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

My New Companion

Emily and the Persimmon Tree


Hi Family! This week was really good. My companion, Sister Lewis, came on Tuesday and we did the little orientation which is actually pretty long. I'm pretty glad now that I didn't do the whole normal orientation. You are just soooo tired and there is waaaay too much info to process.
That night we just had a dinner appointment and a lesson with Leticia, our recent convert, so hopefully it wasn't too much for S. Lewis the first day. She's really nice and willing to give suggestions to me, so I like that. Mostly I just want her to feel like she can say what she does and doesn't like the way we/I do something. She's from Sandy, UT and mostly has worked in a medical office for the last couple of years and taken some classes at SLCC. She's really great and really just wants to be able to share the gospel. It frustrates her that she doesn't feel like she can speak the language. It's an interesting thing to see someone who has just come and kind of see where I used to be. I haven't forgotten how it was frustrating in the beginning, to actually be able to communicate with people, but still, I guess my Spanish is a lot better than where it used to be.
Since S. Fatkin has been here the past week and maybe that was good to ease S. Lewis into the Spanish teaching because she didn't have to do as much. She mostly bore her testimony, said MTC style prayers and shared the first vision. But after Wednesday when S. Fatkin's comp comes in, it will just be the two of us. I'm not worried about her; I know it will take time to learn the language, and lots of patience. This is a really good area to start off the mission I think. This ward is amazing, I really love the people here but then that's what 6 months in one area will do for you.

Emily and her favorite MTC instructor, Sister Alexander

Leticia was confirmed Sunday and that went really well and she just really gets it. She truly is an example of someone who was prepared for the gospel and really wants to learn. I love it! We also found 6 new investigators this week and that was amazing; we didn't find any the week before. And we set a baptismal date with this young guy named Freddy. He asks really funny questions. He asks us where we heard things like living as spirits before we came here. Then we tell him we know from revelation and the scriptures, and he just accepts it. He didn't make it to church though, so he's not exactly solid yet. But we are putting out the commitment to be baptized with a hard date, on the second visit, so not everyone is actually very solid at that point. But if it's right, they will be!
Also, this week the Lopez family came back to church. Silviano (the alcoholic), Nicandra, and the kids. We had dropped them to give them a little time, but were planning on going back this week. But our ward mission leader never understood why we weren't still teaching them, and he called them this week and invited them to his house, and then to church and they came. It's a miracle because that's exactly what should be happening. Members should be involved as friends and continue to fellowship investigators even when we can't be doing the teaching. And it shows that when you have faith to “drop” someone, that you can be blessed for doing it. When Silviano saw us at church, he was very attached to us and kept asking us to come back and that they missed us. You always hope that people notice a difference, but we didn't expect such a reaction from him, because he always used to say that he didn't understand us. He did though. So we're going to go back tonight and eventually start teaching them again. I still believe this family will be baptized, I just don't know when.

Irvine: Shellie's baptism

It's interesting being at the halfway point in the mission; I feel like I finally get it. I get why people love being on missions. It took a while, but I really do love it and also get why missionaries start to think they don't want leave their missions. There's definitely some safety here. Everything's going really well and even though I don't know what will really happen this transfer, I think it will be great! Thanks for everything mi familia!