Wednesday 12 June 2013

Letter from Kirstin June 3 & 5


June 3, 2013
Dear Family,

This week has been kind of slow, but we did get a new investigator; her name is Sharon and is from the south. She is in her 60’s but looks like she is in her 40’s. She worked for the army in destroying chemical weapons and she is a lesbian. She was married twice before and has kids, but her first husband was abusive, which is probably part of the reason why she is lesbian. Her partner in in Iraq working kind of as a geologist (I think she detects bombs/mines in the ground.) Sharon used to be a Jehovah’s Witness but she said that they just weren’t logical; one minute they would say ‘God loves you’ and then the next they would say ‘You will burn in hell for your sins’ and she didn’t like it. We taught her the plan of salvation and she loved it because she said that it made sense completely. Next time we teach her we will be going over the Restoration. We have also been talking to a lot of people (a lot of door knocking) and we have actually met a lot of Iranians (mostly speaking Farsi and very little English). There has been a back-order on Farsi Book of Mormons so we are not able to get these for them. I don’t think that we will be teaching them since they do not speak English and we do not speak Farsi.
Later we met a lady from the Philippines and we gave her a Book of Mormon and she wants to read it and she wants us to come back and teach her and her son because she wants him to also hear the gospel. She told us “There is such peace around you guys”, she is like the perfect investigator; I can’t wait to start teaching her.
There are a lot of things happening in the mission soon (transfers). My companion/trainer is being moved to the Bakersfield mission (when the mission is split) and I will be getting a new companion/ trainer. I’m not very excited about this since I really do not know what kind of a companion I could get; will they be excited about the work or not?
The weather continues to get worse here, the other day it was 104° F, it is dreadful. I hope I get used to it soon or it cools down a bit so I don’t die of heat exhaustion (which I kind of experienced but not too badly.) Other than that it is going pretty well, the work is picking up.

Love, Sister Reese

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June 5, 2013
This is more of an update since a lot has happened after I already sealed the first letter.
Those that know me, know that I love Russian, and met a Russian lady as we walked around and I got to try a little Russian with her. She spoke English because she has been in the US for 20 years. It was great!
We went back and taught the lady from the Philippines and it was amazing! She used to be Catholic so she knows a lot of the doctrines which is great. When we first met her we told her to read 2 Nephi 31 which she had read. It was such a great lesson and at the end we asked her to be baptized and she went to the side of answering; she asked us how we do it and after we explained it, she said that she wants her whole family to be baptized. She has a son & her husband in England and a daughter that lives in Santa Clarita and a son that lives with her. She and her husband are separated but not divorced. We asked her to be baptized on June 29 but she didn’t really say a date since it will be probably 6 weeks before she can be baptized because she is a nurse and works every other weekend and they have to attend church at least three times before they can be baptized. She is definitely interested.
After meeting with her, Satan came after us. We went to dinner with a member (the one who is 84 years old) at a restaurant and we met some crazy people. One of them kept talking to about how he can see orbs and he can travel to different realms and sometimes a wall will come up when he is trying to talk to people, he said that we would hear about it and accept it. No chance. He kept talking so we just walked away. Then this guy’s friend comes up to us next and said that we don’t read the Bible, we told him we do and he said “no you don’t or else you would know that it says God is a jealous God and you shouldn’t have any other Gods.” We told him we didn’t but he was being rude about it. Then he called us Satan. Really? So dumb. So we just said have a nice day and walked away. We finally sat down with our member to eat dinner and while we were eating this guy came up to our table and tells the member to pray for us and she was so great and cute, she said “I’ll pray for you,” but the guy said “no, you need to pray for them, they are demons.” Then he started talking about global warming which our member said that she didn’t believe in, then he started talking about the resurrection and that he will be in heaven. He was so crazy; he doesn’t understand anything, not even the Bible correctly. He finally left us alone for a while until my companion and I went to get dessert and he came up to us again and said that we shouldn’t hate people; we said that we don’t. Then Sister Dyreng said you are provoking me, I’m just trying to eat. Then he said “why don’t you just say God bless you?” We said “God bless you” and he walked away and called us Satan. Satan knows that the Philippine lady is ready and that he is trying to break us down, but it’s not going to work because we know what he is doing and we are not like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. We are built on the rock of our Redeemer which is a sure foundation. (Helaman 5:12).
Anyways, that is over and it’s a new day and we are back on track again. We have six investigators, many formers and potentials, and we are hoping to have at least two more investigators this week. We want to have a total of ten before Sister Dyreng leaves in about 1 ½ - 2 weeks. The work is really flourishing here and that’s the best part.
Love, Sister Reese

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your blog. My son is actually on the plane going to the San Fernando Mission. So it is great to get a little insight. His name is Elder Flint from Layton, Utah. Maybe he will be your mission or the Bakersfield....not sure yet. :D Do you know of any other blogs, does the mission have a blog?

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