Saving Souls in Stockton

Hola mi familia!

Thank you for your emails this week! I'm just so happy it's P-day so I have a little time to regroup. I haven't decided yet whether or not the days are really long or really short. For now, I think time is going by rather slowly, but I know it'll pick up as I learn more and have a better feel for what's going on. We do weekly planning each Thursday morning and boy are those planning sessions tedious--I thought my head was going to burst the first week we did it because we talk about less actives, recent converts, investigators, and potentials and I didn't know anyone and what was going on, but I'm learning gradually.

I just got here two weeks ago and we're already moving! We're moving in with the English-speaking sisters who are living in a member's home right now. The good news is that we'll now have a washer and dryer and won't have to pay $6 every P-day doing laundry. So we get to pack up today and clean and then hopefully some elders in our zone will help us move.

On Sunday evenings we go on "Blitz" which means our zone (14 missionaries) chooses any area and the elders in that area choose a street from each companionship (hopefully that makes sense). So we all focus on one area--dominate it with missionaries. Last night they gave us a random street so we started knocking doors. I chose the first door and we actually ended up teaching the first lesson about the Restoration and said a prayer at the end. The man was semi-interested--I just felt like I needed to keep talking even though he was hesitant about change because he and his wife are Catholic. We left him with a pass-along card, so I hope he visits Mormon.org or calls for the DVD on Christ. Anyway, we knocked other doors and the whole street was INFESTED with spiders. I just got the goosebumps thinking about it. Every house had spiderwebs in all the trees, at their doorsteps, on the garage. It was no bueno. Sister Carlos and I were ducking under webs--and these spiders were not messing around. They were ginormous. We looked like crazy ladies running all over lawns and jumping. I couldn't believe it--I took a picture of a tree where there are at least 100 huge spiders. Sick. Why did they choose that street.

Welp, it's official--I get headaches every day and I think it might be from trying to learn what's going on, but I think the real reason is because I'm focusing so hard on trying to understand Spanish. It's been a difficult first few weeks just thinking about whether or not I'm really going to learn this language, seeing as how I speak English the majority of the time at people's doors. I love speaking English so I can truly express myself. One girl--Ramona--was outside her car when I just talked to her for about 5 minutes. She was really sincere in thanking us for our kind words--all I had to tell her is that God loves her and has a plan for her and wants her to feel his love and that she can repent and come unto him and feel peace and joy. I am understanding Spanish more, which is a tender mercy. I get the gist of what people are saying but am still working on speaking. Hopefully my tongue will be loosed soon. :) I get all tongue-tied when I open my mouth. I'll work on that.

We have a lot of work to do here! Mom, you asked about visiting and home teachers. Funny that you mentioned that. We actually don't have any of those. Zilch. They're working on putting together a list of visiting teachers in Relief Society as we speak, so we're going to start visiting members with their respective teachers to get the work started with a bang. Somehow the bishop needs to organize the home teaching efforts but I guess I need to go through our district leader to do anything in the ward and that it's the bishop's responsibility so I can't really say anything?? Well, yeah... that's not going to stop me. I talk to the bishop every Sunday because I play the piano during sacrament meeting--I might mention something and see how we're progressing with that. Visiting and home teachers are essential. As missionaries, we're pulling a lot of the weight of the ward right now and we can't keep doing that if we expect investigators and recent converts to be strengthened after we leave. Please please help the missionaries--be willing to go to lessons so they can have member-present lessons where you can simply bear your testimony and answers missionaries' questions. Missionaries are the teachers so don't take over the lesson, but be willing to go. We need you--investigators need you!!

We have been trying so hard to get investigators to come to church but it seems like the harder we try, the less that comes out of it. But we're not giving up. I'm determined to witness miracles in Stockton. We're hoping to have 7 baptisms as a zone this month. I know that by faith and diligence and obedience miracles will happen. I've been reading and studying about faith for the past two weeks and love what's in the Bible Dictionary, True to the Faith, and Preach My Gospel about faith. Faith leads to repentance and keeping the commandments. We have faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement and that's the message we're sharing with the world. It's all about coming unto Christ and finding happiness through having our sins washed away and being free from the guilt and shame that we feel through our everyday actions. I'm so happy to be sharing this message. We've been promised that God has prepared people in our area and I'm determined to find them. A lot of people tell us they know Jesus already--like the man who told us he's been to the Mt. of Transfiguration and the woman who told us that she's married to Jesus and her front door was so big for when he comes home. Through it all, we're looking for those who have been prepared to hear about the Restoration of Christ's church on the earth today. I don't know how many times I've repeated that. :) Just reminding myself of my purpose.

Love you all!! Thank you for your prayers. I have felt them. All is well. Did I mention my favorite hymn is now Come, Come Ye Saints? Look up the words--so beautiful and very motivating for me as a missionary and for all of us.

Love,

kates

(The elders told me to tell people my last name is brincabrinca. I guess that means bounce house and since Hispanics can't pronounce my last name, we can just resort to brinca brinca, however you spell it.) :)