Fontana Fun

So this week was a bit of a roller coaster. Hermana Stevenson and I have been running around trying to get to know this area. We've met so many different people and families from all over the place. Before I forget, where did Dad live in Nicaragua? There's so many people from there, here it's ridiculous. Also, there's two girls from Queretaro. They knew all about JFK and Jurica and everything! Where was the church at, do you remember? Also, and you don't have to, but there are a few missionaries that have a handy-dandy pocket translator that they bought on Amazon. I would really appreciate one, but it's not necessary. I think they're $30-$50 if I'm remembering correctly from what Elder Christensen said.

 

Your weekend at the Greenhalgh's sounded like fun! I wish I could've been there to see Matthew give his talk, but I guess I'll be there for his homecoming. Plus I'll be closer to him while I'm on my mission than any of you will be. Muahaha.

 

So here's what went down this week:

 

We walked into our apartment on Wednesday, it's pretty nice considering elders lived in it before... then we opened the fridge. I don't even know what was caked onto the floor, but it resempled carmel. It took us a good 45 minutes to clean the fridge. (Okay, backstory quick. Elder Torgesen and Holloway have been here for a few transfers. I think this is their third? Anywho, they were in our area before and they lived in our apartment. They're now in a different part of Fontana but still in the ward) Elders Torgesen, Holloway and Richins (yup, they're in a trio) came over to pick up some of the stuff we brought home from the mission office for the elders on bikes. We asked them about the fridge and they said it had been like that when they got there. Gross.

 

Turns out, from asking around, we're about the first sisters that have been in this ward in 8 years. No pressure.

 

Apparently we teach English classes on Wednesdays and Fridays too.

 

We did a boatload of walking this week to try to get to know our area. Whilest walking we came across these people that were washing their car. We went over and were helping them out. Her name was Angelika and his is Christian. We were talking and having a good time, then this lady came out to get her mail from across the street. We waved and were nice. The next day we were trying to find a less active. Low and behold, it was the same lady that came out to get her mail. It was awesome!

 

We also talked to a less active who's name is Danny. Turns out he's only a year older than me, which is wierd because he looks like he's 30. I just can't gage ages, apparently. Anywho, he's super nice and we're really excited to work with him to get him back to church.

 

On Sunday, Hermana Stevenson and I got to talk. And I don't mean go up, introduce ourselves, bare our testimonies and sit down, no. This was a thought out, written down, had time to plan talk. I pretty much did an info-mercial on Preach My Gospel. It went really well! Then after church we had a huge meeting with all the leadership and their counselors to talk about this plan to reactivate people. We split up by three groups (there's three groups of missionaries) and each one of us got one of the leaders from each auxilary. We went through the ward list and picked out the people in our area, then talked about their level of activity, then set up times to go with members on Tuesday for the next three weeks to go visit them. We're pretty excited!

 

Everyone's super excited to have sisters. And you can tell that they're not really used to it because everyone only shakes our hands. It's funny!

 

Well. I think that's all.

 

Mucho Amor!

 

Hermana Myers

Another Week, Another Growing Experience

So this week was pretty awesome full of major ups and downs.

I want to explain to those of you who may think the LDS church is too strict that I hope you can see the mercy and love that was shown to this missionary.  Discipline comes from the word disciple and is done out of love and concern to help and individual become a disciple/follower of Christ, not just in word but in deed.

First off, we found out on last Saturday that one of our zone leaders(a district of missionaries is about 6-8 with a district leader, and a zone is made up of 2-4 districts and has two zone leaders who report to the assistants to the president who report to the mission president) was going home early. It was a huge shock to a lot of us. We ended up having a meeting about it on Tuesday. We talked a lot about obedience. It was interesting to hear President's and Elder B's (our other zone leader) take on the whole matter. Apparently the elder had been breaking small, little rules that didn't seem very significant but then it got so bad to the point where he couldn't even sustain President as a leader. However, after many interviews and President trying his hardest to get him to stay and the elder himself making huge changes and going through a major repentance process to where he saw the wrong in his thinking, the elder decided he couldn't trust himself and went home. It just emphasized to me how important exact obedience is and how awesome it is to have the Atonement.

There was an earthquake too. Just a little one Tuesday night. That was exciting.(Glad I didn't know that!)

We had interviews with President on Wednesday. They usually last about 15 minutes... mine was 45. Oops. I had a lot of questions and received a mission father's blessing. It was really nice. Basically what I got out of it is that I do have enough faith and the fact that I started my papers (mission papers to be called on a mission), finished the process of filling out my papers, came on a mission, and am still here are evidence that I have faith. He explained to me a little bit more about Alma 32 and how if we so much as feel that something is true, we have a knowledge of it because we know that it's a good seed. He also told me that he wanted to send me to Borrego Springs (which is a little town in the middle of nowhere-ville) and be a Sister Training Leader. I have no clue what he was thinking. (See PS. below, this didn't happen this transfer) The blessing was really nice too. He talked a lot about the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. And the blessings my family will receive from me serving. It was awesome.

We had stake conference too! It was piped in from Salt Lake. And our area 70 has asked all of the state of California to do a special fast in February for the drought. Conference was awesome though, a lot about missionary work. A story came up twice about two friends that have been working all day in one of their yards and they go in for a break, the owner of the house pulls out a nice cold glass of orange juice and starts drinking but doesn't offer any to his friend. The friend gets a little annoyed and asks for some and the other replies, "Oh, sorry! I didn't think you'd like it." or "I didn't want to offend you." Our stake president likes object lessons...

I think that was really all that happened this week. It was pretty intense!

Well, I love you all!

Hermana Myers

P.S. I'm getting whitewashed  into the Randal ward in Fontana with Hermana Stevenson. No STL for me!(this is missionary lingo for both missionaries in the companionship to leave the area and Hermana Myers and her companion Hermana Stevenson, one of her companions from the MTC, will both be new to the area.  Usually only one missionary from a companionship moves so that one missionary knows the area and the other can learn it but when you "whitewash" an area two new missionaries start a fresh and clean slate.)

Recharged the Batteries

Dear Family,

 

It's funny that you saw Dianne the other day because the other day I got a letter from Mallory and have been thinking about the Operahouse a lot. I even told Hermana Harris some stories. I miss everything about the Operahouse, especially the people.

 

Before I forget, yes, transfers are next week. I don't know what's going to happen though, because next week is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day so all the libraries will be closed and that's how our zone leaders find out where we're going... So we will see. I guess my zone leader is the office elder so I may find out on Saturday or Sunday. Who knows.

 

This week was an interesting one. Hermana Harris and I have been struggling a little bit with getting motivated and whatnot so this week was us trying really hard to get back on the horse. Some pretty interesting things came from it. We've been trying really hard to apply the things we learned at the mission conference we had this transfer, teaching simply and whatnot and finding out what people really want in life and helping them to realize that no matter what they want to aspire to, the Gospel can help them. We had a lesson with our investigator, Claudia, and we worked really hard to get ready for this lesson. First off, Claudia is awesome. She doesn't have a whole lot of religious background, doesn't know a whole lot about God, but prays and reads the Book of Mormon with her daughter. She wants to come to church but we have to work around her husband that won't let her. Anyway, we had left the Book of Mormon with her, honestly as a comfort tool because she's been going through a really rough time. Hermana Harris bore her testimony about how when she's going through a hard time, reading the Book of Mormon really helps. It was great! But Claudia seemed to take it the wrong way and that it was going to solve all her problems and if she read it then she wouldn't be distracted ever again. Oops. So this lesson we wanted to clear that up with her. We did, and then we started talking to her about what we as missionaries do. We flat out said that we're not here to sell our church or convince her that this is the only true Church, but we did tell her that we're here to help her make changes in her life so her life will be more in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and when we do that, she'll want to follow those teachings and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority (How to Begin Teaching point. Yup). She took it like a champ! She told us that she will only get baptized if she feels it in her heart. We told her that we're here to help in any way we can and she got all excited. Yay!!

 

Another thing that I've learned in the last few weeks is to just be people's friend and don't always jump right into being a missionary.

 

This last Saturday we were heading over to see a less-active family (This family is huge and has three households that we know of. Hermana Bates, Harris and I refer to them as the Mora Clan. In one of the households there's a member that's semi-active, but everyone else is either less-active or not a member. Lots of potential that Hermana Bates and I have been trying to work with since I got here. We had this awesome plan to do an FHE(Family Home Evening - a night set aside to spend with your family teaching or living a gospel principle, usually Mondays) with the whole family that never when through because when we mentioned it to Hermana Mora (the semi-active member) she started avoiding us. Anywho, we drove up to one of the houses on Saturday and saw that everyone was outside, having a family get-together. We sat in the car down the street for a few minutes debating on whether or not we should go and be awkward and crash the party, or just try another day. We decided prayer would be the best way to find out. After a short prayer, we sat and thought for a little bit, trying to see how we were feeling. After a few minutes we realized that we really should go and at least try to talk to them, if they let us in we can make new friends! If it's awkward, well, we'll have an funny story to tell later. We also made sure that both of us knew that we had to be confident, even if they tried to make it awkward. So we walked up to them, our heads held high and with big smiles on our faces. We were there for about an hour and a half, just talking and laughing with them all. It was really fun and a really good experience! We tapped into the Mora Clan!

The best part about this is (first off, Hermana Harris and I usually divide up during Relief Society and try to sit by different people every week.) Hermana Harris sat by Hermana Mora in Relief Society yesterday, Hermana Mora flat out told Hermana Harris that she wanted us to come to their FHE today: we were to give the lesson, she was to provide the treats. Alrighty, Hermana Mora. We're on it! We're super excited!

This week has been a good one and we're hoping to have an awesome last week of the transfer! Pray for us!

 

I think that's really all I wanted to say...

 

Much love!

 

Hermana Myers

 

P.S. Don't worry, we're getting fed plenty. It's actually really nice eating with two sets of elders, each having a HUGE elder in the companionship. People are a lot more satisfied with how much they eat, then the pressure's off us to eat everything. I don't explode every day. Yay!

Making Friends

Dear Family,

 

Based on the temperatures I just read(let her know how cold it is in Iowa -16 with wind chill of -45), I've decided to stay in California for forever. But not really.

 

Hurray for no more debt! Hurrah for Chloe having a car in Rexburg! Would you like me to start making payments on it like Polly and Dan did for the Corolla? Eh, cross that bridge when I get there.

 

Last I heard from Kara was she emailed me the day she went through the temple. I wasn't able to write her because I didn't have anything to write with or on... but I'll write her this week.

That's awesome that the new missionary knows Chandler! I haven't gotten those letters with encouraging words yet, but that's okay. I also was looking through an old Liahona the other day and President Condi was in it. I laughed and took a picture. (the new missionary serving in our branch came from serving in the same ward as a guy-friend of Chloe's from BYUI.  We always chuckle because Chandler went to the temple with Chloe, for friendly support not to marry and the temple president, Spencer Condie, thought they were an item and told Chandler "no mushy letters, just ones filled with encouraging words")

 

Really my personal goal for missionary work for this year is to make as many friends as I can. I had talked to President a little about the area after the mission conference and he told me that I'm here to make friends. Alrighty, President, I shall make friends. So that's really my only goal right now. Or the general goal, I guess. We have our own individual and companionship goals that we come up with during comp inventory. 

 

Before I forget, I'm planning on sending some boxes home of stuff I don't really need right now (extra clothes, Christmas stuff, souvenirs) all that jazz that I don't want to carry around from transfer to transfer.

 

Hermana Ortiz came to church!! and Hermano Curiel tried to come... but he accidentally went to the Pioneer ward instead because of the time change. Oops. Didn't understand a word. Our bad for not telling him.

 

Other than that this was a pretty ordinary week.

 

Love you all!

 

Hermana Myers