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| Sister Cornwall, Sister Ellsworth and Sister Kaiser |
This week brought a lot of new things here in the Woodland Stake.
Out of 13 companionships (who are in one stake) only two remained the
same after this transfer. One of those two was me and Sister Kaiser. Needless to say, there were a lot of new faces hanging around. It has been
a fun week. I need a to back track a little to last Monday.
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Because of all the packing and cleaning that had to be done for
those leaving we did not have soccer last week which was kind of bummer. It is a nice de-stresser from the week. I got to finish all of
my letters, so that was good. Early in the day we had a mini-party Some of the Elders came over with Presidente Perez, our branch
president, to work on our shower. Sister Kaiser has super sensitive skin
so he came to install a filter. Then after the hours of p-day we had an FHE with the part-member Roda family and the family of
the Branch President. It was fun and went really well. We talked about
the gospel of Jesus Christ. The non-member dad was focused on his kids
knowing what the five steps are to the celestial kingdom. We see so much
potential in him and we are excited for what will come out of it.
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On Tuesday
we had our regular visit with Martin. This time we met in a park and it
was interesting to see him try and figure this all out. The sweetest
part was when we asked if he would be baptized when he knew it to be
true and he said he didn't know because he likes music and dancing and
he wasn't sure if those were allowed. We immediately told him that yes
they were allowed and that it should just be something that doesn't
distract us from the promptings of the Spirit. Then we had an FHE with
Gabriel and Maria and their family. The nice thing was that we had a member of the Branch Presidency there and he was really able to connect
with him, Latino to Latino. He had a good talk with him about
what was holding him back from baptism. That night we had a last
supper as missionaries of the Branch. 3 out of the eight were leaving so
needless to say it was a more somber goodbye after seeing each other
everyday for 6 weeks. I know they will be awesome in their other areas
in the Mission. I am glad that I had the opportunity to learn and
grow from and with them. We had a some fall-throughs so we went to
meet a referral from someone in the Branch in Davis. She was so kind and
it was amazing that by saying the members name, who they know, that they were
immediately receptive and let us in. So again, don't forget to give
referrals to your local missionaries. It really makes all the
difference. Anyway, the contacts name is Greys and she wasn't
immediately interested in our message but we invited her to our daily
dose English class. W were excited. It was a little late and
there was a sketchy man outside so we ran to our car to get home safe. Some sprinklers were on by my side of the car and I got almost totally drenched,
but I caught myself just in time.
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Wednesday
we had transfer day. There wasn't a real change for us except that we
had a third companion for the day. In order to save miles and space,
companions will stay behind in the area so that they can fit everything
going out. We had Sister Lee with us. Sister Lee came out the same day
as me into the field and I live with her. She is awesome and serves in
the Davis YSA and young married wards. No she is not Asian. She definitely gets that a lot. She is a kind soul and I am so glad to have
known her this part transfer. (One of the first things we did was
facebook. On Wednesday
we tried to seek some referrals from members in the branch in order to
teach people on facebook. We leave a spiritual thought on facebook
as our status update and we found some friends. They are either
investigators or members that we just want to be able to keep in contact
with online.) The tender mercy of the day was contacting one of our
referrals. It was actually from Sister Lee's mom. The tender mercy
was to have her there. They are a family here in Davis with a brother
that is a member in Logan Utah. Sister Lee was able to converse with
them and relate with them because she knows the member brother. We
helped sister Lee teach one of her investigators in the Institute
building near campus. His name is Nicolas and we taught him about
keeping the Sabbath day holy. He was very interesting and fun and it was
nice to not only to have a lesson in English but a lesson with a young
adult. We had to go get Sister Lee's new companion in Dixon, our
neighboring city, and then to Woodland and then Esparto. Our daily total
of miles for the day was 90 which is quite a lot. See the funny thing
about the towns here are that inbetween each town are miles of fields.
They just go on for a while and then you hit a new city. So our area is
big, but not because the number of people. We went to the Lopez home
for dinner and we had tauqitos. I guess that is the American name. Mexicans call them flautas and they were soooooo good home made. One was with
chicken and the other with potatoe. Also she puts crema on each
indivdual one which also made them even better. On a side note I am
usually in heaven with the food. Tortillas with every meal. I love
Mexican crema. It is way beter than sour creme. Crema is just creme in Spanish. It is just all so good. I love it. The Lopez family
defintely always has the best food, so it is always enjoyable to be at
their home. (P.S. The crema from the bottle mom that you have gotten that
is like a liquid is not the good stuff. If you want to know more of
what it is like let me know.) Our next activities were a little weird,
but fun. The Branch was having a going away party for one of the
missionaries departing. His name is Elder Vance. He served in the Branch
for 6 months a year ago. The crazy part was that he was 12
missionaries combined. Our whole spanish zone of missionaries consisted
of him and his companion. Another tid-bit is that he has been one
of the APs for the past 6 months. So that is also interesting. He was an
awesome missionary and it is weird to think of his ending when mine is
just beginning. It was fun to converse with his
parents and get to know them a little since most of the other people at
the party spoke Spanish. Then we went to one of our regular complexes
but no one was really interested.
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Thursday
we had very little success. No one was home, but all you can do is keep
moving forward. The fun part of the day was in the evening during English
class. Greys, our contact on Tuesday,
came to English class. It was so funny to teach someone English from Spanish when I was doing it the other way around. It was awesome and
very fun to have our own potential investigator there. The other cool
thing was that there were 8 missionaries there. As I have said, there are
a lot of Asians here. Because of that we got Elder Chan, a young
man from Hong Kong who speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. He is very nice. Because of that we just got a whole new companionship in Davis. Last transfer there were six missionaries here in Davis and now
there are 8. We were all at Enlgish class this last week and it was just
really fun to have all of this Davis missionary fire in 1 room. I am
excited to get even more Spanish speakers to English class to be able to
find people to teach. Greys said that she would also bring a neighbor
next week. We are excited for what potential that gives us. Also English class is just really fun. The teacher, called from the ward,
teaches a little lesson and then they split into small groups with the
helper and missionaries that are there, We help them to practice. It
is really an amazing thing to teach them this language especially when I
understand their pain.
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Friday morning we had a little car scrape with someone in our parking
lot which was a bummer but it happens. We left our information on the
car and waited for them to contact us. They called us that night. The
weird part was that they had a 626 area code This scared me for a
moment but then it wasn't anyone that I knew. Turns out they were
visiting family in the complex and they live in Covina and he works at
JPL. It was a weird happenstance but it was funny for them to say towns
like Gendora and Covina that are so familiar to me. We had our
Zone meeting with all the new people. We got a new Zone Leader and a new
Sister Training Leader. Our focus was on members being part of the work
and also how goals to have more baptisms and people at church. It was
really good!. We went to visit someone we hadn't seen in a month
because she had been with her sick father in Mexico. We had only taught
her 1 lesson before she left, so we were starting to get worried about her
progressing after a month. It turns out that her father died so we
taught her the Plan of Salvation. It touched her deeply. We also committed her to a baptismal date on the 31st of this month. We will
see what happens. We had a lesson with a single man here in Davis. With the rules we have, we couldn't go in without another sister so
we borrowed a member from the YSA ward and she was awesome. She is from
Mexico and not only was it nice to have a native speaker but also her
testimony of Joseph Smith was very powerful. We were so glad to have
her there with us. We are so, So excited to see were he, Moises, leads
to. He has a lot of potential. so we will see.
.
Saturday
we had a pretty good day. (Started out after studies with facebook. I
accepted and looked for friends to start. Then I went through some of
the current status updates to like and show support for those things
that are good and wholesome. Then I posted a spiritual thought with the
song I Believe in Christ and sent a message to a girl we had contacted.
We just randomly met her on one of our days and asked her if she had a
facebook and if we could friend her to share spiritual thoughts. We did
and we will see how that goes. Facebook has so much potential but I
don't really know what to do with it, yet.) We had some more people fall
through on lessons, but there is always something else to do, so you just
do it.
All in all the work is hard but good, and I know there will be big and eternal rewards for these people in the future.
Included is a picture of my planner. The popular thing to do is to
cover it with pictures so I did and my focus was Christ. It is nice to
be constantly reminded of him as I use it. Another random fact is
that I do play piano quite often. Sometimes I am a little shakey but it
is fun to use that talent that I have been given from our Heavenly
Father to benefit others. So thanks mom for the lessons.
I love you all and I know that the lord will bless you with what
you need in life as long as you are doing your part. Have a good week!
Love ya,
Hermana Cornwall
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| Sister Cornwall with her "Greenie" package |
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