March, 28, 2011

Hello everyone. I hope you had a great week. And I'm happy to tell you that I did too! We had a GREAT week. Sister Barfuss and I are really stirring things up here in Colusa. She's such a great missionary and I'm super excited to have her for my companion. She's a great teacher, and we're becoming really good friends.

Some crazy things happened this week, and I'll start with the most bizarre: Last monday, we only got a half P-day because we went to the baptisms on Saturday. So we were working after I emailed last week, and we went to Maxwell to visit some less actives and Potential investigators we have. Maxwell is one of those tiny towns in our area with about 400 people living there. On our way there, we went through a crazy dark rainstorm, and it started hailing. And I don't know why I didn't even think about it -- since I've lived in Kansas -- but we found out later that the storm we drove through was a tornado storm, and an honest to goodness funnell cloud touched down just outside of Maxwell, while we were there. Who knew! Tornados in Northern California. And just two days later, on Wednesday, we were in Williams tracting, when a second Tornado touched down and did some minor damage to a neighborhood in the town -- luckily nowhere near where we were tracting (and by nowhere near, I mean, it was a couple miles a way. ) :) So that was some interesting stories to tell our investigators as we've been teaching this week.

We picked up 3 new investigators this week (which is 2 more than the average for our mission and 3 more than the average for our area, lol) and we invited two of them, plus one of our other investigators to be baptized and they said YES!!! So we've got some good momentum building. I'll start from the beginning:

We have a less active family in our branch who are hispanic. The kids all speak English but Eleanet, the mom, only understands, and has a hard time speaking English. We've been there a few times, but because of the language barrier, we haven't really gotten anywhere. So we asked our District Leader and his comp to come out to Colusa to talk to her. They're the Spanish Elders assigned to our stake. They came and found out that she really has a testimony of the church and that she really wants to come back, but she's had some sin in her life and she's not sure how to come back. They gave her a priesthood blessing, and then asked us to come back and start teaching her agian. So we've been over there several times this week. Eleanet is such a sweetheart! And I love her kids. She has 5, and she's a single mom. Her oldest is 15 and her youngest is 2. The 10 year old, Marcos, and the 9 year old, Victor, are both not baptized, but they want to be. So we invited them to come back to church, and we're starting to teach them the lessons so they can be baptized on April 23! BAM!!!

Plus, we were teaching one of our other investigators, Diana, on Thursday, about the Plan of Salvation. It's the 2nd time we've met with her. Her mom is a less active in our ward. Diana is about 35 and has two kids. As we were teaching her about the Plan, we kept talking about Baptism, and how it's necessary to get to the best place with our families and our heavenly father. As I was getting ready to have Sister Barfuss extend the baptismal commitment, Diana beat us to the punch and said, "I guess I'd better be baptized!" Sister Barfuss told me later that she was so amazed that things like that actually happen that she had no idea what to say. :) So we set her baptismal date for April 16th. That means that if things progress the way that we want them too, we'll have 3 baptisms before the end of April! Diana came to church yesterday, and she really loved it!

On Wednesday, we were tracting in Arbuckle (about 45 minutes from Colusa - population 805) and we ran into a man named Gary who is from Idaho. Sister Barfuss and he had some of the same towns and cities in Idaho in common because she went to college there. She was able to identify with him and make him feel comfortable and then we talked with him for several minutes about the Church. He's had missionaries over before, but never had the kind of experience with them that leads to feeling the spirit. Probably because Gary and his girlfriend were living together at the time and weren't in a place where they could feel the spirit. So now Gary lives in Arbuckle, and he lives by himself. He told us that when he left Idaho, he'd let the church alone, unless it found him!!! And there we were! So we set up an appointment for Saturday night, and we taught him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. It went so great. We invited him to church for the next morning, and he said he'd come. He didn't end up making it because he had to take his mom to the hospital (she had some kind of pinched nerve). Do you see what I mean when I said last week that things get really hard when you're trying to schedule with a new investigator? But I'm really hopeful that Gary will continue to progress and we'll be able to teach him and help him be baptized!!! It's very exciting!

Things with our other investigators are progressing slowly, but steadily, and I'm very confident that with Sister Barfuss here, we'll be able to help them to continue to recognize the spirit and to learn about revelation.

Things really are going so great! It's just the boost this week that I needed to remember why I'm here, and the purpose behind why I came. Someone said at a training meeting this last week that I went to, "If you're not willing to give up everything for your purpose, then why is it your purpose?" And it's so true. As a missionary, my purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them recieve the restored gospel, through Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism by Immersion, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. If I'm not willing to give up everything for that, than why am I here? Heavenly Father's sole purpose is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. And he was willing to give up his son for that. As regular members of the church, and regular people out in the world, you have to decide what your purpose is. And then make sure that you'd be willing to give up EVERYTHING for it. Or figure out what you'd be willing to give everything for and that's your purpose. If you'd give up everything for 30 more minutes in front of the TV, than that's your purpose. Which is unfortunate... but it's never too late to change, either. Make your purpose something that you could die for--and live for, and then work everyday at becoming the kind of person that could give it all up. It's hard, but that's what life is for, and it's why we're here.

I love you all, and I know that your prayers this week have really protected me and helped me to have success. Thank you so much!!!

Love, Sister Reid

March 21, 2011

Hello dear family and friends. I hope that life for you was good. It was a great week for me, and also a hard week. I dropped off Sister Archer to the Antelope 4th ward on Tuesday, and I was a little bit jealous that she got to go serve in my first area. I love that ward, and everyone in it! She's with Sister Christensen now, and I know that they'll do good work together. :) Then I picked up my new companion, a brand new missionary straight from the MTC, named Sister Barfuss. (Yes, it's pronounced just like you think it is. :) She's really cool. She's 22, from Oregon. She's the oldest of 5 kids, and the only girl. She's been a member all her life, and is strong in her testimony. She's a great teacher too. Being with her reminds me so much of what I was like when I first came to the mission. She's on fire with motivation, and really excited to work. She gets super excited any time we get any positive reactions, and really upset whenever things don't work out like we planned -- like with canceled appointments or with slammed doors. I was exactly like that too, I remember. She has the drive to baptize the entire county, and she's fun to work with. I'm so relieved that she's cool! So we've been working hard. Which is good. Sister Barfuss brought the rain from Oregon with her, though, and we've been in flood watch warnings all week. So we've basically been tracting in the rain. But it was a good experience, especially for her. We had some halfway decent lessons with a couple of our investigators, and we're teaching the rest of our investigators this week. We also have some fantastic potential investigators that we've had some contact in the past with lined up for lessons this week. I'm excited for the miracles that will happen that will allow Sister Barfuss's faith in the work to grow. And her motivation, coupled with mine, should help us make some amazing things happen here in the next couple months. :) I'm continually reminded about how hard the work is to get started with a new investigator. That is something I've learned in the last nine months... (PS... can you believe I'm half finished! YIKES!!) When we have a new investigator, or potential investigator who really wants what we have, it's ridiculously hard to schedule time with them. They're always either sick, or they forgot, or they're not home, or something comes up... It's crazy how hard the adversary works at making sure that we can't teach our friends about what we know. He doesn't want us to help them feel the spirit. Which is hard. The amazing thing is that when they finally do meet with us and we get to teach them about prayer, the Book of Mormon, the Restoration, or the Plan of Salvation, they feel the spirit, and sometimes, once that happens, the investigators can't seem to meet with us enough.. "come back tomorrow," we often hear. It's amazing what the Spirit can do, once we get to have him testify. :) It's getting to that point that is soooooooo hard! LOL. We had the awesome opportunity to go back to Antelope on Saturday to witness the Gonzales family baptisms. Remember them? I was teaching them before I left Antelope, since before Christmas, I think. They were so ready back then, but there was something holding thier Mom back from allowing them to be baptized. Well, she finally overcame whatever it was, and she let the four of her 7 kids who are over 8 be baptized on Saturday. We got to go, and it was a great experience. Practically the entire ward was there, so it was fun for me to see everyone. Plus, it was great to watch as this family was given the keys they need to live together forever. And I'm sure it was a great experience for my companion too... to see that there are people who are prepared and ready to receive the message that we'll teach them. We also got to spend some time with Sisters Christenses and Archer, who have both been my companions in the past, and also with Sister Withers, who was Sister Barfuss's companion at the MTC. They are really good friends, and they miss each other too. All in all it was a great experience. I came away from the whole day with a renewed energy and motivation to work hard. And to love the people I teach and serve. I know that I can't do this work without that crucial ingredient, and I think I was holding it back. But after being reminded how much I love the Gonzales family and the Antelope 4th ward, I feel like I owe it to my new branch and the people that I'm teaching here to have the same amount of love. To show them how much I care about them. Perhaps that is when we'll experience the miracles that we've been missing. That's about it for this week. I'm looking forward to hearing from ALL of you. :) Thanks so much for your prayers. I couldn't do this without them. Love, Sister Reid

March 14, 2011

Hello everybody!!! I hope that your week was good, and that you're all surviving flu season. I'm sure not. lol. I've been fighting off a cold for a couple weeks, but it finally got me this last week. I'm starting to feel better, but I'm wishing I'd never got sick to begin with. :)

This week was tough, as far as lessons and investigators are concerned. We started out with exchanges, and I got to spend a couple days in Yuba with Sister Wallentine, who goes home tomorrow. It was really great to pick her brain about her mission and what she did good and what she wishes she'd done better. She taught me alot about being diligent and having the faith to expect miracles to happen in my area. I'm sad that I never really got to serve with her, outside of exchanges, a couple times.

Then it was back to work in Colusa. We had kind of a frustrating week with some of our investigators. Sometimes I struggle with knowing what to teach them. We have two, specifically, that don't seem to understand how important this message is, and that they can really have so much more in their lives. And I love them so much, and wish that I could teach them, or find the words that will help them to realize it! So after a frustrating couple of days, we went to our regular lesson with Leslie, who has been meeting with sisters on and off for 10 years. But she'd never read the Book of Mormon before. So we started her on a reading schedule when I came, and she listens to the Book of Mormon on CD. Which is a good step, but you get so much more out of it when you read it. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when she said that she wasn't really understanding it. She had listened to Jacob 5 and told me that she laughed at it. She said that she compared it to an Abbot and Costello routine, "Who's on First". I tried to let it roll off, and just help her understand, but she wasn't taking it seriously. She just kept laughing. I was already frustrated with our other investigators, plus I wasn't feeling well because I'm sick, so everything kind of added up, and I got a little heated. I testified of the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it has the power to change her life, if she lets it. That it can heal her. That the Book of Mormon is something not to be treated lightly, and if she wasn't going to take it seriously, we were wasting our time. And I may or may not have shook the Book at her and said something about a pearl and some swine... lol. Well... she sobered up a bit... lol. And then we read Jacob 5 out loud together and talked through the allegory.and explained what it meant. She seemed to appreciate that. And I think that through the whole experience she understands better how important the Book of Mormon is.

I've never felt the need to defend the Book of Mormon before. It was a weird and surreal experience. I've been studying and committing Elder Holland's talk from Oct '09 conference about the Book of Mormon to memory, and let me tell you, if you're looking for passion about the Book of Mormon, you can find it there! Maybe that's what started me to "explain" to Leslie how much the Book of Mormon means to me. I'm beginning to develop this deep routed testimony of the Book of Mormon and how much it really has done for me. It's crazy. At the start of my mission, I had no idea, I think, about how much it effects people, or the power that it has. And if I had been called up to stand on a street corner and defend it, I don't think I would have known what to say. Except for the canned, "I know the Book of Mormon is true." But that is definately not the case now. I've read it 3 times since I got here, and it's something that I will defend with every last breath I have until my dying day. And I'll never be afraid to testify of it's message. I could stand on that street corner until I lose my voice (which I did this week, actually... hahahaha) and declare to anyone who passes by that the Book of Mormon has the convincing power to bring men (and women) unto repentance and that if they'll listen to the message we can share about it's pages, that they'll be better people, better families, and have better happiness.

I guess that about sums up the week. Not a ton of news about our investigators... like I said, we had kind of a slow week, between our investigators and me being sick...

Except that I almost forgot to tell you that Sister Archer, my companion, is being transfered, and I'll be training this transfer. I don't know who my companion is yet, until tomorrow around 4:00, so you'll all have to wait with baited breath until next week. :)

I love you all so much, and I'm grateful for all of your prayers and support!!!

Love, Sister Reid

March 7, 2011

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a good week! Mine was pretty
good, actually. I've been battling with a head cold, and wishing for
the second time in six months that I could have refund on my flu shot.
:)

Other than that, we've been working like normal. A couple weeks ago,
I requested that we be allowed a few more miles for our car. We had
been allotted 1300/month, which was about 35 miles a day. Which, if
we go anywhere other than Colusa, we use about 60/day.... So I
requested a few more, and we were granted a trial of 1500 miles, plus,
if it's not enough at the end of the month, they'll take us up to 1600
or even 1700! Which means that we've been able to do a lot more work
in some of the other towns and cities in the county! And we're seeing
success because of it. Just last night, we had dinner in Arbuckle,
which isn't even an incorporated city, just a small town of a
popluation around 400 or so... Anyway, we ate dinner with some of the
members there, and then we went to visit some of the less actives that
live there. We met with a 16 year old, Caitlyn, who hasn't been
active for a few years because of a falling out with some of the young
women in the branch... who have all moved away now. She was excited
to hear about that, and to hear that one of her good friends, Aaron,
was just baptized a couple weeks ago. She didn't even know about it.
So she's excited to come back to church, and her family, although not
interested in taking the lessons, are all very supportive. I like
them, and I'm excited to spend some more time with them in
fellowshipping them.

After that we went over to see a Potential Investigator that lives
just down the street from Caitlyn. His name is Tillman, and we
stopped by earlier in the week. He was busy at the time but asked if
we could come back. So we went back last night. We had a really
great lesson about church and why it's necessary. He's married with 5
kids. He and his wife moved to Arbuckle about 5 years ago, and really
wanted to find a new church. They went to the community church, but
it didn't feel right, and they've never gone back, or tried any other
churches. Tillman was excited to hear what we had to teach about
Christ and the Book of Mormon. He was really excited that we're a
family oriented church, and the fact that our Sunday service lasts 3
hours didn't even faze him. He want's to come, and we're excited to
see him this coming sunday at church. We'll stop by his house this
coming week, if we're able to get to Arbuckle again, just to reinforce
the things we've taught him, and to see if we can have some face time
with the rest of the family. :)

In other news this week, our other investigators are progressing
nicely. We've been able to really gain the trust of one in
particular: Leslie. We were able to teach her about the Plan of
Salvation, and she said it really fit with everything she believes.
She confided that she's not happy with the Catholic belief system, and
that it doesn't meet all of her needs. But she really likes the
symbolism and ceremony of the Catholic Church. We talked about some
of our ceremonies and symbols and compared them with the Catholics.
She was impressed about the similarities. She's slowly progressing,
but I think she's starting to envision herself as part of our church.
We're going to commit her to coming to church in the next couple of
weeks, so she can check it out herself.

Speaking of commiting. We picked up a new investigator a couple weeks
ago, and we were able to teach her the first lesson on Friday. It
went really well. Her name is Diana, and she's the daughter of one of
our less actives. She's in her 40s, with 2 children, and she recently
moved home to get out of a bad situation... anyway, she ate up
everything we had to teach her, and she's so prepared! We commited
her to baptism, and she said, "whoa, let's not jump the gun, here" so
we said, "when you know that it's true, will you be baptized" and she
said, "yes, When I know." So it's not a full commitment yet, but
she's willing to read the book of Mormon, and pray about it. She
couldn't come to church this week, but she'll be here this next
sunday. So we should have good things happening on Sunday. :)

Also, speaking of Sundays... I've been given a new calling by the
Branch President. I'm the branch's new Primary Pianist.... Yikes...
When he extended the calling, I kept thinking about how it was a curse
and not a blessing that mom and dad made me take piano lessons, lol.
It's going to be a new challenge, added onto the rest of the things
that I'm working on here in Colusa, but I'm up for it. Hopefully the
Lord will bless me with the talent to play better, so I won't have to
spend so much time practicing and not proselyting.

That's pretty much it for the news here. I want you all to know that
I love what I'm doing, and I know that there's no better way I could
be spending my time. This 18 months of missionary work are the
hardest and most difficult thing I've done. But already I can see
that I'm being refined. That my impurities are being burned out, and
that I'm becoming what the Lord wants of me. At the end of my mission
I truly will not be the same Sister Reid that started this. And I'm
excited to meet her!

I love all of you, and I hope that your coming weeks will be awesome!
Keep working hard and praying for those missionary experiences! I
know that the Lord will bless you with them. So be prepared (have an
extra Book of Mormon with you at all times!!!) and keep your eyes
open. The Lord will put someone in your path with a hunger to read
it! I PROMISE!!!

Love Sister Reid

Feb. 28, 2011

Dear family and friends!

Another week has come and gone! Time passes too quickly almost! Can
you believe I've been here in Colusa for a whole month already! Not
me! It's crazy.

The work here is progressing. We were blessed with the opportunity to
see Aaron, our 16 year old investigator be baptized and confirmed this
weekend. It was awesome. His whole family came, including his older
brothers and sister, who are all less-actives. They also came to
church yesterday, which was good. Sister Archer and I are going to
start working with the whole family to see if we can get them out to
church a little more often.

In terms of other news, there hasn't really been a whole lot. We're
just teaching away.... :) We've got some good progress building with
one of our investigators, Leslie, who is a staunch Catholic, but
admits that the whole truth isn't there. She's progressing slowly,
and listening to the Book of Mormon on CD (Technology is AWESOME!!!)

Other than that, there's not a whole lot to tell. I'm very sorry this
email is shorter than the usual. We'll look for more miracles this
week, and I'll hopefully be able to share some amazing stories next
time.

I did find out that the Gonzales family that Sister Christensen and I
were teaching in Antelope finally accepted the commitment to be
baptized, and they'll be baptized on March 12th, which is AWESOME!!
I'm so excited for them and I can't wait to be able to attend!

I love you all and I'm grateful for all your support and prayers.
Keep 'em comin'!!!

Love, Sister Reid

Feb. 21, 2011

Hello everyone! I hope your week was as awesome as mine!!! We've had some really amazing things happen this week, and I can't wait to tell you all about them!...

First, we were able to exceed almost all of our teaching goals this week. Our goal for finding new investigators was 1, which is the mission standard... We're all always trying to find one each week. Well, Sister Archer and I have really been working VERY hard, and we managed to pick up 3 new investigators this week! Hooray! Here's the stories:

So first at the beginning of the week, things were running really slow. We got to wednesday and hadn't really been able to teach much at all. Most of our dinner appointments even canceled for most of the week, which was sad. But Thursday was a new day, and we taught like crazy! We had 5 lessons that day, and we were able to meet with Margaret, who is a roommate of one of our members. Margaret is 80 years old, and has attended the same non-denominational church for those same 80 years. Her roommate, Sister Loza (also a very old widow) had given Margaret some mormon fiction to read, which inspired some interest. We stopped by a couple weeks ago to meet Sister Loza, since I hadn't met her yet, and met Margaret instead. She asked some good questions about prophets and we talked for a few minutes, and set up an appointment for this last Thursday. We went on Thursday and taught about the restoration. It was sooo cool!!! As we talked about prophets and the apostasy, Margaret was really interested and understanding and agreeing with us. Then as we shared the story of the first vision, the spirit came into the room so strong I almost couldn't breath! Sister Loza got very teary eyed, and I asked her to share her testimony with us, which went amazing. Margaret was way into the whole discussion. We commited her to be baptized. She said no, this time, but said that she's also very open to hearing more, and wants to know more about our church before she makes any committments. We left her a book of mormon, and Sister Loza will be there for her to answer any quesitons. Our next appointment with her is on Tuesday, and we'll be able to talk about the plan of salvation this time!

Our next appointment after Margaret was with a woman named Patty. Patty had been taught by Sister missionaries over a year ago, but when President Pendleton took the missionaries out, she was missed. So we stopped by to meet her and were able to share the Introduction to the Book of Mormon with her. She's in her 30s with two small children. Her husband works, so we haven't been able to meet him yet. But she's definately still interested, and we're going to keep teaching her as well.

Then, just Saturday, we stopped by a less active's house. Her adult daughter had just moved home from Las Vegas this week. The daughter, Diana, invited us in and had us sit down. Pat, the mom - and person we came to see - wasn't there. But Diana wanted to talk and asked us some questions about the church. We talked about Prophets and the Book of Mormon, especially when Diana said she believed the Bible, but that it was so mixed up because it had been through so many different translations. We were like, "we believe that too!!!" She asked us to come back and teach her some more. SCORE!!!

So three new investigators this week! Plus, we've met over half of the ward list, which is saying more than most of the branch leadership. They were very surprised when we handed them a progress record (which is a record of all our lessons, plus things we think the leadership needs to know about our investigators and the less actives) which was 4 pages long... lol.

We also had to speak in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. President Sorensen gave us the assignment to speak on whatever we thought the branch needs to know about missionary work. Sister Archer taught about the Atonement, and how, as we study the atonement, the more our desire to share the gospel increases. I talked about looking for Missionary Opportunities in unlikely places, and I shared the story of Ammon and cutting off the arms as his answer to fasting and prayer for a missionary opportunity, which led to the conversion of thousands of people. I especially liked sharint Alma 26:22... read it. It's awesome!

The work here really is picking up. We've gone from a single investigator to 6 in just 3 short weeks, and we have some AMAZING potentials that we're meeting with this week. We already have 22 lessons scheduled this week. I guess we won't have time for tracting... oh darn. lol.

That's pretty much it for today, really. I love you all, and I'm super excited to hear from you. I hope that your weeks go well, and that you get to receive the blessing that I pray for you each and every day.

Love, Sister Reid

Feb. 14, 2011

Hello dear family and friends! I hope that your week was awesome, and
that you're having a great valentine's day! I'm not celebrating that
particulular holiday this year, although our Zone leaders called us
this morning and left a voice mail saying that they had got approval
for all of us to bring "dates" to the zone activity today. About an
hour later they called and cleared things up saying that our date was
actually our companion. lol. Those silly elders. :)

It's been a good week for us here in Colusa. We've met with A TON of
the less actives in the branch, and been able to teach a few of them
about church attendance and why it's so important. We'll hopefully be
able to continue reaching out to them and get a lot of work done here
over the next several months and see some improvement in Sacrament
Meeting Attendance. We also got to meet with and teach Aaron, our 16
year old investigator. He's definately ready for baptism. He's
eating up everything we teach him. His mom came to his lesson with
him, and we were able to talk about the Holy Ghost, and what happens
in your life when you don't live worthy to have Him with you. Aaron's
mom talked about how she knew what that was like and that's why she
was coming back to church now. They were both in Church yesterday,
and stayed for all three hours. We're set for Aaron to be baptized
next Saturday, the 26th.

Speaking of baptisms. I got to go back to Antelope on Saturday for
Chris Walker's baptism. He asked me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost,
so I was able to get permission to go back there and see him get
baptized. It was so cool! His parents were there, and they're not
members. As I spoke about the Holy Ghost, I could really feel like
his mom especially, was really eating up everything I said. She was
really into it. I'm hopeful that she'll be able to investigate the
church and find out more about what her son is doing. There was a
HUGE crowd there from the ward he's been attending in Folsom, as well
as most of his girlfriends' family, who are all active members in a
different stake in our mission. There were a few members of our ward
there, which was really nice. It was fun to see them. And I got to
say goodbye to a few more people that we didn't have time visit before
I left. We had lunch with the Sister Tongi (who took my place) and
Sister Christensen after the baptism, and it was really fun. A really
great way to celebrate my birthday, actually!

In other news, here in the Colusa branch... We've been able to pick up
two new investigators. The first one we met with this week is a woman
named Leslie. She's a little older. Very catholic. But she has some
issues with the way that the Catholic Church does some things. She's
actually been meeting with the missionaries off and on for 15 years or
so. But they've never been able to get her to commit to doing
anything. So they've dropped her, then picked her up, then dropped
her... We were able to have her start reading the Book of Mormon this
week. Which is something she's never done before. She's actually not
reading it, but listening to it on CD. I got on her computer last
week and downloaded the first 2 books of Nephi for her, and then
burned them to CD. When we went to see her this week, she'd already
listened up to 1 Nephi 9. She had good questions about Nephi and his
family, and some of the commandments he'd been asked to do, and we
were able to help her understand the scriptures better. It was a
really cool lesson, and based on the fact that she's actually reading
the Book of Mormon now, we were able to pick her up as an
investigator. She'll come to church in a couple weeks, too, I'm sure
of it.

We were also able to meet a new investigator in Williams, which is
another town about 20 minutes from Colusa. Her name is Lorraine.
She's also Catholic, but stopped going to the Catholic church about a
year ago when the priest that she really liked had to leave, and they
sent a new one in that she didn't like. We talked about Finding Faith
in Christ and invited her to take the lessons, which she wants to do,
so we'll be teaching her every week now. She's got some good
potential.

We've also met a ton of really prepared potential investigators this
week. We have some really exciting appointments coming up this week,
and we're really looking forward to being able to pick up these people
and families and teach them about the gospel. The branch is really
excited too. Most of them can't believe that we've met so many people
and seen so much progress in just two short weeks. I honestly can't
believe it either. I made some big promises to the branch when I
first got here, and then had to go home and pray to Heavenly Father
and ask him to help me out. I knew there was no way I could do this
by myself. Luckily, the Lord wants progress here in Colusa as much as
I do, so He's blessed us this week. I only hope and pray that the
momentum we've struggled so hard to build in the last two weeks
continues on for the rest of the transfer and on into the next...

That's pretty much it for today. I'm sorry that I can't attach
pictures to this email... I didn't check last week to see if the
computers has SD card readers, and they don't... so I'll have to send
pictures next week when I remember to bring my USB cord to hook my
camera up to the computer. Sorry.

I love you all so much, and I miss you all like crazy! Keep the mail
coming and the long distance hugs and prayers!

Love Sister Reid

PS... I thought I'd brag for just a second about how it's been sunny
and 75 degrees outside for the last three weeks... How's your
weather? LOL.