October 21, 2013

I have yet again another week filled with changes. We are in another trio because one of the sisters in the district is a Temple Square missionary and she went back and her companion has joined us until another sister comes out. I was supposed to be a trainer this transfer and would have had to move but the girl that was supposed to come didn’t so I don’t have to leave and I am still in Stevenson Ranch with my companion Sister Lind.

I just love this area so much and am so glad that I still have the chance to serve here; it is definitely my favorite area. The other sister that joined us is also named Sister Reese. She is from Georgia and her grandma and grandpa are converts so we don’t have any relation. It has been really interesting having two Sister Reese’s in a companionship.

There is new area that will have a companionship in so my companions and I and some elders with the housing coordinator help get an apartment ready. It was really fun and it is a nice apartment. Afterwards Elder Young (coordinator) and his wife took us all to McDonalds for lunch. I ate my very first McDonalds hamburger; it was okay, just plain and I certainly wouldn’t get one if I have other choices.

Later we cleaned an investigator’s house; she is a hoarder and lives in a trailer house so it is small and there was a lot of stuff. It was really disgusting and she even felt that the chicken that was moldy was still good. Yuck! I don’t know how can spiral down like that. We made some improvement and hopefully she can get a hold of things and make a better life for her and her 6-year-old daughter.
We taught several people this week and had different levels of success. We had a great Sunday; it was the primary program and it was so cute. The primary is large here and they did a great job. Kelsey, a potential, and soccer player for the local college even came to church. Hopefully she will be receptive to hear the lessons. After church I felt that we needed to go see a less active couple in our ward. They have two kids, a girl and a boy, who are both on missions in Spain. He used to be the ward mission leader and his wife is not a member. We spent some time talking with them and they are really friendly and said that they would like to have us over for dinner sometime. We really hope to start teaching them soon.
October 24 marks my 6 month out; it is really crazy to think that I have been out for half a year and that I have a year left. Time really does fly when you are having fun!
For Halloween the ward had a trunk-or-treat party and we decorated our car and had a game for children to play so that they could earn candy. It was called the ‘MTC’ and the children had to decide by looking at pictures, what a missionary could bring to the mission field and what had to be left home. It turned out really well and the children did a pretty good job with it.

Until next time.
Love,
Sister Reese

Letter Excerpts

Excerpts from Kirstin’s Letters:

Oscar Delgadillo was officially baptized September 29, 2013. It was such a great baptism. Oscar told his daughter that it was him being baptized right before he changed into his whites. It was so sweet and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Sister Lind, me, and Elders Chandler and Choi sang “Come Thou Font “and it was great; the Spirit was really strong. Oscar called us the next day to say thank you and he said that he didn’t know that music could bring such power and Spirit. Oscar, his daughter and son-in-law all shared their testimonies and it was so powerful to everyone there. It’s so great to see another child of God come back to the family of Father. Oscar is such a humble man; he is just an amazing person.

After the baptism we had a meeting that had the wards readjusting their boundaries; we stayed in the same ward and picked up some from another ward that includes another investigator that may be close to baptism. We will meet them soon.

I truly believe that I have now become an official Californian; I now have to wear a warm jacket because I get cold in temperatures of 60 – 70 degrees. I don’t know how I am going to survive when I go back to Utah; especially since I will be going back at the end of October. I am wearing a wool coat here and I carry a blanket in the car to wrap up in just to keep warm. I think my blood is really thinning out, I seem to be cold all the time. Sister Lind (my new companion from West Valley, Utah) and I have been busy getting use to our new area. We have this one community that is really nice with a lake that has ducks, fish and turtles.

We have picked up some great investigators: one lady was baptized a year and a half ago but never came back to be confirmed so we are going to try to bring her back so she can be re-baptized and confirmed. We are also teaching a Richard, who is a boyfriend of a less active member so we are trying to teach him and bring her back to church, but we will need to get them worthy since they are living together. We have three possible investigators that are married to members; the other is a friend of one of the young women in our ward – she has been to girl’s camp and church before, so hopefully we can teach her soon. We had a zone training meeting taught by the zone leaders and I learned so much; in 1 Nephi 13:34 it talks about ‘other books’ in our time and one of them is Preach My Gospel because it is such a powerful tool to help missionaries teach the gospel. Everyone should read this book; it is so powerful for anyone who wants to share the gospel with their friends and neighbors. I also came to realize a connection between missions and school: they both have a set schedule for a certain amount of time that doesn’t change very often. Although your schedule is the same from day to day, you are learning and doing new things each day. Missions are the greatest; I think everyone should serve a mission because you really do learn so much. I have learned so much like gospel principles in better detail that it will help me in my future life as a parent.
General Conference was Christmas for missionaries: by the end I was so full spiritually that is was so amazing. Between sessions on Saturday, we had a baptism which just made the whole weekend so spiritual. One talk I liked was Adrian Ochoa (2nd counselor in YM) he said “Your mission service will be the single most important thing to prepare you for the rest of your life.” It is so true; I’ve learned tons of gospel principles in more detail.
Oscar was confirmed a member of the church on October 13, 2013. It was so great to see him finally receive the wonderful gift of the Holy Ghost to help him throughout the rest of his life. One of my first investigators in Studio City, Annette, was baptized; I didn’t get to go back for it but I was told that it was really special. Now for some sad news; our investigator, Richard, the one living with his girlfriend (the less active sister), dropped the lessons. His girlfriend said that he was not interested and that she was ‘so not interested.’ (She used to be a Relief Society president.) She left a voice message and her tone of voice was really harsh which is so sad. We picked up Cindy, a new investigator from the elders after the ward boundary shifts and she has been taught most of the lessons and already has a strong testimony. She wants to get to know the Book of Mormon better before she commits to baptism.

This week Sister Lind and I help out at the mission home with cleaning and re-organizing. One day we work so long that we didn’t get dinner so the senior couple missionaries took us out to dinner and we talked until it was time for us to go home. We really got to know them which was really cool. The major event that happened this week was the visit of Elder Kopishke of the 70 who taught us so much. I took 8 pages of notes during the day long conference. Some phrases that he said that I really liked were: “If you invite, you have succeeded.” “The righteous man falls 7 times a day, but each time he gets back up.” “Young adults should go on missions” (this one was really cool, no it’s not commanded for girls to go on missions, but in this day and age of wickedness in the world, it should be required – I think at least…). I really like how he taught – by the Spirit and with the scriptures.

Love,
Sister Reese

August 12, 2013

Dear Family,
This week was pretty fantastic; we got to meet some more members and get to know them better. It can be hard to catch people because they aren’t home much during the day; they all work. They are really nice and they are amazing members; so willing to serve and they try to be missionary minded and bring their friends to the knowledge of the truth. They are preparing their friends because they want us to meet them; they are really great and down to earth. My companion and I bought flowers and gave them to our bishop’s wife and she loved them! Then we made the mistake of telling the elders what we did and now they are trying to top us; but, they haven’t done anything yet. We also made brownies this week so that we could give some to our investigator, Oscar.
I also got to go on exchanges this week and I went up to the Newhall are for the day with Sister Walgren (from Pleasant Grove, UT) and it was so amazing how many miracles we saw. We found a ton of solid potential investigators, including a family that seemed really interested in what we were saying. We taught them most of the first lesson and then we covered some other topics here and there. The dad told us when we walked up that he was tired of his church because they were so repetitive, he needed a change, and something that would teach his kids right. (They are 13 & 15.) So we talked with him about the church and the youth programs and he was really interested. We spent over an hour talking with him and his kids; it was amazing! He also talked about a Bible story and it wasn’t very good and he was asking about why it happened that way. My companion did not know the Bible story very well so I was able to clarify it for him since I was familiar with the story. He would be a great member; he seemed like he really could be but he wasn’t; he has been prepared to hear the gospel which is incredible! They are a Hispanic family and they speak English very well. They are so cool! We also met many other really prepared people and we planted tons of seeds with other people too. It was just a great day! We were able to invite several others to church and many of them said that they would try to make it. We also talked to one of their investigators, Zeki, who is from Turkey and still learning English. I was able to say ‘hello’ to him in Turkish (my college roommate taught me since she was Turkish) and he was really impressed and we started talking more. He told the sisters earlier that he would get baptized once he accepted Christ as his Savior. He still doesn’t believe that yet, but he is interested in the gospel and has many perfect questions that can easily be answered. He is 22 years old and used to be Muslim; but, he is awesome. He is coming along and he will understand the truth eventually.
On Sunday, our investigator, Oscar came to church and he came to the gospel essentials class with us and the teacher had Oscar introduce himself to the rest of the class and he said that he can’t wait to be a member! In relief society I sat next to a lady who was transferring her records over to our ward. As we talked, she began to cry as she told me about the trials that she was going through and that she had a prompting to join our ward and she said that her son is serving a mission in Mexico. She is so sweet and she wants to take me and my companion out to dinner or lunch sometime when things settle down for her. Later we had a session with Oscar and taught him some of the commandments and one of them was the Word of Wisdom. He has been drinking coffee and tea; but, once we told him that members are not allowed to do that, he immediately said he would stop drinking coffee and tea anymore. We know that he will succeed because when he is set on doing something he will do it. He told us that last week in priesthood meeting they talked about being kind to everyone and the next day he decided to be nice to one man at his work that people gossiped about and he just said, “hey, how’s it going?” and the guy was caught off guard, but was happy Oscar talked to him. We talked to him about the temple a bit too; his daughter was married in the temple so he knows a little about it already. We are planning on having Oscar getting baptized on September 8 and the bishop is going to announce in sacrament meeting. Oscar wants to surprise his daughter with it so he talked to his son-in-law about clearing up her schedule and his side of the family’s calendar so they can all be there for his baptism. The Spirit was so strong during his lesson and I was impressed to tell him how much God loves him and that Heavenly Father is proud of him for everything that he is doing and it made Oscar cry a bit; it was so powerful. I can’t wait to see him baptized. (His date of baptism is during the week of transfers; I hope I don’t get transferred before this happens.) What a great week!
Love, Sister Reese

3 Months Out

On July 22 we went up to Stony Point Park which is a huge hill covered by scattered rocks. Our zone went there and we hiked it and had fun. We got to one rock that was 6 ft. higher than the rock we were on and so one of the elders got up on it and then helped a few of us up. It was really cool because it overlooked most of the valley. It was a little hard on the way down because there was dirt everywhere which made it slippery; luckily I didn’t fall hard enough to hurt anything.
We had a meeting with one of our investigators, Jeannette, we talked to her about the importance of the Book of Mormon, prophets, and watched the Restoration video with her. The Spirit was really strong with her, but it still didn’t feel right to ask her to be baptized, she still needs some more time to learn, which is okay. We didn’t get to meet with Pilar or her son this week so we are hoping that she still makes it to church which would be the third time she has come and her date for baptism is August 10. If they don’t come her baptismal date would be pushed to August 24 which would be sad because she is absolutely ready for the gospel; so we hope to see them at church.
I finally got roped into singing in sacrament meeting; my companion and I sang 'Song of Ruth' and it went pretty well. One of the elders in our zone was hit while on his bike; but he wasn't injured and people came to talk to him to see if he was alright and they found a few investigators that way. I still hope I never get put on a bike; that would be dreadful. I'm glad we have a car; it makes things so much nicer. We did find out that they will be splitting are area and that part of it will be bike; so we will see what happens.
Well, transfers have come and I have been transferred to Valencia, CA. My new address is:
Sister Kirstin Reese
25343 Silver Aspen Way #325
Valencia, CA 91381
My new area is really close to the mission office so you can still send things there and I will get them almost as frequently. The area is crazy rich, and I mean everyone. My apartment is the most expensive in the mission; but, we also have the best gym and I personally have the 'Miracle Bed' which is the only one that the mission owns, so I am pretty lucky with that. The downsides are that I am opening a new area with my new companion; most every home is in a gated community and we can only work through members. Our apartment used to be an elders' apartment and they didn't clean very well as they were leaving.

Love,
Sister Reese

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