5/7 and 5/15

5/7
Hello loved ones! I hope your May is looking as gorgeous as mine right now. California is so beautiful in the spring. We also added a great new investigator this week. His name is Zach and he's a senior in high school. He has two good member friends who brought him to church and he agreed to meet with the missionaries last week. The lesson went so well. He is a really good kid and he's so open to the teachings. I'm excited to see where this goes. I think a baptism's a-brewin'. Our recent converts Jo, Jessica, and Amy are all doing really well too and I'm excited to see what happens with them in the future.

In other news, a mysterious bug is eating my companion alive. She wakes up with new bug bites all over her FACE every day. It's awful and really funny. This bug took a little nibble of my leg but apparently I'm not as tasty as Sis Ratu and so he's continued his campaign against her face. That is all for now.

Also, spring pictures!!

5/15
So the verdict is in. I'll be staying in Folsom for the last transfer of my mission. I can't believe I only have 6 weeks left here. You just never think the end is going to come, and suddenly here it is. I'm happy to stay in Folsom-- the work is slow and difficult but I have many people I've gotten to know and love and it'll be nice to spend the little time I have left with them. The best news about transfers though is my new companion--none other than Sister Agavale, a sister I served with about 6 months ago. I love her to death and I was keeping my fingers crossed that we'd get the chance to serve together again. She gets here tomorrow and I'm so excited! This transfer is going to be my best one yet I think.

Magic

Sister Foster asked me to post this. It's a photoshopped picture of her as a unicorn that I made her for her birthday. Enjoy.

3/19-4/30

3/19

Time is very short, but here is a little blog for ya!

Last Friday was my birthday. It was a good day and I felt very loved. But by far the best part of the day was when my investigator Jessica called me to tell me that she had talked to her husband and picked a baptismal date!! She sounded so excited and happy. Her baptism will be on March 30th in the evening. I can't wait! It's moments like these that make all the hard stuff worth it.

 

3/26
Hello gang! Things are still going really well here in Folsom prison blues. Jessica is still set and excited about her baptism this Friday. I think half the ward is going to show up. It's going to be great and I am PUMPED! On top of that, we set up another one of our investigators with a baptismal date! Her name is Amy and she is married to a member named Ron. She's been investigating on and off since last summer and she decided that she is definitely ready to move forward and be baptized. She's chosen April 13th as her date. The only possible hitch is that she has a PICC line in her arm right now because she had a very serious blood infection last week, and if they need to keep it in, she may not be able to be baptized that day. But we'll adjust if necessary. I am so happy for her and Ron. They have been really trying to do all the right things and her being baptized can only help them more. Life is good! Transfers are next week and it's definitely a possibility that I'm getting shipped out of here. I hope not though. I really love Folsom and my investigators. We shall see.

4/3
Greetings from Folsom! Again! I survived another transfer and I couldn't be happier about it. Sis Ratu is staying here too, which is a little unusual because this will be our third transfer together. But it's fine. We had a baptism on Friday and it was perfect. Jessica was glowing the whole time and I felt so lucky to be a part of it. There were like 100 people there! I love the wards in Folsom. So supportive of recent converts.

 I hope everyone got to catch GenCon this weekend. It was the last one of my mission, which felt a little sad. I have really enjoyed watching General Conference as a missionary. You just feel a part of things. I don't know how to describe it. Anyway, the prophets and apostles gave lots of great counsel and I would encourage anyone to watch the talks on lds.org

 

Happy Easter everyone!

4/16
Hello there! Greetings from beautiful, sunny California. Good things are going on here in Folsom. We have a baptism coming up on April 24th, a woman named Amy who recently married a member. I love their family and I'm so excited for them. After Amy gets baptized, I will have pretty much baptized my teaching pool and I'll be back to square one. Yikes. Hopefully we find some new people to teach soon!

4/30
So this week we were privileged to attend Amy's baptism, which was wonderful. Many people came, and she was very happy. And she burned me the whole Harry Potter books-on-tape series as a thank you (for after the mission of course)! I've loved getting to know her and her family. I feel so blessed to be here in Folsom around such wonderful people. I love my converts, I love the members, I even love our crazy downstairs neighbors who drunkenly yell until the wee hours of the morning (actually, I don't love them. I hate them.)

3/12/12

Greetings from Folsom, CA! Things are going well here. Jo is doing great since her baptism. The ward has already assigned her VTs and HTs and she's been visited by auxiliary presidencies from the ward. I love wards that love converts. Another one of our investigators is very close to setting a baptismal date--her name is Amy. She is married to a member of the ward and she's been investigating since last June. She didn't want to rush into it because she wanted to make sure her decision was for her and not for her husband. She's decided that the time is right and she's very ready. Now all that's keeping her from setting a date is she needs to find a weekend she'll for sure have custody of her son, who is 5 and very cute. Looks like she'll be an April baptism! I'm very excited. Another cool thing that happened this week is that our investigator Jessica's husband came to church with her for the first time. He's a nonmember and is supportive of her investigating, but he hasn't wanted much to do with it till now. I'm hoping that this gives Jessica the hope she needs to move forward with baptism. I'm really hoping for two April baptisms. How great would that be? Tracting/finding has been fairly discouraging lately, but we're pressing forward. Hope everyone's doing great!

Addendum: I can't believe this, but I almost forgot--another Apostle came to speak to us this week! I got to sit in the very front row as none other than L. Tom Perry spoke to us! It was amazing! He is so funny and sweet and very passionate about getting the wards involved in missionary work. I love him, and I feel so lucky!

2/13, 2/21, and 2/27

2/13/12
Happy Valentine's Day loved ones! I hope that everyone's doing well. Things are good here in Folsom. My companion and I have been sick for several days now, but we were still able to see most of our investigators this week. Jessica is doing well. She's been investigating for a few months now but her husband just isn't on the same page as her so she doesn't want to move forward without him. We asked her husband to donate a service to the Young Women's Silent Auction this weekend (he used to be a pro golfer so we asked if he'd be willing to donate an hour-long golf lesson for people to bid on). He was way cool about it and even came to the silent auction with Jessica. We also got our ward mission leader to go over and have a chat with him and help resolve his concerns. I think we're moving in the right direction. Jo is doing great. We ended up having to move her baptism to Feb 24 because it turns out she's working on the 18th, but I'm just happy she's getting baptized at all. She made dinner for us a few nights ago and tried to teach me how to double crochet. I'm not very good, but I have big dreams. Also, my mission president is still on sick leave. He's recovering, but very slowly. I don't think he'll be back to the mission for another month or so. In the meantime, his counselor Pres Weston has taken over and is doing a great job. And that's pretty much my life in a nutshell. Transfers are next week and I am hoping to stay, but I'm sure it'll be fine whatever happens.



2/21/12
Hello loved ones! I'm out of time so here's a baby blog!

Transfer news: Sis Ratu and I are staying here together in Folsom for another transfer. I'm so glad I got to stay. I would have cried if they had transferred me out of here. I'm very attached to a few of my investigators. Jo is still on schedule for baptism this Friday, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. The ward has been awesome and many people are planning to come to the baptism. I'm so excited for her!! Here's to another great transfer!


2/27/12
Jo was baptized this Friday and it was the best baptism I've been to so far on my mission. So much love and participation from the ward. Jessica, the member who friendshipped Jo and invited her to church, had a major tragedy the day before Jo's baptism. I thought Jo might want to cancel, but her friend insisted on her going through with the baptism and even asked if she could bear her testimony at the service. It was amazing to see her at the baptism, looking heartbroken but so brave and faithful. She bore one of the most beautiful testimonies I've ever heard. Jo was so light and happy at her baptism and is excited to jump into membership in the church. I love her very much and I'm so lucky to have been a part of her conversion.

1/30/12

So Thursday I get a text from the zone leaders saying that we were having an emergency mission conference the next day. I was a little stressed about this because I had appointments I had to reschedule or cancel. I wondered what could possibly be important enough that they would need to see every missionary the very next day. So Friday, all 200 of us are in a chapel in Stockton together, and the assistants tell us all to stand, which we always do when the mission president enters. We stand up and look down the chapel aisle, where none other than JEFFERY R HOLLAND is making his way to the stand. It was so cool. Of all the apostles, it happens to be my favorite, Jeffery "The Bulldog" Holland as I like to call him. I was sitting in the second pew, so I was probably 10 feet away from him. He got up there and just gave a great talk in classic Holland fashion. He even yelled at us! "Don't you DARE even think about becoming inactive after your missions. THAT IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE" he roared so loudly the mike squeaked.

It. Was. Awesome.

We all got to shake hands with him and talk with him briefly. It was so nice that he took the time to do that. It was one of the best days of my mission for sure.

Also, one of our investigators, a woman named Jo who I have come to love very much, has tentatively accepted Feb 18th as a baptismal date. I am so happy for her. I've loved teaching her and getting to know her. All in all things are going good here!

1/16/12

This week I will hit my one year mark. I can't believe it's been that long. It really doesn't seem like it could have been a year ago that I was making my way into the MTC amid masses of other baby missionaries. And now here I am, an old, seasoned, one year old missionary. Crazy...

I survived transfers last week and I'm still here in Folsom. I got a new companion named Sister Ratu. She was born in Indonesia and came to the US when she was a child. She's nice enough. We're making good progress with one of our investigators, but the others are threatening to turn into eternal investigators.

Our mission president is still in the hospital and apparently will be for a few weeks. He's doing fine but the recovery process is long. I hope he's doing all right.

In other news, I have to go because my zone is going to sculpt ice cream or something. Have a great week!