Brillan Rayos de Clemencia

Happy New Year familia! I hope all are happy and recovering from Christmas and ready for some New Year’s Eve fondue! I am. Well it was just fantastic and wonderful to be able to talk to EVERYONE on Christmas! Being stateside is quite convenient I must say. I’m happy that everyone had a great Christmas!
I think for me, Christmas Eve is always a little bit more exciting than Christmas day. Zone Conference was just really good to have on Christmas Eve. And there’s this woman in Tustin, who’s from Korea and wants to learn English. So it’s sort of like service, but really we go and talk to her about the gospel in English. And she’s so nice. Asians are so friendly, I love it! There’s another woman we do this with later in the week, and I always wish we could spend more time talking to them. We invited her to go to church on Sunday and meet the elders, and even though she was really nervous that she wouldn’t look right, the elders told us that she went and said that everyone was much nicer than at her Catholic Korean church. Yeah! We also went and visited our crazy Joanne on Christmas Eve. We sang to her and her son and just spent a little time there. It’s just so fun to be with people on Christmas Eve. Life would just be easier if I didn’t get attached to people so quick!
Of course talking to you all was the highlight of Christmas day. We didn’t do much the rest of the day. We went home and ate candy I think. We actually played a little indoor soccer with a couple of elders in one of the chapels. That was pretty fun-no injuries. Then that night we went around and delivered some cards with our pictures (so people will remember us!) and treats to members and recent converts and investigators. We didn’t really do any official teaching because there really wasn’t much time. We just tried to see everyone that we could.
What about the rest of the week. Well now that we’re in this sort of “new” area, we are always doing A LOT of knocking doors. So we did that this weekend. As missionaries it’s kind of like you’re mining for gold. You have to work hard picking through the dirt, and then you have to sift through as much as you can, and sometimes you think you find the good stuff-the gold, but really it’s that fool’s gold. Sometimes you spend some time on people that you find out aren’t so much the golden investigators. But if you sift through enough, you find the gold, right? How’s that for an analogy! I think it’s pretty good, worthy of an Erin or Dad analogy. Speaking of analogies, I wish I had more of an ability to come up with those on the spot, because it’s always helpful for people to have an example or something visual to relate to. I think Erin with her 5 analogies a day would be good at this missionary business. When I was here in Orange the other transfers, when we were walking around, we would have to pick an object that we saw-like a lamppost, and then relate it to something in the gospel, but in Spanish. Helped us practice Spanish, fill time, and you never know when you can use that analogy later.
So. We had a couple of appointments with Octavio this weekend, trying to see him lots before his baptism. We talked about reading the scriptures one day, and then on Saturday we had a little film night at the church. We invited him and Eulalio and Humberto and Francisco to all come watch the Joseph Smith movie that they show in the JSMB in Salt Lake. As missionaries, we’re used to 30 min movies, so an hour and a half was LONG. I think your attention span as a missionary is not very good. But they liked it. Eulalio has really progressed since we first were teaching him. He talks more-doesn’t just say “esta bien.” And we even got him to say the prayer at Octavio’s baptism. Yeah! We call all of these guys “the hermanos.” Francisco was baptized last spring, and invited his friend Humberto to learn. And Humberto was baptized in August and invited this guy he worked with (that the sister’s also knocked into) to learn too-Eulalio. And now they all know Octavio. So they’re a good little support system for each other and we’ve taught them all a lot. Octavio’s baptism went really well. He seemed like he was happy and nothing went wrong-so that’s good. And the elders are already getting him to go out teaching with them this week and that’s really good. He wants so much to be a missionary; we’re hoping he can be a ward missionary.
They just rearranged our bishopric. Obispo Vazquez and his family are from Argentina and are moving back there so they had to make some changes in the bishopric. I love the Vazquez family, they are one of my favorites, and we will all miss them a lot. They are just happy people. We decided he’s a “jolly” bishop; he sits up on the stand and just smiles at everyone. Our new bishop is a pretty young guy, though probably pretty experienced in the church as far as this type of stake goes. And he’s very missionary-minded and on the ball, almost intimidating. But it will be good because I think he will really be able to help us. Good things will happen!
Lupe’s husband Ernesto came to church with them on Sunday, so that was wonderful. We’re really going to try and see if we can teach him. It’s amazing how things really do change for some of these people after they get married and live the commandments! If only Araceli’s husband would get it, as well as Stephanie and Danny’s parents who aren’t married. We’ll see!
Yesenia and Abel were going to come to church-even to the baptism. We had a cita with them Sat. but Yesenia wasn’t there. We just read 3 Nephi 11 with Abel and reminded about church on Sunday at 11, and he said “hey, I thought I was invited to come to a baptism at 9:30.” Oh yeah! We are so impressed by him. Some people say that Satan controls the waters, I think he controls cars. They left at 9am for church, but there car had problems and they were never able to come. Lame! So we went over and taught them yesterday a little more. It’s so unusual (for me so far on the mission) to have both a husband and a wife be willing to listen. Especially because Abel seems to be the one who gets it more and is more ready. We’re really excited about them and are going to set a date with them for baptism this week.
We have interviews with the president this week and get to go to the temple in a couple of weeks-which is great. Announcements don’t always get all around the mission, but I found out from my comps that we are now not going to be allowed to go to the temple every transfer. When Elder Jensen came the other month, he didn’t think we needed to do that, so now it will be every other transfer. Not my most favorite idea. But I’m just glad that this transfer we do get to go.
That’s mostly it. I can’t believe it will be January this week! I hope everyone is healthy and happy and the babies and kids are adults are all doing wonderfully! Thank you everyone for making sure to help me have a wonderful Christmas! I love you all!
Love,
Emily

Back to Hermana

Hola familia, como estan todos? Well this week was busy, but I can't remember a lot from it. It was good to be back in Irvine after being in Anaheim on Monday, and then I guess the rest of the week just flew by! Let's see, we visited a lot of less-actives, some part member families, and of course, our normal progressing investigators. Here are some highlights from the week.
We taught Paula about obedience this week, and originally were going to try to “soft commit” her to baptism, but then decided it wasn't right and to instead also talk about the word of wisdom and commit her to living that. When her husband Randy sits in on the lessons, sometimes he makes most of the comments and I don't know if she focuses as much, but it was good this time and when we asked her to live the word of wisdom, she said that she had a feeling from the beginning of the lesson that we were going to ask her to do that. And that funnily enough, she had decided that not drinking coffee should be her new year's resolution. So she said she'll do it! This is great because we think she often makes a lot of excuses, saying she doesn't believe in other things, like Joseph Smith, when really, it might be that she didn't think she could live the word of wisdom. So progress there!
With Pete and Dana, after they fed us some ribs (!) we read from the BOM intro and started watching “The Testaments” with them. We thought it would be good because for some people you need some type of visual idea of what you're reading, and it makes it more interesting. They said they really enjoyed it and are going to read ever day. And they came to church this Sunday. Pete is always up for coming, but Dana is the one with the excuses. Oh yeah, and they told us that they are eloping after Christmas. To Las Vegas! They haven't told anyone-why do people tell missionaries their secrets? But we're really excited because now they will really be able to progress and see blessings for this decision.
Thursday night we got to go to the temple. The first man who was baptized on S. Moore's mission went through the temple. How lucky to be able to be there for something like that only a few days before going home! And this man also baptized his own father and step mom this weekend. We got special permission to go because we weren't going to be home until after 10, but it was so nice to go. Nice for S. Moore, and nice for me because it's really pretty awesome to see someone progress like that, that's the real vision as a missionary, not for them to stop at baptism, but to continue on to the temple. Plus, with transfers coming up, and thinking about that a lot, I got to have some time to refocus. We also had a little district meeting party on Thursday with Costco pizza, apples to apples (Bible edition!) and cheap Christmas karaoke music! Bringing that Costco card came in handy! Ha ha ha.
Friday was crazy. The Friday before missionaries leave, they get to go to the temple with president. So once again, I was on an exchange. S. Carranza came down with me to Irvine for some appointments, then we went up to Anaheim for some in her area. Only one of our scheduled appointments actually happened, so it was sort of a frustrating day for S. Carranza and I. I've never driven in Irvine, or Anaheim. It was interesting, I am grateful for carpool lanes in CA though. We were both very grateful to be going to our areas by the end of the night.
Transfers were Saturday night. We had sort of discussed some of the possibilities of what would happen with the sisters at transfers (because with 3 sisters leaving and only one coming, they would have to close an area to sisters) and I was trying really hard to not worry about what they would do. They chose to close Irvine and I now have two new companions. Okay, not new. Old. S. Ochoa and S. Fatkin. Yes. They have moved me right back to the same area. Oh man. I had a feeling they were closing Irvine, but never did I think they would send me back to Santa Ana and Orange. EVERYONE was very shocked. So on Sunday we had to call everyone and let them all know and the bishopric had us bare our testimonies and we prepared everyone to accept the incoming elders. One of the elders was already in our district, so we know him, and he's a good missionary. Because we're low on missionaries, they are doubling up a lot of companionships with multiple wards, so that's what my now old district is doing.
We ate with Stephanie's family this week which was good because her husband was there and we got to talk to him a little. We also had a really good lesson on recognizing the spirit that went really well. Then on Sunday she ate dinner with us over at the Moons. Sister Moon always is there when we teach Stephanie and they're becoming good friends. So we broke the news to Stephanie that not only was S. Moore not going to be here (she knew that) but I was also leaving. As much as it makes us sad that I won't be here to carry on the work with our investigators, we can see how maybe the elders can do things that we couldn't. We're hoping the elders will be able to help Stephanie get her husband to take the lessons. It will be good. Stephanie will eventually be baptized, but we hope it's sooner, so she doesn't get any more content! We asked Stephanie if she would meet with our mission president and talk to him, and she said she would. He's a convert, and he has a really strong testimony of Joseph Smith (which is what Stephanie says she struggles with) so we think maybe he can help her. I will really miss Stephanie, she's so sincere and honest and would do anything for us. She's like family, like an aunt. When she joins the church she will really do a lot of good.
Ironically, when I left my old/new area, I was sad because I was going to miss the baptisms of some people we had been working really hard with, like Eulalio and Lupe and Lulu. And of course, I only missed it by a day-they were all just baptized yesterday. I can't believe it! But I am very excited to go back and see Lupe and Lulu, I really loved them. And I'm sure the ward will be confused when I show up next week. Their pianist is back. And the district is the same except for one elder is gone. It's crazy where the Lord needs you to be and when. It definitely doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm going with it I guess. Maybe I just needed that little time to be in Irvine, to meet some of those people, maybe it was just to have the opportunity to be companions with S. Moore, and definitely maybe I needed to learn some lessons in Irvine about patience and humility! Back to Spanish I go-after not really speaking it for 6 weeks. Ha ha! And they've just realigned the boundaries for our area, so it's a lot of new area we will be working in, and that's exciting!
Well that's it from here, from Orange/Anaheim/Santa Ana. Happy birthday to Braden and Roger this week and happy anniversary to the Ryan and Melanie! I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I will talk to you all soon! Love you!
Love,
Hermana Emily (yep, back to Hermana!)

Disneylandia

Hello familia! I got some great e-mails this week, so thank you all for those! Hooray! Irvine and I are doing great. Let’s see, what happened this week?
First of all, last week playing soccer with the zone I collided with another elder’s leg and I got a big hematoma on my leg. Really, it was huge, S. Moore said it looked like another knee. Ouch. The “growth” is now gone, but my whole shin is bruised. Nylons are good for covering up some things. I testify of shin guards.
Well, let’s see, first off, Stephanie. We’ve been seeing a lot of her lately. She called us last Tuesday and said she was just having a really bad day and wondered if she could get a blessing. Of course! So some elders in our district came to the church and gave her a blessing and we just talked for a little while. I think it really helped and I thought it was so interesting, that for someone who isn’t quite sure yet about the church, she had faith in a priesthood blessing. After we taught her on Friday, she had a meeting with some of the members in her church. She does it every week. This week’s topic was her. They had another pastor come who supposedly knows a lot about our church, to all try to help her see that she needs to be careful. I think they confused her a little, because she says she feels comfortable with both what they say, and what we say. She’s now been exposed to a lot of deeper doctrine that we wouldn’t have taught her ourselves, but we just tried to briefly explain them, and when we did, she accepted it. She’s said that the plan of salvation is so perfect and that everything makes sense. She’s getting answers left and right and I think she knows it, but change is hard and it makes her nervous to commit without her family. I don’t know. She’s becoming too content and she basically wants to take the things we teach her and keep learning, but be able to stay at her church so it doesn’t disrupt anything. But she can’t keep doing that!
We’re trying to get in to teach some inactive, part member families currently, and it seems to be going well. They’re all letting us in and seem to trust us, so that’s good. Like Pete and Dana. Dana is a convert and married the guy who was the missionary who “converted” her. I don’t know what happened, but after 10 years they got divorced. They were married in the temple, and I think she was active for years. Now she is pretty inactive and living with a guy who she’s been engaged to for the past 2 years. Pete is really amazing and would do anything for Dana, and I think she’s the reason why they’re not married-she’s still stuck on this ex-husband who doesn’t seem to be a great guy at all. It’s hard because Pete really enjoys the lessons and prays and I think wants to come to church, but Dana always has some reason that she can’t come. She knows she needs to be a better example, but she’s not making it a priority. So we need to figure out how to help him progress even when she’s not.



The whole week was just really busy. It seems like we’re always running somewhere to visit someone. We didn’t even get in a lot of knocking time last week, and I don’t think we’ll have much this week either. Probably next week, at the beginning of the next transfer, we will be knocking doors a lot again. Not the most effective (referrals are better!) but it seems to be how we do find investigators here. It’s S. Moore’s last week, so today she is at Disneyland. Our last p-day the departing missionaries get to go. So she’s with some sisters there and I am on exchanges back at my old apartment for the day. But my old companions live somewhere else now, so I’m hanging out with one of the girls I used to live with, and the Tongan sisters-including S. Chriswell. It’s fun to be around her again. She’s crazy. My six month anniversary is this Thursday, and S. Moore’s last district meeting, so we will have a combined party! And I will burn an elder’s tie! Yes! I have no idea who my companion will be next week, but it will be great, right? I’ve learned a lot from S. Moore, and even though she’s leaving me in an area where everyone is in love with her and sad to see her go, the next sister and I will be able to do things that she couldn’t do. That’s what I try to keep reminding myself of anyway!
What else? Not much. We’re keeping busy and I’m doing really good. Thanks for the e-mails and packages and everything! Love you all!

December So Soon?

December is here! Can you believe it? I can’t. Nuts. Last week was busy. They all are though, right? It didn’t feel like we got a lot of “official” lessons in, but we were visiting lots of people and it was all worthwhile.
On Thursday, Thanksgiving, we were a little worried that we would have to be eating 4 dinners. But no! We went and visited two part-member inactive families and just spent some time with them and their families before they officially ate, and went and visited Stephanie Suzukie and she came with us over to a member’s house (who always is there when we teach Stephanie). We just sang some hymns with that family. Stephanie loves the hymns; she always says she’ll do something if we sing her a song. Our real dinner that we ate was with Shellie. We helped her prepare a bit then ate with her husband and daughter. They are an unusual family. Her husband is very quiet, Jewish, and sings in a barbershop group. He’s not interested in religion, but has been giving Shellie an allowance so that she can pay tithing (even though we’ve explained that since she doesn’t work, she doesn’t need to, and especially because she wasn’t a member yet.) Shellie is 54. I guess when she was about 40 she started to think, what will I do for the next 20 years…and then she got pregnant. Now they have Linda! She’s a good girl, also very quiet. Shellie is not quiet though. It was really fun to be with them. We then went and visited a couple of other inactives and to everyone we delivered pumpkin chocolate chip bread! So that was the day. It was full and good!
Saturday was Shellie’s baptism. She had quite a few friends there, and members, so that was nice. And when the elder baptized her, they realized a minute later-after Shellie had left to go get changed, that he had said one word wrong and she had to come back out and do it again. She just thought it was hilarious and appropriate for her craziness. But it was all a really good program, simple and short! It was really nice.
Let’s see, what else. We did a lot of “regular” things this week. Every Tuesday we go and sing for this older woman at a nursing home; she’s a member in the ward, but can’t always get to church. Then we play trivia for an hour down in a lobby with other people who live there. We have these books that we ask questions from. These people are hilarious. One woman is like 88 and from Chicago and is just mean and makes us laugh. Another one tells us she doesn’t want to do trivia but then sits down anyway. And she tells us not to kiss her. Good deal. We love doing this every week. We also go and read with this little boy in the ward every week. His dad is an older man, and single, and sort of struggles. And Chandler just needs some role models and we read from The Friend with him. He’s a really good kid, and I think the sisters are just sort of big sisters for him.
We committed Stephanie to being baptized this week. Basically she said she can’t do it right now. We do know that she wants to be baptized, and if she were a single woman, she would do it. But she’s worried about her family and really doesn’t want to cause a problem there. She says she wants to be more solid, and really know more, so that she can bring her family in with her. She did acknowledge though that there might come a time where she just has to do it on her own. She compared it to like an Abraham and Isaac situation, where she’s wondering if she’s supposed to “sacrifice” her family, to show the Lord her faith, but then in the end doesn’t really have to lose them. That’s the hard part though, having enough faith to just do it.
Her pastor from her church also met with her this weekend, and basically got Stephanie confused. We were hoping her pastor would say bad things about us, and then Stephanie would come more in our direction, because she’s strong enough. Instead her pastor was nice and just sort of pointed out the differences in our churches and said it was good to learn about other churches, but just to be aware of those differences. And she brought up what a lot of people believe that we are saying-that we think that Satan and Christ are brothers, and that we believe we can become like God on His level. We’ve talked to her about this before, so I don’t think that one really is a problem for her to understand. But what she struggles with is the Holy Ghost. She feels like she already has it. And we’ve talked about it a lot, and pointed out where in the NT, the people had to receive the Holy Ghost, they didn’t just have it. She found that really fascinating, because she likes things to be logical, and she couldn’t explain how this idea worked in her church. But now her pastor gave her some explanation about how the people back then weren’t Christian to begin with, so they had to be given the Holy Ghost. But now, people are Christian already, so they already have the Holy Ghost. I don’t know. It will still come down to her faith and if she really has a testimony of the restored gospel. That’s what we will be working on. We do know that she’ll get baptized; it’s just when. We’re praying for her!
The next two weeks I’m pretty sure will fly by because there are a lot of people we want to see and things we need to do. Two weeks left in the transfer and then S. Moore goes home and I get some new companion. I did ask president the last time we interviewed, if he had any idea of closing this area to sisters, but he said he doesn’t plan on doing that. So I figure that means I can probably stay here a little bit longer at least!
It’s getting colder and foggier around here and I appreciate it. We don’t walk a lot here, like we did in Orange. We mostly drive from apartment complex to apartment complex. People aren’t out walking around here, at all, so there’s no point in us walking around. Everything’s going well though. We’re trying hard to find new investigadors to teach, but it’s definitely not easy. But hey, we’re optimistic. Thanks for the letters and love familia! Talk to you all next week!
Love,
Emily

Turkey Time

Happy Thanksgiving! It may not be official turkey day yet, but it’s the season! I’m betting that mostly everyone is not home while they’re reading this. You will either be in Utah, in Wisconsin, or in Texas. Great! I will be in Irvine.
Things are going just great here. It’s the middle of the transfer, and it feels like I’ve been here longer than three weeks. Last week was a little harder-as so far it seems like mid-transfer is. We had lots of people who needed to cancel or “reschedule” appointments. We still always are really busy always visiting someone or another. But with some of the new ways that we are keeping track of our numbers, with lessons and everything, sometimes at the end of the day our numbers don’t really show how much we did. It’s a funny thing. But we know we’re doing good work.
In this mission, every transfer they do temple tours. Missionaries invite investigators to come watch a little video about temples in the chapel next to the temple, and someone in the mission presidency will speak for a couple of minutes about the temple and give a little intro. And then someone will take everyone on a little walking tour around the temple talking about different things. Only takes about half an hour. They do it in English and Spanish. Then they come back to the chapel and have Costco cookies (ha ha) and can ask questions. It’s really a great thing and I think they should do it in every mission that has a temple. And members really need to invite their nonmember friends to it too. So we went to it this weekend.
We also had our temple session last week as well and that was wonderful as always. I’m so glad that we have the opportunity to have a temple in our mission, and that they let us go, and don’t make us do it on our p-day. We hardly have any time to get everything done on p-days, so it’s really a blessing to go to the temple once a transfer!
Shellie had her baptismal interview last week and she’s getting baptized this weekend. She’s ready and just wants to get this next step done. She basically has a simple faith of this gospel, and even when she has questions about things and finds that they really can’t be answered, she’s really good about accepting it and understanding that a lot of things come down to agency. Shellie came with us to the temple tour and really enjoyed it. She actually went to the temple open house 3 years ago, so she’s a little familiar with the temple. She’s a really good woman and we really enjoy being with her.
We had an AMAZING lesson with Stephanie Suzukie last Friday. We actually stopped by her house last Sunday and gave her a general conference talk to read and sang her a song (she loves the hymns). On Monday she called and said that she loves it when we stop by and “it’s like the Holy Spirit comes into my house.” It’s funny because often she says how she doesn’t understand how us receiving the Holy Ghost is any different than what she has because she says she feels she already has it. But then she says things that definitely point to the fact that she’s learning to recognize the difference. We taught her all about faith and acting on it. It was so powerful. We read from Hebrews 11, and Moroni 6:4 and 7:33 and, talked about some of the conference talks we’ve given her. She knows the church is true. We always teach her with this one member, Sister Moon, and she told Stephanie that we had been fasting for her the day before. Stephanie kind of freaked out. She’s not a very emotional person, but she was crying and told us never to fast for her again. On Saturday Sister Moore had a feeling we should go stop in again, and Stephanie said she had been having a really hard day and was hoping all day that we would stop in. Testimony of listening to the spirit! She’s getting to a hard spot where she knows it’s true. She feels it and she’s received the witness that she needs. She came to church on Sunday for the first time and told us after church that she had been fasting. She understands why we fasted for her, but she was just overwhelmed that we would do that and wanted to do it for herself. We’re going to commit her to baptism this week. The hard thing is that she’s at the point where she knows she has to do something; she knows she has to be baptized, but she’s afraid to move forward. Her husband only barely converted to Christianity from Buddhism and it was really hard; for awhile their marriage really struggled. And she’s afraid to have that happen again. It’s so hard to ask someone to do something that you know will be really hard for them but is right. But we have to do it and she knows she needs to do it. It will be interesting to see what happens. The thing is that we’ve been teaching her all about faith, but we need to have faith ourselves to know that she can do it and it will work out. And yes, Stephanie’s two little boys play violin: the Suzuki method.
What else. Oh, funny thing this week. There’s this Hispanic family that we teach once a week. Since they’re in Irvine, they’re not a typical Hispanic family…very Americanized, and speak English, but we still teach in Spanish. Anyway, we stopped in there for a bit on Friday and taught them about the 10 commandments. We taught them with the hand signals. I don’t know if you know them, I only learned them on the mission. We were teaching number 4, and you make your hand like a church, with four fingers. So we reviewed it and asked the grandson David who is probably 6 or 7, what that commandment meant. He thought for a second, and said “go to Carl’s Jr.?” Everyone busted up laughing, it was pretty good. Church or Carl’s Jr. Either way.
We also got a new investigator this week, a woman named Clare that the sisters met awhile ago. She is very spiritual and seemed to really get what we were talking about as we taught the first lesson. As we talked about the restoration, she said “Oh, that’s why it’s called latter-day, because it’s the same church, just now.” Yes! Seems so simple, but most people don’t get that. So we’re excited about that potential.
This week we are eating with about 6 families for Thanksgiving. Oh no! It will be a crazy, full day as we are eating with and helping Shellie prepare dinner, and then stopping by about 5 other families homes. Some are investigators, some less actives, and some members. I have a hard time believing that missionaries anywhere else gets feed as much as or more than they feed us here.
Here’s a random question. Does your church bookstore by the temple sell movies? I would really enjoy having “special witnesses of Christ.” It’s a good one to show clips to investigators. Also, do they sell cheap scripture cases there? Very cheap? I have no idea how much they cost, but my binding doesn’t really stay on my scriptures any more, it’s only attached on the last page, so I probably need some type of protection so it doesn’t get any worse. Some thoughts.
I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful fall season and getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas and everything! Things are speeding by here. Elder Granger, one of my MTC elders, said to me the other day “Hey, in two weeks you will be a third through your mission.” Never thought of that. Thanks Elder Grange. Pretty soon Sister Moore will be going home. It’s crazy. I’ve really enjoyed being comps with her and I wish I could have been with her longer. She’s such a great teacher and people really love her. I’ve really been able to learn a lot from her. But then she’ll be leaving and I’ll be the one who knows my way around. I’m not sure that I’m ready for that, but it will be good. It’s funny to see her in this last transfer, because in a year, I will be where she is. We’re just trying to stay focused, but it’s hard because everyone is constantly reminding her that she’s leaving soon! Luckily we are teaching some really great people and we have a great ward with lots of missionary potential. We’re just trying to push everyone to help us out with some referrals!
The mission is wonderful. I think for me the hardest thing so far has been feeling inadequate. Feeling like I don’t know what I’m talking about and that I don’t really know the scriptures and I’m not focused enough. But it’s interesting how all the things we teach investigators, we have to apply to ourselves. We tell them that they need to acknowledge the progress they have made and be grateful for that, and then they can ask for

more. So I know that I have been blessed, and I’ve learned so much in the last (almost?) six months and hopefully I’m changing for the better! Thank you everyone for everything you do for me! I love you so much and hope everyone is happy and healthy and doing wonderfully!
Love,
Sister Emily!

Tustin, Irvine---What's the dif?

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