Companion: Hermana Luquette
This week was really good. We have been working hard down here in Arvin and we have been seeing lots of miracles through it all. I feel like everything has been going pretty well for us and we have been able to see some of our investigators really start to progress. Life is good!
This
week was the last of our exchanges with the Hermanas. They are all
really fun and I have been able to learn so much! Early on in this week,
we went on exchanges with Hermana Martineau and Hermana Arceo. I was
with Hermana Arceo, who is just finishing up with training. It was
really fun to work with her and to spend some time talking to the people
on the streets. We didn't really have very many plans for the last half
of the exchanges, so we decided to head out and see what happened. In
the morning, we knocked a couple of doors before we knocked on the door
of a really old lady. She wasn't very interested in listening to us and
said that she was busy. We offered to help her out with anything that
she needed and she accepted. We ended up helping her to organize some
things for a garage sale that she was having the next day. While we were
working, she told us that her husband of fifty years had just passed
away and that she was moving out of the house where she had lived for
most of her married life to be closer to her children. After we finished
helping her, we offered to share a message with her and she accepted.
It was really nice to see how service softens the hearts of the people.
We were able to talk with her and help her to find Heavenly Father's
comfort. Charity really is the true love of Christ! Also, she let us
pick out anything she wanted from her garage sale, so I got a sweet
proselyting bag out of it! :)
Later, while I
was still with Hermana Arceo, we went to go visit a couple that we had
talked to a couple of weeks ago. We had a couple of hours, so we decided
to park a couple of streets away so we could talk to the people who we
met on the streets. We started out walking and working our way towards
our original purpose, but we kept meeting people who were walking. They
told us that we could talk to them while they were walking, so we would
follow them all the way across town. We were able to meet a couple of
cool people that way. It was really fun. We started walking up an alley
to get back to the main road and we discovered that the alley was full
of houses as well. We found whole neighborhoods that we had never seen
before. Arvin is always full of surprises. I think that I could walk
around for three years and not talk to all of the people who live here!
It
has been raining a ton! I never thought that I would have to deal with
quite so much rain when I learned that I was going to Bakersfield.
Everyone on the streets tells us that all of the dams in California are
breaking. Here in Arvin, there is a ton of flooding. The other night, we
had an appointment with someone that we met on the street. We parked
next to where we thought her house was and prepared ourselves to get out
of the car. It was raining as hard as I have ever seen it rain out here
and it was really cold. We figured that we would run to her house and
run back to the car, so we got up the courage and got out of the car.
When we started looking for her house number, we realized that we were
on the wrong street. I figured that it wouldn't be that far of a walk,
so we decided to start walking instead of getting back in the car. It
turns out that it was a little ways away from where we were. It wouldn't
have been that bad if we hadn't have been trudging through the rain.
When we got to the lady's house, she told us that she was getting ready
to get in the shower and that she couldn't meet with us. We thought that
it was all for nothing that we got all wet and we started walking back
to the car. On our way back, one of the people who works in the Subway
that we go to all the time pulled up beside us in her car and offered us
a ride. We were close to our car by that point, so we told her that we
were fine, but we took a little time to share a little bit of the
message and to give her our card. She told us that she had met with
missionaries before and that we could come by her house. We went back to
the apartment cold, but happy!
We also went on
exchanges with Hermana Zambrano and Hermana Weaver during the later
part of the week. I was with Hermana Weaver, who is just starting out on
her mission. It was really nice to be able to work with her. She is a
super sweet hermana and she likes to work hard. We were able to teach a
couple of our investigators and we had a really good time!
The
other day, we got a call from a random number. It was a lady who told
us that she had learned from missionaries before and that she wanted us
to come by. We didn't know her, but we decided that it couldn't hurt. We
were a little late and we were having a hard time finding her house,
but we finally found the address that she had told us. We knocked on the
door and a woman answered. She told us to come in and she gathered all
of the family around. We asked her how long ago it was that she learned
from missionaries and she told us that she had never seen missionaries
before. It turned out that it wasn't the person that we had talked to on
the phone and that no one with that name lived in that house. The lady
was super nice and pretty interested. Later, we tried to call the person
who called us and she never answered us back.
Things
have been going well for us here and I have been able to see many
miracles. I know that the Lord is in charge of this work and that he
leads us to where we need to be. I am so glad that I am able to be here
on a mission! I know that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ! I
hope that you all have a good week!
Hermana Blau
