Excerpts from Sister Viraldo's email

MOM says...

Dear Friends and family,
Here are some excerpts from Sister Viraldo's email this week. As we expected, she is finding it hard to find time to write a separate blog post, so she asked me to cut and paste from the email she sent home.

Thanks to all of you who are keeping up with this and especially to those of you who have taken the time to write to her personally.  I know it means a lot to her, though she may not be able to answer you right away.  She and her companion are living with a family in her assigned area, so her mail can go directly to the address below. Of course, when she is transferred this address will change and I will update it here.

Sister Jessica Viraldo
15414 Ficus St.
Chino Hills, CA  91709

OR jessica.viraldo@myldsmail.net

Thanks again for your support. She seems to be doing super well, and as you can see, she is keeping busy!
___________

First off, I'll start by telling you about my week:

Monday night: we had dinner with the T family. She is a single mom with 2 less active sons who are older(20s) and an 11 year old daughter. Sister T is very nice! then we wrote thank you cards for the dinners that we had that week and delivered them. we just put them in their doors very sneakily.

Tuesday: district meeting. where I got to see my zone friends, aka Sister S! they have their district meeting in the same building as us. then we had district lunch, we just packed a lunch to bring. then we drove to Rancho because my companion had a doctor's appointment for her concussion. then we were supposed to have a lesson with our investigator, (haven't met her yet), but she forgot about it, so we didn't meet with her. then we had dinner at the P's, waffles with strawberries, tater tots, bacon. it was really good. then we tried to visit our investigator, J. He's a really cool guy. I've met him at least 3 or 4 times, but haven't had an actual lesson with him yet. He's super bad with appointments, he always forgets. So he told us to stop by one night and if he's home to have a lesson then.

Wednesday: really busy and good day! we taught a less active member who is making good progress at coming back. she says she wants to be a more diligent member. then we met with our recent converts, M and her two daughters. M isn't very interested in being taught, or really in the church at all, but she LOVES watching the girls learn and wants the gospel for the girls. The girls are very bright and seem to have a testimony. hopefully they'll be the example for their mom. that night we had dinner at the D's. The mom is less active, dad, 2 sons & daughter are non members. They study the bible together and pray together morning and night and they feed the missionaries, so yay.  after that, I finally met  one of our investigators, C. He is just as crazy as my companion told me. He must have some sort of add or ocd because we were in his garage TRYING to teach him, but he was all over the place. we were talking about the restoration and he got up on his ladder to fix the garage light. we're still not sure what he did to the light, it wasn't even broken...he says he wants us to be persistent with him, so we are. He likes the BoM. we have a lesson with him this week, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Thursday: Thanksgiving! holidays as a missionary are weird. we can't go out and knock on doors, so what are we supposed to do? we make cookies to give to ward members! it was good. then we had lunch/dinner at the H family's at 2:00. it was really nice. they're a fun(crazy) family. we were there until like 6pm. we worked on a puzzle. then that night we delivered the cookies.

Friday: weekly planning for 4 hours. we finally left the house at 4pm. then we went to see J again and talked with him awkwardly in his kitchen for 30mins, then we went contacting! Idk if you've gotten your December Ensign yet, but in it are He Is The Gift cards. worldwide, missionaries are challenged to give out 10 cards per day. so that's what we did! pretty much everyone we saw outside we went and talked to. some were friendly and accepted the card, some were friendly and did not accept the card, and a lady I talked to doesn't like Christmas...what do I even say to that? I didn't know, so I just said "okay, have a great day!" 

Saturday: no lessons. we walked and contacted people, giving out 11 He is the Gift cards. we had dinner with the R family, super cool wife & husband. we had RIBS and they were SOOOO good.

Sunday: weird day. i didn't feel too good, but church was good. we also sang with the choir at the stake Christmas program that night.

and today is another p-day! we had a fun zone activity. we played a game that was pretty much just dodgeball, but no teams. i wasn't very good, but it was fun. Sister S (the one from Indiana) has decided to go home. she was having a really hard time; it wasn't what she expected. I'm super bummed she's going home because I'll miss her TONS, but I'm just happy she's happy.

now I'll try to answer your questions:

no one's ready for baptism quite yet. we actually are teaching a 13yr old boy, B. he's in the process of being adopted by his aunt(member) and uncle (non-member). once that is finalized, he can be baptized. like I said, we haven't taught any investigator lessons yet, but we've taught less active and recent convert lessons. last week + this week = 9 i think. we've had dinner appointments every day but 1. and today we don't have dinner, but sometimes that's okay because we eat at home. I eat fast then take a nap haha. yes, we have a car. it's just us 2 missionaries in our ward. our ward mission leader is THE BEST. He & Bishop H gave the ward a "ward mission plan" that will hopefully help members be more involved in missionary work. 

you might have heard, but IT RAINED YESTERDAY. all day. and not just sprinkled, but it poured! everyone was thanking Heavenly Father in their prayers for the rain. it was just kinda odd to hear that.

I can't figure out how to connect my camera to the computer, so no pictures this week, but next week! oh, my comp and I have been making daily videos. at the end of the day when we get home, we put the camera up on the dashboard of our car and talk about our day. they're usually pretty funny. I'll have to send them home somehow. probably when my memory card gets full I'll send that home.

that's about it for this week, I'll talk to you next week! 

love you lots,

Sister Viraldo