14 July 2014

Hermanas Hooton and Cornwall

Hola,

So this week has been crazy! Saying goodbye and saying hello are all very hard things to do! I am so sad to leave Winters, but I am also so happy to be here in Willits. Hermana Hooton and I have been saying all week how we have felt that we know we are meant to be here.  It will still be a hard long process! So Here is my week!  [Click here for info on Willits]

Monday was a pretty crazy day! I said goodbye to quite a few people and then in the evening we went to a lesson with our investigator Sonia. We taught our normal lesson, she was so nice as always, and then at the end she told me that before I left she had to tell me something. She was not very happy that I was leaving already, but I knew it was time. She told us about her experience at church. She told us that she was very worried about eating the sacrament bread because she has been having this horrible pain from her cheek to her head and she hasn't been able to really chew, or at least without a lot of pain.  She took it and it wasn't hard to eat. Then of course I told you all about going up to bear my testimony... so, while I was up there Sonia was praying for the answer of whether to keep going to church or not.  She felt a spiritual confirmation, from the words I said (or really that were translated to her), that she needs to keep going to church! Then she said the next morning that she could eat breakfast with out pain! Not only was she healed, but she received a confirmation that what she was doing right! We were so amazed and so happy for her. Then she made sure that we took a picture together before we left! Anyway, Hermana Vance and I decided that I had to be leaving so that I would bear my testimony and so that she would have to tell us the story! It was so wonderful to hear all of that from her and I am overjoyed to hear about her future progress! 
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Tuesday I said goodbye some more and I taught my last lesson to the Lopez family. They were my one regular connection to the branch and after 9 months total I was said to say goodbye, but I do love them so much!
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Then the big transfer day on Wednesday! It was so wonderful to see everyone again, but sad to say goodbye to Winters, Hermana Vance, the Woodland Stake the whole east side of the mission! Then of course when we were there we had to find our car, get a phone, get supplies, move our stuff and everything else.  It went well! After getting everything organized we head off on our way and as we were stopping for lunch we decide to call the Willits Sisters, Sister Becker and Sister Andreasen, currently serving in our area to ask about things like Walmart and dinner and everything.  We realized that our phone isn't working right. We call another number and it doesn;t work.  We thought maybe our phone wasn't connected yet.  We go to lunch at Mcdonalds and try to get the Sprint number from our Ipads.  It didn't come up with anything.  We go back to the mission office.  There was something legitimately wrong with the phone so we were glad we went back. We hung out at the mission office for a while and that was fun. We finally got on our way, with just enough time to make it to dinner! We get in town a little early so we stopped at the church, which is like the first thing you see. (P.S. no Walmart in Willits, by the way) and one of the doors happened to be a little bit open so we snuck in! We went to dinner, unpacked, went to a member lesson with the Sisters and had a meeting with the bishop and came home! It was a crazy, amazing day!

Thursday was fun too. We grocery shopped at the Safeway (which I think is the equivalent of Pavilions). We skyped with our new district leader/old district leader Elder Olmos! And then we had a full day of finding, which is quite a big change from the past. Usually when you come into an area you have the area book with investigators, potentials and former investigators, but for us we had literally nothing, it was empty. There have never really been spanish missionaries here and the whole first day we only met 2 hispanics out of almost 30 people that we talked to! That was exciting! In the evening we met the second counselor of the bishop and his family. He has 13 children, with only 5 at home  We came to find out on Sunday, his 4 boys are the whole Aaronic priesthood! Anyway, it was fun to just get to know each other!

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Friday we had district meeting in Ukiah! It was fun.  Our zone in super spread out so I am trying to come up with ideas for Zone unity! When we got back to Willits we had Weekly planning! It was about the shortest and simplest weekly planning I have ever done.  We finished it all quickly and went to work that night! We had a house blessing with someone we had talked to the day before.  This was a little weird because of drug use and her home situation, but we were glad to at least try to help her have the spirit in her home.  We hope she will have the correct environment to accept the gospel in the future! We went tracting in the one area we had heard there were Hispanics and we actually found some. Never have I been so happy to see a Hispanic in my LIFE! We did a house blessing with la familia Hernandez, with an appointment for tonight. They loved are willingness to help and bless them.  They were so kind in return. Also the funny thing about talking to Hispanics here is that they have never really talked with missionaries before.  We are making their first impressions of who missionaries are! (And they are usually a little bit more open!) We gained a little bit more hope for our little area of Willits Spanish.  [For info on Willits demographics click here.]

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Saturday we just decided to go out, find and work hard! At the end of the day we had talked to 56 people with a high majority being Hispanic! We happened to find a few Hispanic gatherings going on.  We were just filled with hope that there are people here to find! We found in the same area we had been in the night before, so we were starting to get worried that this was the only place that there were Hispanics. We met someone that lived in another neighborhood so we had hoped to find more.
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Sunday was wonderful! Hermana Hooton and I spoke. I spoke on remembering the Savior always.  It was a good lesson for me to find out how do we always remember Him! In the evening we decided to go in the area where that new man lived.  I had picked a street  the night before. To the left it was very country, spread out and things, but one house had their name out on the street and it was Hispanic.  We parked went up to it.  They were Hispanic and we made an appointment with them for tomorrow. Then down on the other side the houses were closer together and we found 3 Hispanic houses in a row! It was great!
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SO needless to say there is hope for our area. We have decided that anything we do will be amazing.  We want to do our best.  Hermana Hooton and I have thought that we would never serve in Willits, because it didn't exist until we got here.  We are very happy to be here! (by the way Hermana Hooton still has 2 transfers, oops!). The one thing I am most happy about is that through it all I have remained happy. I don't see this area as unfruitful and I am accepting of how hard it is going to be. I am excited to just take all of the skills I have been given and really put them into use!  I am happy missionary [work comes] with a few struggles and I am so excited for this next week and all the things that could possibly happen!
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I love you all so much! Keep up your amazing work because you never know what is going to happen!

Hasta Luego,

Hermana Cornwall

Some families from Winters

The Osburns

Natalie Osburn