Week 17 (6/25/18): Spicy shrimp and other fun adventures

This week has been good. Nothing super crazy happened, but the missionary work here is slowly getting moving. We taught Gospel Doctrine yesterday, and had two recent coverts and one future investigator there. We were able to answer a lot of her questions. She is coming with a member family, and they have been super helpful. We also stopped by a part member family, and one of their girls wants to get baptized! So we will definitely have a couple baptisms here in the near future!  

We had deep cleaning of the church building on Saturday, and we were assigned to clean the baptismal font. Well, it turns out that water roaches/beetles that are over an inch long like to come up from the drain. So after Sister Howard screamed when they first moved, our ward mission leader and I got them back down the drain, injuring them in the process, and after cleaning the font, we put the plug in so they couldn't come up. Why hadn't they done this before? I have no idea. 

Oh, Mom, you would be so proud of me. So something you may not know about me is that I hate seafood, but shrimp in particular. And I don't do well with spicy food. Well, we went to visit some members and they invited us over for dinner the next day. And what did they have? Ceviche. One was really good. And can you guess what the other was? Yep, spicy shrimp. And raw purple onion, which I also dislike a lot. And normally, I just wouldn't have gotten any of that one. But the abuela made me a plate of food (I had planned to wait a little longer) with one of each. And I ate all of the spicy shrimp. It took me a while. But I was so proud of myself. They had the best piña agua fresca ever, so that made it worth it. We were just excited that they wanted us in their house!  

I also got Sister Howard hooked on family history work yesterday. It was fun to see her get into it. Now to get the rest of the ward hooked! 

Love you tons! 

Sister Cate

Week 16 (6/18/18): Old lady houses put me to sleep...

It's bad. We have visited so many old ladies, and I've almost fallen asleep in each home. Their houses are just so cozy!

The other potential title was "Planning is priceless, but plans are pointless." Because planning invites the Spirit to guide us during the day, but we never actually stick to our plans, because inevitably we've forgotten someone God wanted us to see.

This week has been absolutely crazy! But so good.

Chowchilla is awesome! Everyone told me before I got here that they absolutely love their sisters, and they weren't kidding!!! No one knew we were coming, but we have had dinner every night, and we've had a couple nights where more than one person requested to feed us! We were given two member referrals on our first day here! This place is so prepared! As soon as I got here, I could just feel that the work is ready to explode!

Also, guess what we get to do because there haven't been missionaries in this area for at least 4 months? (Yeah, I didn't know that last Monday, but there haven't been missionaries here since February.) If you guessed putting in records, you're right!! We have 3 binders, with records going back to 2005. Heavenly Father wants to help me learn patience... There was one family I put in who had 57 lessons. And I found one last night who they saw almost every day from October 10th through December 28th. And in November and December, they only missed 11 days. (Out of 61 days) As such, she has been taught 96 times. That's going to be a fun one to put in.

Our zone leaders are the best. They have gone down to Fresno twice for us already, and come down from Merced another time to bring us our area book. They have been so patient as we try to figure out what in the world we're doing. Their support has been crucial during this transition.

Sister Howard is amazing! We work so well together, and we laugh so much!! It has been fun getting to know each other and figuring this out together. We probably haven't gone about everything the most conventional way, mostly because we don't know the conventional way, but it has worked fairly well thus far.

Our bishop wants to push family history with the ward (which is awesome, because I absolutely love family history!!)

I was able to go to the temple with Stefania on Thursday, which was absolutely amazing! Honestly, that was the thing that worried me the most about transfers. I was worried I wouldn't be able to find a ride to the temple. But on Tuesday night, I prayed and felt peace about everything, and I knew everything would work out how it was supposed to. And at the last minute, we found a ride to the temple for me and a member to go out with Sister Howard. And it was just the best answer to prayers ever. God is definitely aware of me!

Anyways, it was a long, but good week.

Love you tons!
Sister Cate






The wonderful angel who took me to the temple.

Week 15 (6/11/18): "We're God's ninjas!"

We ding dong ditch thank you cards. Though we don't ring the doorbell. It's fun. 

So the last 36 hours have been crazy. On Saturday night, we got transfer calls, and we didn't hear anything about us, so Sister Grammer and I thought we were staying. Well, we get a call at about 10:20am yesterday saying that there had been a mistake and we are getting doubled out. So we're both leaving. So we've been saying goodbyes and packing (I hate packing) and trying to get everything in order. I'm going to be going to Chowchilla, which is way up north (so I will be doing so much driving tomorrow) and I'm getting doubled in, so my new companion and I will both be coming in new. So we know nothing. That'll be exciting. But I hear that she's super nice, and that Chowchilla loves their sisters (though they haven't had any in a while. We're opening the area to sisters again.) So you'll hear all about Chowchilla next week! 

We have had so many miracles this week. I don't have time to record all of them, but I'll record as many as I can. 

So on Monday, we stopped by this apartment complex with a ton of potential investigators in it. We were talking to someone, and someone drove up and called us Sisters. So we talk to them and find out that they are members who used to live in Tulare, and that they're just visiting. It turns out that their less active son lives in one of the homes we've tracted before, and we even helped his girlfriend bring her groceries in once! Apparently we also gave her son a picture of Jesus, which made a huge impact on them. We had no idea that their son lived there, but God did. I think it was a huge miracle for the parents that even though we didn't know he was there, the Lord did and He took care of him. 

On Tuesday, we visited Diana. It was amazing. She is so eager to make changes in her life and to bring her family closer to God. We asked if we could visit 2-3 times a week, and she said that was exactly what she needed to actually go through with changing her life! And she wants to involve her husband! 

Then we got a call from someone in the Colorado Denver Mission presidency telling us that a less active and his wife were moving into our ward, and that they want ministers and that the wife, who is not a member, is so prepared to receive the blessings of the gospel. Then we stopped by them a couple days later, and it was a gated apartments and the gate was open (huge miracle. That never happens!) and then it took a us a while to find the apartment and parking. So we are walking over there and we start talking to this lady who is walking the same direction. We then meet her husband, who asks if we've come to meet them, and we had totally just happened to start talking to his wife! It was amazing! And they're super sweet, and they love the missionaries. 

We had a video call with a less active and he said that he wants to come back, and wants to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, so he wants us to come over once a week to keep him accountable. Which was awesome! 

But the bigger miracle was that right after we ended the call, we saw that one of our investigators, Jose, was online, so we called him up right then, and he picked up! We saw his daughter, found out that he and his wife actually are married, and shared Moroni's promise, and we committed him to get the Book of Mormon app and listen to it in the car. So that was a huge miracle! 

So we have been working with this family in the ward for a while, and this week, I was able to talk with their 10 year old granddaughter and find out that she does know a lot. Then we went back yesterday to say goodbye, and I didn't realize how much of an impact I'd had on Roxie. She really didn't want me to leave, and she made me promise to come back. And for a while now, she didn't want to say prayers (she was fine with other people saying them, but she didn't want to say it), but yesterday, she said the prayer (with my help) when I asked her to! And she asked us to talk about the scriptures with them! It was so cool. She will definitely get baptized fairly soon, and there is no way I'm going to miss it! 

Steven is progressing so much! We had an amazing lesson with him and the Mineral King elders on Thursday, and he really understood it and committed to be baptized on July 14th! Which is my birthday! Best birthday present ever!! And then we taught him again yesterday, and he had seen a miracle during sacrament meeting that really confirmed to him that God knew him and loved him. He is so excited to learn, and he knew that if he hadn't had the trials in his life, he wouldn't have the friends he does or the opportunity to learn more about the restored gospel. And then at the end he prayed and asked God not to send Sister Grammer and I to Africa. It was awesome!

So those were the main ones this week. There were tons of little tender mercies, but if I wrote all of those down, this would easily fill a book by the time I finish my mission. Not that it won't anyways... 

While I'm totally going to miss Visalia, and I will definitely come back later (that's the nice thing about having family in San Jose), I'm excited to start this new adventure! 

Love you tons! 

Sister Cate

Week 14 (6/4/18): Playing tag in a skirt is more difficult than I had anticipated...

The other potential title for this week was "Lawrence the cucumber just doesn't sound right." We were discussing how Larry is short for Lawrence as we tried to find someone on Family Search. We love doing family history work, and we've accomplished so much! 

This week was all good, but Saturday and Sunday were particularly amazing! We have seen so many miracles, and have no doubt that God is in this work. 

On Saturday, we went tracting in Ivanhoe, and we found two families! We have a set appointment with one, and the other we'll teach over Facebook. But one of the families had two boys, and they were so excited that we were helping God, and they wanted to too. So we gave them passalong cards, and they had specific friends they wanted to give them to!  

Then Saturday evening was absolutely amazing. We had an investigator lined up to come to the adult session of stake conference. But then he called and cancelled. And we were kind of disappointed. But it ended up being really good, because it went 2 1/2 hours and he would have been in incredible pain by the end. 

So we're trying to figure out what to do, and we decide to see a less active. As we're going there, we remember that we need to call Tiwi (the driver supervision system) and get a speed limit fixed. Well, it turns out that this company outsources their customer service to India, so we talk to him for 20 minutes only to find out that the speed limit is right, but the GPS is just off. But he did ask us why we went by Sister, so that was cool. 

So we continue to the less active member's house, and when we get there, her nonmember husband answers the door. We'd wanted to meet him for a while, but never had. He had just gotten home! But we had a good long conversation, and he invited members to come do Eagle projects and Pinewood Derby cars at his woodshop. Inspired questions are real, and they totally helped!  And he feels a lot more comfortable with us!

And then we arrived at Jose's at the exact right time to be able to talk to him and teach him all about the Restoration. And he committed him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it!  Jose was a referral from the elders from before we got smartphones. We'd never been able to talk to him, so we were super excited! 

And the timing was just perfect! We never would have met either if it hadn't taken so long to talk to the Tiwi guy! 

Then on Sunday, we had stake conference. At about 9:20, we got a text from a recent comfort, Stefania, saying that her normal ride was out of town. She was speaking in stake conference, so we were a little worried. We had been sitting in a classroom, and we walk out the door, and we see this sister who Sister Grammer had known in the other ward and ask her if she would be willing to give us a ride to Stefania's. She said yes, so we go pick her up. Come to find out she'd told her family to be ready by 9:30, but everyone was ready by 9, so they left. So they were early enough that they could help us!  

Then Stefania's printer was broken, so we needed to print her talk. The right people showed up in the clerk's office and we got the talk printed with time to spare. 

After stake conference, we talked to Sister Duyst and she invited us to join them for the broadcast, since a nonmember friend would be there. She also asked if we had dinner, which we didn't, so she invited us over. God looks out for us!  She also mentioned in passing that the nonmember friend, Steven Farmer, would be at the Harris' this afternoon when we visited. We didn't know this, so it was nice to know beforehand. 

Now quick explanation of Steven. He has been to church 4 times now, though we only met him yesterday. He is really good friends with a bunch of youth in the ward. He actually lives in another ward, but because all his friends are in our ward, we get to keep teaching him. 

We had an amazing lesson with the Harris family on the Temples and Families pamphlet. Steven was so engaged, and the family bore such powerful testimony!  The Spirit was so strong, and it was just amazing. 

Later, we got to watch the broadcast with President Nelson. It was so good, and Steven was so focused, despite the craziness in the room. It was perfect!  And President Nelson's message was so good!  We're looking forward to working more with the youth in this amazing work! 

God has really blessed us this week. It's been the best! 

Love you tons! 

Sister Cate