April 8

(Marin wrote a letter to me because she's not able to email yet--no library card--and this is most of it)    

       I’m working to get this library card thing figured out, but it’s slow since most of the week I’m just focused on the work, and on P-day I have a million and one things to try to remember. Missionary work and P-day life-stuff have me going at a much faster (and usually steadier although P-day can be kind of frantic) pace than I’ve done for most of my life. It’s like that last semester of school but more constant. I loved your metaphor though! I love the idea of thinking of life as a journey instead of a battle. It reminds me of some things that Richard G. Scott talked about during his conference talk. He said, “stay on the Lord’s side and you will win every time,” which makes life sound kind of like a battle, but then he later said not to worry if you can’t do everything the Lord as counseled all the time. There is a time and a season for everything and if you are open to it, He will guide you in what you should be focusing on for this season. That was such a comfort for me. Especially as a missionary it seems like there are hundreds of different things I should always be trying to improve and ways I could be a better missionary and help people come closer to Christ more easily. I literally can’t do them all at the same time, but under God’s direction I can know I’m working on what he wants me to be working on.

            This has been another weird week. I’m beginning to think that there is no such thing as ‘normal’ for missionaries. Tuesday we had a New Missionary Training for most of the day, then came home and after dinner went straight to correlation and straight to the Preach My Gospel class that wee teach to try to get the members more involved in the missionary work. Hermana (Hna) Whetten and I taught this week, and it went pretty well. My Spanish is coming along so people at least understand me usually and I’m slowly comprehending more.

            Wednesday we took the car up to Santa Clarita to get the back bumper fixed. Someone ran into it the week before I got here. Luckily they had a car that we can use temporarily so we don’t have to walk or go on bike. Our area is huge and that would be impossible to do walking—and pretty hard on bikes especially since we don’t have any. We had dinner with a less active person, miraculously found two new investigators while looking for an antiguo and visited with a member that night. She shared her conversion story with us, and it was SO cool. Her family joined the church thanks to their neighbors inviting the kids over for Family Home Evening every Monday which made her mom curious. Just like they said in conference, member missionary work is so important, and so much more effective. In a perfect world we as full time missionaries wouldn’t do any finding. We would go from teaching appointment to teaching appointment all from member referrals and all with members at the lessons.

            Thursday was weekly planning which always seems to take forever since we’re stuck in the apartment for an extra three hours or so. Then all of our appointments fell through so we went looking for an antiguo (old investigator). She was “always busy” according to her very cute daughter, so we went finding, knocking on her street. Just as we were about to give up and go to our dinner appointment we decided to do one more door. Miracle of miracles we found 2 more new investigators, a father and son. The father is decidedly Catholic, but he seemed interested in learning more. The son actually stuck around for the whole conversation, which never happens, so we’re pretty sure he’s interested too! At dinner the Elders had dinner with us at el obispo’s (the bishop’s) house. Hna Cortez had made a sort of chicken sandwich type thing with vegetables and gravy called Panes Rellenos (I, Sabra, put that name in since Marin wasn’t sure what it was called and the pictures and recipe I found for Panes Rellenos fit her description). They were huge and messy. The easiest way to eat them though was with your hands. Hna Whetten ate two pretty neatly, but the elders each ate three and made a huge mess. Luckily they contained it to their plates, hands, and faces. Elder Garland used at least five napkins!

            Friday we had zone meeting in the morning and we talked about one of our mission goals which is to “Be Exceptional.” I couldn’t help but think of Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure and their phrase, “Be Excellent!” That night we were finally able to meet with P—and A—, two little girls who we are teaching. After the lesson P- told us that she wants to be like us some day and do what we do (be a missionary). It was so cute! I love being able to be an example for Christ. I especially love seeing people’s desires to be good and to have God in their lives. This gospel really is what people need to be able to be happy no matter what might go wrong.

            Saturday and Sunday were conference, so with that and studying we didn’t get much proselyting in. However conference was great, and I can hardly wait for the Ensign to come out so that I can read the talks again! I loved the themes of obedience and member missionary work. This conference was also cool because every time they said “full time missionaries” or just “missionaries” I thought, “That’s me!” It’s a weird feeling, but a good one.

            For part of our studies this week Hna Whetten and I have been memorizing the How To Begin Teaching bullets from Preach My Gospel in Spanish. We do one every day. We plan to keep memorizing something every day after we’re done with these 10 phrases. We’ll do things like hymns and scriptures and other useful phrases. I hate memorizing and I’m really pretty bad at it, but I’m better than four days ago when we started. I’m hoping that if I keep this up memorizing will get easier and easier. Mostly I’ hoping that if I memorize enough useful phrases I will be able to actually use them in our lessons and contacts. Right now trusting in God that he will show me where to use the phrases I memorize since I often only understand 40%-60% of the conversation.

            Love, Hermana Marin Hardy