Another week in... La Jolla!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Wooohoooo!

I was so happy! Sister Tanner and I survived the transfer and we are staying in La Jolla singles for another week! The transfer process caused a lot of anxiety, though, because they tell us before hand who gives the tour for the brand new Sister missionaries that come in, and usually those two are companions and it means they are staying together. This time, however, they had Sister Tanner and Sister Young give the tour together so there was all this speculation going around. But it was all good and I gave her a HUGE hug when I saw her. I was a little bit bouncy! I finally get to stay with a companion for more than two transfers and I am ecstatic that it’s Sister Tanner. =D

This week though, after our fantastic week last week, was super duper slow. I felt like everything was in slow mo! Ha-ha, but it was a good learning experience, definitely set in the lesson that God has been trying to teach me that it is HIS work and not mine, and if I'm working hard and being obedient, God will give and take away according to the needs of his children. So, life is going well, but here is not much to report. We did get to visit with and teach my favorite people, =D Sunny, Alfredo, Jill, and James and they all have their own struggles and own concerns but I know that the gospel will help them if they will allow it to touch their hearts. It is kind of scary to take that first step, but when you do all these blessings come. It is also really funny that I'm so much happier now than I was before, that my sound affects have started to come back, especially when I'm driving, ha-ha. Sister Tanner just teases me about it, but I think she's secretly happy that I've finally come out of my shell and am able to be myself and the missionary that the Lord expects of me. It has been great, fantastic in fact.

Finding investigators is hard. We need to figure out a new way to find people, because even in the six months I've been here people have become less and less likely to answer their doors. We don't go tracting in this mission, but we do contact potentials, former investigators, and referrals and it is like knocking on doors of a ghost town. It is all about the members and us helping them to help their friends to come to activities and to church and yesterday someone came up to us and said that we were "just the people they were looking for" and said they have a friend she wants us to teach. Miracle!

We had another miracle! The Temple is closed on Mondays. Actually it is closed for cleaning but we went to go contact a referral that lives right outside of the Temple and we saw these two people. So we went to talk to them. They are from China, and they saw the Temple on the Internet so they came to see it. Their names were Chen and Ivy. He asked where we went to school and I said BYU and he said "I'm planning on applying there!" He asked me all sorts of questions about the school and the living situation and if he had to be a member to go there. We got his e-mail. He has our phone number so hopefully I'll see him at BYU. =D He wants to get his masters in accounting. It is going to be really funny because I'll go to BYU and have all these Chinese friends and people will wonder where I served my mission - San Diego? Yep! That's right!

This week was great! Another week of mini miracles and lots of the Gospel. Next week we have a mission conference so we'll see what I get to learn. I'm pretty excited though!

And Congrats for Susie being engaged. =D Hurray!!

Love you all!

~ Sister Tardiff