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.
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
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
Read your Conference issue of the Ensign
Sisters Fatkin, Jeung, and Sanders, a multilingual companionship
Mi familia! Gracias por los e-mails y todo lo que hacen para mi!Yo les amo muchisimo! Well we had a pretty good week! As always, right? Of course! Not too many appointments fell through, so that's always good.
We saw David a couple of times, and he still isn't reading. Hmmm. I'm not sure how to help people get it. He himself admitted that when he reads everyday, that he's happier. Things are better. And when he stops those little things, everything goes downhill pretty fast. So...we'll see. Neither he nor Vanessa was able to come to church on Sunday. But on Saturday he seemed a little happier, a little less down. He even told us a story where he referred to himself as a Mormon. That was something he always used to do, but we hadn't heard for a long time. We like it. As long as he understands he still has to be baptized for it to count! Hay un poquito progresso. Pero hay progresso!
We also have a new family we're teaching. The Spanish elders knocked into them and passed them to us: the Gonzalez family, a mom and three girls. Mom was busy last week with work, but we taught the girls twice and invited the two oldest to be baptized, and they said yes. August 30. I thought it would be a good b-day present for me, if I'm still here then. This week we'll invite their mom to be baptized too. It's great because they actually have family who are members in the mission next to us and the teenage daughter, Jordan, has gone to mutual there, and years ago they went to church. We're excited!
It was just a good week because we were able to get in contact with a lot of people and set appointments that haven't happened for a while. The La Habra ward is really good with doing the ward mission process that Elder Perry has set out. North Hills is starting to catch on. They tried in the past to get us some names, but they didn't work, but now they've given us a bunch of new ones. And now we're really excited about the potential of working some more in that area. We're still knocking in the North Hills area a lot, and I know that success will come out of that somehow. It's all about that faith! It's exciting because our mission continues to do really well. A couple of weeks ago we had more baptisms than they had all of 2008. Yeah!
On Saturday we did exchanges. S. Lewis went to Yorba Linda/Placentia with S. Chriswell, and one of the new sisters, S. Peterson, came here with us. It went really well! And this week we ate tongue. Mmmm! We were eating with some recent converts, the Reyes. And they made us tacos. I've heard lots about tacos de lengua, but somehow I never had the pleasure of having them while I was in Santa Ana. I looked down at the tacos and thought the meat was an interesting gray color. Then I almost immediately saw the taste buds! Mmm! I looked at my companeras and they didn't seem to know. They said, "Oh, its beef." So I let them think that, because really, there was no choice. We had to eat them. Funny though, because the kids at one point mentioned "Oh, she wants to eat more lengua," and I looked at Sister Lewis and she had finally realized it. Ha ha ha! Then we told S. Patten later. Honestly though, other that some sinew type stuff, tongue is the weirdest thing I've eaten. It's not bad. All mental. Just weird to see taste buds. What else? Oh yeah. A couple of times I've been told that I have an accent. A couple of times people think I'm European, and the others they think I'm Midwestern. Just yesterday a ward member guessed I was from Minnesota. Interesting. Who knew! Oh yes, also exciting news to me. Another recent convert, Alex, who is 25, mentioned one time that her grandma "abuelita" used to be a housekeeper for one of the Beatles who had a home in LA. Crazy! But she couldn't remember for which Beatle, even when I told her it was important for her to remember. Oh well. That's the closest I've ever gotten to a Beatle! We played badminton today, and I think I should join a professional league. Oh yeah, and we gave talks yesterday in sacrament. I talked about the joys of being a missionary and talked about Ammon. He was a funny guy; he was always fainting when he got excited.
This week we have a lot planned and scheduled and we're all excited to work hard and find more people to teach and improve our numbers. Not that they completely show success, but high numbers are encouraging!
I love love love you all so much! It's wonderful to be a missionary and I pray for you all and know that you're praying for me! I hope everything is going well! Thanks for everything!
Here I am California dreamin' on a Monday Monday. I can't believe it's August! Summer almost over? Nah! Well, no new baptismal news.
David M. is, well, I don't know what's up there. He's just going through some hard times. It's interesting because in the very beginning, his progress was fast and you could see it. But now what we were afraid of happening is happening. He got a little content I think, and then he was vulnerable to all kinds of doubts and problems coming his way. School is stressing him out and so reading is coming in last place. He basically said he's never been truly happy. We explained that everything we're trying to share with him is about being happy. What is the gospel if not about bringing us joy? So we challenged him to read at least 2 verses every single day, no matter what. And in a week, take an evaluation of how his week went in comparison to other weeks. I really hope he does it because there's no doubt that no matter what actually happens, he will be more at peace. I'm just afraid that he'll get too caught up in school again, and just not do it. It's crazy how something simple, like 2 verses (basically 1 minute at most, right?) could be a challenge. But he's an extremist and I can see that he will feel like 2 isn't enough, so he'll try for a couple of chapters and when he can't do that, he won't do anything. So the prayers continue!
We continue to go knocking and try to talk to everyone. But where are all the people? I'm not sure. But we're looking for them. It will be nice when it isn't summer though. Because then we can assume that people should be home. Every time some of the people we regularly teach are back from vacation, somebody else leaves. Our numbers are a little lower and not very stable right now. So we're really pushing ourselves to just find new people.
We haven't seen the Inman family again since last week, but we're hoping to see them tonight. We pray that she has read in the Book of Mormon and when we teach her tonight about the Plan of Salvation that she will feel it's right and will accept a baptismal invitation!
Let's see...not much else new to tell. We went to a Hispanic grocery today-that's always a treat. Makes me feel right at home! When possible, take a trip to your local Hispanic market and buy some cheap produce. Oh yeah, Minnesotans that care, a lady in the ward here told me that there is a Spanish market right downtown in Minneapolis-a good one. That's all I know.
How are the babies doing? And the babies' mammas? I hope they are great! Ryan and Melanie thank you so much for the package! It was a very unexpected and a delightful surprise! It was so exciting to meet Jordan! He is very adorable! Is everyone doing well? I hope so! I think of you all often and want to let you know that I love you all so much! You're my favorite family!
