Nicer Apartment 10/29/2012

Dear Family,

How's things?  It sounds like it's pretty interesting weather for Michelle and Richard.  I haven't heard too much about the storm except for the occasional mention of it and from reading mom's and Michelle's emails.  You and your families will be in my prayers and I hope you all stay safe and protected. :)

Last week we had a fun time moving apartments.  It's a nicer apartment, mostly due to the lack of mold (our last apartment was covered in it.  At least my bathroom was) But we're all moved in now and I'll try to get pictures next week.

We had a lesson with Manny and his wife last week as well.  I THINK she understands english, but he was translating everything anyway.  We asked if she would like the spanish elders to come instead, but she wants to go to church where her kids would be going to church, and they'll go to the english ward.  We taught her the doctrine of Christ.  She believes in Him, but doesn't know too much about Him.  We started talking about the spirit and how she was feeling during the lesson.  She was definitely feeling the spirit and so we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!  But is unsure of a date :(.  She works every Sunday, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens with that and whatnot.  But she definitely wants to be baptized.  When we started talking about enduring to the end, she said she would never fall away.  I hope she's able to come to church and pick a date soon!

We also visited a less active woman in the ward.  She has four kids, the two oldest is a girl who is 20 and a boy who is 18.  They both are at BYU right now and when the age changed for missions, they both decided to go.  She is so proud of their decisions and it's really gotten her thinking.  We had a great conversation with her and helped her to know how much Heavenly Father loves her even though she thinks she's not a good person.  She hasn't been to church in YEARS but she came this last sunday. :)  It was so good to see her.

We got SEVEN media referrals last week, which was cool.  We had to give about half of them to the spanish elders, but that's okay.  They need people to teach too.  We just got another one about 20 minutes ago, too.  They have been pouring in lately!  We also got a referral from our bishop last night for a less active/part member family who has two children who aren't baptized and they decided it's time for them to be baptized, so we'll be having a lesson with them this week.  It's so fun to teach people who want to learn.  If that makes sense.

The ward's primary program was yesterday and it was fun to see Chris excited and participating.  The Carrillo family is still doing great. 

Well I hope all of you have a great week!  Happy Halloween!

-Sister Stacey

Ups and Downs As Usual 10/22/2012

Dear Family,

Hello!  How was every one's week?  Ours had its ups and downs as usual. 

First, I'll talk about Cheli, because I think I mentioned her last week.  She did come to the relief society activity that we had.  It was about being healthy and taking care of ourselves.  It was good.  For people who are members of the church.  Somehow the topic started getting into some deeper doctrine that really confused her.  She walked out of it feeling uplifted, though, and was excited to have a lesson with us.  The next morning she told us she was going to call and set up an appointment, but didn't and instead went on a hike, where she started thinking about Revelation 22:18-19 (classic) and told us she was very unsure of the Book of Mormon and didn't want to learn anymore.  :(  We were very sad.  She wants to go on a hike with us, though, so we will do that sometime and hopefully be able to talk to her more about the Book of Mormon.  Hopefully she'll be able to open up to it one day.  She's one of those people that you know are super prepared but for some reason have that one thing that is holding them back that's going to be really hard to overcome.  We won't give up on her.

We also had an appointment set up for us by some elders who were tracting in our area.  It was a woman named Crystal and she is married and has five children.  She seemed excited and open, according to the elders.   We never actually got to meet with her.  We got to her house and her husband opened the door and told us we were not welcome there.  We explained that Crystal wanted us to meet with her and he was like, 'I'm sure she does, but I don't.  So...no.'  Lame!  We talked to him a little bit and I think his heart softened just a little because he took one of our cards and said he'd look at mormon.orgbecause 'maybe it was time for some intervention in his life.'  But I still don't think he wants us over there.  Maybe sometime we'll be driving by and Crystal will just be outside and we'll be able to talk to her.

The last thing is that there was another day this week that was at least 100 degrees. 

But then there were also cooler days, and today is a cool day, and it's finally starting to feel like autumn.  Now that October is practically over. 

And for the ups, CHRIS GOT BAPTIZED!! :D  His parents were so happy.  That family is changing, definitely.  Brother Carrillo especially.  And he just got a job with the post office, so he'll be able to have every Sunday off, which is awesome!  I love baptisms.  The spirit is always so strong.  Chris is such a good kid.  I'm so thankful I got to be a part of helping him and his family come closer to the Lord.  We're not done, though!  We're still working with them to hopefully help them get to the temple and be sealed!

We also set up an appointment with a part member family in the ward.  The husband is a member and his wife has been expressing interest in going to church and being baptized.  YEY!  She understands English, but mostly only speaks Spanish, so it will be interesting.  We also are going to start teaching a recent converts daughter.  He joined the church a year ago.  She's 11 and he said that she's ready to take the lessons and join.  We just have to wait for her mom (they're divorced) to give the okay.  Hopefully that will happen soon! 

We also had a good lesson with Danny where we learned a lot of his concerns.  Concerns that he didn't even know he had.  For a while he's been saying that he hasn't really felt anything, but then when we met with him and he was thinking about it, he said maybe he has been feeling something, but he's scared to really figure that out because he's not ready to be committed yet.  It scares him.  It was really good for him to admit that, though.  At the end of the conversation, he said he really just needs to come to church sometime and see what it's like.  Agreed!  We thought he would be there yesterday, but he wasn't. 

Anyway, we had transfer calls yesterday morning, and we are both staying here for another transfer!  I'm excited about that because there is a lot of good things happening here. 

I mentioned also that Elder Grow did a mission tour here.  He talked to us about doing finding through less actives and that if we did that and focused on them, then he promised us that we would have more people to baptize.  That was pretty cool.  And weird.  My whole mission we've been discouraged from visiting too many less-active members, and now that's a major focus.  I'm excited for it. 

Well that's about all from me for this week!  Hope everyone enjoys whatever it is you will be doing!  Love you all!

-Sister Stacey

Some Highlights 10/15/2012

Dear Family,

SORRY this letter is going to man short because I only have ten minutes.  Busy pday.  Just got away from me.  Anyway, here are some of the highlights of last week and some of the things coming up this week:

-Mission tour with C. Scott Grow.  It was so good.  I'll talk about that more next week.

-We tracted into a woman named Cheli and we went over and taught her again last night and she seems to be super excited to learn about the gospel!  We believe all the same things she does.  We invited her to the relief society activity we'll be having this week, so hopefully she will be there.

-The Fontana Stake had a luau which was SO FUN.  I will try and get a couple pictures of that in next weeks email.  

-It FINALLY rained.  But now it's hot again.

-Hopefully Chris Carrillo will be baptized this Saturday (the 20th).  :D

Sorry this has to be so short!  I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I'm grand.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love, Sister Stacey

MOM-Thanks for your story.  I haven't gotten your letter yet, but hopefully in a couple days I will.  Fontana mail is SLOW.  DAD-I love you!  Hope you have a great week at work!   Bye!  Love you both!

Some Highlights 10/15/2012

Dear Family,

SORRY this letter is going to man short because I only have ten minutes.  Busy pday.  Just got away from me.  Anyway, here are some of the highlights of last week and some of the things coming up this week:

-Mission tour with C. Scott Grow.  It was so good.  I'll talk about that more next week.

-We tracted into a woman named Cheli and we went over and taught her again last night and she seems to be super excited to learn about the gospel!  We believe all the same things she does.  We invited her to the relief society activity we'll be having this week, so hopefully she will be there.

-The Fontana Stake had a luau which was SO FUN.  I will try and get a couple pictures of that in next weeks email.  

-It FINALLY rained.  But now it's hot again.

-Hopefully Chris Carrillo will be baptized this Saturday (the 20th).  :D

Sorry this has to be so short!  I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I'm grand.  I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love, Sister Stacey

MOM-Thanks for your story.  I haven't gotten your letter yet, but hopefully in a couple days I will.  Fontana mail is SLOW.  DAD-I love you!  Hope you have a great week at work!   Bye!  Love you both!

Conference Was So Awesome! 10/09/2012

Dear Family,

Happy Columbus Day (yesterday), everyone!  I'm not sure if any of you were aware because the only people who celebrate it are libraries, the post office, and banks.  Which only makes me sad on a mission.  So now you get to have my email, a day later, but no less grand.

Conference was so awesome this weekend!  I have loved listening to conference as a missionary.  I have listened more closely and learned so much more because I want to be aware of things I could share with investigators.  I loved Elder Nelson's talk.  Everyone in the world needs to hear that!  But there were so many amazing talks.  I love conference. 

This week was pretty good.  We didn't have too many lessons, but the ones we did have were good. 

We saw the Carrillos yesterday.  They're doing so good!  Brother Carrillo came to both sessions of conference on Saturday.  He felt the spirit so strongly.  When we saw the family for a lesson, we asked Chris why he wants to be baptized.  He said it was because he gets picked on at school, so he wants to feel like there is always someone standing there with him who's on his side and was his friend.  That was a touching answer.  What a gift it is to have the Holy Ghost as our friend and guide.  They're on track for his baptism which will be happening next week on the 20th.  All of his family will be there, including his inactive brothers.  Yey!  The spirit is so strong at baptisms, so hopefully they can feel that spirit again and be reminded of things that are important. 

We also taught TJ.  Not sure if I mentioned him last week or not.  He really wants to do things the right way.  We taught him a couple lessons and invited him to be baptized.  He wants to, but can't set a date right now because he is out of town for an unknown amount of time.  But hopefully he'll come back soon so we can do that.

We also met a girl named Nicole from tracting who we'll be seeing tonight.  She's 13 and seemed to be excited to learn about the church.  And today we went tracting and met a woman named Cheli who started talking about her beliefs and said that she's never found it in a church anywhere, and everything she said were things that we believe.  So we told her that, and she told us that she did actually meet with missionaries about 5 years ago.  They only had one lesson with her, but then after that she wasn't sure about the Book of Mormon.  So we talked to her more about that and she's open to listening again.  We'll be seeing her next week. 

Anyway, it was a good week.  We met lots of people.  Some of them more interested than others.  Typical.  But I love meeting all of them anyway. 

OH YEAH this part is important I would still love stories of service from people.  My talk is on the 21st, so I would need them by next Monday.  PLEASE HELP!!

Have a great week!  Love you all!

-Sister Stacey

Oh, It's Only 95 Degrees Today! 10/01/2012

Dear Family,

Hello!  It's October!  That's so weird!  Time is going so fast.  AND it's still.  STILL in the hundreds.  Doesn't Fontana know that it should be cooling down now??  Oh well.  Missionary work still happens.  :)

So last week we had sisters exchanges as I mentioned.  I got to go to the Tongan ward back up in the desert.  That was so fun!  Sister Kaufusi goes home this transfer, so I was glad to be with her this last time.  It would be way fun to serve in a Tongan ward. 

Anyway, while I was up there, Sister Mills stayed here with Sister Dodge.  Sister Dodge served in this area for seven and a half months, so there were some people she wanted to see.  Glad she did because they were able to find a couple new people to teach!  One is a less active member named Cindy and her husband is not a member.  We'll be meeting with her tomorrow, and I'm excited to meet her.  They also went to see how a girl named Ivette was doing.  Sister Dodge had only taught her a couple times before she got really busy. Ivette is 16, but is very interested in learning more.  She really wants to make sure she knows she's doing things the right way.  We read 2 Nephi 31 with her and she really liked it.  We did invite her to be baptized, but she said she wants to know if it's right for her first.  I love it when people say that because that's exactly what they need to do!  Find out for themselves!  We talked a lot about how we need to be sincere and that if we are, God will answer our prayers and help us to learn the truth. 

We also taught a man named Freddy.  He was raised baptist, and I think he is still an active baptist, not really sure.  He has a very open mind though.  He said you have to have an open mind to know what God is trying to tell you.  We also invited him to be baptized, but he said he was already baptized.  We taught him the Doctrine of Christ (again, 2 Nephi 31) and said that next time we would talk about the restoration of God's authority.  Hopefully he'll understand that and know that this is Christ's church. 

We saw the Carrillos again.  We were able to set up another baptism date for Chris.  Oct. 20.  I think this time it is going to really work.  Brother Carrillo said he would make sure to get work off that night.  They also said that the other times missionaries came to teach Chris, they felt like for some reason it wasn't the right time for him, but since we've started teaching him, they know it's time, and they are ready to come back to church and be fully active.  Chris' baptism is going to be really special, I think.  He has 3 older brothers.  They're really nice, but they're inactive.  So Chris thought he could be baptized and not go to church.  We've been talking to him a lot about Nephi and that even though he was the younger, he was a great example for all of his older brothers.  So we told him to be like Nephi and he seemed pretty excited about that.  And now that they're coming to church more regularly (four out of five weeks!  Yey!)  I think he's starting to enjoy it more.  But his older brothers want to be at his baptism and so hopefully they'll be touched by the spirit of what Chris is doing and want to go back to church.  I really love this family.  They are so special.

Anwyay, those are the highlights from this week.  We had lots of lessons!  I love being able to teach people about the gospel. 

I hope you all have a great week and are enjoying the cooler temperatures that I don't remember ever experiencing.  haha  Hopefully this heat will only last a couple more weeks.  I never thought I would be saying 'Oh, it's only 95 degrees today!  It feels so good outside!' 

Love you all!  BYE!

-Sister Stacey