8/15/11

Greetings from Fair Oaks. The work is slowly moving along here. We *probably* have a baptism on Thursday (that's Dakota, our teenage investigator), which is wonderful. He's been investigating the church for a long time and has had a lot of obstacles to overcome, such as waiting for several months for his mom to agree to write a permission slip. We've been very happy to be able to help him along on the way to his baptism. Other than that, not too much to report. This area has been a little difficult for me, to be honest. Not very much teaching at all--no teaching pool. We spend most of our day trying to get in touch with potential investigators (people we or the previous missionaries from this area have talked to who expressed even a small interest in learning more) or knocking doors. Very seldom do we actually get to teach someone. But we keep trying. Hopefully we'll find someone soon who wants to learn. I'm hangin in there, hope you're all doing the same :)

8/22/11

Well, the most exciting event of last week was Dakota's baptism. It was great. He's been attending church for over a year now and so several of the young men from the ward showed up to support his baptism, which I just thought was marvelous of them. I've been to a few baptisms that weren't well attended and even though it doesn't really matter how many people are there, it is still a little sad to me. Anyway, his baptism was great. We have no others in the works at the moment and so we continue to look for the golden people.

Here is something. Our zone had a charity competition that Sis Langirik and I won. Our prize? A horrible picture of Jesus sitting on a park bench with a troubled teen. I know that I just offended someone who loves that picture, but the thing is I've seen so much terrible Christian art on my mission, you wouldn't even believe it. And that's all I got folks.

8/8/11

I forgot to tell you about my baptisms last week! Maria was indeed baptized on the 30th, and she was so happy. I love her and I can't for her son Osker to be baptized in a year or two. She's already started asking about doing baptisms for the dead. Sister Despain and I promised each other that we will be back in a year to go through the temple with her. I'll be off my mission by then but it will so be worth a road trip back.

 

Isaiah (our 8 year old deafie) and his parents Loretta and Jimmy ended up moving their baptism back for crazy reasons, something about Loretta leaving Jimmy for financial reasons when they had only been married a WEEK. Crazy. I don't know the full story. The important thing though is that Loretta came back and they were 100% ready to be baptized the following weekend (Aug 6th). The baptism was great and they seemed very happy.

 

Also, congratulations to Fair Oaks on officially being the rudest area I've worked in so far! But I guess rich people need the gospel too so we will keep trying. We don't really have any solid investigators at the mo. Except Dakota. He's a teenager and he comes to church almost every week, but he hasn't been baptized for a few reasons, one of which is that he's felt pressured by missionaries in the past and he wants to do it in his own time. We have a tentative baptismal date for next Sunday, but he's out of town till Wednesday so we'll see if that goes through. We also have Myron, but I don't know if I can count him because he is what we call an "eternal"--someone who's been investigating the church a looooong time and hasn't decided to be baptized yet. He's been meeting with the missionaries for almost a year now. But I certainly haven't given up hope yet. He just needs to come around in his own time, hopefully sooner rather than later. He is a funny guy. I like him a lot. He texted us this morning to tell us to get our lazy butts out of bed and get on the road. Quite a character. Anyway, I'm trying to learn to love this area as much as I loved Stockton. Time will tell.

Fair Oaks, CA

Hello everyone. Greetings from Fair Oaks, California. The best thing about Fair Oaks as far as I can tell is that dozens of roosters and chickens wander around downtown. Cars stop for them as they use the crosswalks. I have no idea where they come from or why they're there (this is not at all a farm town, it's just a suburb of Sacramento). But they are everywhere, and they sleep in the trees. I love them. I want to know everything about them. I'll keep you informed.

Shotgun training has proved to be a more stressful situation than I anticipated. I still have no idea what I'm doing. My new companion is Sister Langirik and she's from the Marshall Islands (itty bitty Pacific islands out by Australia). Her English is not great yet and so there's definitely a language barrier between us, but she's sweet and generous and she's been very patient with me. Even when I have no idea what a certain rule is because I'm still pretty new myself, or I can't keep our investigators, recent converts, or less actives from each ward straight, or I'm yelling at the GPS because I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WANTS FROM ME, she just laughs and lets me figure it out. She is completely stress free and just rolls with it, which makes her a nice counter part in this companionship.

Hope all of you are well and alive and having a great summer. Happy August!