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!