It's not easy being green

This is long. Sorry.

I'm in Virginia! It's really great. I've enjoyed every day here so far!

I'll write about my week before I left then I will get to the actually exciting stuff :]

I finished online MTC last Friday and it was a bit weird to not have class and be at home for a few days, but I really appreciated the extra time with my family.

General Conference was great. There was a lot of emphasis on unity,  persevering through trials, and becoming more Christlike. I took pretty good notes compared to the last few conferences,  and I tried to draw the speakers so I could stay focused.

I've got kind of a funny story, my mom and I were at Walmart on Monday and our cashier was talking to us a ton, he was excited that I was a missionary and we talked about conference, he said that he was a painter and an author, he works for Steven Covey and wrote "7 highly effective habits for disabled people", and then he asked me when I was leaving because he wanted to paint something for me. I told him,  he asked me who my favorite apostle was and I said Elder Uchtdorf. He was really excited about it because he had never painted him before. He called me on Wednesday and we picked the painting up from him. 

My flight to DC was on Thursday and I successfully navigated though by myself (woo!). I arrived at 4 and met my companions after they had a zone conference with President and Sister Duckworth, who had only been here for a week. It was also the first physical zone conference they had during Corona, so everyone was excited to see each other. That night we had to run across the street to get a pizza at 9:30 because we had so many lessons. We teach people over zoom. 

My companions are Sister Harrison, Jackson, and Wilson. We're in a temporary group of 4 missionaries until Sister Wilson goes home on Wednesday. I'll be with Sister Harrison in a different apartment,  and Sister Jackson will get 2 other companions in the same apartment. 

My first area is Alexandria, in the Mount Vernon Stake. Alexandria is a big city and I like it a lot. 

I'm a bit sad to be moving out of the apartment I was in with the quad. It's on the 16th floor and has a great view of DC across the Potomac river. I spent like half of my first personal study looking out the window at DC and also falling asleep because it is two hours earlier here. Hopefully I'll get to move there again someday. 

My companions make me run in the mornings and it is not the greatest but I will get used to it

I'm speaking English here but still practicing Spanish. I did get to use my Spanish in a pass off lesson with someone because the Hermanas are going to be teaching her. We muted our mic and I translated what they were saying to her into English. I felt pretty good. Also we went to get salteñas from a Bolivian restaurant. They were delicious. 

I love how many people there are from different countries. It's really cool to meet people from all around the world. Our bishop is from Hungary, we are teaching people from Ethiopia, South Africa, China, UAE, Mongolia, and many others! Our mission (DC South) actually has missionaries assigned to speak Spanish, Farsi, Chinese, and Korean. (Not all of them at once... you know what I mean) we also have lots of foreign language book of Mormons. Super cool.

The highlight of our week was a devotional we had with all of our recently baptized members that we have been teaching. They shared their stories and testimonies. I feel connected to them even though I didn't convert them. My love for everyone is growing. 

That's about all I have to say.

Have a marvelous week!

Sister/Hermana Smalley

*note from Mom. The night before Sarah left we had an early birthday party. We played Jackbox games and had cake and ice cream. We all hugged and said goodnight. Aaron was going to Richfield on Thursday so he needed to go to bed early.  We had prayer and he asked me to say it.  As I prayed I just sobbed, I plead with Heavenly Father to watch over Sarah and keep her safe and sound.

The next morning we drove to the airport. Oh boy was my heart heavy. I know Heavenly Father will bless and keep her safe.  She truly is in His hands!

Look at her striding off with confidence not looking back :) 

*note from Sarah: I was actually very nervous ':)