June 26th 2017

Hey Y'all

I'm alive! I made it to Salem and no one has accused me of being a
witch yet. It also poured rain so we probably wouldn't burn very well
anyway..... sorry, I think I'm funny 😁

On a more serious note... Salem is nice. There are some really great
people here. The branch president and his wife are pretty awesome. I
knew his brother and sister in law before I got here and they're both
the most incredible people. They absolutely love the missionaries and
have such a passion for everything they do. We have a small branch and
a cute little building. First time I've actually served in an LDS
built building. My companion is Sister Nielson and she is super nice!
We are going to have a good time. She's from Manti and is a great
missionary.

Not too much has happened this week. We have been struggling finding
people to teach. The branch president has also asked us to focus more
on the members and strengthening the branch. So it looks like we're
going to be doing a lot of less active hunting too. Which is always
fun. Yesterday we went and tried one and she had her door standing
wide open, so we knocked on her screen. Then we literally watch her
run out the back door, so we wait for a bit. She thinks we leave so
she comes back inside, makes eye contact with me, and then hides
around the corner like we can't see or hear her. Pretty hilarious. But
kind of annoying that she isn't woman enough to just tell us she
doesn't want missionaries to visit. So we left her a note, a very nice
note, but made sure that we put we would try back later. There's a lot
of people that seem to be able to run or hide from the missionaries.
But this poor lady is apparently bad at both. The other guy didn't
even open the door and just yelled "GO AWAY" until we left. So we're
off to a good start! But seriously there seems to be a lot of cool
people here and I am excited to serve and get to know them more.

We did some fun service helping this family build a house. They're
almost done with it, but we had a lot of fun getting dirty. We also
helped clean some people's houses, and volunteered at a food bank. All
in all a good first week and I'm excited for many more.

Love and miss you all! Have a wonderful week!

Sister Hoyt