She was very late getting on--although we found out it wasn't her fault. She had told us 7:00 p.m. We
waited and waited, and sometime around 7:40 we heard her trying to dial
on. It ended up that the Cambodian family that they had planned to skype
from stood them up, and so they were scrambling at the last minute to try to
find any family that would let them skype. It was a lot to ask of these members, because there are 3
missionaries in the companionship and each one needed to talk to their family
for 40 minutes to an hour and so that’s a lot of time for a family to give up
to missionaries.
When Janessa first got on, we asked her, “how much time do you
have?” She said, “I don’t know. I think an hour.” And then
the members whose home she was at said in the background, “What? We only got 40
minutes with our missionary child.” So then Janessa said, “So I guess we
have sometime between 40 minutes and an hour.”
She was very enthusiastic and happy and bright eyed. She
thanked us heartily for her presents. She and her companions had opened
each other’s presents before Christmas so that if the presents came unwrapped a
companion could wrap them and put them under the tree. That way the
missionary wouldn’t know what they were getting, but the companions would know.
She told us that right before Christmas, Janessa was in the mall with her
companions and she nearly bought herself a hand-mixer because she has been so
frustrated at trying to whip cream by hand. Her companions knew that we had
sent her one for Christmas, and so they were able to distract her from her
purchase by suggesting that they go get some food to eat.
She said that this winter is the coldest winter on record in
Washington State in the last 20 years. Every night from 5:00-7:00 is
consecrated “tracting time” throughout the whole mission. So before 5:00 Janessa
said that she and her companions go home and put on all of their warm clothing.
She said they wear several pairs of tights, several pairs of leggings, and then
they all wear Janessa’s knee socks, as well as boots and coats and head out for
the “chilly hours” of tracting. She said that most people won’t let them in or
talk to them when they knock because “it’s too cold” and they don’t want to let
the cold in. Janessa says that she’s always thinking, “I know how cold it
is. We’re standing out here in the cold!”
She also talked about the 1 day a month called “Park day” where
the missionaries can’t drive to any appointments. They park their car for the
day and walk everywhere they go, contacting everyone they meet along the way.
She said that December’s park day was brutal because they were frozen all day
and they were outside all day and couldn’t go back home to put on more
clothes. She and her two companions all wear her knee socks daily. She said her comps
didn’t have any boots when they arrived in the mission, so she loaned them
boots from her small collection.
She talked about writing a Christmas skit about a missionary doing door approaches and the investigator on the other side pretending not to speak English, so when the missionary counters with Spanish, they pretend not to speak Spanish, and so on and so on, with about 5 other language attempts--every time the missionary is able to speak the language that they say they speak, only to have the investigator come up with another nationality that they think will foil the missionary. Until finally at the end, the investigator says in perfect English, Well, I'm just not interested." Janessa says this happens all of the time. The Cambodians hide behind "I don't speak English--I'm Cambodian--in heavily accented, broken English, and when Janessa pulls out the Cambodian, they say, in perfect English, well, I'm just not interested."
She also rewrote a Christmas song for the missionaries which was supposed to be quite witty. She said she'd send us a copy.We each spent 5-6 minutes with her alone—each of the siblings, each of the parents, filling her in on our lives and asking her questions.
Janessa skyped from a laptop on her lap on the couch, so the
sound and the picture were not great. We missed a bunch of things she was
saying and had to ask for “repeats.” Also, the picture would suddenly
just shift and jiggle all over. She did show us that she was wearing the lacy
crocheted tights that James and I had bought her in Rome. She had a pair of red
tights underneath them that showed through.
She was also sitting on the couch in a house that had a huge red
Christmas bow decoration right above her head, so when she sat up straight, it
looked as if this Christmas bow was right on her head.
Over all—she seemed in a really good mood. She was really
responsive and happy about everything we told her. She was really
grateful about everyone that sent her Christmas items. And she just told
us some fun stories in her engaging and dramatic way—like how many layers they
would put on before they went out.
