Anaheim Transfer

Andrew's & Vanessa's Baptism
Sisters Sanders, Fatkin, & Patten
June 28, 2009

Familia! Well it was another great week! We had lots of good appointments this week. teaching investigators and less actives as well. There was a lady a month of so ago, or more, Priscilla, who we went and checked on again. We recommitted her to be baptized and she accepted it and we saw her three times last week. That was good. But she flaked out for church. She's just a very distracted and extreme type. When we first see her at the door she's always all stressed out and anxious, but then once we start teaching, she gets all calm and happy. We explained to her it's the spirit and if she wants that all the time, then she needs to keep her commitments so she can be baptized. We'll see!
Leslie seems to be progressing more. We’ve always taught her at Vanessa’s, but now she would like us to come to her apartment to teach her and her sons (we’ve asked before, but she always just liked doing it at Vanessa’s) so I guess she has more interest. And we asked them to pray about being baptized, and to pray about a date. And her son Louis, who is 9, sort of sighed in exasperation, and she said he keeps bugging her about being baptized. Hopefully with Vanessa as a support, and with her son wanting to get baptized, she’ll truly try to learn more and have that desire to be baptized too. But Leslie didn’t come to church on Sunday, and David didn’t either. We were pretty disappointed.
Yesterday was a good Sunday. It was actually interesting because in both of our wards, there was a missionary “homecoming.” Our bishop’s son came home in one, and our ward mission leader’s in the other. The second talk was especially good. I was pretty impressed. We taught S. Arrington (the one with the very eclectic home) the 10 commandments with the signs, and she just loved it! She’s an elementary school teacher, and in she’s actually taught the commandments before as part of the curriculum, so now she has a new way to do it. And she gave us sponge cake, because yesterday was national sponge day or something.

Sisters Sanders, Fatkin & Dutson roasting huge marshmallows

February 2009

Anaheim Apartment

And I’ve been transferred. Somehow I really was hoping I’d stay in La Habra until the end, but with a threesome, things tend to change a lot. So Sister Patten is staying in La Habra and is senior sister to a sister that’s been in Anaheim for the first 4 months of her mission. And Sister Patten is very nervous about it. But she’ll be great! And Sister Lewis is moving over to Yorba Linda and Placentia and I am going down to Anaheim. Basically the other sister and I traded places. I’m pretty sad to leave the other sisters-we really had a great transfer together, one of those that fly by. I loved the people we taught and I really learned to love those wards too. Oh well!
My new companion is Sister Cooprider. She’s from Massachusetts, and came out in December. Except for her first transfer, she’s always been senior companion, so she said she’s really excited to not be the senior and to be able to learn from someone else. The President called me today to sort of tell me that even though she’s been in the area for awhile, that I am the senior and yeah, it was sort of a random call. Sister Cooprider’s a great missionary, but she really hasn’t had much training on her mission, so she has a few misguided ideas about things. I don’t know her very well, but I did live with her for a transfer, and she’s very nice. And now I’m moving back to the old, nasty apartment that I spent almost my entire mission in. I am in the Anaheim 2 ward, and the Anaheim 7 branch which is a YSA branch and not Spanish. It should be interesting. I’ve done exchanges in Anaheim before, and there are a lot of weirdos there!
Changes changes! Should be great! We’ll see what happens. Well I love you all and hope you have wonderful week!
Love,
Emily