Life in the City

Airica sent home a bunch of pictures to put on the blog and for the family to enjoy! I am going to share some of them with you. :)

This is Elder Moore. Airica met him in the MTC and she said he was like a brother to her. They had so much fun and hope to be friends after the mish

Sister Stewart and Sister Glenn being crazy at the temple

Finally on their way to New York

Hooray! They made it to NY and of course the first thing Airica did was buy a souvenir T-shirt

I think this is some food that they got from the shelter. It was tomato soup but apparently it was too disgusting to eat. So they flushed it down the toilet 

The first week Airica was in Syracuse she had no "good" food. So mom sent her a package full of goodies. Notice how Airica's pants are unzipped and her shirt is tucked into her undies. haha

As they were trying to leave one day, their car was dead. Trust Airica to be taking pictures instead of helping it get going again. Typical girl who won't get her hands dirty!

This is some creative head lamp. She is writing Josh in the middle of the night. 

The shower head in their apartment was leaking. Airica said she knew how to fix it because she watched dad be a handy man our whole lives. All it needed was a good tightening twist. haha

Josh, her wanna be boyfriend, is on his mission in Mexico City. He sent her a package!

Some pictures of the houses in the city and what the streets look like 

First companion in Syracuse, Sister Resare

This is a mini van in the city that has sweet rims!

Syracuse East

We received an email from Airica. It was her first one being out in the field. The area she is in is called Syracuse East. There are 2 sisters and 6 elders in this area. Airica calls it the "hood" and she says it can get pretty scary sometimes. This area was closed to the sisters serving in it and they just changed the rule to allow them back in. There are only 100 members in whole area and 20 of them are in the college branch. There is a college campus and Airica loves going to teach around campus because it gets them off the streets and feels like she is back in college!

Airica forgot to mention the name of her companion but so far they are getting along. The girl attended homeschool and she is younger than Airica. Since girls can leave on their mission at age 19 now, that makes sense because Airica is already 20. She sure misses sister Glenn (MTC companion) because they were so much alike. Hopefully sometime through out the mission they will get to be companions again.

Service, Service, Service! They are doing lots of it on the mission right now. Airica shared a funny little story about how she showed up to service in the best "work clothes" she had. She wore white pants and sparkly toms. haha. The lady they were helping thought she was from California and when she found out she was from Salt Lake she said, "your not in salt lake anymore sweetie." Trust Airica to be as girly as possible while working in the garden :)

Haha! White pants, sparkly shoes and up-do! This is how I do service- Airica

They also went to the food bank to do service and hand out food. All the people there would grab Airica's hair and say, "you are so pretty." If you know Airica, you know that she hates being touched. Even if you are super close to her and she likes you she wont let you touch her. I bet she wanted to run home and take an hour long shower to forget about all the germs. Overall she liked helping out at the food bank. And they even got to keep some food for themselves. I'm not saying they were too thrilled about the "mystery" food but at least it kept their bellies full for some time. Speaking of food... Airica says she has lost almost 12 pounds since she got to New York. Families like to feed the elders and since the elders and sisters aren't allowed to eat together, the sisters don't get fed as much. Airica is left to scramble for food and lots of it is questionable. Mom sent her a care package with crackers and other snacks that should help put more meat on her bones.

Airica as beautiful as ever!

This is Air after the food bank with her mystery food. How long have those eggs been sitting out? LOL

This is at a ward party. They got food there! And the members also bought them some cookies that were being auctioned! 

Airica knocked her first door and also placed her first Book of Mormon! I don't know if she had much success after that because she got so nervous, but its a start. There is no better way to learn and get over nerves faster than Just Doing It. I know Airica will build up the confidence the more she works at it. Overall, Airica is having a great time so far. She prays alot for the strength to keep going. She is in a city and loves it. She doesn't miss the mountains at all. But New York is nothing like she was expecting. The people are so nice and they are very willing to give what they have to the missionaries. Airica keeps taking bites of the "humble pie" that has been tossed her way and keeps treking on. Keep her in your prayers that she won't have to endure Syracuse East for much longer :)

Lizzi's Mission Call

 Hooray! Another Stewart has been called to a mission! Any guesses where?...

In our family, it is tradition to get together with the whole extended family when you open your mission call. We did it for Ryan, David, Jake, Airica and now Lizzi. This is her reading the call.

Dear Sister Stewart, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the 

dot dot dot

...

Mississippi Jackson Mission

Leaving September 11

My mom is happy that Liz is staying in the United States and Lizzi is just happy that she is going somewhere it rains alot. Lots of preparation goes into preparing for a mission and she will have 4.5 months to do it. This will be an awesome experience for Lizzi and a huge blessing for the whole family. Thanks for all of your support, faith and love for our family. We know these sacrifices will pay off!

This is Lizzi's best friend Becca. They got their calls on the same day! 

Airica's Departure

Airica left the MTC on April 31st to head to New York. She had to be up at the crack of dawn (4:30 a.m.) in order to get to the airport on time. She said she might be able to call us from the airport so we were all expecting a call.

She finally called Cami on her cell phone because she couldn't get a hold of mom or dad. She was complaining that it cost her $2 every time she attempted to make a call and she gave up on talking to mom and dad because she didn't want to waste money on them. Its funny how your perception of money totally changes once you don't have free access to it anymore. haha.

So! Airica told Cami all about her airport experience and it is a funny one. She was the only one in her whole group of 23 missionaries that didn't get a boarding pass. She had to go through a special line so they could print her out another one and that put her and her companion back about 20 minutes from all the others. Once she got her ticket and made it through security she found out that she had too many bags and they wanted her to go back to 'check' the extra one. She didn't have time to go all the way back through security and she had no money to check an extra bag. Plus she can't leave her companion... The airport attendees were nice to her and let her board the plane (with her extra bag) and it was fine and dandy from there.

Cami eventually got the call when she landed in Michigan for her layover. Airica said the Michigan airport is so huge that it took them forever to find their next gate. Its a good thing missionaries are assigned companions because otherwise they would have never found their next gate with Airica's sense of direction!

Trust Airica to ask some random person in the airport to take this picture for them and text it to Cami's phone...
This is her with Sister Glenn, her MTC companion! Aren't they adorable?

Well, she survived the MTC and now it is on to the real work. Airica will be such a great missionary and we are so proud of her. More updates later when we get the next letter. :)