3-23-15 A New Adventure

I'm going on an adventure!  Greetings from California where the trees are Joshua & the grass is nonexistent. I went from the green, beautiful, wealthy Chino Hills to the brown, sandy, windy, humble Phelan, California. More on that later...

Well, this week was pretty uneventful...I'm only kidding. But in reality not many lessons were taught this week, it was a strange one to say the least.

Monday we had our last zone activity of the transfer. It was pretty fun; we played a few different games. The games were not what made it fun, it was that everyone participated & was in a good mood. Good feels all around. We had dinner with the G's, TACOS. Then we went to go see M. She let us in & we talked for a bit. We were planning on reading from the Book of Mormon with her, but her husband came home & we didn't want to take away from their family time, so we left with a prayer. In her prayer she asked Heavenly Father to help her find the true church very soon. So ironic, I know. I know there are some deeper concerns that she has that she hasn't told us about. We tried getting it out of her, with no luck. We've been texting her all week asking if we could see her & such, with no reply....... :(

Tuesday: HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! we had district meeting, did service at Let It Be with the Diamond Bar Elders & the San Antonio Elders. Super fun. We had dinner with the Ps...mmmmm waffles :) at night we tried people, not much success. We did meet a really super nice Muslim guy though.

Wednesday was weird. We had a great lesson with J, who's moving to Colorado on Saturday! She's amazing. She's progressed so much! She thanked us for helping her become active again. It's been so amazing seeing her progress over the last 4 months. After our lesson with her, we went to have lunch with the sisters (Diamond Bar & Rolling Ridge). We went to a yummy taco place, so authentic the tacos are only the size of your palm. so I ate 5. Then we went to Let It Be with the Rolling Ridge sisters one last time before Sister H goes home. Then we had to go to Pepboys to get our oil changed, then went to see the B family. Then we had dinner with the M family!  Love them.

Thursday we did service at the thrift store in the morning then lunch & mormon.org. We were supposed to have a lesson with M but she cancelled. then we had dinner at the W's. COOLEST THING: so they are both really into family history, so I asked if she could find out where our last name came from. She took right to the challenge & brought me some papers on Sunday. She is almost certain Viraldo is french or northern Italian. So I think I'll go with Italian! :) but they also said you can order a DNA sample off of ancestry.com. So dad should do it!!!!

Friday! aka weekly planning, aka fish taco Friday! Mama B brought us fish tacos from Rubio's :) We actually got done weekly planning sooner than usual which was awesome, but we had a lot of updating to do! Pretty much we go through our area book of potentials/less actives that we've seen recently and describe how the visit was & such. Then we had dinner with Sister S. & later that night Mama B took us to get Boba at the Shoppes :)

Saturday we finished our updating then went out! It was kinda a weird day. We knew that transfer calls were coming, we just didn't know when. So pretty much all day you're on edge, you try to forget about it, but that doesn't work out. Of course we still were out doing work, but didn't talk to that many people. It was a weird day like I said, not many people were home, so not many people to talk to. We had dinner with Brother & Sister B. Brother B reminds me so much of dad. He makes jokes all the time & asks a lot of doctrinal questions. It's fun. He's much much stranger than you, dad. ;) after dinner we went to see the Bs. They LOVE sister K & I. Like, when we told them there was a possibility of one of us leaving, they were so sad. 

Usually transfer calls come in the afternoon, but it didn't come until like 9:30-9:45pm!!!! and it was the most surprising news! SISTER K & I ARE BOTH BEING TRANSFERRED. They're white- washing Carbon Canyon! Is this real life?! It didn't seem real, but it was, & it is..... so we stayed up until midnight beginning packing & such.

Sunday was CRAZY. Church, ward council,  saying "bye" to the Bs, home to pack, dinner, more packing, saying bye to the Ws, ward coordilation, more packing & up until like 11:30 or 12.... Ward coordilation was awesome as always. It was really cool, Brother H thinks I'm very smart & intellectual. He said that if he explains something, I get it right away & with other people it takes more time. Love, kindness, charity, patience (he said more) are characteristics of mine & people are drawn to me for no apparent reason, and because of that gift that Heavenly Father has given to me, He expects me to do what is best for 1. the Lord 2. His church. 3. me & 4. my family. I sang "I Heard Him Come" & he recorded it on his phone. He said he'd put it on facebook. 

Then he gave me a Priesthood blessing & something really comforting in there was that I am being sent to my new area (Phelan) for a "very specific reason" and that I'll find out what that reason is later on. It's really comforting to know that. Not that I doubted that I was going there for a reason, but knowing the Heavenly Father has a very specific reason for me is amazing.

So this morning we woke up, finished packing up our stuff & said bye to Mama B & Emma. It was hard to leave, but at the same time it was exciting starting this new adventure! We drove to Rancho, met our new companion, saw some old friends from the MTC, took pictures, and then drove to my new area, which is just 30 or so minutes from Rancho. It sure is desert. It's awesome though. The work is going to be great & I hear the ward is amazing. I'm excited for this new journey, to learn & to grow.

I'm excited to write you next week about how my first week in the boonies went!!! GET PUMPED.

xoxo Sister Viraldo

My new companion, Sister O from Tonga!!