Robinsons Having Fun: Week 2/3

Oh I love you all so much! Writing emails is basically the most stressful time of the week! There's just so much I want to tell you all and I want to respond to everyone's emails individually but there just isn't time. Especially since I haven't updated really for two weeks. But I will be writing again on Monday since that's when P-day will usually be. This week they moved it to Thursday for Thanksgiving.

So traveling to Sacramento went well. It was a little sad again to say goodbye to the people I grew to love at the MTC but it was so exciting to get where I was going. President and Sister Jardine are super nice and just great people. On Wednesday (18th I believe) I met my trainer and was given my specific assignment within the mission. I am in the Lodi (low-dye) Zone, Galt 2nd ward. So the town I am in is Galt, and I can't quite tell the size of it exactly but it seems that it is basically "country." It's just a bunch of nice little subdivisions and it's really beautiful here. Lots of variety in the vegetation and really pretty trees. The weather is nice. It basically feels like late summer/early fall. Also, I'm full time bike. So we just ride around all day. It's been quite the adventure figuring out how to ride in a skirt but I'm getting much better. I was super awkward at dismounting and mounting the first few days but I'm doing pretty well now. My trainer is Sister Barfuss. I have been super blessed with her. She is really obedient and hard working and she teaches really well. I still get frustrated occasionally because I don't necessarily feel that my input is listened to that well but she is super great and really easy to work with and now that it's been a week we are getting into a pretty good swing of things together. She is from Farmington, Utah and has been out six months only so she was made a trainer pretty "young." The picture is us with Sister Weaver, Sister Barfuss' trainer.

Well I have been told so many times that missions are hard, but it turns out I had mentally prepared myself for a different kind of hard than it actually is. I was prepared for it being hard to talk to people, or frustrating when people didn't keep commitments or didn't progress. I was NOT prepared to not even have people to teach. The first couple of days were so frustrating for me because we were just biking around trying to get appointments and talk to less actives and potentials and no one wanted to make appointments. Our only appointments were practice lessons with members and dinner appointments. So I pretty much felt like I was doing nothing but waste time. I knew that wasn't a very productive way to think so I was trying hard to be positive and just enjoy the work and have faith that eventually someone would be willing to listen but it was hard at first. Possibly the hardest part was how frustrated I was with myself for not having a perfectly happy attitude about it. I guess eventually I just realized I was expecting myself to be perfect right off the bat so I decided I'd just work on being positive and give myself two or three days before I could expect myself to have positivity come naturally. Well I guess I did pretty well at faking it because Sister Barfuss has commented more than once how positive and happy I am all the time. Proof that the Lord can make our weaknesses strengths. :)

So by Friday I was feeling pretty positive and motivated and while studying I just really got the impression that it was the day to get an investigator. (Days feel really long around here because so much happens in a day so Friday felt like it had been much longer than 2 days). So we set a goal to have an investigator by the end of that day. Little did I know at the time that in order to count an investigator you have to have a lesson with them and a follow up appointment set. Had I realized that I might not have had as much faith that it was possible but I think Heavenly Father wanted me to see the power of faith and see His hand in the work that day. Well that day ended up being a day of miracles.

Miracle number one:

Less active member (Nikki) that we had an appointment with said a prayer with us. In all the times she's been taught she has never agreed to pray before.

Miracle number two:

This is more a tender mercy that was also the means of a miracle. We didn't have a dinner appointment that day and so we weren't going to be able to eat dinner until 8:30 or so and I wasn't feeling really happy about that. I had prayed (I know this is a little silly) for help being cheerful while hungry. Well halfway through the day our Ward Mission Leader called us and told us we had a dinner appointment with the Dobernecks. Sister Barfuss then told me that their daughter is dating a non member and we proceeded to plan a lesson to teach. I'll come back to the miracle part of this later but it was just awesome to see how I was taken care of.

Miracle number three:

We needed to cut up some fliers to take around to people to invite them to the ward Christmas party. At the exact moment we ended up finally making it to the church to do that some former investigators were there preparing for a community service project. Their names are Mondo and Quina and when we saw them we offered to help. We just know that we were sent there at the perfect time to soften their hearts with our service. Besides that we also were able to continue helping with that community event which was putting together Thanksgiving baskets of food for community members in need. It's a pretty big thing that the Catholic church started, and invited our church to be part of. We got to meet a lot of Catholic people and I think it really did a lot to create good feelings towards us and the church.

Miracle number four:

At our dinner appointment with the Dobernecks we met Joe, our new investigator! We taught a lesson during dinner and he agreed to meet with us again! That experience really gave me a testimony of setting inspired goals and working hard in faith. Heavenly Father really led us along that day and it was amazing to see His hand. We had our second lesson with Joe on Monday and he is GOLDEN. He has no religious background but he says looking back on his life he can see how Heavenly Father has been strengthening him and he also feels he has already received an answer to prayer that the church is true. Since he has been learning some things through the Dobernecks he had been pondering some weeks ago and praying and then randomly saw the sister missionaries (including Sister Barfuss) on their bikes and he said he had this feeling he couldn't describe and knew he wanted to know more about the church. We are really excited to keep working with him.

Well I include way too many details because this is really long and I'm about out of time. On Monday I will share some more general things about the area and just funny little things that happen and about where I am living and things. And also more about the Thanksgiving service project because it was so cool to be part of. We are eating Thanksgiving dinner at a members house out in the country today. Our whole zone was invited by them. How sweet is that? People are so generous. I love you all!

Sister Robinson