I cannot, for the
life of me, figure out how time is going so stinkin' fast. Here
I am, at the library at the beginning of week 5, writing to you about
week 4 of transfer 4. I better just accept the fact that
life as a missionary goes about 2.7x faster than non-missionary life.
Maybe part of it has to do with living our lives on a 6 week
schedule, yup, that's it.
Well, this week
was pretty awesome. Monday we had
zone activity where we played savage ball (free for all dodgeball) &
volleyball. The only thing bad about having zone activity is that the
stake center is 30 minutes from our house, so if we want to go home &
shower before we have dinner at 6, we have to leave by 5 at the
latest! Way different than in Chino Hills because we lived 5 minutes
from the stake center... So we left the stake center around 5:10 &
figured we didn't have enough time to go home, shower then go to
dinner all the way across our area from where we live, so we'd just
drive to their house & change our clothes there. We get to their
house about 20 minutes before dinner, so we sit back & relax in
our truck.....then I realize.. "Sister 'O, we left our
clothes at the church!" uhhhh. We decided we'd just tell Sister
B that we were gonna run home to get new clothes, but come to
find out, dinner is pretty much ready & if we go home the
pancakes, banana & COCONUT pancakes that is, will be cold! So she
said "I won't tell!" So we ended up having a very casual
dinner with Brother & Sister B. It was weird, but way
comfortable. hahah After dinner we
went home to change and we had a lesson with M, a recent
convert.
I hope you know
by now that Tuesdays are the craziest of days. Not in a bad way, just
crazy. This Tuesday was no different. Before district
meeting, we dropped off our truck at PepBoys to get an oil change &
the Hermanas picked us up to go to district meeting. District meeting
was awesome not only because of what I learned but I GOT A PACKAGE!
After DM the hermanas dropped us off at PepBoys & our truck
wasn't done so we sat & waited & I opened my package!!! SO
MANY GOODIES. I knew the girls spent their own money. It was so
sweet. Really touching. THANK YOU!
Luckily we were
only waiting at PepBoys for maybe 30-40 minutes, then we drove home
for lunch.
After lunch we took our truck to the H's so he could work on the scratch before zone conference on Thursday. It
took him so long to get started on it, it was 15 minutes before we
were supposed to have dinner, so we called the As & asked
if they could pick us up so we could leave our truck there. So we
went to the A's for dinner & they got us Chinese food. I
don't remember the last time I had Chinese food..it was delicious!
After dinner, we worked off our food by jumping on the trampoline!
After dinner,
they took us back to the H's to wait for our car. He still
wasn't done with it, so we went inside & talked with Sister
H for awhile & drank some herb tea because it was abnormally
cooooold outside. When Brother H was done we went home &
Sister 'O packed her bags.
You may be
wondering why my comp packed her bags, it's because we were going on
exchanges with the STL's (Sister Training Leaders). Sister 'O went to Apple Valley with
Sister W (England) & I stayed in Phelan with Sister F
(Samoan from New Zealand/Australia). I was pretty nervous to be
staying in Phelan when I'd only been here 3 weeks, but it turned out
pretty awesome! Maybe cuz Sis F is awesome, especially her
accent!
In the morning we shampooed our truck because zone conference
in the morning. I say shampoo because we didn't have any soap, so the
only thing we could think of to use was my coconut shampoo hahaha.
After that we had a lesson with a less active, B, who had a stroke
in the past & forgot everything, so she wanted the missionaries
to teach her the lessons. We taught the Plan of Salvation. Then we visited the Ms, but
weren't able to have a lesson with them, then we went to visit V & her daughter D. We got there and they walked
outside saying they weren't feeling well, so we didn't get a lesson
with them either, but ended up talking with them outside for a good
40 minutes. Looking back Sister F & I were kicking
ourselves for not sharing a scripture or something both with Sister
M & V & D...
From there we headed over to our
appointment with C & we MADE SURE we were not late. We even
got there before she was home. Sister S (member of the ward)
came to the lesson. She and C can relate in past experiences &
they have a good friendship, so good a friendship they would go
off on their own conversation for about 10 minutes in the middle of
when we were trying to share a lesson...the lesson was all over the
place, but it was good for C to talk to sis S. We didn't
have dinner with a member, so we were planning on taking dinner at 5,
but the lesson with C went over, & we had another lesson at
6, so we went to visit J. Then we had a lesson with another couple and taught tithing & fast offerings.
After that we went home & had dinner until we exchanged back.
Sister F was awesome but I missed my companion!!
Thursday we had
to wake up at 6am, so that tells you how my day was... ;) ...kidding. it was
great! we had zone conference in Apple Valley at 8am, we were
supposed to be there at 7:45 & we got there at 8:05...my gps
(Sister 'O) told me to turn left down a road I was supposed to
turn right on & we went for at least 10 miles before we realized
it.... but it turned out fine. We talked a lot about how there are
different areas in the mission field: planting, watering, and
harvesting. Each is important. Just because you may not see the
results of your labor, does not mean you can't find joy in the work.
You should be able to find joy in ALL aspects of missionary work.
President showed a few clips from past general conferences that were
HILARIOUS. One in particular was President Hinckley & he said
something along the lines of "It's warm in here. I know you're
warm, but you're not as warm as you will be if you don't repent."
hahahaha too funny.
After zone
conference they fed us lunch. I got to see Sister M, but she
was mainly the only person I knew there besides those in my zone. A
couple other elders from my first zone were there too. After lunch,
we drove back to Phelan. We went over to the H's because I told them I would help her granddaughter K with spelling
because you practically have to pull her teeth to do her spelling
words. I had some success with getting her to do it, but still not
much. Oh well, I tried. haha. Then we had dinner with the
Es/ward coordination.
Friday morning we
drove to the stake center where a member from Sis 'O's first
area/lady who works in the dentist office picked us up. Sister S,
who was Sis 'O's trainer & who went home a couple months
ago was there to surprise her. It was fun. It was also pretty cool
for me because my first day in the mission field after we got off the
plane & went to the mission office, we went out tracting with
missionaries in Rancho & Sister S was one of the sisters I
went out with. Anyway, sorry, I get stuck sometimes on unimportant
details. We got breakfast at Panera then went to the dentist for
Sister O's appointment. After that, we went home to weekly plan/bake
cookies. We had dinner at the H's & then had a lesson with
S.
Saturday we went
to a funeral of a member of the ward. I never met him. He was only
about 64 years old, and he died from cancer. After, we helped serve
at the luncheon. Then we had to go home to finish weekly
planning/updating the area book. I was looking through former
investigators & came across some who had baptismal dates &
the missionaries teaching at the time who don't keep good records..
SIDE NOTE: it's super important to keep good records of people you
visit or else you come across a teaching record that says "found
them tracting, they let us in & we taught the restoration,
committed them to baptism, they accepted & want us to come back
to teach them more!" & that's it. No follow up visits or
reasons for dropping them.
Anyway, we came across a guy named B & Sister 'O called him. They talked for a bit, he
brought up how he used to meet with "the guys" & how he
even had a baptismal date set. He said he'd like us to come over &
he wants to feed us dinner too! that was a MIRACLE! He's
neighbors with the Es, so we'll see if they can come too,
because B lives alone. Also, Sis E said he's kinda
strange, but we'll see about that. haha.
We went to visit a family
that we just got their records for. We left the address at home on
accident, but we tried the house the week before, but they were
having a party, so we knew we'd recognize the house when we saw it.
We get there & turns out it's not the W family, but we talked
to a guy who is good friends with a member of our ward & although
he's not interested in learning (he's a deacon at his church) he gave
us a referral of his neighbors down the street! too bad these
neighbors have a locked gate...but we'll keep trying. We had dinner
with the Ds and then after went to give cookies to M. We got
there & her great uncle R was there & they'd just had a 3hr
long conversation about religion. Mind you, she's 16 & a recent
convert of a couple months. She brought out the book of mormon,
Doctrine & covenants, for the strength of youth, etc. He said
that he would take a book of mormon & read it & even go to
church down the hill where he lives. I asked him if he needed a copy
of the book of Mormon & he said yeah. So we gave him that & a
pamphlet of Joseph Smith's testimony.
Sunday we had
church, home for lunch, studies, then out to visit people. We weren't
able to get in with anybody though. We had dinner with the Ss.
Really good fish curry. but after both sister 'O & I weren't
feeling well so we went home. We ended up going to sleep around 9pm!
It was really bearable waking up this morning at 6:30 because we got
an extra 1.5hrs of sleep :)
Thanks again for
the package & everything else you do for me! I love you all &
thank you for the love & support you show me. There's nothing
else I'd rather be doing now. Although, it's tough & sometimes
feels like I'll be a missionary forever, I know that I'll reflect on
these 18months for the rest of eternity.
love you! have a
great week, talk to you soon...like really soon. Mother's day is just
around the corner. :)
xoxo Sister
Viraldo
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