Rapture?

The most exciting thing that has happened this week is that the world was supposed to end on Saturday! Was that just a California thing, or did everyone hear about that? We've had people asking us about it for the last 2 months. Supposedly some idiots did some Christian pseudo math with the Bible and somehow decided that May 21, 2011 was the day that Jesus was coming back. Well, surprise surprise, Jesus did not make an appearance this weekend, at least not that I'm aware of.

Be good everyone. Last days and all. (But actually, that is true.)

Haikus

Well, not much to report this week, except that Sister Despain and I won the district competition for who could teach the most lessons this week. Hurrah!

Because I don't have much to tell you, I'll share some haikus that I wrote this week.

Sun is boring down.
My face is all a-freckled
and my scalp is burnt.

Babies a-buzz in
Sacrament. I wonder what
they're talking about.

I just want to nap.
Why so tired all the time?
I'm up with the sun.

Baptism fell through.
I've never had that happen
and I don't like it.

Joseph Smith-- he found
a golden book in a hill,
hidden in the ground.

Have a great week everyone!

5-9-11

Greetings from Stockton! Updates.

 

• Stockon is a little scary, but we live in a very nice gated community with a member. And we're only in the ghetto parts during the day.
• Sister Despain is my companion and she IS mostly deaf, but she wears heavy duty hearing aids and so she hears perfectly fine. She was called ASL (American sign language) on her mission, so...
• I'm in deaf work as well as English work right now. So that means I'm learning sign language! It's very different than I thought it was, but it's fun to learn. I can barely sign a thing and the deaf people we know like to tease so they make fun of me all the time. It's actually pretty funny.
• We had a very unexpected baptism on Saturday. Shelly and Loren are married and have been investigating the church for years. They finally decided to be baptized a few weeks ago, but only Loren was able to go through with the ordinance because Shelly is very ill with cancer and wasn't well enough. A member went to visit her a few days ago and told us that the baptism just wasn't going to happen. But we decided to visit anyway and see what was up. We chatted with them for awhile until finally Shelly told Sis. Despain that she sensed that Sis. Despain had something on her mind. She hesitated but then said, "Shelly, you look really strong today. We know how much you want to be baptized, and we can have everything ready within the hour if you want. We can make it as quick and painless as possible if you want to do it today." Shelly seemed unsure at first, but to our great surprise she said that was what she wanted to do, so we found two witnesses, called the zone leaders, and had her baptized 45 minutes later. Phew!

So that's life right now. I must fly! Time never goes by faster than on p-day. Hope everyone's well and safe and happy.

5-3-11

Hello everyone. This will be my last post from Manteca, CA because I'm being transferred again. Here are some facts about my new transfer:

1. My new area is Stockton, which is the roughest, ghetto-est part of the mission. (But they do try to take good care of the missionaries in Stockton.)

2. I'm not sure to what extent, but my mission president told me that my new companion is mostly deaf.

3. I'm not only the senior companion, I'm her follow-up trainer (missionaries get two transfers worth of training, and I'm doing her second transfer of training). I'm only one transfer older than her (I've been out for three months), and I have no idea how this is going to work.

So this is shaping up to be an interesting upcoming transfer. I felt like I was being pushed to my limits before, but the funny thing is that on the mission your limits keep expanding. So I'm sure that it will be fine. At this point I'm just trying to look at the positives and not wonder too much why I'm being asked to follow-up train when there are several sister missionaries who are much older than me who could do a much better job. But this feeling of inadequacy is nothing new--all missionaries feel somewhat unequal to whatever task they are faced with I think. It keeps us relying on the Lord.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Happy Mother's Day everyone! Tell your mama you love her. Signing out.