Week 50 (2/18/19): "I'll do what You want me to do Lord, I swear! But are You sure??"

Well, transfers are this week, but I'm staying put with Sister Harris, which I'm super excited about. Partially because that means I don't have to pack again, but also because I love being here in Dinuba and Selma. The people are just so loving, and I love learning Spanish more.

We started teaching a couple really cool people this week! We read from the Book of Mormon with them, and they loved it! And someone Sister Harris taught the first time she was here moved back to Selma, so we met up with him, and he wants us to come back!! So we'll go see him tonight!

One really cool miracle from this week- yesterday at church, there was a family who is moving and it was their last Sunday. In talking with the mom, I learned that they were moving to Raleigh, NC (and she didn't know before that I was from Virginia.) So I was able to tell her how much I love the east coast, how amazing it is, how loving the people are, how excited their new ward will be to have a big family like theirs move in, and just how good of a place it is. At the end, she told me that she'd been really worried because they'd never been out east before, so she didn't really know what she was getting into, and that I was exactly the help she needed. I love when Heavenly Father uses me to help someone else like that. It is the greatest feeling in the world.

And talking with my family this morning was the best! It was so much fun to see their faces, and to be able to have a conversation with them. And I got to message with Rachel this morning, which made my heart happy!

Love you, bye!
Sister Cate

The fishtail the elder did last week

Week 49 (2/11/19): "I'm being attacked! I'm an endangered species!"

So this week was pretty much moving. So we moved from Kingsburg to Dinuba last weekend, and then the English elders moved into the Kingsburg apartment, and the Spanish elders moved into the English elders' old apartment. And at first we were told that we had about 30 days, but then they got back to us and told us we had a week. To get everyone moved. So we worked together and we did it! We still need to clean out the Spanish elders' old apartment, but other than that, everything is done.


Today we're going up to the Sequoias, so last night some other sisters slept over at our apartment. It was really fun. And in preparation, we fit 2 mattresses in our car. They were memory foam, so we folded them in half and stuffed them in. And then getting them out again was fun.


Also, we get to go to the temple tomorrow!! I am so excited to be able to feel the peace there and help a bunch of people return to live with Heavenly Father!! (You know, in a different way than normal...)


Love you, bye!
Sister Cate

Going to see the Sequoias

with Hermana Oso

The huaraches I got a couple weeks ago. They're super comfy! 

And an elder did a fishtail in my hair on Sunday, since it was giving me grief. He has 4 younger sisters, so he's had lots of practice.

Me in a blanket fort I made

Week 48 (2/4/19): "Were you at least winning the staring contest with your burrito?"

Alternate title- "You don't have to be a rocket scientist- oh wait, we have one." 

(One of the elders in our district is going into aerospace engineering.)

We now live in Dinuba! Our new apartment is so nice. There is tons of natural light in the morning, it has a dishwasher, and we got a bunch of really nice furniture from some apartments that had just been closed in the Modesto area. We pulled in all the elders in our district to help us move, and so it went pretty quickly. 

There was also some lightning to welcome us to Dinuba! It was awesome! I forgot how much I'd missed lightning. 

Anyways, talk to you next week! 

Love you, bye! 

Sister Cate

Week 47 (1/28/19): "We need to call this number. Someone needs their kumquat tree picked."

 I have not had a normal week since getting here. I actually got to go to Relief Society yesterday (I've played piano in Primary the last two weeks and played in sacrament meeting yesterday). And then this week, we have a doctor's appointment, zone conference, and moving. Oh yeah, so for the past couple transfers, the Sisters have been covering Dinuba, but have been living in Kingsburg, about 20 minutes away. But last week, they finally got us an apartment in Dinuba! So we're moving in this weekend. It will be so nice to finally live in our area. So yeah, normal's not a thing here. But that's okay. 

Last Monday, we played a rather epic game of Monopoly as a district. One of the elders had found and bought Fresno-opoly. It became a 3 (sort of 4) way partnership versus a 2 way merge. After finding a way to transfer all your assets to the other members of the partnership whenever you were abut to be bankrupted, the partnership eventually won. 

Anyways, talk to you next week!

Love you, bye!

Sister Cate

Week 46 (1/21/19): "And then I just like tackled the goat."

Brought to you by Elder Cook.

"Do different sized eggs come from different sized chickens?" We also had a conversation about feeding Venus fly traps uranium. He is the comic relief in our district.

The past 48 hours have been crazy. The senior couple got in an accident on Saturday night, and they had an elder with them. Everyone is okay, mainly just super sore and a couple sprained ankles, but they did go to the hospital to be checked out and make sure nothing was broken. So we thought we might have to bring the senior couple home from the hospital in the middle of the night, and of course we couldn't sleep until we knew everyone was okay for sure. Apparently my way of coping with things like that is to clean and organize everything and sing Primary songs for hours. But our supply closet is super organized now! 

Other than that, not much out of the ordinary happened. We've been working on inviting more people to be baptized and not being afraid to do so. So we try to invite every contact to be baptized, partially because then the Spirit can testify to them that this is the step they need to take, but partially because for me, I just need to do it a bunch of times. Part of what made it scary for me was fear of rejection, but I've come to realize that our purpose is to harvest, and if we don't invite them, they aren't going to have the opportunity to come closer to Jesus Christ. So if they say no, okay, they aren't ready yet, but at least I gave them the opportunity. So we have had some people say no, but we've also had a lot say yes, when they know this is true, they will be baptized. And I think that helps keep that end (which is really a beginning) in mind, so we can help them truly progress. We've gotten a couple weird responses, like "I made an oath with God not to be baptized in any religion." I may have responded with "I don't think God will hold you to that." But we committed him to read the whole Book of Mormon and promised that if he did, he would know for himself without a doubt that it was true. 

Also, there was one time we went to do finding time in Selma and so we went to an apartment complex, and we knocked one building, and went to go to the next, turned a corner, and saw the elders' bikes! It was pretty funny! Also, I gave my first talk in Spanish yesterday, and they asked me like 5 minutes before sacrament meeting started. But the gift of tongues is real!

Also, Sister Sarah Porter (from our stake back home) is in Sister Smith's MTC district!! That is so cool!

Let me know how the cookies challenge from last week went!

Love you, bye!

Sister Cate 

We found the elders' bikes...

I found Buena Vista!!

I may have marked Moroni 10:3-5 in about 115 Book of Mormons

Week 45 (1/14/19): "Cookies are a tool of missionary work."

Seriously, cookies get you in so many doors. So your challenge for this week, should you choose to accept it, is to make cookies and choose a couple names from the ward directory you don't recognize and take them cookies. It seriously works wonders. 

So this week has been fun. I have never used so much Spanish in my life, so it is a huge growing experience. I think I caught about half of sacrament meeting. And then I got to play the piano for Primary, which was so fun! But there were definitely times when we were talking with someone and I caught so little of it. Also, food should be its own love language. The people here love to feed us. Seriously, they don't give you an option, you must eat. It's a good thing we do so much biking. 

We have done more biking than ever in my life. We were going to try to bike to Dinuba (15 miles), but Sister Harris' bike got a flat tire. And we redid our math and determined that we can drive to the closest part of Dinuba, park, and bike everywhere else. But we were willing to bike it! (Well, I'm not sure if I could have actually made it, especially with the bike I was on, but I was willing to try! I have since gotten a bike that is the right height.) And I didn't get my skirt caught in the chain at all this week, so that was a plus. 

We got a super amazing referral from sisters in the Los Angeles Visitor's Center! They called us and told us that they'd taught him twice and he wanted us to come visit and teach him more and bring him a copy of the Book of Mormon! And so the sister I was talking to wanted to set up a group chat on Facebook, so she asked my name so she could find me on Facebook, and we had a mutual friend, and I asked how she knew Sister Molina, and it turns out she trained one of my best friends from college! I think the other missionaries there were laughing at us a little bit, but it was seriously a tender mercy for me. 

It's been such a blessing to be here thus far. I absolutely love it here, and I know this is where God needs me. 

Love you, bye! 

Sister Cate

Week 44 (1/7/19): "You have the gift of being a graceful crier."

Or "I need to get more Spanish nametags!"

I am getting transferred... It's hard to leave Chowchilla. I feel like I left my family once at the airport, and I'm having to again. Fasting and crying do not go together well. I cried through most of church yesterday and ended up with a headache. Sister Hinckley was right. It's so much better to laugh than cry. 

But I'm going to Selma, and I'll be in the Spanish branch! So it's going to be a whole new adventure! It's going to be fun!

Other than that, Sister Walker and I took turns being sick, so we were inside a lot. But Heavenly Father took care of the work for us!

Love you, bye!

Sister Cate