TEXASSSSSSS

Oh man. K I have so much to say so I am going to try and make this as fluid as possible!

TEXAS! It is so pretty! I feel like I am in a movie! It is so much greener than i thought that it would be! I was like picturing tumble weeds and all sorts of stuff! But no it is like really wooded. The mission so much different than I thought that it would be. I feel like there are so many people out there but they are SO hard to find like most of the stuff we have been doing is visiting less actives, and helping them come back to church. My companion is great. She is super nice and fun. Her name is sister Folsom. SHE DATED DAN IN HIGH SCHOOL! I am dead serious. Can you believe that? He had told me that she was in this mission when I got my call and we talked about how funny that would be if she was my trainer... oh man. Well it came true. So funny. So we talked about Dan and his family a ton which was really funny. I told her about Willy, and Caiti and Will's wedding. We know so many of the same people so that has been really fun.  She actually is really good friends with Cameron and Suzz. She LOVES Cameron. She knows Lauren too! She is so cute!

So as far as only buying ugly shoes goes... why did I do that?! We have a car and I am pretty sure we will always have a car. *knock on wood* Everyone is jealous of us because we have this LEGIT red tacoma that is brand new. All the elders are jealous of it, they just sit there at zone meeting and drool at it. I can't even tell you how many times we have been checked out at red lights. Next time I am just going to hold up a BoM with our phone number in it and hold it up to the window. It is a really good truck and its super handy but it is really hard to get into when you are wearing a pencil skirt haha. It is like the mission office's pride and joy so maybe its a good thing I can't drive it. I have to take a defensive driving class before i can drive...BOOO. Too many tickets. On Friday night we played dodgeball with the young men and young women from the area. We had missionaries vs. future missionaries, it was really fun. Elder T (I can't remember his name, he is tongan and its like 14 letters long) calls me sister hummingbird because I was running around and darting around so fast. All the Elders are super nice. But I let Elder Schmidt drive the truck and he was so excited. After, Sister Folsom gets back into the car and we are driving away. They she says, "ewww why is my back wet?"... I say. "What? I have no idea..." and then we both looked at each other and realized that it was because Schmidt had been sitting in the drivers seat and he was all sweaty. It was SO nasty. Sister F like pretty much started gagging. It was hilarious. We texted him after and gave him a hard time about it, but he said driving the truck was worth the embarrassment.

I LOVE President and Sister Pingree. They are AMAZING. And they have the sweetest little family. I like really can't get over how sweet they are. We drove with them from the airport and they just kept saying "so do you have any questions?" We were all so shocked and exhausted that we didn't even know where to begin asking... We hadn't even left the parking garage before President Pingree had gotten someone's name, address, phone number and given her a pass along card. He is amazing. Talk about an amazing missionary, he is so brave. NO FEAR. He told us that when he got called to this mission he was so scared and nervous and he had a voice come to him and say, "There are tens of thousands of people prepared to hear this message. Go find them." So we always say, "We've got tens of thousands to find! Lets get out there!"

We live in the best set up ever. Everyone keeps telling me that I lucked out big time and that I have been so spoiled to have this as my first area. We live in Tomball and we are serving in the Magnolia area. It is so pretty! There are so many trees everywhere and there are magnolia trees in so many of the yards. I keep thinking about Steel Magnolias. The people are really so so nice. We live with the Relief society president and her husband. They are amazing. I love them. It is like having a mom here in Texas she takes such good care of us. The other night we came inside and she had vegetable soup cooking on the stove with fresh veggies from her garden! Then sister Folsom said, "hmmmm Sister G do you have anything sweet, like chocolate?" and Sister G opens her cabinet and pulls out some brownie mix and walnuts so we just whipped up some brownies! SO GOOD. We live in this tiny little guest house in the back yard. The Geisekes (Gee-ski) own a nursery here in houston and so they LOVE to garden. They have a huge huge huge garden and so they have fresh vegetables all the time.  They have two dogs, a parrot, a cat (that I have only seen once and I tried to coax over to me but she was too shy... what a shame. I wanted a cat as a pet on my mission and I got my wish but I can't even pet it. Sad day.) They also have like a gazillion chickens and a few roosters (aka our second alarm clock.) There are also 25 chicks and 2 horses. Its like old McDonald's farm up in here. 

 We only have 275 miles we can drive every week and our areas is so spread out it is hard. We have to get rides with members a ton. And we can't tract. We live in the boonies so we would have to walk like 5 miles to knock on any doors and we have to be sparing with our miles. I am really glad that we are not on bikes! They just opened two sister biking areas! Yikes. That would be so hot! We have such an amazing ward. I seriously can't get over it.... i am blown away with the amount of missionary support! There are 12 ward missionaries and then us and one set of elders. It makes all the people in Utah look so lazy! They do SO much work. Mom, you need to have the missionaries over for dinner more! It is such a blessing! We went over to a members house on friday before dodgeball and we had crawfish it was actually really good. I was surprised. I probably wouldn't have eaten them if I had known that they were called mud bugs... gross. After we left my hands started swelling up and they were on fire! So after dodgeball we went to walgreens and got some Benadryl. The elders were cute they called and wanted to know how I was doing. Sister Folsom and I said, "I love that we have all these cute little 19 year old elders to look out for us." They always ask us if we need anything. They are sweet. I love them all already. 

-Sister King

Well I will send more pictures in the next email! I love you all! Keep writing me! My address is: 

10602 Ward Road

Tomball, TX 77375