Oh Heyyy

Querida familia,

Thank you so much for all the wonderful birthday packages--I loved it!!!!!!!! I got packages from Mom, Erin and Grandpa at Zone Conference on my birthday. I am so lucky! Thank you for all your love and thoughts and amazing balloons filled with cute notes and snacks and two pounds of See's candy (WOW! Luckily Sister Schow LOVES See's chocolate so I can share my stash with her!) and CD. I got a package from Melissa, too, with a cute scarf and hilarious pictures and a letter from Berkeley. Thank you for making my day so special! Somebody last week thought I was 26. Wait what? I just turned 25 but I'm supposed to look 18...

Like I mentioned, we had Zone Conference on Thursday. It was already a great day and then President chose me and two elders to share our talks on the Atonement. It was really special for me to prepare that talk because I was able to contemplate what the Savior did for me. It was the easiest talk to write and every word came from my heart. I then accompanied my district leader, Elder Walker, as he sang I Heard Him Come. I was super nervous to accompany him because I've never played for a soloist and there were a few tricky parts that could come off sounding feo. I practiced a lot (thank goodness we have a piano at home) and said many prayers. Sister Schow and Sister Fernandez were praying for me, too. :) The neat thing about it was that I could literally feel their prayers as I played. The song was great! That was a great birthday present. The AP's chose me to play the hymns--since they didn't tell me (but had already put my name on the program), I left it to one of them to play. :) I didn't want to play all the hymns, a special musical number, speak, and be sung happy birthday to. That would just be ridiculous. So Zone Conference was great and we focused on the thing that matters most--the Atonement.

I went out with members all day Tuesday and Wednesday while Sister Fernandez was on exchanges. That was less stressful than a few transfers ago when she did that. I pretty much left it to the Lord to help me know what to do because I don't know this area at all (and it is huge!). We have a lot of work to do as we just got a long list of less-actives and we need to find a lot of new investigators. I know there are people in our area who are searchers and are seeking the gospel in their lives and we're excited to execute our game plan this week and see miracles. We have a firm (I had nothing to do with teaching him) who is getting baptized April 14. He's from Peru and I've decided if I'd served/been from a foreign country, it would be Peru.

Next week I might be emailing a little later because we're planning on going to the temple! And I'll be emailing on Tuesday I think since it's transfers. Thanks for all your emails and thoughts and prayers. I apprecite what Jo said about praying for her own missionary experiences. That's how the work is the most effective--through member referrals! I hope you all are well. Love you lots.

Love,

kates

Birthday Package Fail

Hello family,

On Thursday after district meeting we were teaching E with a member, Hermana Meza, and President Lewis called me. I ignored the call--it's E!--and then he called back. I said I should probably take the call so I left the apartment and President told me he had a calling for me. I was thinking, "How can I have a calling if I'm a missionary?" He then proceeded to tell me that he needed me to transfer to East Sac... the next day. So now I am in East Sacramento and will not be in Manteca to retrieve packages/letters. I hope not everyone got involved--I was hoping it would just be my scriptures coming but I'm afraid that's not the case (sorry, Grandpa). We all should have gone with our instincts! Gosh, Heavenly Father is so good. The good news is that Sister Beale told me that she got two of my packages (I was able to give R and P and V their triples and Bibles before I left--they loved it!!!) and she can bring them to her Zone Conference tomorrow and one of the APs can bring them to me at my Zone Conference on Thursday. Mmm hmm now the APs are going to know that I gave out my direct mailing address. No more giving out my address and I wouldn't even dream about giving out my phone number!

With that being said, I now live in Carmichael in a wonderful member's home. Sister Schow is 81 years old and lets the sister missionaries live with her. Sister Fernandez and I are companions once again for the next 2 weeks and then I think we'll be together for the next transfer--I'll end up 'killing' her on her mission because she has these next 8 weeks left. However, she really sounds like she's dying--like she has tuberculosis. She doesn't, of course; at least I hope not!

Of course after my email last week I would be transferred all of a sudden. I love Manteca too much. It's strange how quickly everything can change. I think I'm still kind of in shock that I'm in a new ward, about an hour and a half north of Manteca. I really miss Sister Beale and was sad to leave her. We didn't finish the training program together, but another sister who's going home in 2 weeks is going to finish it with her. It's cute because she had all sorts of evil plans for my birthday and had been preparing things here and there to surprise me--I had no idea! She gave me the chocolate-covered pretzels she bought me before I left and the list of things she liked about me that she was going to write on hearts and scatter throughout the apartment. Nobody here knows that it's my birthday on Thursday and I'm not about to tell them--so happy birthday to me, right? :) It's probably best not to be reminded that I'm a quarter of a century old!

Oh, by the way, my new district leader is Elder Walker. Yesterday after dinner with our bishop, Obispo Woodland, he heard me say that I'm from Dallas/Ft Worth. He asked if I knew the Grimmetts. His sister is married to Brian Grimmet. Brian told me before I came that his bro-in-law was called here and I knew in the back of my head that there was something about an Elder Walker but didn't remember. Yep, that was a weird whoaa, Brian is married and his wife's little brother is my district leader. There are TEN missionaries who serve in our ward, and our area alone is pretty huge. We cover like Fair Oaks, Citrus Heights, Sacramento, North Highlands, and Carmichael (something like that). I think it's just parts of all of those. The ward is supposedly huge. I don't have to play the piano. :) Someone plays the ORGAN. Haven't heard that in ages!

Now the mission office and the temple are in our area (at least I think the temple is, not exactly sure. I at least know that it's about 30 minutes away, so hopefully we will be going on transfer P-day in a few weeks.). I miss the cows and the almond blossoms and the crop fields and the long stretches of highway and my investigators and the members and the stench of Man"stink"a. :)

Sister Fernandez is still the exchange sister and hasn't done her exchanges yet so she'll be leaving tonight and gone until Wednesday night. I don't know this area at all and I know about 3 people and none of the members. This should be really interesting. I'm not as stressed about it. We've been taking it a little slower because I've been super exhausted from losing an hour of sleep last week and packing and all the new changes. I've been able to nap a little bit--I've decided I don't really like sleeping on the top bunk. Supposedly I got off the bunk last night at about 2:15 in the morning and don't remember it; that's amazing because yesterday when I got off the bunk (awake) I hit my bum on the door handle and got a bruise. I love the house we live in, though. There are actually rooms and photos of family and books outside of the gospel library and a piano! Sister Schow shares some of her food too :) and we use her washer and dryer. Oh I'm in heaven.

That's about it. I've been transferred and thrown for a loop but this is what was supposed to happen. I think Sister Fernandez and I are going to see lots of miracles in the coming weeks. One of our investigators (who I've never even met) called on Sunday morning (after we seriously prayed for miracles on Saturday night) and told us that he wanted to be baptized on April 14. Done and done. We will baptize R from Peru on April 14. Hope to meet these people soon. Sister Fernandez says they've been teaching R for a while, had taught him everything basically and it was just up to him to choose a date but he wouldn't "until after he went to Peru," but he didn't know when he was going to Peru. Anyway, pretty cool deal.

Alrighty, can't really think of what happened this week in Manteca--my mind kind of just stayed there when I left. Something that's been on my mind a lot lately is pondering the Atonement. The significance of the Atonement and what it really means in our lives--how we can apply it. Not just learning about the Atonement and reading the scriptures (although that's great and necessary) but seriously meditating it. Taking the time to stop during the day and reflect and think about what I'm really doing with my life and why and how I've been so blessed. For Zone Conference Thursday we're supposed to prepare a 5-minute talk about the Atonement, which is just perfect. I don't think we seriously consider it enough.

Love you all! Eat some cake for me on Thursday. :) Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Don't send mail to Manteca--send it to the mission office! It'll be okay--Sister Beale has a new missionary meeting next Tuesday and will be seeing the APs again at that (I should have been going to that too) if more mail comes. Ahhh kicking myself.

Love,

kates

An eventful week

Mi querida familia,

Are you at peace? I like that Dad always says it like that (taken from Dain and Scott, right?). My companion and I were talking about receiving peace from the Holy Ghost this morning. I can't remember the scripture reference, but it's in the Bible: my peace I leave with you, not the peace of the world give I unto you but that of my Father which is in heaven. That was really bad paraphrasing. Anyway, the peace of our Heavenly Father is so different from the "peace" the world has to offer. When we say that we want world peace, it's more wishing that there was no contention but rather toleration. But the peace of God is knowing and feeling His love; knowing that we have purpose and that there's hope and light when we search for it. So yes, I am at peace. :) And I had a sort of breakthrough this week. At times it feels like you're just trudging through quicksand on the mission, just knowing you have so much time left, not really seeing any success or finding anyone who's interested, wondering if you're making any kind of difference. But this week things seemed different and I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for filling me with peace and with light. Light--that's another thing that's been on my mind a lot lately. And I love that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the Prince of Peace.

On Wednesday I believe (or maybe it was Tuesday), my ward mission leader called and said that he worked it out with the bishop to have every second Sunday of the month dedicated to missionary work in sacrament meeting. He then proceeded to ask me if I would kick it off and speak on Sunday about member missionary work. I'd actually been thinking a bit lately about how we can be better member missionaries and loved being able to speak in sacrament meeting about it. I'm glad they asked me to speak in Stockton and now here in Manteca! So I spoke about how the purpose of everything we do is based on the fact that we have a Savior. Without a Savior, there would be no point to this life; there would be no reason to have faith, repent and strive to become better. And we learn more about the Savior by trying to live like Him, by sharing the good news with everyone. President Howard W. Hunter said that our conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ is measured by our desire to share it with others. Not to say that everyone has to go on a mission if they have a testimony, but I'm grateful that my conversion to the gospel impelled me to take this step and have this experience in my life.

Elder L. Tom Perry visited our mission this week! Well, we actually left the mission and joined up with Roseville to see him. It was great! And Elder Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke too about how we need to spend our time finding those who are "searchers" rather than using a lot of time trying to convince people that the gospel is true. We noticed that we've been spending a little time with a few people trying to convince them and have resolved to find those who are searching. We knocked on the door of a woman this week who seems to be a searcher. It was a miracle. We chose a few streets a few weeks ago to tract and hadn't been in the area or able to knock doors there. On Saturday we went to one of the streets for about an hour and found a guy who speaks English that seemed really solid. We tried the next street and knocked on one door and found El who had just been talking to her friend about God. Those two women need a lot of love, especially El, and she was excited to have the Book of Mormon. She went to hand it back to me after we read from Alma 7:11-12 about the atonement of Jesus Christ and I said, "No, you can keep it. It's yours." She said really? Because I kept reading it and wanted to read more. It was amazing. We invited her to the Relief Society Anniversary dinner this Saturday at the church and she said she'd be there!

The almond blossoms are amazing in Manteca! Did I mention that Manteca is like a farm town? It's a little town with cows and fields and grapevines and almond trees and lots of orchards. It's beautiful and the sunsets are amazing and I don't want to leave this area! After I spoke on Sunday Hermana J (her husband is Raul) said that after missionaries speak in church they leave soon after--we both frowned and I said that she can't say that because it's not going to happen. I love the members here, I love the investigators, I love everything about Manteca and am sad just thinking about leaving. :( I have a guaranteed 3 weeks!

We "heart attacked" the door of an investigator Saturday night--she's taking her citizenship test today and we wanted to wish her luck. We got all the hearts cut out and put tape on the back and taped it to our skirt as we waddled our way up to the door to attack it. They opened the door as we were standing there so we took off running. We went around the block and returned to see if we could retrieve some hearts that flew away but they came outside. Embarrassing. That was an epic fail. She called us because she knew it was us and she was worried they didn't hear us knock on the door before we ran, yes, ran away. So much for that surprise!

Love you all,

(Oh this is part of President's weekly email.)

What a great week we have had!  It was such a blessing to sit at the feet of Elder L. Tom Perry, member of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Richard J. Maynes, member of the Presidency of the Seventy.  They taught us to focus our time on finding those searching for truth, the importance of working closely with the ward council and having a good relationship with the High Counselor assigned to train the ward council.  Elder Perry explained that the Church is lead by the Lord through a living prophet.  He told us that this is a very fortunate time to share the gospel because the Church is in the spotlight.  We are all blessed at this time to be in full-time service as disciples of Jesus Christ and to be called to declare His word among His people that they might have everlasting life.  Zone Leaders will be following-up with you in training this week to discuss how we can apply what we were taught on Thursday.

 “In a world ever more dangerous…the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ has the nourishing power to heal starving spirits of the world.” ( President Boyd K. Packer quoted in PMG page 108)

Okay love you,

kates

Fast Weight Loss

Familia!

Promise I'm not advertising any sort of weight-loss plan. In fact, I would never want this to happen to anyone. We had dinner with... someone... this week and got terribly sick and were up all night and in bed (except for at the toilet) the next day. It was a disaster! We had food poisoning I guess and were vomiting a lot. I kept thinking about how lazy I felt being in bed but then the thought came into my head, "Sweetheart. This is Heavenly Father telling you it's okay to take a rest." Somehow we managed to make it to church the next day. It was funny to me that the first thing my district leader asked was who we had at church. Ah well--I don't think he realized how much we were dying and still weak from the previous day's happenings. But we're better now! I've been eating jello and toast and we each had a taco today. Oh, I had a donut last night on our member missionary exchanges.

President Lewis is back in the mission! He was gone for 28 days in the hospitals in Sacramento and Salt Lake (2 surgeries). He wrote this, which I really appreciated. Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted.  It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility…. It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.”  While some experiences in life are not pleasant to endure, they are a part of our Heavenly Father’s  great plan of happiness.

On Thursday we're going to an inter-mission conference in the Roseville Mission to see Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder (President?) Maynes from the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy--that is, if we can find a ride! We're at the very southern end of our mission and the Roseville Mission is north of our mission, so hopefully someone will be very generous and be willing to take us.

We have a promising investigator right now. I may have told you about her last week. Her name is E and she heard about the Church from her friend at work who is a recent convert in the English ward. She's been to church twice but not to our ward! But we've been the ones teaching her because she understands Spanish better. I think I have told you about her. Well she is a little dream come true and already believes and follows a lot of the things we do. The only thing that could be a deterrent is that her work schedule is so crazy and doesn't permit us to visit her as much as we would like! And she can't always go to church on Sunday because she gets off work at 3:30 in the morning. I wish the adversary weren't so good with what he does.

I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful for everything I've learned thus far. I'm grateful for the people I've met. I'm grateful for the eternal friendships I've made. I'm grateful for the struggles, the hard times, and for all your support and prayers. 

Love you all dearly.

And happy birthday to my very special mother. I love you so much. Thank you for everything, momma.

Love,

kates