Last week I was standing up for an hour using a computer at the Apple store and so I decided not to use any more time to write this email. I wish I could say that a lot has happened in the last two weeks, but that would be a lie. We're still working on finding new investigators but we've found more areas where Spanish people live so that's been exciting!
Also, I forgot to mention: I'm still in Oakland. And still with Hermana Ayala. So that's good. We're really going to make things happen this transfer!!!
We went lawn bowling a couple of weeks ago for our district activity. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I'd include pictures but I lost my camera card and all my pictures from the past year so......I can't quite do that. At least I didn't lose my camera. I'm just going to have to make up for all the pictures I lost by taking one everyday for the rest of my mission! We talked about goals this week and how they have to be attainable but also help us stretch. I'm not sure if this one is attainable for me.
We did find one new family a couple weeks ago! But then we kind of lost touch with them - they're working a lot and won't make the time to meet with us. So that's unfortunate. We've also hardly seen the Ramirez family - we haven't been able to set up appointments with them and when we do, they cancel. We've only seen them once a week for the past two weeks, and it's because we just decided to pass by. They haven't made it to church for the past three weeks even though they said they'd come, so we're just working to figure out what is going on. We stopped by Saturday night and they invited us in even though they were having a big family party. It was the craziest lesson we'd ever taught. Sister Ferguson was with me for exchanges and she didn't even know who were investigators and who were the less active parents and who had never met us before so it was all just a mess. We ended up just talking about the Book of Mormon. There were at least 8 people in the room and a few coming and going in and out. It was entertaining and the Spirit was there for a few key moments, but overall it wasn't a very effective lesson. But we'll see them tonight and figure out where Cynthia, Antonio, and Kathryn are at.
We dropped Marilu, and passed Martin onto the elders in the area. It's probably for the best and gives us a lot more time to work in our area. Marilu still came to church yesterday - she'll get it someday, she just needs time. And Martin isn't getting to church, but he has a baptism date and he's working on fixing his relationship with Guadalupe so that they can get married and he can get baptized!
Miracle of the week: We had a member scheduled to come out with us one afternoon but our appointments cancelled. We were super stressed about where to go - she brought her daughter so we couldn't bring them in our car and they had to follow us everywhere. After stopping by a couple of former investigators with no success, I felt super awful about dragging her around. We wanted it to be a good experience so that she'd want to come out with us again but we weren't finding anything! So we were just both praying the whole time to find someone and as we were contacting a former in a particular area that we'd never been to, we decided to knock on doors in the area. We happened to find a whole corner of apartments where everyone spoke Spanish! It was the biggest miracle ever. We didn't have a lesson but we found some potential investigators and our member was able to interact and get to know these people even though we were just tracting! It was the best. The. Best. A huge blessing and answer to my prayer.
Contacting former investigators has turned into our best finding tool. We found another potential, Luz, while looking for her neighbor Jose that used to live in her same apartment complex. As we talked to her, we found out that she was learning from missionaries in the past too and she didn't know why they stopped coming! She might just be ready now!!! It was super exciting - we're seeing her tomorrow. If nothing else, it's helped us to find areas where Hispanic people. It's been awesome.
One more VC miracle: I was serving at the VC this week when Jennifer came in. She used to live in Oakland and comes from a very bad background, and I had met her one other time before with Sister Ure at the beginning of my mission. And Sister Ure met her at the beginning of HER mission! Anyways, she was visiting from Santa Rosa and said she's finally ready to turn her life around and get baptized! She gave me her email address and phone number and I haven't gotten in touch with her yet but I'm super excited to teach her! I'm so grateful for the VC so people know where to go when they ARE ready, even if they don't know it yet :)
I think that covers it. We'll find a lot of new investigators next week and let you know next Monday!!!
Hermana Hunsaker
