Feb 29, 20248 min read

I'm Back in Sacramento!

Hello everyone, I am currently serving in Stockton California. It's the fourth most dangerous city in California. But thankfully they keep us sisters in the nicer part. Despite that being said, we still have to be very careful. There's been some pretty scary encounters, but the Lord protects us. Some of those encounters are like gunshots right outside our door during lessons, being followed and having to run to a member's home so we didn't get kidnapped. (At least that is the story we made up in our heads while being followed.)

We had a referral answer the door with knives in their hands and then once they saw us putting the knives down and graciously welcoming us into their home.

Going and serving in the projects. Just make sure you're not there after Dark...And many more.... But with all that going on I can also see the miracles. Many people here are soft-hearted. Because with these situations I also have had the experience of teaching people to pray for the first time. As they say their first prayer with me, they break down saying "I never knew that there was someone that would listen to me and love me so unconditionally."

I have received referrals through the referral system at least every single day. Most other areas get three or four in a transfer. But here we get them every single day. And not only do we get them, but they text us back and they want to progress!

You get people stopping you on the street or pulling their cars over asking you to come and share a message with their family. Random numbers calling you and saying, “hey can we get baptized?”

One of my other blessings is that we get to work on the campus. I get to work on the University of the Pacific Campus and the Delta San Joaquin Community College and concurrent enrollment programs. We've been taking a new approach. Instead of just walking around campus, like missionaries used to do with the big whiteboard that has a question. We go up to an individual and ask people if we can ask them a few questions. We then proceed to ask them questions of the Soul. Things like “where have you lived in your life?”. “Where do you think you lived before this life?”. And “how would this knowledge change your life?”.

While asking these questions we then will give and share some restored truths. This allows us to interact with them in normal and natural ways and help them feel loved. As we do this, we can share our purposes as missionaries and say something like, “normally we meet with people here on campus for 10 to 15 minutes once or twice a week and share more about these truths. Would you like it if we set up a time to meet.?” We have been seeing a lot of success with this. We met this cute girl who goes to Bible study. We sent her some questions. She then sent us some questions she would like answered. She said that she wanted to learn more about praying. It was interesting because she's been part of her religion her whole life, but she never felt like her prayers were answered. Or that she was praying in the right way. Once we told her about praying and read the Bible with her there was a hope that was renewed in her.

For anyone reading this I have a question for you. If anyone would mind answering this question, please send me an email.

Why is it important that people know about God in the restored gospel Jesus Christ in this life?"

This is something that we discuss a lot. We claim that we are not just a church but that we are the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. We work hard to help people connect the dots themselves, but this is an obstacle I've been facing. So, if anybody has any suggestions on that. I would greatly appreciate you sending me an email or voice memo.

This is Heather and Chad! I met them at the SLC airport. Our plane was delayed and so we got to talking. They made me feel at home. At the end of the flight, I got off and went to the baggage claim but felt like I needed to go BACK to the bathroom on the other side of the terminal! I'm so grateful I did because I ran into them again. We were able to exchange information. She told me that meeting me was a blessing and just brightened her day. They went on their way and as they were leaving, they actually saw my companion at the escalator and said, "we meet your companion and she's great" hahaha. I think it put sister Richens at ease. That and the other family waiting at the airport for a missionary. It made the families day seeing a missionary and they considered it a tender mercy.

I'm serving with Sister Johnson again see the picture above with me and the sister's in our zone. She's amazing! It's crazy because I trained her second transfer and now, she's in her fifth transfer training. She trained right out of training which didn't surprise me at all she was way more diligent than me and I was always trying to keep up with her LOL. We always are in training throughout our whole life. People around us are always there to teach us something. Because the Lord's always teaching us something and it's often through another person that he does that. But in her second transfer when she was with me, she had the prompting to practice her French every day. Then she got put with a companion who had language study, so she continued to practice French. She wasn't called French speaking, however. But this last transfer we have a friend who speaks French and so she's been able to come with us to the lessons. The friend who speaks French absolutely adore Sister Johnson and the gospel seems to make much more sense when sister Johnson teaches it in French. The Lord had the Long View and knew that sister Johnson didn't need to go somewhere French speaking because she needed to go to Stockton specifically for that one person that we're teaching. The Lord will use us wherever we go. I saw that at home, and I see that on my mission and I'm sure I'll see that for the rest of my life. Answering the question “What can I do today to be useful to the Lord.”

My companion’s name is sister Richens (See the pictures at the top of the blog), she is from Myton, Utah (don’t worry I hadn't heard of it either). She's been good to me. She's in her third transfer and has such a kind heart. She came right out of high school and is a very hard worker. I think the biggest thing she's taught me so far is how to look for the principle behind rules. Early on in my mission I was a rigid rule following robot, I have realized it crippled me. Since my concussion and returning to my mission I've been able to be more relaxed. Like the first Saturday I was here I still had to unpack. And it was kind of affecting my stress levels. So, she looked at me and said, "Sister we're going home and we're taking as much time as you need to unpack and get settled." I looked at her and anxiety shot through me. I thought, no we can't do that, it's prime proselytizing hours.

She could obviously read my mind because she said. “Whatever you're thinking. It may be prime proselytizing hours, but you're not in Prime shape to be proselytizing. It's hard to have your eyes single to the glory of God, if you have needs that you need to take care of." As you can see, she is the perfect companion for me, and we get along very well.

Okay now for some fun stories

We had a cute boy that we went over to remind about church on Sunday morning. He's about 10 years old.) He swung the door open on an early Sunday morning and said,

"Hellooooooo I've been ready for church for 5 hours." Has then motions to his outfit, his nice blue jeans, his buttoned up white shirt, and his hair combed over. He then continues to roll his eyes and says," but my parents.....nada. I've just been waiting for them."

We told him we'd love to see him at church, and he looked so sad. He wanted to go but he was just waiting on his parents. They weren't able to come this week.

I've been thinking a lot about that little boy. We've had a lot of people ask us why bad things happen to good people. We often try to explain the idea of agency, that there's joy that comes from choosing good and we couldn't have that joy if we couldn't also choose bad. Most recently though a lot of people have brought up the idea of child abuse. They always say that the individual didn't choose that path. I've had to learn how to listen and just say a "thank you for sharing”. But just like this little boy he has a righteous desire to go to church but he can't make that action happen by himself. That's why I think it is important to realize that we will be judged according to our desires. Some people believe that if one has a desire to do something they should just do it. If this is the case, wouldn’t we just be judged on our actions? I’ve come to learn the reason that this is not so. In many cases, people show desire through their actions (such as getting ready for church.) But if this little boy was only judged by whether he went to church then the Lord wouldn't see his desires. In the case of the abuse, I still haven't figured that one out. I could say that the child still has a choice of how to respond to the incident, but even then, they don't always have that choice. I'm still trying to reconcile that and sometimes we just do not have the answers that can make sense to us here on earth.

This was me eating dinner the first night back. The Guterriez's took us out to dinner. They opened their hearts to us and told us their story and it brought tears to my eyes.

I went on an exchange with a sister. She told me that God probably was sitting up in heaven and he said," how can I ensure that my people have joy?" She believes that is why he created the Gospel of Jesus Christ, commandments, and agency to ensure that we have joy. Joy isn’t the bi product it is the product, and all other things are a biproduct of joy. God knew that the most amount of joy could happen if we also could experience sorrow. It's hard to reconcile that when people have gone through such horrible things.

We are often asked “why does God not answer my prayers by freeing me from the situation?”. I wish they could just see that the Lord must trust them so much and need them to be refined by the experience and it is only then we can experience true joy. We have been working with a girl who's had a very hard life. She told us that she did not believe that God listened or answered her prayers, but after years she finally feels peace again. She knew he does indeed answer them, however, sometimes it may take years like it did for her. That's the type of person I strive to be, one who keeps an eternal perspective and thanks celestial. Sometimes I like to think about the person I will be in the Celestial kingdom. And being grateful for the refinement we're going through.

I learned to make my own tortillas this week with a tortilla press and fry up all the meat on the grill, it was quite fun. A member invited us over for dinner and it was just a grand old time. I've been doing a lot of Spanish work because of exchanges and it's always fun to see how the Lord Works throughout his children.