An Update with a Sunrise Hike (and lots of pictures!)

Dear Family and Friends,

As usual it has been quite a busy and hectic week. Last P-day my district went to a church building to play volleyball. Well, I'm terrible at sports and accidentally hit an elder in the face with the ball, but other than that it was lots of fun. And then I was sore for like 3 days. It was kind of pathetic.

Tuesday we had a sisters meeting for all the sisters in the mission. It was really fun. There are 35 of us right now, but apparently that number is supposed to double in the next few months. How crazy is that?!? We talked about how to ride bikes with skirts and how to get various stains out of clothes and stuff. We also found out that we will all be helping out with the Gilbert Temple open house, but we're still not sure when that is yet. Hopefully at the beginning of next year.

Wednesday we got to go to the temple again. It was so much fun. I love the temple so much. It's so pretty and peaceful. I also got to see an elder from my MTC district who's in a different mission, so that was cool since I didn't expect to see him again.

Saturday we got to go to a ward barbeque for one of our wards. They had it in the park and it was for the whole community. It's going to be a monthly thing, the second Saturday of each month. It was a lot of fun and we got some good food, so that was nice.

On Sunday we taught the laurels in one of our wards. I realized how hard it is to teach the youth because they don't participate very well. But it still went pretty well. We also got asked to teach relief society next week in our other ward, so it'll be a busy week trying to get that lesson prepared.

And then this morning for P-day, we went on a sunrise hike. There were 12 of us, 6 from our district, our zone leaders, and 4 from another zone. It was a lot of fun. We had to get up at 3:30 so that we could all meet and figure out rides and stuff, but it was definitely worth it. It was dark on the way up though, which for some reason I didn't think about, so I didn't bring a flashlight. It was interesting trying to hike in the dark, but luckily no one was seriously injured. I did manage to get a blister though. We were at the top for about 45 minutes waiting for the sun to rise and it was really fun. We took lots of pictures and had a spirtual thought and everything. And then we got home at about 7:15 and had to get ready and do our studies and stuff. So as soon as we get home from the store this afternoon, I will be taking a nice long nap. Haha.

One other exciting thing. President Nattress was at a mission president conference last week where he was told that Gilbert mission is one of 50 pilot missions that will be trying out new ways to share the gospel. And that includes iPads, so hopefully we'll get those soon. Haha.

And that was pretty much my week. We're still trying to find people to teach, but we're staying busy in the meantime. I love it here, and it's even starting to cool down a little. It's been in the 90s the past week, which has felt great. I still miss you all, but I love the people I've met here and the experiences I've had so far. I hope you're all doing well back home. I love and miss you all!

Love from,

Baylee

When we first got there.

My bandaged foot...

The entire group, minus the elder taking the picture.

This is what the mountains look like here. Ugly.

At the temple.