Monday, April 8, 2013

Hello from Sunny California!

Well, hello out there cute kids/older people. I'm out here in there beautiful weather of California. It's  gorgeous. Seriously, it's not like Long Beach. There are mountains covered in foliage and tons of trees everywhere and all is quite green. 

Anyways, the rules have been changed, so I can email anyone outside my mission boundary (and anyone in that isn't male inside mission boundaries). At least, I believe the rules cover all that. So, if people wouldn't write, they could email. But I like getting letters a lot more. So spread that around with subtly. 

I'm serving in the Glendora 5th and YSA ward! Perfect for me, right? I've only taught one discussion so far actually. It was to two recent converts...who happen to be nine and twelve year old boys. 

They are exactly how you would imagine. Great questions. Impossible. Deep doctrine. But creative.On resurrection: "So will all our hair come back out of the drains..etc?" On eternal families: "What if I get divorced then I get a girlfriend[after death] and then..?"  And such.

Did you know there are all sorts of missionary lingo? If someone is your "baby", then you trained them. A "mama"  is the person who trained you. "Whitewash" means that two elders leave at the same time and "pinkwash" means they are replaced by sisters. You "die" when you leave. And you are "killed" by your last companion. If you train someone and then they train someone, the person is your "grandchild" and you are their "grandparent". You may even become a "great-grandparent". It's kind of crazy because we aren't actually allowed to use slang according to the white handbook, and yet we have our own missionary language. Yes.

We went door knocking and that was an adventure. People were not very nice all the time. One man opened his door, shook his finger, and then shut the door. Some woman's dogs were barking at us from the other side and she's like "I'm sick". She sounded perfectly healthy to me. We did have a good conversation with one girl, but she still said "no". Funnily enough, the teenagers are a lot more polite and open to us than the grown ups. But it's okay. We knocked on the door of this lady the other day who was korean. And asked if we could share a thought. So I read the one about God so loving the world. And I told her my limited knowledge of Korean words. She told us she didn't believe in Christ and that it didn't matter much if God existed because she didn't think he would love us if there is so much bad. So we talked to her a bit about the plan of salvation. Her husband's anti-christian but we invited her to pray and Sister Wheatley(my companion) promised that God would help soften her husband's heart. But we haven't heard from her yet. There's still hope though! And it's always planting seeds.


...Which by the way reminds me of a man I met at conference. He's from the Phillippines and is getting baptized this Sunday(or Saturday?). But his testimony was awesome and he was absolutely glowing with the light of Christ! YES! He said he kept having these Mormon friends throughout his life and there was something special about them. So, one day he decided to learn more basically.

My district is all Elders with me and my companion. And the rest of my zone is elders too. I guess my group coming out is among the first group of half sisters out, so it's really male-dominated. Which is fine, but the elders are pretty immature. They are trying though(for the most part) so kudos for that! 

Anyways, rumors can be true. But it's pretty interesting out here. 

This is what was left of my district as we started our journey out to California. All five of us are in the same mission. The rest left the day before for the hot Arizona weather. So sad. 

Anyways, love you! Be good out there. Write me. Tell people to write me. 

And some more pics from the MTC. Haven't taken any in California yet, sorry! 

No comments:

Post a Comment