An Easter Post

I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! My time is short so I will tell you about this week in bullet form. 

• One of my roommates got an Easter package full of candy-stuffed plastic eggs. She hid them all around our apartment and so we've had an ongoing Easter egg hunt. Oh look, here is an egg in the freezer! And here, an egg in the thermostat which is impossible to get out!
• We are working on finding new people and have currently taken to walking around Manteca for hours talking to anyone we see on the sidewalk. We enjoy this tactic immensely because the weather is beautiful right now.
• People in rich neighborhoods are too BUSY and IMPORTANT for a message about JESUS.
• Sister DuQuette likes to tell me the plots of movies she's seen in detail. Including the end. I don't have the heart to tell her that this stresses me out immensely. WHAT IF I WANTED TO SEE LADYHAWKE SOMEDAY?
• I learned how to make whipped cream (it isn't complicated) and I've been enjoying it with the strawberries I bought. That's pretty much all I have to say about that.
• The worst ward choir in the world is in the Northland ward of Manteca. I dare anyone to find a worse choir. It's not possible.

 

Happy Easter everyone! Good news: we will all be resurrected! 

Happy Easter!

Hello all. I'm short on time and don't have too much to report to be honest. Things are a little slow around here right now. Sialei and Leah started soccer so we haven't been able to see them for a week and a half. We have no idea what to do. They just don't have any time. Too sad. High schoolers are just too busy!

 

This week we have experienced several uncomfortable events, including but not limited to:

• Crashing an after funeral party. We decided to visit a less active we've never met. He was outside his house and invited us to go inside, but he didn't follow us in. Upon entering the living room we found ourselves surrounded by his entire extended family because the funeral of his grandfather had literally just ended. We started out awkwardly sitting on the couch because (understandably) no one wanted to talk to us, and we ended up clumsily comforting the dear confused old widow, who probably had Alzheimers. I'm sure everyone was wondering who the rude, insensitive strangers were at their grandpa's after funeral party. Oh, you know, just the Mormon missionaries, don't worry.
• Comandeering a potluck. We went to a ward potluck but knew we'd only be able to stay for a little while because we had an appointment. We got there on time but it hadn't started yet so we went to pass the time with the bishop. We mentioned in passing that we had an appointment soon, and next thing we knew the bishop was on the mike announcing that although most of the ward hadn't arrived with their potluck dishes, we were starting because the sister missionaries had an appointment to get to. We looked like brats who were just there to get a free meal in between appointments. Which is exactly what we were.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend! Love you all.

4-11-11

Hello dear readers. This week in Manteca has been a mixture of highs and lows, per usual.

 

LOWS: Hardly anyone we tried to visit was home. The entire week. Bummer. And bad weather most of the week. WILL IT EVER STOP RAINING? I'm not convinced.

 

HIGHS: 3 categories of these:

     Gopher on a shovel. One of our investigators is named Henry. Henry has a sadistic cat who likes to catch voles and gophers and torture them for hours until they slowly die. Well I caught his cat messing with a gopher the other day and I shooed the cat away and then pet the little gopher for a few minutes (this did not seem to relieve her stress). I then decided that the gopher needed to be relocated, but I was afraid to pick her up because gophers have very long front teeth and I was afraid that I would be bitten and contract rabies. So I searched all around the yard until I found just the thing: an old rusty shovel. I scooped the little gopher up and carried her across the yard, where I deposited her at the base of a tree. I hope that she's safe from the evil cat.

     Member in hiding. One day we met a woman named Lici on the street. We scheduled a return appointment with her, although we got the feeling that she was probably not that interested. But we followed up anyway, and when we got to her house she was sitting in the front yard with a friend. Lici had indeed forgotten about the appointment and wasn't super interested, but we started talking to her friend. Her name is Dorothy and she's in her sixties. To our great surprise we found out that not only is she a member of our church, but she was one of the first black women to serve a mission. She served in Philadelphia in the 80s and she said that it was the best time of her life. She's been doing some "soul searching" recently and hasn't been to church in over a year. We really feel like Dorothy is the reason that we were there at Lici's that day. We visited Dorothy at her house a few days ago and were literally there for 2 and a half hours talking about her mission. She still hasn't really told us the reason she's not active anymore, but we're hoping she'll open up to us as we get to know her better. She is so so cool and I just love her so much.

     Unexpected potential. We've been meeting with two teenagers, Sialei and Leah. They are the daughters of a less active, and we weren't sure how serious they were. But they really are! And they are so cute and funny and sweet. They ask awesome questions and they actually do the reading we ask them to do, which is rare. They're praying about April 23rd as a baptismal date. I really hope they choose to go through with it.

 

So that's life in the big city. I must fly! Have a wonderful week.

Yay!

I hope that everyone enjoyed general conference this weekend, or GenCon as it is also known by some (me, in my head). It was probably the best experience of my mission so far. It hit me so differently than it has in the past. I always thought I understood what they were talking about, but now I really GET it. You know? Anyway, it was great. What was everyone's favorite talk?

 

The work is going well in Manteca. My mission has a higher baptismal goal than usual this month (105) and Sister DuQuette and I are trying to do our part to meet it. We definitely have several people who COULD be baptized this month, but it might take a few small miracles to actually get any of them in the baptismal font before May. The more promising investigators are Brandi (BEYOND golden, but living with her boyfriend and not in a huge hurry to rush into a marriage or break up), Natasha (teenage daugher of a less active, started out very interested but possibly not ready to commit to baptism), and Sialei and Leah (teenage daughters of a less active, super nice and have been to church a bunch of times but may not be super serious).

 

What else, what else. Well, this morning the washers and dryers at my apartment complex were broken in the most wonderful way possible. They worked perfectly fine except that they didn't take any money off our cards. A freebie! It usually takes 6 or 7 bucks just to get some clean clothes around here every week. Not exciting news? Well it made MY day.

 

I think that's about it around here. Except that one of my roommates, Sister Carlos, is being ETed (emergency transfer) out of Manteca and is going to Sacramento because a visa waiter there unexpectedly got their visa and is leaving tomorrow. But I tell anyone who asks me why she's being ETed that it's because she has a crush on one of the elders in our zone. She has told me that she will shoot me if I tell anyone else that, but I don't believe her because she doesn't have a gun as far as I know.

 

Anyway, that's it for me. Hope you're all well and safe and happy.