God is so good to me though. He blesses me with little things. Like having a washer and dryer in the house, getting to sleep on the bottom bunk (I hate the top) and being able to eat dessert at a members house. It's the little things that mean the most.
I live in a member's house, her name is Sister Larsen. EVERYONE in California has cats and dogs (both, and usually more than one). The trees and bushes look like they came out of a Dr Seuss book. My companion's name is Sister Similai and she is from Tonga. She came to the US for her mission and speaks pretty good English. She is easy going and so kind to me. She is always helping me. So for those of you who prayed I would get a good trainer, THANK YOU! She is an amazing trainer.
We have three investigators, a married couple and another lady. All of them are catholic. Most people here are religious but not active.
We visit lots of inactive members. The ward here just got split last week, so I wasn't the only new person in the ward. Anyway most of the people are elderly in this ward, so we spend lots of time going to the homes of members that are too old to come to church. Most of them have been active their whole lives but now have conditions that make going to church hard. We go see at least one person like this every day. The ward is great though. The bishop is incredible.
One of the members names is Sister Phillips, and she is like the missionary mother. The first night I got here, we didn't have a dinner appointment scheduled. Sister Phillip's rule is that if you don't have dinner you HAVE to go to her house hahaha. So we went to her house and had dinner. She is making me a towel with my name embroidered on it. We go to her house all the time, and she comes to many of our lessons with investigators. She's really incredible. It's nice when the members want to help.
We found two people yesterday, when we were street contacting, that could be investigators/people we teach... and the way we found one was really cool. So the STL's (sister training leaders) had to go to a training and they are in a trio. So we got to be with Sister Kwon because she isn't an STL. She is Korean. We pulled up on the bishop's street to say hi to the bishop and there was a Korean couple walking down the street. Sister Kwon started talking to them. They were Jehovah Witnesses, and they told her we are polygamists and that she needed to be careful. They brought us to a group of people and one of the people used to be Mormon. She was baptized and married in the temple, but had lost her way when she had to move from Korea to California. She is not on our ward list, but she's in our ward. So we are going to start meeting with her. We wouldn't have found her though if we hadn't decided to see Bishop and if we hadn't walked into these Koreans at that exact time. It was a cool miracle.
When I was little, we lived in Meridian, and me and my dad were outside waiting for the ice-cream truck. We could hear it and we knew it would pull around the corner eventually but we didn't know when. I was hot, tired, and we had been sitting in the sun on the curb for a really long time. I remember asking my dad if we could just go find it. He then told me about patience and how we needed to just wait. He told me that even if it was hard, we needed to sit and wait instead of running away because if we ran away we might miss it. I feel right now like I am back on that same curb with my Father in Heaven waiting for a mended heart. The mission schedule in general isn't too difficult. I actually like the schedule, and I don't mind having a door or two slammed in my face. It's the emotional part of feeling alone and in an unfamiliar place that is brutal. I know that the Savior has helped me so far and I'm counting on Him to keep helping, but it's really really hard. For now though, I'm sitting on the curb waiting on the day I can say, "I love it here. This is where I am supposed to be. I know what I am doing, and I love being a missionary." I want that day to come so badly and I pray all the time for the Lord to let me get to that point soon so I can be one of his happier servants. For now though, I'm just sitting here being hot, tired, and overwhelmed, and picturing Heavenly Father telling me to be patient and not to run.
Love, Jessica
