Hello from Richmond!

I am officially living in Richmond now. How weird. I never thought I would live in Richmond, but it's really cool and a lot more diverse than Newport News and Norfolk. There is no military, which is a bummer, but we have a lot of people that attend VCU. It's diverse because we have the really nice historical homes, but then we also have the Projects. As sisters we have areas that we cannot go to unless we have an appointment and then only during the day. We call it the "never zone". And we also have areas that we try not to be in after 5pm unless we have an appointment. It's weird because I came from Norfolk, which is super ghetto. But ghetto doesn't necessarily mean dangerous I guess... Don't worry, we are careful!! I know what you are all thinking. But trust me, we are not being silly sisters. We are following the restrictions. The Branch is small and they have most of the leadership positions filled by members called in from other wards. So half the ward is out of our boundaries. We have a few African families and a bunch of college students. Two of the YW, both from the African families, when they met me were in amazement of my hair. I wore it down and they kept touching it and telling me they like it. Haha. After Sacrament started I realized that I was one of 2 people with blonde hair and the other ladies was dyed. I tend to stick out with my blonde hair. That's strange because I'm in America. Haha.

Because it's a branch, there aren't as many members and apparently a lot of the women work too. Church is at 11am. I've had 9am church my whole mission and then for almost 3 years before that, so it's different meeting later in the morning. We don't get out till 2pm, so we were starving after! We get an hour of study in the morning before our bishop meeting, which is different. I've never had Sunday study! It's great.

Sister Adaniya is great. We are very similar to each other as far as the work goes, so it's going to be a good transfer. She is a convert of 5 years (sweet!!! to have a convert for a comp!) and her dad was baptized a couple of years ago, but her mom and brother have still not joined. She is Japanese Okinawan, but 2nd generation raised in Hawaii. She likes foreign foods and is a good cook, so we are going to eat good this transfer. We are both excited because she hasn't really had any comps that are into foreign things really. She has done some traveling, so we are going to have a lot of fun this transfer. And we both have some really good ideas of how to help the area grow.

We have a recent convert named Raymond Woods. He got baptized not too long ago at the age of 90. Sound familiar?

I told you about the prank we pulled on the elders right? About the Black Woman perfume on their handlebars? I hope so. Well Elder Meacham finally got me back. He dumped this really smelly cologne into my purse. We were out with a member in Norfolk and I was in front of her and Sis. Vawdrey and they both were like you have to walk behind us, you stink. So now everywhere I go I smell like stinky man cologne. Hopefully with P-Day I will have time to wash my bag. Haha.

Well here is my address:

3300 W Grace St, Apt 3
Richmond, VA 23221