Week 3: i have no idea whats going on =)

Hey folks. Its me again. But this time im out here in missouri not the MTC. Its weird being outta that place. U ever walk into the wrong classroom at school and u didnt know what to do or say? <---- me the past 6 days in missouri LOLZ. U want to know what missouri looks like you say?? Easy. Google "trees/dogs/cats/corn/bugs" and that is what it looks like here in the mid west. Everyone has a dog or 3. Plus a cat or 7. My dresses are made out of real animal fur now. #thrifting Lets see where to begin. i got some great content this week. Prepared to be uplifted and to chuckle. So it all started when the plane landed. Obvi. Waited for an hour to get of the plane bc lightning and saftey reasons. Then finally got off. Met the misssion president and his wife. Best, most kind people ever. Went to their cute cottage like house and fell in love with missouri. Next day woke up and went to st louis temple for some quick pics, then went to take a looksie at the mission office. That place is cool. Then went to the church and met my trainer. Her name is sistee lofgran. She is grand.. a little shy but im working on it. We are out here in the great city of warrenton. Its is the #largestareaintheentireworld jk idk its my first area what do i know but its huge. Members give us rides so we dont have to waste our miles #savetheplanet but really we are running low on car miles for the month of june so we cant go very far so that makes it hard to find investigators. Hmm where to start. The ward is the bomb.com nicest people ever. They feed us almost every night. Had the funnest dinner last night with the portillos. Three girls so i felt at home. :)) Ive met some less actives and some recent converts. One is brother duff. Cutest old man ever. He truly has been changed by the gospel and he is preparing to go the temple in august. The ericksons.. cutest couple in da world and they are going to the temple to get sealed soon! We have 4 investigators. I have yet to meet them though. We teach them tomorrow so i guess ill update u folks next week. 3 of them have baptism dates for july 28 (a great day for baptisms and also my fathers bday). im super excited to meet them and help them progress towards baptism!!! We leave in sketchy apartment in warrenton. Its nice on the inside tho. Well niceish. The cops are always at the neighbors across the street. #thedixielife #thereisnoescapingit. The cutest asian man does tai chi in the parking lot in the morning.. im getting tempted to go show him some of my kung fu moves. We so our laundry in the basement .. kinda really sketch ill send pics. God has a sense of humor because literally 100 steps from my apartment is the dopest swimming pool only $3 to get in!!! WHATTA STEAL. Im definitely comin back in 18 to swim. My apt also reminds me of a cabin and like im camping bc its surrounded by trees. Ill send pics for visualization dont worry. The thing im most proud of this week??? I bought 5 bananas and ate 3. I bought a box of strawberries and ate all without them going moldy. I bought a bag of carrots and actually opened them up. Some of u might say ? Sister folkman this is pointless info but i will say. This is something amazing. I used to by 6 bananas and throw 5 away. Buy strawberries and carrots and then throw them away bc they were moldy. I am a changed woman #Godisreal #Godisgood he truly is a God of miracles not just because of this silly food story. I have truly relied on him for the past 6 days. And he has answered so many of my cries for help. Also FIREFLIES. THEY ARE REAL. AND THEY ARE COOL. I am fascinated by these flying creatures. So cool. Also shout out to missouri for having 45667732 kinds of bugs its awesome. A funny/terrifying story?? I got one. So we are contacting on saturday and we are in this trailer park finding former investigators and we pull up and get out and this lady just starts yelling. And im here like a little ball of utah sunshine and happiness ready to share the gospel.. tryin not to pee my pants. My trainer was like "is brianna home?" And this lady is like "if you want brianna i dont want anything to do with u." Idk what beef her and brianna had but we skrt skrted outta that trailer park so quick. Someone should have told me missouri wasnt going to be sunshine and rainbows bc i was suddenly shocked into reality that not everyone is kind. Hahaha i have a lot to learn. Anyways probably the hardest 6 days of my life but i have learned a lot about myself and my relationship with God and Jesus Christ. well thats all for this week. Kinda random. Kinda exciting. If u chuckled once during this email then send me a letter with some jokes to repay me. @ 102 Granada Dr. Building L Apt. 204 Warrenton Missouri 63383. U can send me artwork too. Ill hang it on my wall. I love you all and am thankful for all the prayers/support/love. Love, sis folk :))

Pictures: President Bateman and his wife, looking out my window, homemade memes, me and my comp, sketch washer and dryer, Da pool, our car and apartment, positivity ball i found at the mtc. It helps hahah:))

Week 2: I LEAVE IN 5 DAYZ???

i leave to missouri in 5 days.. how did time go by so fast??? i am sure going to miss this place and my district they are like my little family and we have all gotten so close. but i am excited to go and teach real investigators and bring them unto Christ!!! i am so lucky i get to represent Jesus Christ for the next 18 months. ill try to remember this last week and the important things. on sunday i got assigned to be a STL (sister training leader) with my comp and let me tell you the story of how great i did on my first night of being an STL. so monday afternoon we are walking up to the exercise field and one of the sisters from the departing district was like "so how do you like being an STL?" and i was like "oh its pretty chill i haven't done anything yet." but then the elder in my district was like "sister folkman did you know one of your sisters went to the ER last night?" and then i was like uh no ahahaha. STL goalz >>>me. don't worry the sister is fine tho she is just allergic to like everything. i am a better STL though now. no one fret. we were at breakfast the other day and sister salisbury was telling us how she is completely blind in one eye and had tunnel vision in the other, which none of us knew. we just thought she had super bad eyes but then i was like " sis salisbury you are really good at volleyball and foursquare for having that vision" and she was like " ya if i wasnt blind id be a baller" literally funniest happiest person ive ever met haha and then she went to NYU and i was like how did you survive there without getting hit by a car? and she goes " God was with me." ahahah. i dont know if its funny to you folk at home but it is funny here. ok now for some way cool spiritual stuff. our investigator COMMITTED TO BAPTISM. i was the one who extended the committment and granted it was a fake investigator i still felt the spirit so strongly. i cannot wait to get out into the field and commit people and teach people for real. i am learning so much by teaching her. on saturday night last week we were rotating in teaching another investigator and the sisters in my district were teaching and sister salisbury was sharing a personal experience and i have not felt the spirit so strongly in a long time. IT WAS POWERFUL. then my teacher shared the most powerful testimony. i get to wear HIS name over my heart. every day. i get to bring his mercy and love to others that have been praying and waiting for it. finally got to watch the devo from president and sister nelson! so awesome!!! i loved it. i loved when he said " nothing is more important right now than gathering israel. nothing" it was so powerful and it is so cool because that is what i get to be doing right now. if you havent watched it GO WATCH IT. my other favorite quote was "his FINAL team, the gathering is now and it is real. . . every child deserves to hear his gospel" everyone go share the gospel!!!
also side note everyone go watch "the savior understands me" by elder holland. amazing. so good. only 3 minutes. got to watch a cool devotional video sunday night by elder holland as well called " missions are forever". i honestly loved it more than anything. he is so straight forward and speaks with so much authority. my favorite thing i took from it "your mission is real life. its is the closest you will ever be to real life." that really hit home. i am doing exactly what i need to be doing. spreading his gospel and bringing others unto Christ. ok almost done folks hang in there. yesterday was a day full of adventure. i got to be a host to all the new missionaries. i learned a few things. 1. I am weak. 2. I am going to die in missouri, i died of heat yesterday 3. never send ur child on a mission with a suitcase with no wheels. being a host was some hard work haha. i loved being excited and helping the new missionaries but i also wanted to die because their bags were HEAVY. i now feel super bad for my host. i had to carry their luggage up the stairs with them and then take them to their room. i am weak. i am so sore today. i also sweated so much and looked like a disaster im sure the new missionaries were like um is this gurl ok? and then lastly one of the girls i hosted was like "so my mom gave me my grandpas suitcase but unfortunately they have no wheels." yall i almost died. these things were from the 1800s i swear. they were so hard to carry my fingers have blisters almost lolz. at least i burned some calories am i right. then our district was lucky enough to be picked as "demo missionaries" which basically means we start the conversation with the investigator and find out their need in front of like 60 new missionaries and then they get to teach the investigator. so me and sis whit got up there and KILLED IT. i am amazed at my progress and how easily questions came into my mind and how easy it was for me to just sit and talk and bring the gospel up. the MTC is amazing and heavenly father had blessed me so much. i have gained so much confidence and i am ready to head into the field this next tuesday!! i am ready! i dont know it all but i try my hardest and i know God will be with me. i have improved so much in just 15 days. i am going to miss going to class its my favorite part of the day. wake up and go to class. the perfect way to start the day. by learning about Jesus christ. l got to get to know the new district in our zone cuz i am their STL. it was super fun to talk to all of them. it was a little rocky tho. all of us leaders were just shouting facts at all these new missionaries and im pretty sure we looked like freaks ahhaha but now they know all the facts i guess ahah. that is all for this week!!! i love all of you!! thank you for the emails prayers and support it means the world!!
love, sister folkwoman
check out the sick pics i took on my samsung j7 

Week 1: anybody got some cold metal spoons???

hello everyone can you believe it has been 8 days?? cuz honestly it feels like its been 67 years. but its like time is weird here. like it feels fast but it also feels slow. i dont know where to begin it has been a week of total ups and downs!!!! hence the cold metal spoons(; i suppose i will start with a horror story. it was on friday last week i was taking my first shower in the mtc. and i was shaving my legs and i accidentally cut both my ankles twice so they were like gushing blood and were literally not stopping bleeding. and i didnt have bandaids with me cuz i was in the shower and so i just got my towel so bloody, so RIP my towel is gross and bloody. i have PTSD every time i shave now in those showers. seriously it scarred me. honestly yall probably wont even recognize me, i wake up at 6:30, i take the stairs, i can sit though a 3 hour class and not get bored, and i go running for exercise time???? wow ive changed for sure. but dont worry im still the same. we failed our room check and got needs to work on everything haha, i still love to joke around, and i still love this gospel!!!!! i have learned so much in just one week and my testimony has been grown more than it ever has in my entire life. i have amazing teachers. sister hatch is one of them and she is the BEST. she has been the answer to so many of my prayers. my companion is sister whitaker she is from kanosh. she is amazing. she talks more than me if you guys can imagine. hahaah so i am getting used to listening instead of talking 24/7. shoutout to my friends who listened to me talk that much idk how you guys did it i am having a hard time adjusting to the listening life. but we get along good and have a fun time laughing and we teach well together. Speaking of which we have two "investigators" one named jon which is our teacher but he is very challenging. and then our TRC investigator is named kathryn. we have taught her twice. the first time we came out and i was like "YES THIS IS WHY I AM HERE I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY THIS FEELS SO RIGHT" then the second time we taught her i got out and i was like yep im gunna need a lot of work. she is so hard and asks us the hardest questions i literally dont know how to answer. and then she gave us bad feedback so that kind of made us feel sad cuz we felt so good about the lesson we had taught her. but we are praying and listening to the spirit so hopefully our lesson tomorrow goes better. all my st g homies... dont worrry i informed all the sisters in my district about the uv index. and next good news.. i think im the tannest. can i get a hoiiiii yaaaaa.. 

my distrtict!!! they are the best!!! 6 sisters, me and sister whitaker, sister marshall and thompson, sister van brederode and salisbury, and then 2 elders elder mackay and eaten. the elders are going to canada and they are polar opposite haha. seriously its funny. all the sisters except me and my comp are going to california which is way sad because i love them so much!!! they are all so amazing. we do everything together haha. eat, exercise, class. we usually go run for 30 min and then for the last 30 we go play foursquare BTW i am the champ. quick story. we were just playing as a district and a creeper kidnapper van shows up and gets out all these coolers and a dad and a son walk over to us. they give us gatorade and popsicles and we are all like oh thanks so much. we are just thinking they are a young mens group ya know ?? so i asked them if they were just out here giving people drinks and stuff and they were like we are missionaries from our cross stitch church in florida and we just drove here to do some service! then they left and loaded up their coolers and left. didnt talk to anyone else. they literally only gave drinks to us. and then we all stood there and were like. um should we have said we were missionaries too?? hahah missionary opportunity FAIL. dont worry tho we had only been here four days we're better now haha . it was just funny cuz our whole district was literally thinking the same thing. this tuesday Elder Gong came and spoke to us at the devotional and it was simply amazing !!!! the apostles have such a cool spirit about them when they walk into the room. the cool thing is im pretty sure he came and spoke at dixie before he was an apostle while we were there. so um represent #thedixielife i pride my school. i talk about it all the time. dixie is love. dixie is life. one of my favorite things about the devotional was that he literally told us he and Elder Holland assigned missions together!!!! he told us the whole story. and that we are going where we are called for the people, a companion, to learn from the mission president. so many different reasons but i know i am going to missouri for a reason and there is no where else i belong. I am so excited to find out that reason. its hard to tell you all the spiritual and cool moments i have had here. there are too many to tell. my prayers get answered almost instantly. its so cool. i will end by sharing on of my favorite quotes from a branch presidents councilors wife, " you are doing his work. you are bringing others unto Christ for HE is the way home." something that really helped me especially on the hard days. this is the hardest thing i have ever done and it has only been one week, but it is also one of the most amazing things i have ever experienced!!! thank you for all the love and support. i love you all. also i am so sorry this is so long and also so all over the place. u shouldnt expect anything different. u guys know how my brain works. 

love, sister fotowoman
ps send me packages plz i need snacks the food is yucky
pps send me dear elder letters im unit 22 district 33a if u dont know how to do it ask my mom plz :-)
pps check out the sick pics ive taken on my SaMsUnG J7
also i see sister redd multiple times a day it is literally the best!!!! i love being a missionary and i love being a missionary with her!!!<3

Pictures: No one told me my ugly mission submission would follow me around and i would have to stare at my flipped out short hair, amazing murals in the MTC, me and my comp, St Louis sisters, Me and Sister Redd