July 1, 2013
This week as been busy but slow. We had a zone conference and the entire mission came because the mission had not been officially split. (The mission is officially split as of July 1 and my first trainer is now in the new Bakersfield mission.) The mission was great and President Hall is excited with being able to start a ‘new mission’. At district meetings, so far, I am the only one who can play the piano a little bit. I only know 3 songs but I am working on other songs so that I don’t have to play the same songs over and over; but, it is better than not having music at all. The music coordinator of the ward has asked me to sing in sacrament meeting and is working on some of the music that I brought with me to see which one she wants me to sing.
I had an interesting Sunday this week (good and bad); it started of normal – going to our church meetings. After our ward meetings we stayed to go to the Korean branch’s sacrament meeting because a lady from our ward was singing and we told her we would be there to listen. The meeting was all in Korean and it was pretty cool to hear the language. There were only 23 members and afterwards, we were invited to their luncheon. There was one other person there who spoke English so we mostly spoke with him. After that we went with the Korean elders to an appointment they had with a blind 15 year-old who wanted to meet sister missionaries because he didn’t know that there were any. The family invited us to dinner and they kept bringing out more and more food. I ate with chopsticks and am getting pretty good with them because I keep having Asian food. (I have been trying tons of different food the last few weeks and some of it has been really good; but, there are some parts that just don’t taste right and my companion agrees with me most of the time. ) After the Korean dinner we went home and updated our records and books while we let our stomachs settle since we had another dinner appointment later in the evening. This dinner was made from organic food but it still filled us up again. We stayed for a while talking with the member because she was going through a rough time.
We had a really great P-day this week; it was a zone activity. We went up to the Calabasas rock (where we went 2 weeks ago) and we had lunch and climbed some of the rock up there. It was a really clear day and we could see the ocean really well and could see some islands and a boat out there. There was a nice breeze even though it was 108° and it was really peaceful. Later we went to dinner and then to Jamba Juice. It was really great for me at least; my companion got car sick on the way up and back and so did Sister Satini (another sister group we went with) and she ended up throwing up outside the car. I was surprised that I did not get car sick since I usually do and I did not take any motion sickness medicine. The next day, my companion was still feeling sick so she slept most of the day; we did make it to an appointment with an investigator and to a dinner with a member.
A couple of days ago a girl was raped in our complex by and our neighbor told us about it and made sure we were okay. As for Pilar, we met with her son, Lawrence and he brought a friend. They have had some problems with the law, but not too serious. He really wants to learn and he has a lot of questions. Pilar and Lawrence came to church for the first hour. We hope they keep coming. Well that is about all; more later.

Love
Sister Reese

Mission Update

June 25

So last week we had transfers and my new companion is Sister Wettingfeld. She is pretty nice, and at first it was a little weird because we didn’t know what to expect, but we got over it quickly and it is all good. I am in the same area; they typically try to keep people in the same place for about two transfers. So I am still in Chatsworth (porn capital) for now. Chatsworth is pretty nice though; it’s hard to find people most of the time but it’s a nice area.
On a p-day a while ago we went hiking with some other companionships and there are some cool sights that we saw of the ocean.
Pilar, the Philippine, that we have been teaching says that she wants to be baptized. She says that the message we share is what the world needs. She is ‘golden’ because she believes all that we are telling her. Each time we teach her and leave her with commitments, she does them and believes what we say. Last time we asked her to pray to know that what we are teaching he is true, and she said that she has and she knows it is true. (She is Catholic and knows some of the same doctrine.) She will even remember everything we teach her, she tells us about Joseph Smith and him restoring the church and about the atonement, etc. She even will reread the pamphlets we give her so that she does remember it more. At our last meeting with her, we asked her to be baptized on July 13 and she said yes, but the date will probably have to be pushed back a bit since she works every other weekend and she needs to attend church 3 times before being baptized. She also wants her son to join her, so we need to find a way to get him to come and if he does, she will be jumping into the baptismal font!
We haven’t been able to get in contact with Robert (the one being cursed) yet, but we are still going to try. Our neighbor isn’t interested at all. His health is declining (because he drinks beer and smokes all day long), but he is pretty nice. Sometimes he’ll ask us to go to Burger King and get him some sandwiches and he lets us keep the change. He’s a nice guy but he isn’t willing to give up his current lifestyle.
There are Korean elders living in our apartment complex and we see them all the time. One day they saw some bobby pins and were trying to put them into their hair but they could not figure them out and kept saying “ow” trying to get them in. It was really funny. On Monday we got to play soccer with some other missionaries and a few nonmembers. It was really fun; I’m surprised that I am still able to play after not playing for so long. Before you ask, no, I didn’t get injured; just a couple of bruises, so don’t worry about it. I even made the first goal which was great. I hope we do this again because it is tons of fun.
The work here has been kind of slow though; our other investigators have been harder to contact, but we still have a few that we get an appointment with. Hopefully it will be picking up more, but we’ll see. It can be hard to find people in California because a lot of people are either rich (self-centered and don’t care for religion), crazy (those that try to bash us or those that know what they should do but don’t), or too worldly (like into porn and they like the money too much to stop). Anyways it’s just slow right now.
Love Sister Reese

LA Temple and new companion

My companion was transferred up to Lancaster and she will be in the new mission when it splits. She was supposed to leave at the transfer meeting on the following Tuesday, but the president called Monday evening (the week before) and said that she is leaving Wednesday after we get out of the temple and that my new companion will be waiting for me outside the temple. My new companion is Sister Wettingfeld and she is from the Salt Lake Temple Square mission; they send these missionaries out into the real proselyting mission for 4 months during their mission. She has been out for 9 months and is to be my trainer, but I think we are training each other. She is super bossy and I don’t like being forced to do things; but it’s only the third day, so we will see what happens.
Earlier this week (last Saturday) we went to a baptism for an Iranian girl and it was really different because a lot of people there only spoke Farsi, so there was a translator. This translator also translates for general conference and the Book of Mormon recording. Sister Dyreng and I were asked to speak at the baptism about the restoration and the translator was translating what we said. It was very different since I’ve never been translated before. We also met with one lady and as we were teaching her we found out that she went to the masters college in Santa Clarita where they teach them how to bash Mormons. After the appointment we never went back. We also taught Sharon (the lesbian) again. We taught her the first lesson and then asked her to be baptized and she said that she wants to but not for a while. She wants to get out of her relationship because her partner is sort of abusive, which is perfect so she won’t get too upset at us when we teach the law of chastity. We are hoping to help her be ready in the next month or so.
The LA Temple is amazing; I definitely want to go back again sometime. It’s different from the Draper temple. We got to do a chapel session – the first counselor of the temple presidency spoke to us and he had a lot of good things to say. It was also really cool to see all the missionaries there (about 100). I think that I will be singing in church in a couple of weeks; we’ll see how it goes.
Love Sister Reese