Week Fifty-Three: One Year Down!

My zone after our training meeting.

Area: Arvin Spanish Group

Companion: Hermana Luquette

This week has been pretty good. It has been raining almost every day, so we have been doing our best to stay dry. We were able to find a lot of cool people to speak to. Lots of cool things are happening up here in Arvin.

We went over to have dinner with one of our members this week and she told us to keep some time free for afterwards. We were a little confused about what was going on, but we did. When we got there, it turned out that the member had brought her neighbor friend over to eat with us. She recently moved here to the United States from Honduras and feels a little lonely because she doesn't have any family here with her. We were able to talk to her and to share the message of the Restoration after dinner. It was a really good show of member missionary work and we are super excited to keep teaching her!

It has been raining SO MUCH this week. I swear that it didn't rain a single drop during the entire summer that I spent in Bakersfield, but suddenly the rains came down and the floods came up. Arvin is built on a flood plain, so anytime it rains, all of the roads start to flood and the city comes in to shut them down. Normally, it is just the roads that lead from Arvin to Bakersfield, but on Thursday night the rain started to rain super hard and the roads in the middle of the town started to close. We had dinner with a member family that lived about five minutes away from our apartments. We left on time, but we discovered to our surprise that one of the roads that led to their house was closed. I have been building up my knowledge of the streets of Arvin, so I decided to take another route. I thought that I had tricked all of the flooding, but right before we arrived at her house, the road was closed and I was forced to take another detour. At that point, I was all turned around, so the town of Arvin was turned into a big maze. In the end, we were about thirty minutes late to dinner because we were so turned about.

We had exchanges with Hermana Perry and Hermana Wright this week. I went with Hermana Wright. They were super fun. She is still in training, but she is super excited to do missionary work, so it was nice to spend some time with her. We were able to teach and talk to a lot of people. 

During the night of exchanges, we had planned to go see one of our investigators. We we got to her street, I remembered that we wouldn't be able to meet with her because she worked the night shift and that she sleeps during the day. We were already there, so we decided to get out and see. A couple of weeks ago, we got a referral for a man and his family whose wife recently passed away. We had tried and tried to see him, but we were never able to find him at home. When we got out of the car, we saw them getting into their car. We were able to stop them and talk to them, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, we went to go see our investigator who we planned in. It turns out that she just recently was changed to the day shift, so we were able to talk to her and to answer some concerns about the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool and I felt that it was the spirit that led us there.

That is pretty much it for the week. On Friday, my year mark came and went without much notice. It is strange to think about how much I have changed, but I am super glad that I have had the chance to be out here and to share the gospel with the people of California. My testimony of the gospel has grown so much and I love sharing it with the people. I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that it is the way to find true happiness in this life. I hope that you all have a good week!

Hermana Blau

The pictures below are of the Hispanic straw bottle carrier that is meant to be used to carry drinks around. It was a late Christmas joke gift from Dad and Spencer, who found it at a local thrift store. I'm pretty sure I won't me using it all that often, but here it is ...