Hot Weather!

It is November, uh, 17th, and it has been at least in the high eighties the past couple of days. Where am I? It's crazy. And in California they get those warm Santa Ana winds and the fires all started up this weekend down here. Lots of nasty smoke in the air. But otherwise, all is good!
Okay, so I will try to clear up a few details about the mission. This mission is bilingual. EVERYONE is called to speak a language besides English. Usually Spanish. And they might already happen to know Korean or Samoan, Vietnamese or Tongan. And pretty much everyone is trained in that other language in the MTC-again, the majority in Spanish. So some people here are bilingual (if you could call me bilingual) and others are trilingual. Most CA missions are like that now I guess. Then it's just luck of the draw, who gets to actually serve in a Spanish area. Some people leave their mission never getting to serve in an actual Spanish ward; others get to serve a lot. So I was lucky I suppose. Make sense? I hope so.
Second thing. So I live in a city called Tustin, but I don't actually serve there. It's just where they have housing for us. But my ward, my area, where I serve-is Irvine. Like last time my area was the city of Orange, even though I lived in Anaheim and my ward was in Santa Ana. Yes, don't be confused. So Irvine. Irvine is different than a lot of other "California" type areas. I don't see very many palm trees, and not everything is stucco. Some areas actually look a little Midwestern or northwestern. And yes, it is ridiculously expensive, and most rent. For example, for a condo out here-some people will pay $2-3,000 a month. And they're one, maybe two bedrooms. But that's more of the extreme. And yes, almost everyone in the ward is a lawyer. Lots of young couples, lots of families. We do eat with a different family every night, and every is sooo nice. Really great families, really strong.
In this ward what they're doing is having all of the auxiliaries come up with 5 people (they can't overlap people) either inactive or part members, that we can work with and they can be focusing on. As for us, we probably have 7 people that we're working solidly with. Most of the people have probably been meeting with the missionaries longer than someone in a Spanish area before getting baptized. But the difference is that these people are usually much more solid and sure of their choice when they do get baptized. This area has been a hard one. But it's been picking up in the last year. The stake has had double the baptisms this year-something like 17-since the year before. May sound low, but it's a great thing for this area.
Here's some info on some of the people we teach. There's Shellie Freedkin. She's actually in another ward (other elder's area), but because of a long story, the sisters are teaching her. She is from the Midwest-and seems like it. She just isn't CA, even though she's lived her for 30 years. She is loud and wears dark glasses and is just a funny character. She is getting baptized Nov. 29 because Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday. It has taken her a year to decide to be baptized. She had accepted almost everything, but I guess had a hard time with giving up tea. She said something like "am I going to let tea stop me from having eternal life?" Good point. I guess she finally called up the missionaries herself and said she was ready. So that's fun.
Then there's Paula. She also has been meeting with the sisters for a year. This is her and her husband's second marriage. He is a member on the high council. So he's pretty strong. But she's just slow. She keeps saying that she's afraid that she's get baptized and then somewhere down the line break a commandment or realize that it's hard. She just needs more faith. But we think she's pretty close.
And Stephanie Suzukie. She is amazing. The sisters started teaching her, uh, like 6 months ago. She's married and has two little boys. She's very involved in her own church-we think she probably has some leadership position. She told us last time we came that honestly, when she first met with the sisters, she thought she'd listen once and then be done. She would never have believed that she'd still be listening, but she said that she just had to. It makes sense to her that we have prophets, and has wondered where the people in her church get their authority. And she's started to FHE in her family, and last night she told us they're going to work on keeping the Sabbath day holy in her family. She just amazes us every time we talk to her. We think that after a strong lesson on faith this week, and one on baptism next week, that she might be ready. She admitted last time that it's time for her to do something. That the ball is in her court and that really there's not much more we can do. She's close!
Those are the main investigators. And they are all wonderful. We still tract most days-not as much as we did in Orange though. And we started counting our numbers different every week, so we don't count a lesson unless we have an opening and closing prayer (like in MN) when before, as long as we taught a couple of principles it counted. Anyway, the way we're doing things now will hopefully be more effective and we can really work with members more and people who can give us referrals. One thing we do with members is we share the scripture in Alma about small and simple things -36:6-7 (?) and then we give them this paper. It's the 21 day promise. As a family they pick out 5 people they know that they'd like to help learn about the gospel. Then everyday for 21 days they pray for those people by name and read a different scripture on the paper. The goal is that at the end of the 21 days they will have thought of some actions they can take with each person-invite them to an activity, to church, to meet us, whatever. So it's directed by their inspiration, not us telling them to give everyone Books of Mormon. People seem to like it.
Oh yeah, I saw someone else last night that I knew from before the mission. Down in Irvine, because it is so diverse, they do a lot of interfaith activities. I don't know if I mentioned that S. Moore and I and two elders went last week to a religious diversity forum at UC Irvine because they wanted some missionary representation. But last night they had this interfaith choir at our church. Sikhs, Baha'is, Buddhists, Baptists, Jains, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and maybe others, all had some musical number. And they asked us to usher. I got to hear a little of the beginning and loved it! That's what I was looking forward to about Irvine. Anyway, this girl came who I was pretty good friends with at BYU. I knew she was in Anaheim, but figured I'd never run into her. Weird!
We still hear a lot about Prop 8 down here-but mostly from the members. They're all worried about us, but really we haven't had any problems with it. No one says anything to us. Irvine is pretty conservative. Actually, in general, Orange County I think is the most conservative part of CA. So no worries!
Okay, so that's a lot of info for this week. I love you all and hope that everything is going fantastically in your areas of the world! Let me know how everything is going when you get a chance!
Love,
Emily