Who doesn't believe in Spanish?

Buenos dias familia,

We knocked on the door of a man this week who said he didn't believe in anything we shared. When we asked him if he knew of anyone on his street who speaks Spanish, he said he doesn't believe in Spanish. Sister Marroquin said well that's tough, because millions of people speak only Spanish. I like being able to talk to every kind of person on my mission--I think I'll miss being able to go up to talk to random people. I won't have an excuse to do it and the tag as proof. But it has been fun and fulfilling trying to share more of the gospel every day with people and getting to hear their stories--everyone has a story.

I went on an exchange this week with the sign language sisters. I thought we had challenges in transportation and other things, but boy do they have their work cut out for them. I'm impressed with their tenacity, especially now when I am feeling like my mission is at its hardest--the test of enduring to the end. And I went out with Sister Beale in Sacramento for the day and will go out with Sister Toro tomorrow. I've been keeping busy.

We're doing well in our mission--44 people are committed to baptism this month and 15 have already been baptized. The goal is 65, and the theme from now until the rest of the year is "the field is white already to harvest." I'm sure the field is white in our area of East Sac--we aren't exactly sure where to harvest. But Sister Marroquin has been a champ and is keeping the faith and has been really positive, which has been a great help. Thank goodness for companions.

When Elder Holland came in January, he told us that we need to go home having truly converted at least one person--ourselves. That has been a blessing for me because I know that all the struggles, the pains, the hard work I have put into this mission the past 17 months has made me stronger. I know that I have been truly converted to the gospel and am surprised to see how much it has changed me. It was definitely a very gradual, long process. But I am thankful to my Father in Heaven for answering my prayers, for knowing what is best for me, and for giving me the courage to come on a mission and to bless the lives of others. It's funny because at church yesterday I realized how much the ward members need us, too. I love our ward. I feel like if I moved to northern California, I would want to be in this stake. One of the young women's leaders asked us after sacrament meeting to teach the lesson for her. Others come to us to find answers and to seek direction--read your scriptures, say your prayers, and come to church. :) Sunday school answers but that's about the only counsel we can give--and it's the best kind.

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers--hope you're all doing well.

Love,

kates

Conference

Querida amorosa familia,

I loved General Conference so much this weekend. I had an interview with President Lewis last Friday, and he told me that for some reason he was especially excited for this conference. Maybe it was the announcement of the missionary age changing (incredible), or maybe it was just the all-around quality of the talks. I was deeply impressed with so many of the talks, I can't come close to choosing a favorite. I was mesmerized by Elder Holland's talk (I think my jaw was dropped for most of the talk) about truly living a Christian life. I love that talk, especially as a missionary when I have the chance to meet so many people who profess to believe in Christ and lead a Christian life. It made me think about how I'm doing each day in proclaiming the gospel that he taught every day of his life and the charge he left with us to take it into all the world. I don't want to be the kind of person who with their mouth draws close to the Savior but whose heart is far from him. I thought a lot of the talks were about living a true Christian life of service and love. I feel like they are really trying to bring us back to the absolute basics--the very first two and greatest commandments of love--because we live in such a complex, advanced society where the simplicity and beauty of the gospel is being overshadowed.

Speaking of going back to the basics, I loved the talks about the family, although Elder Oaks's talk about children was really heartbreaking. I went on an exchange with the English sisters last week in Carmichael, and we met a really beautiful woman named Jane. Yes, Jane--and now I love that name even more. She is not a member of the Church, but boy did she sound like one. She was telling us about how everything in society is affected by the unity or the disparity of the family. And how sad it is that Satan knows that simple fact and is trying to break up the sacredness of the family unit (like breaking up families, telling us it's not economical to have children, causing contention and misunderstanding, and even impeding families from forming). As I was listening to that, I was thinking about how overwhelming it is to try to teach about the family when so many families are broken, struggling and desperate. The only thing I can really do is testify of the principles of the gospel that will make families stronger, like having family home evening, family prayers, scripture study, going to church together, and spending time together. And I guess the other thing I can do is have my own family and apply everything I've learned to be true... soon enough...

And how about that talk from Larry Echo Hawk about the Book of Mormon? Those are the people I am teaching! I was mesmerized by that talk as well and actually read in my scripture study yesterday about how the Lamanites will be rejected, smitten, and scourged.

So it's simply this: we are all children of God. Sadly a lot of people are raised in unfair circumstances without a lot of love and luxuries of life. But we can be a truly Christian people as we look past faults and are patient and strive to be like Christ every day. President Monson didn't say a whole lot at the very end (he never really does), but that's the most important part: love, serve, be a little better. That's my hope.

Love you all,

kates

Coloma

Hello family!

I'm writing a little later in the day because at the end of our missions here, President takes us to a place called Coloma where we get to play the whole day--well, until 4:30. A group of us ( who are leaving within the next 6 months or so) got to the mission office this morning and watched a video about the Mormon Battalion who were sent to San Diego to fight in a war with Mexico in 1848--around then. I never knew about the Mormon Battalion before (like I'd heard about it before but didn't know the story). Turns out Mormons were the ones to establish the first post office, the first school, and the first bank in San Francisco. Who knew? After we watched the video, we drove about 40 minutes to Coloma where members of the Church had lived after going to San Diego. There is an old sawmill and a church and a cemetery, a prison and houses and things like that. We had a fun lunch and played bocce ball and horseshoe (which I am horrible at. My teammate kept far away before I accidentally kept aiming the horseshoe at his head.) We got to go to the river, and the water felt so good. It's October, so we thought it was going to be really cold in Coloma, but it was 95 degrees.

We are in serious finding mode right now. We have investigators, but they aren't really progressing. The good news is that we had a goal in the mission to baptize 68 people this month, and we baptized 76. So we have hit our goals 3 out of the last 4 months, which has been exciting. Sister Marroquin and I are coming home every night completely exhausted. I have been having seriously crazy dreams every night--probably from being so tired. But we're going to find them with time.

We're staying positive. Sister Schow keeps things in perspective. Her birthday is on Wednesday, and she will be 82. :) We have birthday surprises in the works. Probably isn't a good idea, but donuts in the morning (that's her weakness), ice cream from Leatherby's in the afternoon (another weakness). And lots of birthday singing, I'm sure.

I'm really looking forward to conference. I liked how President Eyring talked about "What's next?" I felt like that really applied to me, it being close to the end... what's next? And this weekend is going to answer a lot of questions. Hopefully next week we'll have lots of miracles to share.

Love you all,

kates

Fotos!... Next week hopefully

I don't have much time. I'm sorry!! Thank you for all your emails. I loved them!! And responded to them!

Happy birthday, Dain and Malinda!!!!! Hope your day is wonderful. I hear that you're going to Les Mis and Disneyworld. I bet it's more fun being on a mission... :)

Okay, I'm jealous!

We have 3 baptisms this weekend!! One was at 11 am on Saturday, and Sister Toro came back for that. Car and Fre were baptized in the English ward with the APs. They have had missionaries for a long time, and with the miracle of Sister Druyon they are now members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That was one of the neatest baptisms I have been to. The spirit was very strong--it was really peaceful. Maybe because I didn't plan a stitch of the baptism? ;) But I played the piano and Fre chose Book of Mormon Stories for the final song. That was different!

And An who just turned 8 was baptized at 7 pm on Saturday, and Sister Toro came back for that!! That was a wonderful baptism, too. An was so excited to be baptized. I loved being able to prepare her for that.

My new companion is Sister Marroquin. She is from Colorado Springs--the name is from El Salvador.

Sister Schow told me because I liked ironing so much, would I be willing to iron her out? To make all the wrinkles go away. :)

And I was going to send photos, but the card reader isn't working. So this is all you get this week. Sorry!

Love,

kates

Transfer Tuesdee

Querida Familia,

"Transfer Tuesdee" is for Berkeley who taught me the dees of the week. :) I would like Berkeley's address, by the way. She went to Brazil for the summer, and I have no idea where she is living now.

Another week, another transfer! We got our new calls last night. Drum roll, please . . . I'm staying in East Sac! We're going on transfer number 5.5 in this blessed area. I hit my 6-month mark last week. Sadly, my Hermana Toro is going to Sacramento to serve in the Spanish branch. She is going to be serving with my other trainee, Sister Beale! I am a little worried about the horror stories they're going to swap about their trainer. Yikes! But I am happy for them. I think that might be the most Spanish area for sisters in the mission--and it looks like I'm never going to serve there! That's okay. East Sac has treated me really well, and I'm excited to stay with Hermana Marroquin who has been in Stockton her whole mission (3 transfers--which is how I started out).

Let's see. This week is all a blur to me. That's what happens after almost 16 months. The days and weeks and months are all just smothered together now. I feel like September just started yesterday. Time is reaaaaally flying.

This morning we went to the temple. I am spoiled here in East Sac because the temple is a hop, skip, and a jump away. The mission office is in my area. And Deseret Book is right down the street from the mission office. I am staying with Sister Schow--she can never get rid of me! The members in the new part of our area make us cheesecake and offer their services as fellowshippers and for dinner. :) We have some great investigators--and we will get them to church! 

I don't know if I've told you about the mother and son who we were teaching--I probably have. This is a miracle story. I went on an exchange one day with the ASL sisters, and we had a member lined up to go out with Sister Toro for the whole day. She is a returned missionary, so she knows the drill--how this all works! At the last minute she cancelled because she had to take care of her nieces and nephews. Sister Toro sent me a message, and I started rattling off all the people I could think of in our phone that she could call. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't. I was thinking I would need to tell the sisters that I couldn't go out with them that day (they actually live in our area because our area is huge and covers about 10 English companionships--maybe?). I thought about Sister Druyon who is a senior missionary in the office--she served in France way back when and her first companion was Sister Brinkerhoff. Sister Druyon always wants to come out with us because she is so passionate about missionary work and really loves to be out proselyting. We were able to take her to one lesson with Rebecca, and then she treated us to Cheesecake Factory--spoiled! Well, after thinking about how long she would need to be with Sister Toro and how she needed to work in the office, I decided against asking her. But my district leader gave Sister Toro her number and Sister D went! They went to a few lessons/houses, and one of them was Car and Fre. Sister Druyon connected with Car, offered to completely redo her bathroom amongst many other things. We had been teaching them because her husband only speaks Spanish. But Sister D brought the English elders over who happen to be the APs, and one of them speaks Spanish, and after going to church and knowing a lot of people there and this and that, they're getting baptized this Saturday!! In an English ward!! haha I promise I'm not a bilingual missionary. Sister D has been a dream come true when it comes to fellowshipping and leading others to baptism. We are so happy for Car and Fre--this is exactly what they needed right now. If Sister Toro's companion hadn't cancelled on her, we wouldn't be having a baptism on Saturday morning!

But we do, and we also have a baptism Saturday evening! Ang just turned 8. For the time being neither of her parents are members, so she is a convert baptism. We are hoping to baptize her mom very soon! Our ward is having a temple trip this Saturday, and practically the whole ward will be going, so it wasn't possible to have the baptism any earlier. Somehow Sister Toro will have to figure out how to come for baptisms at 11 and 7. Not a very bad problem to have. :)

As for our other investigators, we have a really great group of people that we are teaching. We visited a former investigator who we were teaching in May and June and was going through some very difficult trials. We just visited her last week, and since then she has been able to find a job (2!) and get eye surgery so that she is not blind (she was going blind from diabetes). She was going to come to church on Sunday but ended up backing out because she was called in to work. :( And we were going to have a less active and her sisters come, but they ended up going to Oregon to visit a sick uncle. Strike two! And someone else was going to come, who didn't end up making it. So we had three strikes on Sunday morning, but the meetings at church were great and perked up my mood again. They will be coming to church soon!

The gospel is a great blessing. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me the chance to serve. Although I wish absolutely everyone I talked to would gladly accept this message, that isn't the case. I wish I could stay by people's sides all day and tell them how the gospel would bless them with this, this, and that in their everyday lives. How it brings so much peace and purpose. But even if I don't change the hearts of a whole multitude, my heart has forever been changed. Every day I think about how I will apply this in my life, with my own family, with my friends. This is all that matters. 

Something I did learn this week from a woman that we visited is that I will teach (even force) my children to play piano. :) This 75-year-old woman, Gladys, gave us two pieces of advice. That was the second piece. I thought, "Done!" She said, when they don't want to practice, you make them. They'll say no, no, no, but don't back down.

Love you all!

kates

The field is white already to harvest

Hermosa familia,

That's our mission theme for September until the rest of the year: "The field is white already to harvest." Sister Toro and I have some great investigators and were hoping to have five people to church. That didn't happen, but we have the highest hopes for those we are teaching. We are teaching a woman named T who was a referral from a woman in our ward/an English ward. She switches back and forth, but for the time being she is going to our ward because her father from Mexico is here and was just baptized in July. This member, Hermana C, is hilarious. She was making comments in Sunday school class, and I was literally crying from laughing so hard. Sister Toro said that we can't sit by her anymore because we always end up laughing too much when we're with her. :) T has been reading the Book of Mormon and LOVES it. She told us in our last lesson that she keeps reading and feels like she just can't get enough. She wants "more and more and more." Sister Toro and I were sitting there listening to her, thinking "what?!" We are so happy! Unfortunately there's a little opposition there in that they go to church as a family and her husband doesn't want to come and this and that--but it will be worked out soon. We have faith!

We were planning on having a baptism this weekend for a woman and her daughter, but things aren't looking as bright as they were before. We had a really great lesson with her and her family on Tuesday and talked about faith and the blessings we receive from keeping the commandments. They were actively participating in the lesson and understanding the scriptures we were sharing about Peter walking on water and having faith and not doubting in the power of the Lord and also in Ether 12:18 and Mosiah 2:21-22, 24. Unfortunately we have not been able to contact her, which has been really disappointing! But we have been fasting and praying and know that everything will work out okay. I mean, we taught a lesson on faith and challenged her to have faith to keep certain commandments and to be baptized--we need to exercise that kind of faith, too.

Oh, I forgot to mention last week that I went on an exchange with the sisters in Folsom who are bike sisters. They are from Samoa and Kiribati, so they don't have licenses to drive. President put them on bicycles, and they love it! And I spent the day with them on a bike, too! It was quite an experience and really fun--riding bikes with helmets and skirts and backpacks and flats. I got really bad helmet hair--islanders' hair look good with helmets! And my bones were sore for a week after. I felt so sorry for the sisters, but they have a good time and are able to talk to more people that way. We all borrowed elders' bikes.

And Sister Toro and I were driving from an appointment to the mission office this week and saw a lot of smoke in back of a house. I was thinking, are they cooking something? It was a lot of smoke. So we rolled on by and saw a man walking his dog outside of the house who was kind of checking out the smoke, too. I asked, "Is that a controlled fire?" I don't know why anyone would be burning a controlled fire in their backyard. He knocked on the woman's front door and told her and we noticed the smoke was getting worse and there were flames above the fence. The man called 911 and the Sister Toro held his dog while I took the hose and tried to hose off wildfire in someone's backyard! It was a crazy sight--two sisters in skirts fighting a fire. I told Sister Toro to call the mission office which was across the street to tell them to bring fire extinguishers--I guess they started running around the mission office/church like chickens with their heads cut off looking for fire extinguishers. The good news is now they know where they are! The fire engine came and the fire was put out and we continued on our way to the mission office. Sister Farr in the mission office got a picture of us--the new firefighters. :)

Love you all,

kates

Cooling down, Speeding up

Familia,

We had a baptism on Saturday!!! Sister Toro had her very first baptism (and we were the ones who started teaching her from the beginning, so that was a neat experience), and I had my very first English baptism--Rebecca! Her fellowshippers were all there--it was small, but I thought it was a great turnout. Very intimate! Her daughter flew in from Idaho to come to the baptism. Her husband has been less active for a very long time and her daughter was baptized just last year. Since her baptism, her dad has started coming back to church and received the Melchizedek Priesthood and her mom was baptized. Rebecca's daughter shared her testimony yesterday in sacrament meeting and it was really touching. Sister Toro and I bought Rebecca a CD so she will have pretty music to listen to and are going to make a picture frame collage thing of her baptism pictures and maybe quotes or something cute.

We are hoping to have a baptism in a few weeks for a woman named Ang whose children were baptized in January. Her daughter An turns 8 this month, so they'd like to be baptized the same day. We hadn't really thought through it that much, and the zone leaders pointed out that Angela would be a convert baptism too. Wow--miracles happen just like that! So we are hoping and praying that some things will be sorted out soon and that Ang's heart and mind will be set at ease so that she can be baptized. The whole ward probably thinks she's a member already because she's been coming to church weekly since December. So that will be exciting!!

We were working with some other investigators whose husband/father spoke Spanish. The wife/mother is white but learned Spanish from her husband--hence we were teaching her. Things just fell into place for the APs to start teaching her (one of the APs is a Spanish missionary, so he can teach the husband). We are hoping the mom and son will be baptized in two weeks as well. We are making progress in East Sac! Even though our investigators are going to English wards/counting for the elders! But we're seeing progress in our Spanish work, too. Yesterday at church was the first Sunday that we've been together since our ward split. We were small(er) but I think we had a nice turnout! The pianist didn't show up, so I played at the last minute and bore my testimony while I was there. Wow, I love this ward. I love this area. Stacy asked me how I like Sacramento and my companion and investigators. We have been finding a lot of people lately who are interested in learning more. I think I will be transferred soon, which makes me really sad. I've been here for 6 months. But I feel like I'm leaving the area in a good state (with recent baptisms and a good investigator pool) and in good hands--Sister Toro! We'll see what happens when transfer calls come in two weeks.

I am happy to be a Mormon. I want everyone to know how much I love the Book of Mormon AND the Bible. We believe the Bible to be true--the Book of Mormon is an additional witness that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that this is the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. I am grateful that we can read it, ponder it, and pray to our Heavenly Father to know that it is true. And through the power of the Holy Ghost we can know that it is the word of God. How lucky we are to have more, to know of the restoration, to be living in these days. There are treasures in the scriptures and in the words of the prophets. I can't wait for conference in a month.

Love you all,

kates