No Se Porque

Newport Temple

Sunset over Santa Ana, March 2009

Hi family! Well here I am, 25 years old. And probably no wiser! Oh well. I am trying to be more grown up. So Anaheim! Well it has been an excellent week! S. Cooprider and I get along really well. A little background on her: she's from Boston, went to BYU-I, is a social studies education major, has been out almost a year and has been in Anaheim since April. She's pretty easy going and not moody, so I appreciate that! And as she's expressed to me several times, "I'm really excited not to be the senior companion." She's really willing to try whatever and do different things and just learn. And I love that! Not that I want to make all the decisions either, but sometimes when someone's been in an area for a couple of months and someone new comes in, they don't want to change what they've been doing.

Abel, Sisters Sanders, Fatkin and Evan and Yesmia
February 2009, Santa Ana

So first off, we went knocking doors several times this week. And she seemed amazed at the success that we had. And by success, I mean that people were nice, said we could come back and we could take their names and phone numbers and everything. The very first day after a couple of hours she was like "Wow, this is a miracle; in the four months we've been here we got like 2 numbers." We visited lots of less actives and just tried to talk to every single person we saw. And I feel like the Lord really blessed us all week. We have a new investigator in the singles branch. His name is Raven. He lives in a “sober house” and is getting over all sorts of substance issues. He readily accepted the baptismal invitation and we've seen him 3 times already; he came to all three hours of church! Yeah! We taught one Indian (from India) woman who said we could come back another time and last night just met a Jamaican man who let us set up a time to come teach him. One thing I've definitely learned on the mission is that if you do what you're asked to do such as to talk to everyone and just get out there and work hard all day long, the Lord ALWAYS blesses you. You may knock on lots of doors and no one lets you in, but when you show that you're willing to be obedient and work and have the faith, and then the person you're supposed to find will be put in your path. I love how that works! We have had multiple times this past week when we were just in the right place at the right time to meet the right person. It was amazing!

Sisters Carranza, Sanders, Lewis, Dutson in their free "fix a car" T shirts

And yes, there are “crazies” here. One lady was a media referral and the sisters met her before. We went to her door to visit her and she was all crazy and started saying "What do you want from me? I've heard all about you and your church and I don't hate anyone but what you do is wrong" and blah blah blah. She was definitely agitated and went on and on. We got out of there. But then she called us and asked us to come back so she could apologize. So we hesitantly did. She admitted that she has lots of problem. She just paced and talked and talked; it was weird. I think she definitely has some mental issues. And now she really wants to meet with us again and neither Sister Cooprider nor I really want to do that. We'll see!

Church was different and interesting. Every ward has a different dynamic. The Anaheim 2nd ward is pretty small; I'll get used to it. The gospel essentials class was a little sad. Maybe it would be better if they knew they had to “step it up” with investigators there. Hopefully we'll have some soon! And the branch. Well it has about 17 active members. Normally I guess about 30 are there in sacrament. Yesterday they had a change in the branch presidency so there were lots of visitors. Even some of the Young Single Adults were there from the Spanish branch, so I was very excited to see some people I know. Leticia Lopez's son Luiz was there with some friends that I had met of his, and Luiz said his mom had received a card I sent to her a while back and she was so excited about it and has it sitting out for all to see. I'm so glad she's still active!

So it's odd that last week I heard two missionaries give their "homecoming" talks and this week in A2 someone gave their "farewell" talk. It's given me an interesting perspective of missions from beginning to end. Last week when the one elder gave his talk it really hit me that I'm at the end of the mission, and it was scary. Sister Patten looked at me and said "That's you in a couple of months." And then I guess my face must have been a little too readable because she said "Don't start crying!" It made me start thinking that I hope I've made some of the changes in me that needed to be made (need to be made?) and I hope that I'm doing all that I can while I'm a full time missionary. The time is soo short! It was a good little wake up call to have. And then to hear this elder that is leaving, and I realize how much you can grow up on a mission. There are so many amazing things about a mission such as just the ability to love random, weird people so fast, to have that desire to talk to everyone, to have a reason to talk to them.

When we talk to people at the door, we try to be excited and tell them that we're there because what we have to share has made us so happy and we want everyone to have it. I realize that not everyone is ready right now, but you just hope that they got a good feeling or impression from meeting you. That's one thing I try to do with everyone: make sure that they at least they think we're nice, polite people and that we're happy. Even if someone rejects us, if we've done our part, then it doesn't matter. Hopefully they will hear the message later and remember some nice girls knocked on their door once.

Sisters Sanders and Fatkin
Bike Ride in Fullerton "P" Day
June 29, 2009

Well that's it. This weekend we have a baptism of a lady who was excommunicated year ago. She's really excited and we're really excited for her! Thank you all for the birthday e-mail and the prayers and your love! I love you all so much!

Love,
Hermana Emily!