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