Stockon Times Three Transfers

Hello everyone, I would like to share a few stories about serving in Stockton for two transfers with my wonderful companion Sister Richins who was just transferred.  I have learned so much about being flexible from Sister Richins. She has taught me the importance of having hope.  She helped me remember that because of Jesus Christ’s atonement everything will work out how it's supposed to. This realization has led me to enjoy my missionary work more and not be as stressed. It has also helped me realize that Jesus Christ truly oversees this work.

 The night before transfers I felt prompted to go to campus our area has us over the YSA wards and incorporates two colleges. Sister Richins said that she had the same thoughts and ideas. So, we walked over to campus even though the house was not clean, and her bags were not packed.  A little bit of a backstory before I continue.  One thing we do on campus is we will stand with a whiteboard on campus asking people questions about God or other things.  Anyone walking by can come and write the answer.  This has been helpful to us in starting conversations. On several occasions, there has been a man that had walked by.  We see him often, almost every time we are on campus.  We knew his name from past companionships that had done this whiteboard exercise on campus, we will call him “Edgar”. We knew that in the past he had taken the time to stop and write answers or other questions.  This took some time for him to get to this point as the first few times Edgar would see the missionaries he would walk quickly away in the opposite direction, avoiding eye contact.  However, slowly he started to sign the whiteboard with a question that was on it.  Then he started waving to us. Then he eventually even answered a question or two.  However, he always turned down the invitation to learn more.  The second to last time we were on campus he walked by, and he waved to us motioning he wanted to talk but we couldn’t leave the conversation we were in.  As we stepped foot onto campus this last time as a companionship, Sister Richins, and I both felt prompted that we were in the right place to deliver God's message.  

When we arrived on campus, we headed over to the institute building where we found one of the YSA members named Jerem.  Jerem is a bit nerdy.  We walked over to a bridge on campus, and we came upon a young man who we will call “Eric”.  Eric and Jerem were equally versed in nerdiness, and it did not take us long to realize that we had brought the right YSA member along with us that evening.  The two of them spent 20 minutes talking to one another both asking questions and a good conversation towards the end of the visit Edgar came by and joined our conversation and suddenly, we had two friends we were sharing the gospel with.  We were also able to get a return appointment with both of them!  Hopefully, there is more to that story later.  I was reminded that evening that God will use us wherever we are.

Another miracle is we went to the temple.  While we were in the celestial room, we saw a woman there meditating I felt strongly to go tell her that God loved her. After we were out of the temple, we walked around taking some pictures. As we were getting in the car that same woman ran out to our car and said “Thank you so much for telling me that God loves me, I have really been struggling” God truly does know our thoughts and he wants us to succeed and know him.

My new companion is Sister Park.  She is from South Korea. I was her STL (Sister Training Leader) when she first came out on her mission. I am learning yet another valuable lesson from her…...PATIENCES. I'm learning how to talk less and listen more.  Because English is not her first language and we are working on English training, things may take us two or three times longer than they did before with my other companions.  However, I have realized that it's less about the end result and more about the process that happens before the end result is achieved. I've seen miracles, after miracle. One thing I have worked on with Sister Parks is writing down the words that I hear her not understand in our lessons or conversations during the day.  Then at night, I will get the list out and we will go over those words and work to make sure that she understands them and can use them in a sentence.  The last 15 minutes of our nightly language studies we go to the Whiteboard, and I'll teach her a concept in English this last week it was about root words.  The importance of language study is something my dad taught me and told me he did on his mission when learning German.  Sister Parks said that she had hoped her entire mission that someone would help her with this, and it has helped her with her language learning as well as helped me discover a love for her. 

I am not going to lie, the past 3 weeks have been extremely hard. This week was one of the hardest weeks of my mission. On Sunday, it really hit me. I felt like nothing I did mattered. There were absolutely zero fruits of our labors.  Because of this, I put the blame on myself. I have believed that we are not successful because of something I'm not doing or something I was doing. I wondered what I could be doing better. I read a verse in Jeremiah that opened my eyes and relaxed me. If I let the adversary make me discouraged, he would win. Because then he would be taking away my agency. I wouldn't be acting as hard or have the faith to act. So, I plead for forgiveness, and I am trying to take on a fresh view of my area Westlane. 

I love you all! I would like to leave you with my testimony.  I know Jesus Christ lives he is aware of us, but even more than that, Jesus Christ knew me before this life.  I wanted to be like him, I wanted to follow The Father’s commandments so readily and eagerly as he did in that grand premortal Council. 

Sister Frasier