Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Email from 12-7

Okay, I'll start off with answering your questions since I'm usually not the best at that.

Everything is going pretty swell. Change is always hard, but it's really good! My daily schedule is WAY crazier now than it was. I told you I'm in the Ridgecrest Young Single Adult (YSA) & the Mojave Narrows wards, & that means that we cover BOTH! But alas, we do not do it alone. We have ward mates in both wards, meaning a set of elders. So how that works is that they split up our proselyting area, so we have 1/2 & the elders have the other 1/2. But for YSA it's that we teach the girls & the elders teach the guys.
 
So yes, covering 2 wards keeps us SUPER busy, which is really great a lot of times, but it also makes it VERY difficult to not just be BUSY, but to be PRODUCTIVE--meaning fulfilling our purpose as missionaries. It is very easy to get appointments with less actives & recent converts all day, even some investigators, but it leaves very little time for finding. And a missionary who is not finding is not a missionary at all. So the struggle is balancing appointments & finding time. 
 
As of right now we go to one ward's sacrament meeting one week & the other the next because they are both at 1pm, but come the new year Mojave Narrows will be at 9, so we will be in church/church meetings from 7:30am-4pm, at least, every Sunday! hahaha & people think 3 hours for church is long! It'll be really nice, though, because then we'll get to be able to know the ward better. It's tough getting to know everybody in 2 wards. I've found that it's harder in the YSA ward because they're single people--in family wards it's easy for me to group them into families then learn their names, but it's different for the singles.
 
My mailing address for letters & small packages is:
17929 Siskiyou Rd Apt #6
Apple Valley, Ca 92307
but for bigger packages send it to the mission office! You never REALLY know what will happen with transfers, but if I had to guess...I will die (finish) here, so it's pretty safe for people to send me things with that address. 

Ahh and it's SO FUN to live with Sister Wagner again! I LOVE her. I also love her wardrobe, so we share a lot.  It's just really nice to live with another set of sisters. :)
Happy together again with Sister Wagner!
Sister Wood is from Orem, Utah & is awesome. She is so hardworking & SELFLESS. If there is one word I could use it would be that. For example, she volunteered us to help someone move on PDAY! I was not too fond of the idea, since we only get from 10-6 as it is. PLUS our dinner tonight is at 4:45. After some repenting on my part, I was glad to help. She is a great example to me of selfless service & love. And yes, she is a great singer. We sing together all the time. We've been singing "Silent Night" for members/nonmembers we meet :)

So this week was a really great week! Here are some highlights:

Monday evening we had Family Home Evening at the institute with the YSAs, & we got to teach the lesson! hahaha I say that very sarcastically, because it was just sprung on us when we got there, but luckily Sister Wood is on top of things & came up with a great lesson.
 
We stopped by to see our investigator, V. She is a woman in her low 60s. She is just the SWEETEST! We watched the Restoration video with her & testified of Joseph Smith & the Book of Mormon. She says she will be baptized when she knows it's true. YAY for the Holy Ghost & how He testifies of truth!
 
Thursday I got to experience my first MLC--Mission Leadership Council. It was so great! It's a meeting that happens the first Thursday of every month for the Zone Leaders & Sister Training leaders in the mission. It is run by President & Sister Hobbs & the APs (assistants to the President). They invited the old Stake President from Chino to talk to us because this month we are studying as a mission chapter 13, Stake & Ward leaders. It was super good! It's fun to see President Hobbs in a different setting, who knew he was so funny? They also fed us lunch! When we were getting our food President asked me "do you miss Wrightwood? You did great work there." That made me happy to hear! :)
 
There was a pretty big Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Saturday where local groups set up tables & hand stuff out. Our stake set up a table & handed out cookies & pass along cards. A few missionaries went to help & Sister Wood & I ended up singing Christmas carols for 1.5 hours. It was so fun to see how it made the passerbys so happy :)
 
Sunday we went to Mojave Narrows ward council & I got to meet some of the "celestial members" as Sister Wood calls them. She has talked SO much about this ward & how great it is. I got to see a little glimpse of it so far, & it's definitely living up to its expectations. We went to church at the YSA ward & afterward had "break the fast". Yummyyy food. Then watched the Christmas devotional. 

Exchanges are coming up this week & I'm a little nervous, but it'll be great! We have one on Thursday & one on Saturday.  I love being a missionary, especially at the Christmastime because it's not weird to talk about Jesus every hour of every day!!!
 
Hope you all have a great week & THANK YOU for the birthday wishes. I feel so old.
:)
xoxo Sister Viraldo

No comments:

Post a Comment