Letters From Kristina-California Santa Rosa Mission: Week of Crazies!!

Hello family! :)

So this week....hahahahahaha I don't even know where to begin! Let's just say, it was a week of crazies.

On Tuesday we had exchanges and sister Whimpey is my STL so I get to go on exchanges every time she does! While sister Whimpey goes with the girl she's over, I get to go with her companion! But sister Whimpey is over sister Ngawharau and sister Pett(the sisters we live with), so it's not much of an exchange haha. But I got to spend the day with sister Pett on Tuesday! Sister Pett just got here! She has only been out in the field for two weeks so it was fun talking with her and helping her get more comfortable with the mission life. It feels like just yesterday that I was in her shoes! Time goes by so fast out here!

So sister Whimpey and I decided that we wanted to get to know the members better, since we are both pretty new to the area and Ward! We went and visited a lot of members this week and taught them about missionary work. Each family or member we visited we left the same challenge. We invited them to pray for a week to find someone that they believe is ready to receive the gospel. And we told them that we were going to pray for them as well, that we might combine our faith to find people to teach. It was awesome going around to the members home! I feel like I'm getting to know the ward a lot better! That reminds me! We visited a family, the Toleafoas, and they are from American Samoa! They're a great family with 5 kids and they all speak Samoan :) I showed them pictures of Leah and Nikki and they got really excited. One of the kids is a 15 year old boy, sooo Leah ;) haha But I'm excited for this week because we get to follow up with all the members that we left the challenge with! Hopefully we will get some referrals that have been prepared by the lord to receive the gospel! We also met with our investigators Mike and Julia this week! Mike is doing great but has not made it to church yet...he usually works on Sunday and he needs the income so it's hard for him to make the decision to come to church, but this week will be the week! Hopefully! Haha Julia and her son Brady are doing great as well. She is also having a hard time making it to church, she has a hard time meeting new people and large crowds so church doesn't sound too great to her. But she has a strong desire to learn more and make a change in her life!

So the crazies of the week...I think we had the most crazy and fun contacts/lessons in the past 4 days than ever before. Haha it was a constant stream of crazy people! But I love it! Sister Whimpey and I have had a rough week, so I think God placed all these people in our paths to give us a good laugh. Which I am so grateful for! We have been working our tails off this week to find more people to teach, but we can't find anyone interested at the moment. So we have had a lot of rejection this week and a lot of let downs. I'm not gonna lie, it's definitely hard to keep going and working when you're not finding much success. I definitely had days this week were I just felt like I was doing everything wrong. I just have to remember that no effort is wasted. That I could be planting seeds right now for future missionaries. I'm really relying on faith at this point. Faith that God is preparing His elect children and that when they are ready, we will find them. It's just a matter of patience and pushing on! But having those crazy people placed in our path made the days a whole lot better! So to start out, we went and saw a less active and her family...and it was crazy. Haha they were all a little out there(word of wisdom problems that day) and so when we came, it was like they had a audience. So they turned The Jungle Book and she started dancing and acting out the monkeys dancing and singing part. Sister Whimpey and I were laughing so hard and we couldn't believe that something like this was actually happening. They are a very blunt and forward family. So there was a lot of threats going on and a few swear words...but they were all laughing and messing with each other. We shared(attempted) a lesson with them about reading the scriptures everyday as a family. They said they would, but we are not quite sure how much of the lesson they understood. Later that day, we went to dinner with a sister in our Ward and her husband and son aren't members. It was probably the most awkward dinner I've ever been to haha the mom is super nice and social, but her family is not. They were really quiet and the questions and conversations they brought up were the weird. Like awkward weird. Haha for example, the husband asks us if we ate pork. We said yes. He then went on to describe a baby pig to us and how he couldn't imagine how anyone could eat such cute animals. We didn't know what to say to him haha it was a good thing neither of us ordered pork at dinner. As the night went on, we just kept meeting crazy people on the streets. On Sunday, we had set a return appointment with someone we met on the streets named Barbara, a lady probably in her 60s. When we met with her, she showed up drunk. Very very drunk. She was very emotional about a scripture we shared and was slurring all her words. It was bad. But we loved it anyways! Haha we also had dinner with the Ward mission leader and his wife yesterday for Father's Day dinner and sister Whimpey and I recorded a song for him. I'll send it to you :) it's great.

So overall, it was a crazy week, but I loved every second of it! This week is going to be fun too! We have the all mission conference this Wednesday because it's the Albas last week :( but a ton of people will be there and I'm rapping in front of everyone...I'll explain next week haha I love you all! :)

Love always, Sister Thompson :)