less active sisters with their family history on Familysearch.org which I always enjoy. I'm honestly super grateful that's an emphasis here in this mission because a lot of people want to do their family history and they don't know how or they don't want to pay. Familysearch.org is completely free and easy to use! It has literally billions of records so use it!

                    Moving on from my familysearch.org ad, Friday we do service for this sweet woman in the outskirts of Old Orchard Beach and she recently has needed help with her house work so we spend time over there helping her do little things she can't do on her own right now. While we were helping her clean her closet we found some tops she didn't want anymore but we thought were way cute and she said "Well go try them on!" So we did and a five minute fashion show later we each had a new cute top. Sweet!

                    Saturday our day started with the ward BBQ which was fun. The pool was open so we rarely saw any kids and got to spend a lot of time with adults getting to know them. We also had a pastor of a local church we do service for come to the BBQ and he said he really enjoyed it! He especially enjoyed meeting the bishop, saying "I like your pastor, he's a good guy". Haha yeah we tried to explain that he was called by revelation but we think it went over his head. Oh well.

                    Sunday was really great, as always. The Saco Squad Missionary Force did scripture heroes again (you might be thinking we do this every week but we don't. We are doing it every 3rd Sunday because of the new teachers council for Teaching the Savior's Way and they need people in primary so it will most likely be a while until you hear about scripture heroes again). This week's lineup was Alma (title role by yours truly), Alma the Younger, Job, and Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednigo. For you NHMM RM's you will giggle to know that the past three scripture hero performances, Elder J. Williams had played some form of an evil king. As in last time he was the antagonist each performance. He kinda has a reputation in primary now. I'll just let you all sit and enjoy that. But this week while he was playing Nebuchadnezzar he of course was trying to force us to worship the idol which took the form of a cell phone for junior primary but in senior primary was one girl's pink sparkly croc. That got a lot of laughs. And the kids were way too excited to throw us into the fiery furnace. But we survived, obviously.

                    Oh I also got a chance to finally see Meet the Mormons during lunch times this week. Verdict: Disappointed they didn't use that scene in Cheers when Sam is messing with Kristie Allie's character about Mormons. But the film itself was pretty great. I will admit I got emotional with the Candy Bomber and the Missionary Mom. It's pretty decent quality and is probably 8/10 for just being a good movie. Would recommend. If you haven't seen it, it is on LDS.org and the Gospel Library App so enjoy!

                    Besides that, like I prefaced, this week wasn't extraordinary. This upcoming week we have exchanges and zone interviews though so it should get pretty exciting. I love you all and pray you are all doing well! Enjoy the summer!

Love,

Sister Wright

 "Zone Coolness"

"This was at the members house that we had Fourth of July with"

Oh Thank Heaven! - July 11, 2016

 "Because 7-11"

         Hello and happy Monday friends and family. I hope you all have enjoyed your free small Slurpee from 7-11. I saw they have a Birthday Cake favored Slurpee for the fiftieth celebration so if that is something that interests you, go for it. I got the Sour Patch Kids Redberry Slurpee and it freakishly tastes just like a Sour Patch Kid. 10 points to 7-11.

         Anyway, I did do missionary things this last week. And I did good missionary things like service, and then getting featured in a local newspaper for service. And met the mission president. And played softball. So, ultimately, a fairly interesting week.

         Last week on Monday after emails and grocery shopping Sister Ritchie and I did some fun shopping at Mardens. For all you non-Mainers, you are missing out, Mardens is the coolest and best for cheap, nice clothes. I got three tops that all work pretty well for missionarying. I'm sure you all care. What's more important is I got to play softball a bit with a member family and I was so happy. I haven't thrown a ball around in a year (since the MTC) and it was nice to just play around a bit. Great way to celebrate America!

         Tuesday we started the day with service for Heart of Biddeford where they had us go and water the flowers in Downtown Biddeford again. Sister Ritchie didn't hurt herself but a man from the Journal Tribune was walking around and saw us and came over, and told us "I was told to go find interesting things around town and this is interesting." No kidding, its two girls in skirts with a giant wagon of a water contraption. Totally interesting. So we explained who we are, what we were doing, and assumed he'd find something cooler by the end of the day. Flash forward to Thursday, we are out tracting and we invite this one lady who isn't interested but does a double take and goes "I think I saw you on the newspaper". Huh? So she goes in, pulls out a newspaper, and there we are, front page, color photo. Us. It was crazy! And then on Saturday the pastor of the church where we do service put the photo on the bulletin board. So yeah, we are popular. What's craziest is it happened an exact year after I met Stephanie Nielson. So July 5 is the day for Sister Wright to be famous I guess.

         On Thursday we met President Blair and he is awesome. He worked for Nestle Purina and his personality is so energetic that I really want to call him Willy Wonka. He brought us chocolate and everything. He also came to Saco Ward as the first ward in his trip to see all the wards. The ward really enjoyed him and his family too. So good times.

         Sorry this week is kinda sparse. Zone P-Day kinda wore me out but it's been fun playing ultimate frisbee at the Portland Headlight. Still working on finding people to teach but tis the season really. I hope you all have a good upcoming week and love and miss you all!

Love,

Sister Wright 

"And yes, President Blair brought chocolate"

"We are newspaper famous"

WELCOME TO EARTH - July 4, 2016

                   "Being Festive"

                    HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!! It's your favorite missionary from the region of this great nation's birth, New England! I hope you all have a wonderful (and safe) Independence Day planned. I won't take up too much of your time but I hope you enjoyed the Independence Day (number 1 now, I guess) movie quote. May we all celebrate Will Smith punching aliens in the face for the world's freedom.

                    But back to missionary life, this week has been pretty great. I officially hit my year mark, quite literally walked through a pair of shoes, and just saw some pretty great times where the Lord has reached out to us so, I'll jump right in. (Oh and we aren't having Zone P-Day today because traffic around Portland and Old Orchard Beach are going to be gross so Sister Ritchie and I are taking a chill

P-Day).

                    This last week I think we helped about three members with their family history work which I personally always enjoy. The best was Thursday when the member had no idea who her grandparents were on either side because her parents never spoke about them but I was able to show her how simple it was to search sources on familysearch.org and we found her grandparents in less than 5 minutes! She was way exited! We were excited to because these are just some more ancestors she can take to the temple to be united with for eternity! So she is getting pretty far along towards getting to the temple, or at least feeling more like she needs to go there. AND we met someone who let us into her home because we asked if she did her genealogy and she said yes! So we have a potential new investigator to teach because of Family History!

                    Speaking of skills, so Sister Ritchie and I felt like we needed to go visit a recent convert in our area which seems pretty easy but the catch is she is still learning English and her family predominately speaks French. So we don't know her schedule so we decided to stop by and of course we got a French speaker. I was able (quite miraculously) understand most of what she was telling us because I with my broken French asked if she as home. My pronunciation was way off and luckily she knew a little English so we mostly spoke in broken Fran-glish but I was able to do pretty well for a five minute stop and find.

                    Wednesday evening we knew the Elders were in our area to help a member move and we were going to be in their area to have dinner with a member. So when the moving member called we were worried something happened or someone needed help but instead he asked if we wanted any of his left over food he couldn't take on the move, including things like a gallon of milk, tons of cheese, and cereal. Being basically poor college students we said "SURE" and went over. So we got a lot of free food, which, if you know me, is a blessing.

                     We helped in Primary again at church on Sunday. We did scripture heroes again and us 

missionaries acted out David, Esther, Daniel, Joseph of Egypt, and Moses. I chose Joseph of Egypt and 

brought a "multicolor" coat as a prop. The kids (and the teachers) loved it. 

                    Besides that this week we missionaried a lot. I hit my year mark Friday which still really blows my mind. I keep reading my study and personal journals from last year and think "That wasn't a year ago! That was like a week ago". I've grown a lot and learned a lot and really wouldn't change my mission for the world. Summer is a rough time as a missionary but I know this is where and when the Lord wants me to be here.

                    May we all have an awesome 240th birthday party for the US! I love and miss you all!

Love,

Sister Wright 

"Happy Fourth"

"Raising my step baby right"

"So this happened. Maybe I HAVE been out a year"

"Chicken fingers in my waffle maker grilled cheese. Because I'm worth it"