April 25, 2011

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a good week. :) Ours was pretty good. Nothing
super miraculous, though. Just a hard working week. We went on
exchanges this week, and had some good experiences with different
companions. I was here in Colusa with Sister McKellar, and she's
awesome. I hope that I get to serve with her sometime before I'm
done. She's been out only 3 months, and she's a great missionary. We
learned a lot from each other.

We've had to drop a few of our investigators because they weren't
progressing. Which is sad. I'm always sad when someone I'm teaching
doesn't understand, or doesn't care to understand the importance of
the gospel and keeping commitments in their lives. But everything
comes down to each individual's choice. I've learned to respect that,
even if sometimes I wish I could make people believe. That's not part
of God's plan.

Otherwise, things were mainly good. We got to dye easter eggs with a
family in our branch, and I'm sending pictures along with this email.
It was sooooo much fun. I'm glad that we got invited to do that. I
would have missed doing it this year. :)

Also, the easter bunny came twice to our house. I got a package from
Mom, for both me and my companion, and Sister Barfuss got a package
from her mom for both her and me. So we had two easter baskets each.
We're swimming in chocolate and jelly beans, and it is AWESOME!!! I
hope that all of you had a wonderful easter as well.

Anyways. Sorry it's so short. There just wasn't that much to tell this week.

Except, I almost forgot... We got transfer calls this morning. Sister
Barfuss and I will be both be staying here in Colusa for another
transfer. And I'm super happy and excited about it. It's going to be
a good transfer, filled with AWESOME success!

I love all of you, and I miss all of you, and, not to make any of you
feel bad, but except for a card and package from Mom, I haven't had
mail in weeks! So please, stop making my companion feel bad for me!
Write me!!!

Love, Sister Reid

April 18, 2011

Dear everyone!

So we had a great week! Diana was baptized on Saturday, and confirmed
yesterday. It was a great experience. I wished we could have had
some more support from the Branch, but I don't think that Diana
noticed how few people were there. We got there an hour early to set
up chairs and make sure that the font was being filled, which the
building coordinator said he'd take care of it. It takes about 90
minutes to fill. When we got there, the doors were all locked and no
one was around. We called the guy, and he was like, "oh, you have a
baptism this morning... i forgot... I'll be right there..." YIKES!!!
So he finally shows up at 9:30 to unlock the font (we don't have a
key because it's not our building, it's the stake center) and get the
water pouring. Needless to say, we started the baptismal service a
little late, and the water was running through all the talks and the
musical numbers and everything. Despite that, it was a wonderful
experience, and afterwards, when I asked Diana how she felt, the best
word she had was, "stronger, like I can take on anything now." It was
great. Baptisms never get old!

We picked up some new investigators this week too. We've started
teaching a hispanic family whose English is not so great... LOL. But
they don't want to be taught by the Spanish Elders, either... They
prefer to learn about the gospel at the same time as learning
English... which means that we move kind of slowly. They have one
son, Brandon, who is in High School, and helps us interpret for them.
It will be an interesting experience to teach them.

We also had a neat experience to re-teach me, and my companion, the
value of diligent effort. Last week, during planning, we both
distinctly, individually, received the prompting that we should tract
Parkhill, which is an extremely long street in Colusa. So last week,
we tracted there for 2 days and found no one. Even after speding
about 3 hours on the street, we were only half finished. So this
week, when we had time, we continued tracting on Parkhill. On
Wednesday, we planned to tract there for two hours. We got mostly
finished with the street in the two hours and had only one side of the
street for about 5 blocks left. Our next appointment wasn't till
later. So I asked Sister Barfuss if she wanted to just walk back to
the car, or if we should knock back to the car, and finish the street.
She surprised me by saying that we should knock back. She hates
tracting. We still hadn't found anyone to teach on the street, and I
was beginning to think that the Lord was just giving us an excercise
in receiving revelation. We had one door left. And no kidding, that
is where we found a new investigator. At the last door on the street.
After about 6 hours of knocking on that street, we found a wonderful
guy named Ramon who had great questions about the restoration and the
apostasy and the Book of Mormon. We taught him about the Book of
Mormon and committed him to read a few chapters before we come back
this next week. He's excited and wants to know more.

It's just really a testimony to me about the power of revelation. The
Lord really does know each of us personally, and he knows who we are,
what we need, and how to get it to us. Most of the time, the answers
to those prayers come from someone else. Two weeks ago, Heavenly
Father knew that Ramon would need us to knock on his door. So he set
us in motion to be in the right place at the right time. It's
wonderful to be the answer to prayer, and also to see someone else be
the answer to my prayers. I'm so grateful for this experience that
I'm having. To be here, right now, where I know the Lord needs me has
really grown my testimony.

Thanks for everyone, and for all that you do. I love you all like
crazy, and I can't wait to hear from you.

Love, Sister Reid

April 11, 2011

Another week has come and gone! How are you all? Good I hope. I'd
love to hear from you! Any letters are good letters, and except for
Mom, I haven't heard from most everyone in several weeks, and from
some of you it's been several months. I miss hearing about you.
Having a greenie companion has helped me remember what it was like to
have mail on most days of the week... And I miss those little
reminders that life is still normal and that events are happening in
the lives of my friends and family. So PLEASE WRITE!!! In case
you've forgotten, here's my address:

Sister Reid
8583 Watt Ave
Antelope CA 95843

Anyways. Enough with the chastisements. :) The work here is going
great. We had a really eventful week with lots of opportunities to do
service. Which has been a nice change from tracting, which I don't
really enjoy, although I know that it needs to be done and is
sometimes the only way we find people, but it's also nice to get a bit
of a break too. :)

So on Tuesday we did some service for a lady that we met a couple
weeks ago tracting. She's about 900 years old. lol. Really only
about 95, but still. And I think her house is older than she is. It
needs some serious attention. So we offered to help. We went there
on Tuesday and she asked us to help her clean out her pantry. She's
been putting canned goods in there for 30 years and never taking them
out agian. She told us she thought there might have been something
that exploded in there a few years ago, but she never investigated.
So we put on some gloves and went to work. We couldn't even open the
door when we started. Yikes. And we found almost nothing that hadn't
been expired for at least several years. We found at least 20 cans
that had exploded or leaked, and a bottle of ice cream topping that
expired the same year I was born... in case you don't know... that's
1983! That bottle was probably older than me! GEEZ!!! And we found
a bottle of MSG. That's right. Neurotoxin in a can. LOL. It was
lots of fun. But there was also lots of mouse poop in there, and a
mouse's nest that we cleaned out. We were very careful not to breath
it in, or to touch anything without wearing gloves, and we cleaned our
hands and arms very well. But I did make a joke or two to Sister
Barfuss about contracting the Haunta Virus. I think it scared her a
couple days later when she caught a cold. hahahaha. But no worries.
She's fine now. :)

We also had an awesome opportunity to help in the community this
weekend. We got a call on Friday night to come and be part of a huge
project of painting the ground at the playground of the Elementary
School on Saturday. There were probably around 100 people there.
They designed a HUGE program that involves tons of learning activities
and Physical Education programs that are all painted on the ground.
It looks really cool. There's a map of the US that's 20 feet long, a
solar system that's to scale, and literally 80 other games and
learning tools that we helped chalk out and then paint onto the
blacktop. It was AWESOME! The pictures are going to be so cool when
it's done! And we got to talk to a lot of the moms and other people
in the community, who were really surprised to see us there in pants,
willing to help in a school where we don't have any kids, in a town
where we won't live for longer than six months. We made some really
great contacts and built some major community trust! It was awesome.
Of course, Sister Barfuss and I are really sunburned today, and super
sore from getting up and down off the pavement, and my knees are so
sore from crawling around on the asphalt! But it was WAY worth it.
Especially when we stopped by on Sunday after church (they didn't
finish it on Saturday) to see how it was going and nearly everyone
recognized us and were excited to see us and show us how it was
turning out. It was so cool. I can't wait to get some pictures, so I
can send them and you can see what I'm talking about. :)

In lessons this week, we had some great breakthroughs with a few of
our investigators. First off, we met with Leslie again this week.
She had gone over the weekend last week to see a good friend of hers
who is dying named Dru. Well Dru is LDS, and used to be a member of
the Colusa branch. Leslie has known Dru for 30 years, and Dru
actually gave her a Book of Mormon a long time ago. Well, Dru, in her
parting words told Leslie that Leslie's already a Mormon, she just
won't admit it. It's crazy how much that's affected Leslie's
perspective, because now she's thinking about what life could be like
for her as a mormon. And she's changing faster now that she was
before. Which is cool.

Also, Diana, our fastest progressing investigator completed all the
lessons this week. We had her baptismal interview yesterday, and
she's getting baptized on Saturday!!! Hooray!!! We're so excited we
can hardly stand it. :) I'll be sure to send pictures next week. :)

That's pretty much it from Colusa this week. I'm excited to hear from
all of you, and I appreciate all of your love and support and your
prayers. I know that I couldn't be doing this without all of you, and
I'm so grateful to you. :)

Love, Sister Reid

April 4, 2011

Hello everyone,

I hope that you're having good weeks! Ours was a good one, as they go! Of course, as you might know, we had conference this week! It was so great! I love watching conference as a missionary. It was a great weekend! I especially loved Elder Christofferson's talk. It seems to me, as I watched the sessions, that there was a general theme that things are going to get tougher before they get better, but the Brethren provided us with tools on how to cope with the hard things. We're to strengthen our testimonies by studying and serving, learn that the hard things are meant for our good, and that no matter how hard things get, as long as we have our sights set on the gospel and our families, we won't have to worry about it. At least, that's what I felt about it. I feel like I learned so much about what my life should be after my mission. I have a renewed goal to attend the temple more often after my mission - once a week, if possible -- to serve in any capacity that the Lord sends my way, and to search out those who need help. I LOVE CONFERENCE!!!

The work this week has been really good too. We're teaching Diana, leading up to her baptism next saturday, and this week we talked about the 10 commandments and keeping the Sabbath Day holy. It was good lesson. The best part, I thought, was when we talked about not taking the Lord's name in vain, and Diana mentioned that she had done that that morning, and had immediately felt guilty about it, without knowing why. It was a great opportunity for us to teach her about the influence of the Spirit, which leads a person to do good. She's excited about getting baptized, and watched Conference yesterday.

Victor and Marcos, our 10 year old investigators also came to conference. They really liked it. Either that or they really liked playing conference Bingo which I set up for them. lol. The best part about that whole experience, which I find really great, and also really funny was that, as the afternoon session was about 15 minutes from starting, we got a call from their mom, who said that they wanted to come, and could we please send someone to get them and bring them to the church. Well, we scrambled and found them a ride. But the session started without them being there. I was getting antsy and anxious for them to not miss anything, or change their mind and not come. So Sister Barfuss and I were standing in the Foyer and listened as Conference Started. Elder Eyring announced the first part of the program, then the Choir sang the opening song. There was an opening prayer, and then the choir started singing again, but still no Victor and Marcos.... I was getting worried. With about 5 seconds left in the song I closed my eyes and said out loud to God and to the Sister Barfuss: "I have faith that they'll get here before the end of this song." Then I closed my eyes really tight and concentrated sooo hard. And BAM!!! They walked in the door! It was sooooo cool! I'm gonna start excercising my faith like that more often. LOL...

Anyways. That's just about it for me this week. I hope that you all loved conference, and that you found messages that were "laser guided" as Elder Holland put it, to you and your needs. I know I found some. :) I'm grateful to be here. And I'm grateful to have such a great companion. She's amazing, and I know that we'll be friends forever. We're learning a ton about the gospel and each other, and we're doing it together. I love it. This is the best! And we have a great week planned! I'm excited for the miracles that I'll get to share with you next week!

Please know that I'm grateful to all of you and for your prayers. I need them and I love you!!!

Love, Sister Reid