Happy April Fool's Day! And Happy Easter (one day late)!
I was fortunate enough to skip winter this year, unlike many of you, but even here in California, I can tell that it's spring. It's slowly getting warmer and warmer. Once I realized it's already April, that made more sense. I'm slightly worried for the heat of the summer but I think I have a couple more months before I have to deal with that.
It's been SO GREAT to be back in Castro Valley. It's different with a new companion but it's great to see the familiar faces of the ward members and many of the investigators I was teaching when I was here before.
For my last night in Oakland last Monday, we went to see Myriam one more time. It was her sister's birthday (her sister passed away a couple years ago from breast cancer) and so we were planning on having a nice dinner with them, but Myriam was sick so we just stopped in for a few minutes. We said goodbye and then went to see Ron and Helga (he's a less active member, she's not a member) and said goodbye to them too. Last we saw Jason, a recent convert in the ward. He was so nice - I hardly got to know him but he gave me a card thanking me for my service. He's so golden and sweet.
Tuesday=transfers. It was crazy - always is - but not as crazy as my first transfer day. At least it didn't rain this time. We got everything home and unpacked pretty quick. My new companion is Sister Lau - she's from Hong Kong and she's so great. She works really hard and took really great care of the area while I was gone. It felt like coming home - we didn't do too much except unpacking and updating and then we went to the VC that afternoon.
Wednesday was our full-pross day! We went to see Valerie, a less active in our ward who just got out of her rehab center after having some serious medical problems around Christmastime. She is doing much better and wants to start coming to church! Her son Nicolas was baptized when he was 11 and the Young Men's President brought him to church last week - and from talking to Valerie, I found out that I know the missionary who baptized Nicolas from my home ward up in Conifer. Small world. But it was cool to have that connection and I'm really happy that they're going to start coming to church again. We also saw Jackie - she looked fine and her health seemed fine, but I don't know if she remembers anything that we taught her - it was so long ago. I'm sure there are many reasons I was supposed to come back to Castro Valley, but I'm sure that Jackie is one of those reasons. We helped her clean up and sort her mail - I just want her to be happy. We had dinner with Brother and Sister Hipps at Dino's, a local Italian restaurant. I had salmon - it was delicious. I'm so glad I overcame my aversion to seafood - I don't eat much of it, but I LOVE salmon.
So that was a tender mercy this week. We went to see one other less active that night, Sister Ortiz, and then we went to see CHRISTINE! She went to church every Sunday when I was gone, but she stopped meeting with the missionaries for a couple weeks and then resumed lessons again and then tried to stop again - but Sister Lau and Sister Mitchell didn't let her :) we talked about faith and obedience. The two really go hand in hand - you can't be faithful if you aren't obedient, and it's super difficult to be obedient if you don't have faith that God loves us and gives us commandments for our happiness. As I've been reading in the Book of Mormon, especially about the Anti-Nephi-Lehies in Alma chapters 22-24, I've learned so much about faith and obedience. We hope this prepares Christine to be obedient and choose to accept baptism and commit to living the associated commandments.
Thursday was good - we didn't have any time to go out and teach because we had our study time, then district meeting, then the VC but it was a great day. I have had more time for language study than in the past and so I feel better prepared for the VC and everything else. It's made a world of difference. Our new district leader is Elder Arauz and he's great - he's from El Salvador but he's in an English area right now. He taught himself English on the mission - he's only been out for a year but his English is so good. My previous district leader in this area, Elder Watson, is now in San Francisco serving as a zone leader - he's going to do great out there.
Friday was VC and contacting potentials until dinner - we found one former investigator that wants to take lessons again so that was good! Her name is Jan and we're seeing her on Tuesday. We had dinner with the Garrison family - oh how I've missed them. That night, we just did our weekly planning so it was a nice Friday night in.
This weekend was a miracle weekend! Literally. We went over to teach Gerry - him and his wife have been taking lessons for years but she was baptized last summer. He's a tough cookie - he knows the Book of Mormon is true, but he is very Catholic and thinks it doesn't matter which church he's going to as long as it's church. We've been trying to help him understand the authority but it's difficult to help him understand that our church is the only church with the true priesthood authority from God so it has all the pieces of the puzzle. It's a touchy subject - his wife Elizabeth knows it's true and wants him to know so bad, but she doesn't want to push him at all. Usually she defends his attitude (we call it baptism blocking) but on Saturday, she didn't say anything to discourage him or us. We just pushed through with the baptism invitation and after some restating of the question and some thought, HE ACCEPTED A DATE! We set his date for May 11th and promised him that he'll know the truth by then if he continues to do those things we ask him to do, especially come to our church. But I don't know if he's ever even had a date before so it's huge progress! The pressure is on to really study up and help him receive his own spiritual confirmation that everything we say is true and to receive the desire to baptized - he needs to recognize why it's different. I hope the Spirit can testify of my words to help him understand that. I love this family, and I want nothing more than for them to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity.
After Gerry's lesson, I made my first Spanish contact! I haven't run into many Spanish speakers outside of the VC, even when I was in Oakland which seems odd, but I talked to this guy German outside while he was painting and he wanted missionaries to come see him! My broken Spanish was awful, but we understood each other just fine and my zone leaders should be going to see him soon! That was prett cool. We were at the VC for the rest of the day. I have a lot of cool experiences at the VC but I haven't been writing them down for the past couple months. I need to fix that. Saturday night at the VC was super busy because the Lamb of God was going on at the Interstake Center across the street. So things were crazy but it's better than being slow.
Sister Lau and I had a great Easter. All our missionary meetings were cancelled so we simply studied all morning and then went to church at 12:30. Our meetings used to be at 10:30 before I left the ward and then at 9 in Oakland so 12:30 church is going to take some getting used to. One of the speakers in sacrament meeting, Brother Ribeira, asked a rhetorical question during his talk that has stuck with me: if Christ hadn't come and did all that He did, where would I be right now? It's a big question that I've been reflecting on and I'm planning on taking some time to write that down in my journal. Jesus Christ still had his agency - He could've chosen to live a normal life. But where would we be if He had done that? Similarly, I think of my own life. Where would the people in our lives be if we had made different decisions? No man is an island; we are to become more like Jesus Christ as we help each other. Where would some of the people I have taught in the past six months be if I had not chosen to serve a mission? Where would I be if my parents hadn't taught me the gospel? We can't know the answers to those questions specifically, but if Jesus Christ hadn't come to the earth and suffered all that He did and died for us - if he had not done these things, none of those other questions would have mattered. Our lives would not have mattered. We owe everything to Him - our faith, our loyalty, our obedience - in exchange for His decision of sacrifice because of His love for us.
We helped out with Primary sharing time for the rest of church, totally missing Sunday School and only staying for half of Relief Society. For sharing time, we had a trial where witnesses who knew Jesus Christ came in and bore testimony of Him and His life and His mission. Sister Lau was the bailiff and I was the judge - I got a mallet and everything. And I got to see Noelle!!! She's doing ok, but it's hard joining the church at her age. I want her to start going to the singles' ward, but she's moving to Provo in June so only a couple more months. It'll be a much better environment for her there. She's totally going to be married before I get back to Provo. We're about to start teaching her friend Ashley who came to her baptism and has come to church a couple of times now so I'm excited for that! We're all watching General Conference this weekend at Noelle's place. We also had one more investigator come to church - his name is Joseph. We're having a lesson with him this coming week so I can get to know him better and see where he's at. Both Christine and Gerry were out of town so they didn't make it to church but it was a great service.
After church, we went to see Sister Van Elk, a less active woman in our ward. We think she's only less active because of her health - she invited us in immediately and was so sweet. We had dinner with Sister Chadwick and Brother Cashion afterwards (they're married but kept separate last names) and their son Will and their 2-week exchange student from Austria (I can't remember his name for the life of me). Sister Chadwick made a great meal and apple pie and then gave us little Easter baskets! It was so sweet of her. We had FHE with the Garrisons and then went out to do some contacting. I was dreading it because it was raining super hard but as soon as we got out of the car, it stopped! Heavenly Father knows how much I hate rain and using umbrellas. It was a pure miracle. And by some miracle, we got in the gate to see a potential investigator named Sylvia that Sister Ure and I had tried to contact HUNDREDS of times. When we rang the bell, she opened the gate because her daughter was supposed to be coming over so she was surprised to see us. She didn't have time to talk but we set up a return appointment for next week! Also, we ran into our investigator Richard who lives just a couple doors down - Sister Ure and I had taught him once but after that we never got a hold of him and neither did Sister Lau and Sister Mitchell - we knocked on his door after Sylvia let us in and he wasn't home but we ran into him in the parking lot on our way out to the car! So it really was a night full of miracles. As long as you're willing, Heavenly Father guides you to where you need to be and you'll be placed in the path of those that are ready to receive the gospel. Always in His time, not our own.
But anyways, that was the week! March is already over and April is just beginning! Time is flying still but I'm so happy to be back in Castro Valley. I know there's more than one reason that I'm here, and I'm going to make sure I found out every reason so that I can do the things I need to do for the people in this area.
Love you all! Have a great week!
Hermana Hunsaker
