California!

Greetings from California! When I first arrived last Tuesday it was in the 60's and sunny as can be. Such a nice change from the bitter cold I left in Utah. They drove us around for awhile to get us acquainted with the area and to show us the temple. It is a little baby temple! It's apparently the busiest small temple in the world, or so they say. I saw various other interesting things as we drove around, including two herds (flocks?) of wild turkeys.

Missionary work has proved to be quite difficult for me, but I'm trying. The very first door I knocked on when I arrived informed us that we are in a cult and that we're deliberately misleading people. Fun! Most people aren't that mean, but most aren't too nice either. To top it off, in this mission we are supposed to invite street contacts to be baptized. That means that we are supposed to invite someone who we have talked to for less than three minutes to be baptized into a church they know nothing about. I have had some difficulty with this, but I'm trying to be obedient.

I love my mission president, and I love my companion as well. Her name is Sister Coffin and she is straight from Samoa. We're in a Tongan ward, which is very interesting. The whole service is in Tongan usually, and the ward is SO nice. They try to feed us so much, even though some of them barely have food to pass around to their whole family. I must be the only person in the history of missionary work to lose weight in a Tongan ward, and this is only because I'm always so stressed that I can't seem to eat much. Sister Coffin and I teach only Tongans, Fijians, and Samoans. I can exchange (very) basic niceties in Tongan and Samoan now, and I'm going to try to bear my testimony in Tongan at the next fast meeting.

In this mission, every new missionary is given a blank Book of Mormon and we are supposed to highlight everything in it that has to do with the Savior in red, and every gospel principle or doctrine in yellow. It's a very cool project. I started the Book of Mormon a few days ago and I'm on track to finish by the end of this transfer (6 weeks from now). I've never read the Book of Mormon that fast, and I like it--you can see the whole story better if you're reading 20 or 30 pages a day.

Anyway, so that's what I've been up to. It's hard, but I am really trying. Please keep me in your prayers. You're all in mine.