Hola Familia!
I love you so much! It sounds like you are doing well! Sorry about no email yesterday. I don't know who had the great idea of making basically every national holiday on a Monday, but it stinks when you are a missionary. You kids are champs. Good job and working hard and being so good at the sports you play. Why didn't I get any basketball genes? I'm sorry it's been so cold. It's been cold here too. Well, kind of. Last week was glorious! Like in the 50's all week long. And then yesterday was nice too. And then we woke up this morning and walked outside of our apartment to go to district meeting today and it was 23 degrees! I think we've made it up to about 26 now. I don't know what happened, but I want the warm weather back. I know it's only January, but I'm so ready for Spring.
Let's see, what's happened in the past week? Let's just say we've had better weeks. We had a lot of good plans and goals for this week, but almost every single one of our appointments cancelled. So that was a bummer. And Saturday we went through all of our plans and all of our backup plans in about an hour. That was a very long day! We had a lot of good things happen too. Remember the guy that called us last week from the pass along card? Well he's been reading the Libro de Mormon and he likes it! He was a bit confused about church on Sunday--he thought we wouldn't be there and that it would be in English, so he didn't come. We cleared that up real quick. We also met him last night and did an FHE with the single adults from the ward. We played SkipBo and one of the members gave a really good spiritual thought about studying the scriptures and doing it with the Spirit so that we can learn what the Lord wants us to know. It was really good for Rafael to be able to come and meet people. He told us that he was really wanting to meet people because he's only lived here for about six months. FHE! I can't think of a better way. So that was really good. I'm really excited for him to be able to learn more.
We also went back to those people that we found knocking last week and had the first lesson with them. And we found out that they are Agnostic. I'm not super familiar with what that means, but I think they might believe in everything. They're super nice and they want us to come back and they want to learn more. We're really just going to have to focus on helping them understand that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Church of Jesus Christ.
We've had a few other lessons that went really well and when we were visiting one of our members this week her son was there. This is a big deal because her son is very inactive and went off the deep end when he was still in high school. As in drugs, jail, the whole shebang. He's never really acknowledged us before, but this week we sat down and talked for almost an hour just answering his questions and bearing testimony. He told us that he really wants to come back to church, that he's always like church and that he knows it's true. He told us that even when he was making all those bad decisions he always knew Joseph Smith was a prophet, and he told us how he came to gain his testimony. What he needs now is to be truly converted. To be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to come back and get his life in order. It was a really good experience. I think once he realized that we weren't there to judge him, but just to help him, that he really opened up.
That's the beautiful thing about the gospel. We all need it because we're all imperfect. We need help and complete access to the Atonement of Jesus Christ is what heals us and gives us purpose and direction. I really love being a missionary. Most of the time it's super hard, I'm not sure if it will ever get easy. But it's so worth it. Transfers are next week and I'm just sitting here thinking about where I was three months ago when I first got here. About how much I've learned and how much I've grown. I still have so far to go, but hopefully someday I'll get there. Just like anything, being a missionary, at least the missionary I want to be, doesn't happen overnight. But with patience and diligence I know I can become the missionary that I want to be, but more importantly the missionary that Heavenly Father wants me to be.
We had a really good district meeting today. There's going to be a lot of changes being made in our mission, but we're really excited for them. Some of them will be hard, like having any lesson after the first lesson in members homes, especially when the majority of your investigators don't have cars. But it's what President Riggs wants. We're also making some changes to how we go about teaching the lessons, and it will be a change, but it will be worth it. Some of the elders were having a hard time with it and don't want to change. The way I see it though, this is revelation coming from Heavenly Father. It's what he wants and it's what the mission needs to be more successful and to bring more people unto Christ. It's not really about what we want, but what God wants. If we're not here to do His will, I'm not sure why we're here. It's an opportunity to prove our faith and lay hold upon blessings from being obedient.
I wish I had some funny stories to share with you, but nothing too funny has happened this week. And why didn't you respond to my mouse story from last week? It was funny. Do you even read my emails?! Just kidding. I know you do.
We have had some super fun pdays the last two weeks though. Last week we went bowling as a district at Fort Meyers, which is an Army/Marines base. It's super cheap there. We got there and they search your car and everything before you can actually go on base. I had no idea that civilians were even allowed to go on base just to hang out and do something as silly as bowling. It was a lot of fun though. Except for the fact that I might be the worst bowler in the world. Yep. I definitely came in last place. So I'll send some pictures from that. The sad thing is that one of the Elders from our district went home on Friday. He's been having some knee issues and had to go home to get them taken care of. The cool thing is though that he's from LA and will probably be spending a lot of time at the LA Visitors Center. So tell Grandma and Grandpa to look out for Elder Anchondo Perez. It was really sad to see him go. Our district is super close and we all get along really well, so that was kind of a bummer. We went to Krispy Kreme to say our last goodbyes, hence the pictures.
Then yesterday we went to Costco for lunch! Yes, Costco! It was wonderful. Hermana Stewart and I did some exploring afterwards and tried all the samples. As you already know, Mondays are not prime sample days, but we were happy with what we got. And a member bought us all lunch. Thanks member! It's almost like being a celebrity at Costco because at least 50% of the customers are members and they all say hi to the missionaries and do nice things like buy your lunch and introduce you to the kids and such. Hermana Stewart thinks it's the next closest thing to being a character at Disneyland. She's probably right. After our Costco extravaganza we met up with some other missionaries from our zone and played volleyball and soccer.
So that's about all I have for this week. I love you all so much and I hope you're all doing wonderfully.
xoxo
Hermana Simpson
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