Dec. 6, 2010

So hello everyone! I hope your week went well for all of you. Ours was great. We started the New Member Lessons with San and Henry. There's a girl named Melissa Larson from one of the other wards in our stake who just got home from her mission to Thailand last week. She came with us to the lesson and has been a wonderful help in making sure that San really understands the gospel. It will be really great for San to have the lessons in Thai, so that we can be sure that she really does understand the principles and such. We're excited. Plus, Melissa is great. I love her already. :) And it's really fun to sit and listen to them converse in Thai. I'm starting to pick up a few words, which is fun. :)

Many of the appointments with potential investigators that we had scheduled for this last week didn't actually happen. But we've been fasting as a zone and we're seeing the results. We were able to meet with a woman named Jamie, her daughter named Courteney, and Courtney's friend Sasha. All three are really interested in the things we had to teach about having a prophet, the priesthood, and the Book of Mormon. So we picked them up as new investigators and we're excited to continue teaching them. Although we probably won't get to meet with them, or many of our other potentials and investigators, much until after Christmas. Just about everyone is difficult to pin down to an appointment right now because of the holidays. Sis. Silva said that this is normal, and that the same thing happened to her last year. It's cool though. It means that we'll have more time to find new investigators, so that in January, we'll have a nice big teaching pool to work with. :)

The lesson with Jamie was pretty much the only really exciting thing that happened this week missionary wise. Sis Silva, Sis. Christensen, and I are all getting along great. We're making the best of the holidays and having a blast. :) I'm grateful to them and to you and to all of our families for making this Christmas a good one. We have "Santa Run" tomorrow. Basically, President and Sister Pendleton dress up like Mr. and Mrs. Claus and hand out the packages you sent us for christmas. Then we have a spiritual devotional about the birth of the Savior, and then we get to watch a G Rated movie. I've heard that it's Toy Story 3 this year.... They watched Up last year. Then, after lunch, it's back to work. We'll take our packages home and place them under our 2 foot tree to wait until Christmas. :) I'm excited. It will be tons of fun.

I guess that's pretty much it for me for this week. I hope you are all enjoying this holiday season and that you're trying your best not to miss me too much ( **wink, wink**). I love you all and I'm so grateful for all your support and prayers, just like always. You make it possible for me to be here.

Love, Sister Reid

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry it's a little late, but I can only email on Mondays, after all. :) I hope that everyone had a wonderful day and that everyone is back home safe and sound.

Our week was kind of slow because of the holiday. We haven't really been able to meet with most of our investigators because they were all busy. We did a lot of tracting and street contacting though, and it yeilded good results. We have 7 new potential investigators that we're meeting with this week. I'm a big fan of running numbers, and I figured out that, statistically, one of these 7 will get baptized! I promise I'm not focusing on numbers, I just like to know how we're doing as a mission, and I recognize that every single number represents a person who needs to have the gospel in their lives. I LOVE IT!!!

But I'm sure you're all wondering what I did for thanksgiving, so I'll tell you. :)

We started the morning by taking pictures in our area... pictures we haven't had time to take until now. So we went to a really pretty park in our area--with tons of fall leaves--and took pictures for several hours. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to our first of several Thanksgiving dinners. Jean, our investigator from Trinadad had us over first, and we got to taste everything she made. The turkey was really good - it was smoked. Then we were off to our next "appointment" at Gemma's (pronounced Hemma) who is from Mexico. They also had their own spin on thanksgiving dinner, including an amazing cranberry salsa that was so good but so spicy it numbed my tongue. Then we went to Hieu's house for our final dinner of the day. Everything was really good all day long. but my favorite may be that we listened to Chinese Opera at Hieu's during dinner. lol. I found it especially interesting that we had three dinners, and none of the hostesses were American. :)

On Saturday night, our dinner appointment was also Thanksgiving Dinner because the Gibson family had postponed their dinner from Thursday. Their oldest son gave his missionary farewell talk yesterday, so they had thanksgiving the night before so all the family from out of town would be there. It was more traditional and more like what I'm used to for thanksgiving dinner. I really loved all four dinners though.

That's pretty much it for me. Like I said, it was a slow week, but we have a lot of stuff lined up for this week. I'm looking forward to being able to tell you all about it.

I love you all tons, and I'm so grateful for all of your support. Especially as the holidays roll around this year. I know that I can count on all of your thoughts and prayers to help me in my work and to keep me focused. Although... I definately won't say no to any Christmas packages you can send my way... lol... :)

Love, Sister Reid

Nov. 22, 2010

Hello everyone! I hope all of you had as awesome a week as I've had! It's been wonderful!!!

We started out with the Half Mission Tour on Tuesday. Elder and Sister Malm (from the 2nd quorom of the seventy) came and gave us some wonderful training on how to be better missionaries, better finders, and better teachers. I had to give my 4 minute talk, which was nerve wracking, but it went pretty well I thought. They had me write it out, and read it, so that it would be as close to four minutes as it could. I can send you a copy, mom, if you want it. It basically sums up the success we've been having with all the Buddhist investigators we've been teaching. It went really well. I got a lot of compliments. And a special handshake from Elder Malm, and a hug from sister Malm. It was a wonderful day.

On Friday we had to go to Trainer/Trainee, which is a full day-long training that all new missionaries and their trainers have to go to. I felt like I had just gone as a greenie myself, seriously. It was fun to have some training from President and Sister Pendleton on how to teach better together. It's definately something that we've needed to work on, since there are three of us, and not just two...

Then, the big day on Saturday! We had three baptisms! Hieu and her two kids, Ava and Harold. It was a wonderful baptism. The Spirit was awesome, and the room was PACKED! We had to set up more chairs so everyone could fit. I'm REALLY looking forward to the next time, and maybe we'll have to move into the chapel! That will be cool. Luckily, I didn't have to really do anything this time, because I got sick on Friday, and wasn't feeling well at all on Saturday or Sunday. Now I'm really battling with the Flu virus and wishing that I could have a refund on my flu shot... lol... But don't worry mom, the ward here is taking really good care of me. The bishop actually told us not to come to our usual early morning meetings on Sunday so I could get some more sleep.

Ironically, we weren't able to because we got a call from the missionaries in one of the other wards that meets in our building at 9:00 AM. It turns out one of our new investigators, that we just met this week, had showed up early to church, having got the times mixed up. So we scrambled to get there, and attended the 9:00AM ward with him. His name is Joel. He's an older widower, and he's really been prepared to meet with us. He's actively looking for the truth. Funnily enough, he heard about our church by listenting to a Christian Radio Station. They were bashing pretty hard on Mormons, and Joel wanted to find out the truth, so he looked for a church, and found us that way. We've started teaching him this week, and we're really looking forward to getting to know him better.

We've also been able to do a little tracting this week, which is the first time in almost 3 months because we've been so busy. We've met a few potential investigators, and we're looking forward to all the new possibilities we're seeing here. It's been a wonderful couple of months, and we're not letting ourselves slow down! We've had some great referrals from the members in the last couple weeks, and we're excited to start teaching those families too.

I guess that's really just about it for now. We have been invited to spend thanksgiving with Hieu and her family, so we're really looking forward to that. :) I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know that I love you and I'm certainly grateful for all your prayers, love, and support. I know that I couldn't be out here without all of you behind me. It's a wonderful experience I'm having, and it's wonderful that you're supporting me in everything. Please be safe in all your travels. Mom, when you see everyone this weekend, please give them all hugs from me and tell them I miss them, and that I'm sorry to not be there.

Love, Sister Reid

Nov. 15, 2010

Hello everyone!!!

Can you believe that I've been gone 5 months tomorrow? Not me. I feel both like I've been here forever and that I just got here. It's definately hard to explain how that happens. I was talking to a member of the ward here last night, and she couldn't believe that I'd only been here 5 months. She said that it felt like I'd always been in the ward. I joked with her that I remembered when her kids were born and when they graduated from high school. But seriously, it almost feels like that!

It's been a crazy busy week. We had two baptisms, taught 15 lessons to actual investigators (this doesn't count all the dinner appointments, less actives, and tracting lessons that we taught) and picked up our new companion. Her name is Sister Christensen... maybe I'll start there. :)

On Tuesday we met Sis. Christensen at the mission office. She was late because the plane was delayed... I guess it's snowing in Utah... Here's where I brag a bit and say that it's still in the 70s most days around here. lol. Anyway. Sis. Christensen is really cool. She's happy and excited to be here and really motivated to learn as much as she can as fast as she can. She's doing great. We get along great too. Needless to say that I'm very relieved that Sis. Christensen is is a hard worker. It means we won't have to overcome anything other than a learning curve. It's definately been an adjustment, though, with three sisters instead of two. Everything takes longer (like shopping, and cooking, and getting ready to leave the apartment) but otherwise, I think we're making the adjustment pretty well. :)

Sis. Christensen's first full day was a little intense, and I feel kind of bad about it, but we had people to teach, so teaching we did. :) We taught lessons at 9:00, 11:00, 1:00. 2:00, 3:00, 4:30, 5:30, and 7:00. It was crazy, and we were all exhausted when we got home that night. Thursday and Friday weren't as busy, but we still had a lot to do. We had to finish getting Henry and Joseph ready to be baptized on Saturday. They both had their interviews and passed with flying colors, although Henry gave us a bit of a scare, because he was in with Elder Hadley (the District Leader) for almost an hour. But he came out smiling and gave us a big thumbs up. :)

Saturday was really the big day for us. Joseph's baptism was at 5:00pm. It went great. His mom was excited and the spirit was definately there. Joseph is doing great at church and making tons of friends in his primary class. Henry's baptism was at 7:00. We didn't have time to leave and get dinner, so the Relief Society brought sandwiches and set up a table in the gym for anyone who was staying for both baptisms. I thought that was pretty cool. Henry made it and we took a ton of pictures with him in white, along with him and Brother McArthur, whom Henry asked to baptise him. If you don't remember, Brother McArthur was the Inactive that we were teaching and his wife is Napa. Brother McArthur is now active, and was ordained to be a Priest so he could baptize Napa. Napa and San (Henry's wife) are really close now, so Henry asked if Bro McArthur would perform the ordinance. Also, Brett Taylor, one of the Priests in the Young Men, was asked by the bishop to be in the font with Henry and Bro McArthur, to help Henry into and out of the font, and also into and out of the water. It was REALLY cool to see the three of them standing there in white. Henry asked me to give the talk on Baptism, and I have to admit... I was more nervous than I thought I would be. But gave it I did, and I guess it went well, because I had a lot of compliments afterwards. Then Henry and Bro McArthur and Brett all got in the water. We had previously filled the font a little higher than normal, So Henry wouldn't have to bend over so far to get fully immersed. They had Henry kneel down in the font, with Bro McArthur kneeling next to him, and Brett kneeling in front of Henry. Then Bro McArthur said the prayer. Then they paused for a second to let Henry plug his nose and then they bent him forward. It was not how they regularly do it, but he went all the way under. :) After they brought him back up, they said, "Are you ready?" meaning, are you ready to stand up, and Henry said, "You want me go again?" It was pretty funny. When he came out of the dressing room, in a white shirt and tie, he held his hands up in the air, like, "Yay! I did it!" and everyone laughed. He's such a nice guy. A wonderful addition to the Antelope 4th ward. I love him so much, and I'm so grateful that I was able to be a part of his conversion.

I think that's just about it for this last week. Hieu and Ava and Harold are all getting baptized on Saturday, and that will be really cool. We have half mission conference tomorrow, and Elder Mulm (I think that's how you spell it) for the 2nd quorum of the Sevent is coming. I've been asked to give a talk about the success that we're having... yikes... but otherwise, I'm looking forward to this week. We're all also looking forward to finding the next group of prepared people who are ready to hear the gospel and to make the changes in their lives that will help them be happier.

I just want to let you all know that I'm so happy to be here. This work is not easy, and it's hard to give up everything I have to be here, but it's totally worth it. It's the best thing I've ever done with my life. I wouldn't change what I'm doing for anything. And I know that the work that I'm doing here in the Roseville California Mission is meant for me to do. I know that the gospel is true, and that it changes lives. I know that with a perfect knowledge because I've seen it now. I've seen what it's done for me, and what it's done for the people I teach. I want to thank each and everyone of you who reads my letters for all the support and love that you give. Especially Mom, Dad, Jaymi, Stephen, Daniel, Cat, Kayti, and Cale. You're all the best. I love you tons.

Love, Sister Reid