This may be my last time emailing from
Phelan....who knows. The zone leaders told us that there will
probably be a LOT of changes happening. 9 elders are going home &
only 1 is coming out. That probably means they'll be closing down
areas & combining some. Sister 'O & I think we're both
staying, but we'll find out on Saturday...
Monday we didn't have zone activity so
we had a pretty chill day. After emailing we went to MAUI
WAUI!! then did a little shopping at Stater Bros. We had dinner at
the G's then went to visit our investigators V & A.
A is 10 years old & she is our main focus. Her mom, V, is really
awesome & wants to learn & wants to be baptized but she lives
with her boyfriend. (on the down low, it's not a good relationship, he
is SUPER controlling & she can't do anything or go anywhere by
herself....it's super sad). We watched Finding Faith in Christ with
them. V has seen it a few times because she LOVES it. As we
were talking afterwards the Spirit directed me to commit them (A
mainly) to baptism. A wants to be baptized & come to church!
(again, really sad. V wants to come to church too, but she
knows F won't let her go, so we said we'd get A a ride)
Tuesday we had district meeting, went
to Walmart, home for lunch, Sis 'O took her language study, then we
went to try people. We were given a name from the ward council to go
check & see if she lives there. A woman opens the door quite
rudely & I said "Hello, how are you?" "fine."
"Does so-and-so live here?" "Not for 2 1/2
years!" But we're skeptical & think that that was probably her. haha. Then we met a less active lady, L. We had a
nice visit with her & she wants us to come back, so YAY we added
another to our teaching pool (people we are specifically working with
& trying to see weekly). We had dinner with a semi-active couple,
the Gs. Really awesome people. Then we went to the E's
to talk with them about their friends who we're trying to meet with.
Wednesday we had a lesson with M &
B. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which if you don't know
what that is..it's faith, repentance, baptism, receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end & repeat. But instead of
baptism, partaking of the sacrament weekly, and instead of receiving
the Holy Ghost, being worthy to have the companionship of the Holy
Ghost. :) After lunch, we headed over to the P's so Sister P
could practice my song with me & help Sister 'O with her
essay. She helped me really well, but not so much Sis 'O, so we
headed a couple houses down to Sister T. We were there until our
lesson with our investigator, C. Sis. S met us at the church
for our lesson. We watched Finding Faith in Christ, really good
lesson. We then had dinner with the Ws (less active recent converts) & then we
watched Elder Holland's talk from General Conference.
Thursday after studies we went again to
Sis T's so she could help with the essay. Meanwhile, I washed
their dishes in the kitchen. haha. Then we had a lesson with a
referral we got. BACK UP. Wednesday morning Sister Schweider from the
mission office called us giving us a referral of a lady in Phelan.
She actually lives just outside our area boundary, but we were told
to go anyway. We went Wednesday & set up a time on Thursday to
have a lesson with her....Well, we went by on Thursday, but she
cancelled.. :/ Hopefully this week we'll be able to see her. Then we
did mormon.org and then
went to the H's to help K with her spelling words. We had dinner
at the C's, and then we picked up Sister H for a lesson with
A. We got to her house & her mom wasn't there, but we
were able to get in with her & start teaching the plan of
salvation. And BOY did she have crazy questions. Usually we LOVE when
investigators have questions, but she had about 20 questions &
most of them didn't relate or were irrelevant for investigators to
know. We straight up told her to stop asking questions & let us
teach haha. She still asked some questions & we were there for
about 30 minutes & all we taught was the pre-earth life & the
fall. We told her we'd come back when her mom was there.
Friday...WEEKLY PLANNING FOR
WEEK....SIX?!? craziness. After that, we yet again went to Sister
T's to finish Sis 'O's essay. We didn't have dinner that
night, so we decided to try out a Mexican restaurant in town. It was
pretty authentic, so authentic that it burned my taste buds &
made me cry. haha not really, but it was very spicy! I got horchata &
couldn't stop singing "In December drinking Horchata, I'd look
psychotic in a balaclava. Winter's cold is too much to handle....."
Jordan & Jonathan will know exactly what I'm talking about ;) After dinner we had a lesson with
S & J. We watched Elder Holland's talk from
General Conference (yes, again. it's THAT good.) Then we had a lesson
with M!
Saturday was a stake service project at
Mojave Narrows Park in Victorville. It was SO windy & very cold!
It wouldn't have been so cold if it wasn't so windy. We did various
things, planted flowers, painted lines in the parking lot, built a
fence, put up barbed wire, etc... I guess there was a pretty good
turnout, with the Phelan ward represented by a grand total of THREE
members (excluding us). haha so lame. The wards that were there had a
picnic afterwards, but since our ward wasn't there, we got invited to
all the other ward picnics. We joined the Tongan ward. I've heard
they feed you well there, but I had no idea. They bbqd their chicken
& it was AMAZING. I was walking by to go sit down & someone
placed two hot dogs on my plate. So I had a large piece of chicken &
2 hot dogs! but of course I also grabbed some rice & macaroni
salad. I didn't think I'd be able to eat it all, but somehow because I was
sooo cold my body didn't get full as fast...weird, right? So after
that we drove home & I took a HOT shower and then we visited J & watched The Restoration video with her, then visited
Sister H, whose husband recently passed away. We had dinner at
the E's again and then had our ward coordination. Then went home to
write our talks for sacrament meeting!
Sunday was crazyyyy. After ward council
we drove to A's because we were going to meet Sis E there
so she could drive A to church. We got there at 8:30 &
A had JUST woken up when we got there. She hurried & got
dressed and we ended up leaving her house at 8:55. We got to church at
about 9:05, but luckily our ward always starts late.......yeah..I
know. haha.
Anyway, we get there & go sit up front because Sister
'O & I were both speaking! Sister A turned around &
told us Cheryl was there, but she left....what?? We were confused.
Sacrament meeting went really really well, though. Sister 'O & I
spoke about missionary work & finding the lost sheep. I also sang
"His Hands". I prayed specifically that that song would allow people to
feel the spirit strongly. After church a couple people came up to me
& told me how strong they felt the Spirit. Brother C even
said "I wasn't feeling physically well & that song not only
made me feel the Spirit so strong, but I even started feeling
physically better. That's a great compliment! Your voice has healing
power!" hahah He was being funny, but serious at the same time.
It was pretty cool to hear that from people.
We got to go to
primary!!! It was awesome :) During 3rd hour we got a text from
C saying "before church Sis T (who she's renting
her house from) gave me notice to move, so I left. I won't be coming
back to church anymore. Thank you for bringing me closer to Christ."
We were in shock... Just a couple days ago she had texted us telling us
that she is ready, she wants to study more, & feels that June 6 is
the right date for her baptism. She's got a long way to go, but she
wants it. After church driving home, a thought came into my mind to
go to her home. We went over there, really not knowing what to
say at all, but knowing we had to. She ended up telling us how she
was really hurt by what happened. Mixing business into church was not
appropriate & how she can't be part of a church that does that.
We tried telling her that the A's business & the church
are completely separate things & yes, it was inappropriate for
her to talk about that before church. She told us she doesn't want to
come to church anymore, but she was just so upset & hurt. We just
listened to her & spoke when the Spirit moved us to do so. It was
really a great lesson, one of the best we've had with her. We told
her & she acknowledged that Satan is working so hard on her right
now. Especially that day when she had woke up, got dressed, & drove to
church, which is HUGE for her. Satan did all he could to bring her
down, even by making her get offended & blaming the church,
because it's TRUE!
We left with a "maybe" on meeting
with her this week. We think she'll come around. We're not ready to
give up on her yet. We're gonna give her Pres Uchtdorf's talk "Come,
Join With Us" because it is perfect!
After that we went to the
A's to tell them what C was feeling so they could decide
if they wanted to talk to her & apologize or explain things
better. Then we had dinner/early lunch with the Ds! Shrimp &
Steak! Then we went to visit the Hs, but they were just leaving,
& sister H gave us frozen pork chops & other food for
dinner.
This morning we went up to Wrightwood
as a zone & roasted hot dogs by a fire then did a little
hike... Now usually when you think of hikes you think of on a trail, but
no. Elder F just started climbing this really steep hill with
loose rocks & dirt, so we all thought it was a good idea to
follow. Most of the elders got pretty high up, but I stopped when I
thought "how am I going to get down?" It was kinda scary,
but fun. hahaha. Then we drove to a place called Inspiration Point,
which is just an outlook on the mountains & on a clear day you
can see the ocean. Super pretty!
So Mother's Day is in, what, 2 weeks?
Wow! We're not sure what we'll be doing yet. I'll let you know when I
know, but yeah I should be skyping. We'll have to find a family that
has that. Unlike Chino Hills, not every family here has computers &
internet. There's a good mix of both kinds of people. Some people
live here because it's cheap & they don't have much money &
some people live here because it's cheap & they have lots of
money so they can build a nice house & have multiple acres of
land.
Well, that's about all I got for this
week. Transfer doctrine comes on Saturday, so you'll find out on
Monday where I am & who I'm with. I better still be here in
Phelan with Sister 'O, but you neverrrr knowwwww!
I LOVE you & will talk to you next
week!
xoxo Sister Viraldo
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