Alrighty everyone, I'm starting my last week as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the California Arcadia mission. I can't believe this time next week I will be in my exit interview with President Becerra. It's crazy! But it's been good! Next week when I'm home I will have to write a blog post about this coming week and my full testimony and experience here. But for now, I will focus and work hard to make this one of the best weeks yet!
Last Monday the 2nd we didn't do much. We have a couple in our ward, the Kohnle's, who do our laundry each week (yes we are beyond spoiled by them) and they invited us over to do crafts at their house. The other Sisters started making Plan of Salvation cut outs and I just sat there and helped. It was fun to just have a very relaxing and enjoyable Pday.
Tuesday the 3rd we were invited to the Pasadena Community College institute to get involved. Sister McGinty and I had been thinking about doing a booth over the PCC but didn't know if they had an institute. We were very excited when we met the secretary at a baptism last week and she invited us over. We go there so excited because we are wanting to get involved but come to find out, it's not in our ward boundaries :/ So we really have to see if it will be worth our time to do a booth, especially because all the young single adults we would meet at PCC would be going to the YSA ward in Glendale. So we still have to see if it will really be worth our time.
After that we had a very long talk about what we wanted to do to help the work in our area. Every time we go to do something that we think would be a good idea, it turns out to not be in our area or a big waste of time and it starts to become discouraging. It's hard to find in our area right now and it's sad to say that because Pasadena is a really good area. We don't know what to do..
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Wednesday the 4th we made a goal to talk to 10 people that day. We had to run to the post office during lunch and we ended up talking to two people there. What a good start to our day! And it was really cool because both people that we talked to either have talked to members or have a brother in-law who's a member. It was really cool because they were both super nice and knew a lot but also had some misconceptions that we were able to clear up. It was awesome!
Sadly right after that we went to our investigators house and we dropped her and her family. It was really sad because we love this family and know that good things can happen for them but they have no desire right now. She told us that straight up. She said that she wants to have a desire but there's too much going on in their lives right now for them to have a sincere desire and to act on it. And that's the really sad part. They are having troubles and if they only could see that the gospel would help them to have a better life. They aren't married yet and it seems to me that they are having "marital" problems and I just can see that if they had the gospel in their lives, they'd be happier. So it's really sad. But we left a drop note for future missionaries to go back and see them in a few months or so. We'll see what happens.
After Jessica's we went to visit a former potential from a couple years ago. They had gone to a Gladys Knight concert at a church and had gotten info on the church and were then referred to missionaries here. We have tried them a couple times before but they were never home. Sister McGinty got this feeling we should go there and we sat at the door for a few minutes and just didn't feel like we should leave. We knocked a couple different times and finally the husband, Tyrone, came to the door. He was really nice but his wife wasn't home. We stood at the door talking for a few minutes about different things and getting to know him and he told us that we could come back the next day. This was a serious tender mercy from the Lord. After just dropping someone, we had a very awesome experience with him! We were so thankful!
The next day, Thursday the 5th, we went back to Tyrone and Yomi's at 6:30 pm like he told us. Yomi usually is back from work by then but not that day. We stood at the door again and it was cool because Tyrone answered the door and was so thankful that we came back! So was I! Sadly, like I said, Yomi wasn't home but we talked some more and made an appointment for this coming Wednesday and he said he'd make sure she was home. So we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for a miracle family with them this week! We both feel really good about them!
Friday the 6th after a very long weekly planning session that we didn't finish until last night, we had a lesson with our investigator Larissa and her husband Aaron. When we teach Larissa she never has questions for us and is very quiet so we were a little worried about how she's been understanding. We decided to teach a lesson on what a testimony is and have a little review. So we talked a little and asked questions and to our surprise, she really does know a lot! She's just quiet! haha So we were very happy about that! She is really progressing well and are excited for her to be baptized. Sadly she won't be baptized til October 19th though... That makes me sad because I won't be here but it's going to be so good because she husband Aaron will be able to baptize her!
Saturday the 7th we went on exchanges. I stayed in Pasadena with Sister Mattingley and Sister McGinty went to the Creekside ward with Sister Ackely. Not much happened for us on Saturday. We did have a lesson with a less active but that's about it. No one was home when we went to visit people so I felt bad that it wasn't very successful.
Sunday the 8th was a pretty good day but also hard. When we were in sacrament meeting, they announced that it was my last week and Sister McGinty and I started laughing. I guess I can leave now... Brother Ngo said so! haha Just kidding :) But it was funny. I'm speaking in sacrament next week with Sister Carrell so the stake high councilmen member we're speaking with, he came up to me after church all panicked making sure that I was still going to be here. I laughed a little and made sure he knew I knew.
Last night we had a missionary correlation with all the ward missionaries and during our meeting we got a phone call from our investigator's boyfriend. He calls us every so often to give us updates on her and if we have questions for him, we call him. He told us that her joining the LDS church came up to her mom on Saturday while she was home for the weekend. Her mom asked if she was going to join the church and she said yes. Her mom then told her that if she did, she'd be very disappointed. Jessica then left the house and went to Ian's house. Long story short, they talked about it for a long time and Ian called us to let us know what happened. Sadly he even told her that because she's not ready to pick a baptism date, we'll have to sto
p seeing her as an investigator. It was really sad for us to hear Ian say that. We told him that the other day when we talked to him but it's becoming a reality. She needs to figure things out first and we think that if we stop seeing her, she'll be able to make that decision without any pressure. We don't like putting pressure on people but sometimes they feel it even when we don't do it so hopefully this will help. It was just sad to hear! And tomorrow night when we have dinner with them and have a drop lesson, it will be very emotional! We are not looking forward to it!
Well, that's about all for today. This morning we went to the Santa Anita race track for breakfast and to watch the horses warm up/work out. It was awesome!!! I'm so sad this is the only time I was able to do this on my mission but at the same time, it's been something I've wanted to do since Sister Becerra told us about it the first day we got here so I was super happy!
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