Seatbelts and Miracles

Hermana Sanders with Leticia Lopez in Santa Ana, May 2009

Familia! How is everyone this lovely week? How am I? I am doing fantastically! Claro que si!

This week was great as we were able to really reach some of our goals. Again, not that numbers matter to be successful, but they sure make you feel good if you can achieve them! We were able to begin teaching some different people in the North Hills wards-some less active types. And we've just been going through the ward lists and checking on everyone that we don't already know and had some "success" with that. We're still knocking doors all over the place, and every once in a while someone lets us in. In general I would still say people are very nice. Or maybe I just don't get offended by them. One old man said when we asked if we could come in and share a message with him "not right now," we asked, "when can we come back" "Wednesday" and by the time we asked what time would be best, he had the door closed. People are funny.

Oh other random info. We had our ward correlation meeting with our mission leader in north hills-Bro. Mummert (yes, funny name). He and his wife were on the way the next day to pick up their son from his mission in Cambodia. And guess who his mission president was (it changed this summer)...President Winegar from Layton! Crazy world, huh? And our other ward mission leader in the other ward, his daughter and son-in-law has been visiting for a couple of weeks from Philadelphia where he goes to dental school at Temple. And their stake president, or maybe it's bishop, I don't remember, is Pres. Storm! Random little connections.

Que mas? Oh yeah, mom and dad, you've both asked about meals here. The members pretty much do feed us everyday. Sometimes there are weeks were hardly anybody signs up. Summer has been less full because I think people just don't know if they'll be around, and they don't want to commit. We're always fed on Sundays though, that's for sure. And for breakfast/lunch, we all just do our own thing. I usually have oatmeal, grapefruit, or eggs. Today I bought cereal for the first time on the mission. I figured I'd treat myself. S. Lewis is mostly a cereal/sandwich eater, and S. Patten mostly eats ice cream. Seriously.

Sisters Sanders and Patten

July 4, 2009 in La Habra, California

(Sister Patten is a sister from the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission)

Funny story. David M. keeps getting pulled over by the cops when he's driving. We don't get it. But this last one, he was driving without his seat belt (not sure if that's why he got pulled over) and when the cop comes over and said, "Where's your seat belt?" David answers "Jesus is my seat belt." Oh man, only David could get away with that. Because he didn't mean it all smart alecky, but honestly meant it. It’s probably not what the cop expected. So then he asks him what else he believes and David basically says he's Mormon and that we believe in Christ but also in Joseph Smith and that he translated the Book of Mormon. The cop said he "gave the right answer." Speaking of David, he still won't be baptized yet. But he was definitely happier this week. We're not sure how to keep helping him; he's learned everything we teach to someone pre-baptism. But we're going to keep trying and praying for him!

Also, Vanessa's best friend, Leslie, and her two sons finally came to church! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! She has been in on the lessons on and off ever since we started teaching Vanessa. And her kids are ALWAYS at Vanessa's house and they listen to the lessons. Louis who is 9, is really smart and gets it all. He's ready to be baptized. So when mom is ready, the two can get baptized together.

Other little exciting things for us: we've been teaching this inactive man for the past two weeks, and his son has been there too and they both came to church on Sunday! Yeah! A member in one of our wards told us they have friends from another stake moving into our other ward (and this couple are recent converts) and she gave them our phone number. And she, the recent convert, actually called us! That's a miracle! They want to stay in their old stake, but want missionaries to keep visiting them, and since the old stake is out of the mission, well, we will visit them, and they probably will end up going to our ward. And there was another miracle this weekend. I don't remember if I mentioned her before, but last transfer we met this woman Kerry, and basically taught her the Restoration at her front door because she didn't let us come in but wanted to listen. Halfway through she just started crying and said she didn't understand. She didn't understand God she said. She said we could come back, but we were never able to see her again, despite knocking on her door lots and calling her (missionaries are sort of stalkers I think). Friday night we get this call from some member in the Long Beach mission. Long story short. He is a guy who is working and who is inactive but whose girlfriend is Kerry. She's mentioned things we taught her and he noticed the card on her fridge with our numbers that we left behind. They've wanted to call us, but didn't have the nerve. So this member friend took our number and decided to call us hoping it really was the missionaries and tell us his connection and tells us we needed to stop by her house again and try again. So we went by Saturday night and no one was home. And then randomly on Sunday we got a message from her just stating her name and number. Okay, not random... miracle! So we're hoping that we can be able to see her soon and baptize her! Yeah!

And one more. We were knocking this one street and the very last house (always the last house, right?) this young kid answers the door. He looked pretty eighties: the hair and video game shirt. He said he was going to Bible classes recently and asked us what church we were from. When we told him, he said "Interesting." A couple of years ago he was "trying to become Mormon" but he was 17 and his mom wouldn't let him. And just recently he "found God again" and was talking to a friend about maybe "trying to become Mormon again." Yeah! His name is Jimmy Carter. The president! Actually, we won't be teaching him ourselves, because he should go to the singles ward, so we passed him to the elders in that ward. But he is a pretty solid potential and it just showed us that good things that come of knocking!

That reminds me of another story. I don't know if I ever told it. Back with S. Lewis is Santa Ana in like March we were knocking this complex and NO ONE was home. We felt like stopping, but decided to go do the last floor. The last door again, was open. And this lady let us in. She had a long history of jail and different kids and drugs, but was working on getting her life in order. We taught her the Restoration and taught about the BOM and she said she already had one. Her daughter, who was now living with her grandma, had become Mormon and given her mom the book. She cried when she prayed and we set up our next appointment. She was English speaking though, so we had the English ward elders go with us to the next appointment and they continued to teach her. The elders kept us up to date on her progress, and about two months ago I got a call from one of the elders saying that Holly Stawali (her name) had just married her boyfriend and they both were getting baptized. Yeah! And now she's Holly Stawali Sanderson! Yeah miracles!

That's all I've got for now! It was a really great week! We are looking forward for this last of the transfer to be even better! I love you all and hope all is wonderful for everyone!

Love,
Emily

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Sisters Fatkin, Jeung, and Sanders, a multilingual companionship