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!

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

Read your Conference issue of the Ensign

Sisters Fatkin, Jeung, and Sanders, a multilingual companionship

Exchanges

Hello!
We are teaching one guy, Juan Carlos, who used to live in Logan with a brother and knows a little about the church. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation last week and before we started, he had questions about baptisms for the dead. Funny the things people find out about. He's still a little confused about the spirit world, but he's really interested in learning. He's been saying he would come to church the last three Sundays, and he's always had a valid excuse for why he hasn't come. Somehow I'm still sucked into trusting everybody who says they will come; it just doesn't get old being disappointed. But anyway, I called him after church and he was like “Hermana, believe me, I'm not playing, I really want to come to church.” He randomly had to pick his grandma up from church though. Anyway, I do have hope for him. He's had multiple contacts with the church and hopefully we are that seventh contact/interaction that will help him get baptized. He's a young guy and works at a golf course.
Exchanges last week were sooooo nice. I needed to get out of my area. I went around with Sister Jessop and we drove a lot. Their area is basically the whole mission anywhere there are Samoans. It was interesting teaching all day in English. Sometimes Sister Jessop would talk to people in Samoan, mostly if they were older people. But otherwise it was English. It was nice to be with an experienced missionary. And in the morning, we did some studying and role playing with the other sisters in the apartment: Sister Chriswell and her companion, Sister Kioa. Sister Kioa and Sister Jessop both came out with Sister Fatkin from the MTC and they all go home in July. No! Then we will be the “oldest.” My chances of ever being with anyone besides a newer missionary are getting smaller. It was a fun day.
I realized this weekend how much I really enjoy knocking doors and how much I just want to stay out every day as late as possible talking to people. At about 8:15 my comps just wanted to go home, and I just feel too guilty doing that. I want to knock every door and keep going.
I have to talk in sacrament on Sunday, so I suppose I will be preparing something all week. I would be nice if I could just teach the Restoration lesson. Maybe it will end up being a farewell talk for me. We have a lot of appointments planned for this week, so it will probably go by pretty fast. Things are going good around here and I love you all!