Hola Everyone!
This week has been beyond CRAZY!! So much has
happened. I'll try to get everything in that I can. There's been a
lot of ups and downs, but everything has turned out for the better!
On Monday, we received a referral from the Moorpark 2nd Ward
Sisters. His name is Justin and he's super excited about learning
more. He's been to church about 5 times already and read the Book of
Mormon twice! We stopped by and introduced ourselves and set up an
appointment to meet with him on Wednesday. However, on Tuesday, we found
out that he's single and 23, therefore the zone leaders had to teach him
because he's a young single adult. It stunk! At least he's meeting
with awesome missionaries and progressing in the gospel! We found out on
Thursday that he made dinner for the elders. He was expecting us so he
made steak and a ton of other delicious food. Lucky for us, the elders
decided to bestow grace on us and brought us some of the steak he
made. It was THE MOST delicious steak I have ever before tasted in my
life! (even if it was leftovers) :) We were so excited to get a new
investigator, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
After we emailed last week, we went to a member's home in
Thousand Oaks to wash our cars all together as a district. It was really
fun and really relaxing!
On Tuesday, we got to go to a parenting class that was
entirely in Spanish. One of our investigators invited us to come to talk
to some of the parents afterwards about what they can do to help their
kids. It was a really neat experience. The parents are all really
nice and Teresa, our investigator, thought it was impressive that at such
young ages we're able to offer so much council and advice.
On Wednesday, we had exchanges with Hermana Coleman and
Hermana Bartschi. Hermana Smith and I went with Hermana Coleman and
Hermana Faletau went with Hermana Bartschi. We saw so many
miracles. We were able to get in contact with one of our former
investigators, Terry Anne. She recently just went into remission from
cancer so her life's been pretty hard lately. She never had the
opportunity to go to church when the other sisters taught her because she was
too sick, but now that she's getting better, she really wants to go! She's read
the Book of Mormon and loves meeting with us now. We're really excited
for her! We also got to talk to Shan-Shan again. She's doing great
as always! She's still on track to be baptized on October 19th! Our
other investigator, Pauline, who has a baptismal date of October 19th ended up
cancelling on us this week, but hopefully she's still interested. Please
pray for her! During exchanges, we also got to see Amie. She's the
wife of a less active member, Chad. She's been having a hard time lately
and really opened up to us about it. She loves meeting with us. On
Sunday, we found out that she's actually a member!! It was weird. She was
baptized in 2003, but no body knew about it. The whole ward council found
out on Sunday.
So the week's been going great right? This is where it
got crazy...
Wednesday night, we looked at the phone and it said we had a
missed call from President Castro. We started freaking out a little, but
once we calmed down, we called him back and asked him what he needed. He
told us that he needed to talk to all three of us together, but after we got
home for the night. This freaked us out a little bit more. Once we
got home, we called him back. He told us that there was a sister missionary
in Camarillo that had to go home because of health problems. Her
companion, Sister Kiyotani (used to be in Moorpark!) now needed a
companion. President Castro told us that he would like Hermana Smith to
move to Camarillo mid-transfer and be Sister Kiyotani's companion for the rest
of the transfer! It was crazy! All in all, we're back down to
two. It's just me and Hermana Faletau now. At first it was really
weird not being with Hermana Smith, but then it became more normal being at
two. She's going to do a great job in Camarillo and change lives!
She told me that she was grateful to be able to be trained by me and that I did
a good job. It was really sweet!
On Friday, we had a lesson with Denisse that went the
complete opposite direction of where we wanted it to go. She ended up inviting
her very passionate/antagonistic friend to the lesson and we invited a brother
from the ward to come and talk about the Book of Mormon and how it's such a big
miracle. Instead of having a powerful, spiritually uplifting and prepared
lesson, it turned into a huge Bible bash between the brother and Jamie
(Denisse's friend). The spirit was not there and Denisse looked like she was
about to cry. She still wants us to come back though, which is good! We need to
back track a little with her. When we looked back at the experience, we
realized that we didn't do as much as we could have to prevent the situation.
We should have at least stopped the brother from being contentious to preserve
the spiritual view Denisse has of the church. Brother Seguine shared 2 Nephi
25:23 with us yesterday at correlation. It talks about how grace can save us
even after all we can do. He told us that we prepared the lesson the best we
did and even it didn't turn out well, Heavenly Father will make sure that every
thing will turn out in the end, even if it means the Denisse doesn't get
baptized any time soon. The definitely helped boost my confidence.
After her lesson, we were kind of down in the dumps, but we
were able to go teach Ezra, the almost 9 year old. He told us that he
wants to be baptized on November 1st and be confirmed on the 3rd. We're
so excited for him and his decision. I really hope I'm still here next
transfer to be able to see the baptism.
On Sunday, for Sacrament Meeting, it was the Primary
Program! I'm convinced that it's the best week of the year! I love
watching the little kids bear their testimonies and setting such great examples
for their friends. It made me miss home a little bit, but I know that
Zach and Ben are being great missionaries too!
This morning, before we came to email, Hermana Faletau and I
got our eyebrows threaded! We found this threading place right behind our
apartment. It's about time I got my eyebrows done!
Thanks so much for all the love and support that you all
give me! Every bit helps!
Con amor,
Hermana Halliday
On P-Day at a member's home washing cars and playing on the sports court!
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