July 25, 2011

Hiya family!

I sure hope you had a good week! Mine was both amazing, and really not. hahaha.

Before my mission, a good friend of mine told me that missions are amazing, and that you experience the highest highs of your life, but also the highest lows of your life. Sometimes in the same day. That has been true for me this week!

I won't tell you much about the lows. Just that we're experiencing some major struggles with some of our investigators, recent converts, and less actives It's tough to know how to deal with them. I pray every day for more guidance by the Spirit to know how we can help them. Last night, for example, we met with a cute, young, less active couple in our ward. Both the husband and the wife are returned missionaries. We talked pretty seriously about their experiences since they've not been active, and, just as it says in the Book of Mormon, they've forgotten everything. They have no light of the gospel in their lives. The testimonies that drove them while they were on their missions, and the joy in the service that I KNOW they must have felt, are gone. Just gone. They have no desire to come back. And it broke my heart. I absolutely refuse to be them after my mission. I'm sure that the Lord placed them here for me so I can learn from their example. I promise to Him, to myself, and to all of you, that I will NEVER be inactive!

Despite all the lows, or maybe because of them, we're seeing some great miracles too. Juanita, our investigator from Colusa is still rocking it! She'll be baptized on Sunday, and I'm looking forward to that, not just because of the baptism itself, which will be amazing - it always is - but also because most of the branch is planning on attending. So I'll get to see all my friends again. It'll be great. :)

We also picked up another new investigator this week, who will be a lot like Juanita. We didn't have to work for him at all. His name is Jack and he's 89 years old. He's been married to an active member for 64 years, and supported several of his kids through missions and educations at BYU, but never wanted to get baptized till this week. So we set the date for August 21st, and we'll teach him till then.

A couple things I've noticed as a trend in my mission... First, that I work with a lot of old people. Maybe my experiences at the Seville with grandma Reid prepped me for this... ? I love them. And I find that I can understand them. And I love hearing about their lives and their experiences. :) Also, I've noticed, especially the last two months or so, that the harder I struggle with personal trials and the harder my mission seems to be, the more "golden" investigators we get. It's like the Lord is balancing things out. I got transfered away from my favorite companion, to shotgun train someone who can't speak English, and we pick up Juanita (who's getting baptized on Sunday!). And then I find out that I'm staying here, and some things are about to get harder, and we pick up Jack - the 89 year old. These investigators are people I never had to work a second for. No knocking on doors, no asking for referrals. They just came to us...... It's nice. Not that I'm asking for any more hard stuff... it's just nice. :)

Anyway. That's about it for this week. I love all of you. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Especially those of you from whom I haven't heard in awhile. This means you, Kayti, Daniel, Jared, and Jaymi! I understand it's hard to write... but you can Email me! As for the rest of you, I found out you can email too. I can't email you back, but I can print your emails, and the write you back. So next week, I expect LOTS of email!!!

Love, Sister Reid

July 18, 2011

Hiya everyone!

I hope that your week was great! Ours was much better than it's been. We actually had some of our investigators come to church, which was nice. A few of them have started progressing and it's been fun to see them realize that we're doing more than just coming to their homes for "bible study" but that we want to help them achieve a level of happiness and satisfaction they've maybe never had before. It's nice to be back in this situation, which I haven't really been in since my first area.

As far as specifics goes, we've got a few exciting prospects. The first being that one of our investigators, Juanita, from Colusa, is getting baptized on the 31st. I don't remember if I've talked about her at all. But she's totally golden. She started coming to church the week after we left Colusa. And she hasn't missed a week since. We've been going up once a week to teach her the lessons, and she's excited to get baptized. YAY!!! We also finally got Jan and Leonard, also from Colusa, to commit to baptism. I handed Leonard a calendar and asked him when he believed that he'd be ready to get baptized, and he picked August 28th. It was really cool! So we'll continue to go to Colusa once a week to teach them as well. :)

We had our first Interview with President Weston this week, as well. And it was AMAZING. he's a great guy. And he's going to do great things for the mission. I already love him so much. Our interview was almost 20 minutes long. And it was much better than any of the interviews I ever had with President Pendleton. I love him too, but President Weston is great. He told me all about how much he knows about me. Without ever having met me before. From what other missionaries have said about me and from what he's observed in my interactions with other missionaries. He said he NEVER says that any missionary is the best, except for his trainer from his mission. And then he said that I'm the best. He said that only the best missionaries are trainers, and that's why I'm training. At the start of the interview he said he couldn't tell me if I'd be training again. By the end of the interview he said that I would definately be training again. He said that my ability to "lift where I stand" will lift the entire mission for years to come. He said that my level of success is unprecedented in our mission and that I've been that successful because of my ability to listen to and qualify for the spirit. It was nice to hear. Don't worry, though. I'm not letting it get to my head. I'm excited to get to spend more time working for and with President Weston. He's going to be great!

Transfer calls came this morning, and Sister Hurtado and I are staying together one more transfer. President Weston did say that he knows how hard it is to work in a companionship where there's a language barrier... He served his mission in Tokyo, Japan... He knows how much Sister Hurtado and I are struggling. He knows what this is like. He knows that it can be a little lonely. And he promised that it wouldn't be forever. We'll have one more transfer together. And then he said he'd give me a strong companion. He says he knows the joy of working two by two, instead of all by yourself with a shadow, and he wants me to have that again before I go home.

That's pretty much it for the week. I'm looking forward to the start of a new transfer, and the opportunities that will be there for us. Lots of growth and lots of success.

I love all of you and I can't wait to hear from you over the next couple weeks!

Love Sister Reid

July 11, 2011

Hello everyone! I'm sorry that this one's going to be short. I have 7 minutes before the computer kicks me off. I spent too much time working on my Presiden'ts letter... Oh well. :) He's super cool, by the way. We met him on Wednesday at Zone conference. He has 4 kids at home with him, and they're all super cute. President hasn't made any changes yet, but I can't imagine that that won't last. We'll see.

In terms of the mission work this week, we taught a bunch of really strong lessons agian this week to our investigators, none of whom came to church yesterday. So we have some goals to set with each of our investigators. I look forward to being able to tell you more about them next week.

Again, I'm very sorry this is so short. Please understand! I love you all and miss and pray for you!

Love, Sister Reid

July 4, 2011

Happy Independance day everyone!!! I hope that you're all having a wonderful three day weekend. Not that I even remember what those are like anymore, lol. But it is a P-day today, so we don't have to figure out how to be productive during a holiday. Hahaha. In fact, we're supposed to be home tonight by 6:00 to avoid all the crazy people. :)

Not a whole lot to talk about this week, sadly. Things are getting better with me and my trials. Not that the trials are getting any easier, just that I'm getting strong enough to deal with them I guess. My companion is starting to pick up a little more english, and is participating more in teaching situations, which is nice. I would have liked to have her for a companion 6 months from now instead of as a greenie. Maybe then we'd really be able to get to know one another and to teach in unity and with strength and power. But as it is, we work well together, if most of the time in silence. :)

As for exciting things that happened... not a whole lot to tell you honestly. We've had kind of a slow week. We taught a lot of lessons, though, and met a few new investigators. We did have a disappointing setback with all of our investigators when none of them came to church yesterday. I'm struggling with how to help them understand that in order to have answers to your prayers, you have to do your part, and part of that is showing your faith by coming to church. It seems so simple to me. It's the number one reason that our investigators can't get baptized -- they don't come to church. Boo. But we'll see them all again this week, and we'll get them to understand, eventually. :)

I did have a really cool experience early this week which has helped to strengthen my testimony in spiritual promptings. Early in my mission, on day, I felt a very strong prompting to go down a specific street to tract. I was a greenie, and didn't understand what I felt, since I had never felt it before. It was a weird thing. So I ignored it. And I felt so guilty about it. I made the promise that when that happened again, I would not ignore that feeling. And I've waited almost a whole year for it to happen again. I think the Lord was testing me in that time. On Tuesday, we had an appointment not answer the door, so we were going to go contact some other former investigators. As we were driving away, i got the very same feeling about tracting the street we had just been on. Which I did NOT want to do. It's getting to be over 100 degrees here every day, so I tract as little as possible. But I had made that promise that if I ever felt it again, I would not deny it. So we tracted. And it was crazy because most of the people were home on that street. Which is weird for a tuesday afternoon. And two of the people we met are interested in hearing more. We have appointments set up with both of them (one of which is a whole family!) for later this week.

Anyways, I know that the spirit does guide missionary work. Hopefully, these people that we've met this week will be interested enough to want to change their lives.

That's pretty much all that I've got for this week. Please keep missionary opportunities in your prayers, and do your very best to listen to those promptings when they come, because if you ignore them, it may be awhile before the Lord sends you another.

I love all of you!

Love, Sister Reid

June 27, 2011

Hello everyone!

This one's going to be short, I'm afraid. It's been a tough week. Missions are hard, you know? But we did get to see Chris and Ken be baptized last night. It was a good upliftment. Also, I got to go to the temple on Friday. It was exactly what I needed. A little eternal perspective really helps.

We spent Friday afternoon in Colusa, teaching a couple of people that the branch asked us to meet, after we moved out, of course... :) The one that's the most exciting is a lady named Juanita Roberts. She's 85 and totally golden. We talked about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration with her, and then invited her to be baptized and she said yes. So hopefully, everything goes really well with her, and she'll be baptized on July 31st!

That's pretty much all I have time for. I'm super sorry. It'll be longer next week. If you want more details, you should write, and then I'll write back! LOL.

Love, Sister Reid