Email Week 14!

Family!!

This week's weather has been super bi-polar and I hate it. It's been 100 degrees, then it would rain for like 45 minutes and then be hot again. I JUST WANT IT TO RAIN ALL DAY! Even without the car, I would definitely prefer rain to this ridiculous heat :( BUUUUUUT, I still love being here, and we're blessed to have wonderful members who always bring us out water when they see us walking and offer us rides. SO it could have been way worse this week, we didn't even end up walking THAT much because we had so many rides, so that's nice :) 

But can we just talk for a second about how JEALOUS I am of Addison?! I knew he would be going to Disneyland Paris and Abbey Road and things but I didn't even think about all the cool Harry Potter stuff he would see?!?! DIAGON ALLEY?! SERIOUSLY?!?!?! GRINGOTTS?!?! EVEN PLATFORM 9 3/4!!! Ugh I was freaking out looking at those pictures!!! Super jealous. Bikes come in handy! And at least you all don't live on a giant gradual hill like we do here haha, Biking in Cali is way more fun than biking in Utah! Even the places that look flat here AREN'T, it's all hills -__- 

Anyways, GUESS WHAT! I found a GOOD sushi place in my area (right before transfers of course). It's delicious I 'm in love<3 It's called Fortune Cookie, we've gone there  a lot recently because thankfully the sisters we hang out with on P-day like sushi too :) 

Speaking of food, in the past week and a half we've had hamburgers for dinner 4 times, a little ridiculous haha but they were all super good! I also tried Potato Leek Soup which was SO GOOD! Just potatoes, cream, chicken broth, and leeks (onions i think?) cooked and then blended in a blender! DELICIOUS<3

I also had the best cookies ever at a cookie/lemonade/rice krispie/craft stand. It's so cute, there are so many stands around so we always try to buy stuff from them because the kids are so darn cute! I'm running out of 1's haha. 

Another yummy thing I had this week was VAULT WATER! So we met this family whose father works at the vault, like the big church vault in the mountain! anyways, I guess there is a place there where the water seeps through granite or something (sounds gross) and it comes out just SUPER CLEAN! it was the best water I've ever had! Way better than disgusting Riverton water hahaha. 

Oh and the other night I had the BEST DINNER YET on my entire mission so far! Home-made Cafe Rio style tacos! I had like 5, seriously they were so good.......*drool*

Another night we had  Swedish pancakes, which are basically crepes! So that was exciting! I just put butter and a whole bunch of cinnamon sugar on mine and whipped cream on top of course! It made me think of home :) I miss making crepes for you all!! :)

Wow how pathetic am I talking all about food?!?!?! HAHA! Whatever. We have been having lots of good spiritual experiences as well! Lots of good active member Family Home Evenings where the spirit has been really strong, but we've yet to receive a referral from anyone that actually leads to a lesson :( But the members here really are trying! They are incredibly missionary minded because so many families have missionaries out in the field! There are SEVERAL farewells and homecomings EVERY SUNDAY! SERIOUSLY! It's intense! This last Sunday in one ward we went to there was 3 farewells JUST IN THAT WARD! Sacrament went almost 30 minutes over hahahah. Then the other ward had a homecoming! The work is truly hastening around the world and I know I am so blessed to be a part of it :) One of the missionaries giving his farewell is going to MORRISTOWN NEW JERSEY! :) I told him about Sister Fjerstad and how she loves it there! He was super excited! :)

At one of our FHE's, we did this cool new trick we learned to teach about enduring to the end and having faith, where you light a tea-bag on fire and it comes close to your hand but floats away before burning you (hard to explain haha) and when we did it the second time with this family, the wife was holding it, and the husband yelled "IT'S A BAD ONE IT'S NOT GONNA WORK!" trying to scare her and she FREAKED OUT and THREW IT screaming so loud so then I was screaming and everyone else was screaming at the fire floating around and it was so scary but everything ended up okay and it was HILARIOUS! We were just about dying of laughter for the next like 10 minutes!!!! The husband said "I WAS REPRESENTING SATAN YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE ME!!!" hahahah it was hilarious!

Anyways there IS work being done here haha not just fun! We picked up 2 new investigators this week! Carlos and Maria! They have a 3 year old daughter and just moved here from Kearns where they had met with missionaries before! They already had a Book of Mormon but hadn't read it, so we gave them something to read, and we are having another lesson with them tonight, and will hopefully be setting up a baptismal a date :) We were also FINALLY able to meet with mom of a family we've been trying to contact since I got here, and have a lesson set up for Thursday. They are mostly less active but have 2 unbaptized kids! We are super excited! :) We ALSO had a great conversation with an inactive member who when we first met him told us he was super not interested haha. We've been meeting with his wife, trying to help her get back to church (SHE FINALLY WENT LAST SUNDAY :)  ) and she wasn't home one day so we talked to her husband for like 45 minutes and he totally loves us! He always asks us to sing him hymns and he just smiles and glows the whole time :) We're thinking of singing a musical number in his ward and inviting him to see if he'll go :)

Then of course, on Saturday night we went to Temple Square with the Broom's for a tour and it was AMAZING! The sisters there were so fun! Sister Barrett and Sister Xu (shoe), they showed us around a bit, we got to listen to the recording at the Christus, and watch a video called "God's Plan For His Family". I LOVE the title because it's not "God's Plan for YOUR family", or just "God's Plan for Families", it's HIS FAMILY. Because we ARE his family. We are all truly children of God I cried through pretty much the whole video. I am so thankful for the knowledge that families are truly eternal. That Heavenly Father wants to bless us, and that giving us families is one of the greatest blessings we can ever receive. The spirit was so strong, and Alex and Adis really loved it! Josie and I actually watched that same video at the LA temple visitor's center when we went for Candise's endowments! Ask her if she remembers! :)

Oh 2 really random fun things that happened this week was that when we were at the mission office for Sister Stewart's doctor's appointment, Elder Berch, my old district leader, was there! :) It was so nice seeing him! I got to talk to him for a bit while I waited for Sister Stewart! He was so excited to hear about all of our investigators since when he was our district leader we hardly had any hahaha. I also met Elder Langbatta who used to serve in the Riverton South Stake. It was weird meeting him because I feel like I already know him because the members here talk about him ALL the time haha. He is really funny and can sing like an angel! 

The other random thing is that I met Elder Mann's family friends haha. They were talking about their friend Ta Mann who served in Long Beach, CA and I was like WAIT he served in my home ward!!!! Hahaha so that was really random and funny! They moved here recently from Texas, so that's where they knew him from! 

So yeah this week has been great! I love and miss you all so much, but I gotta get going! I think we're going to Red Robin for lunch! Since it's the last P-day of the transfer (i find out about transfers tomorrow and transfers will happen on Wednesday) I probably won't have time to write letters because we're hanging out as a zone! But I lalalala love you so so much and I love reading your emails every week! I'm so thankful for all of your love and support, serving a mission would be much harder without it! 

Never forget that YOU are special, every one of you because Heavenly Father created you and has a specific plan for you. He loves and knows each and every one of us better than we could ever imagine. By reading the Book of Mormon, we can come to know Him, and His son, our Savior, Jesus Christ better. As we come to know if this wonderful love that they each have for us, we have a stronger desire to share the gospel with others! Always be praying for missionary opportunities! I think some people don''t because of the saying "you get what you pray for" and they're scared of actually having an opportunity, hahaha, but I promise you that as you share the gospel with anyone you meet, the Spirit will help you know what to say and you will be so blessed! I've seen it! :) I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! PRAY ALWAYS! Heavenly Father never gets tired of hearing from you :)

-Sister Love