Tuesday, January 22, 2013

January 14, 2013 - Livermore


So nobody warned me about transfers!! We got a call Saturday night saying sister green is being transferred :( I'm so sad! And she cried all night...and all day at church yesterday too. We were so shocked because she's my trainer and training is supposed to last 12 weeks. I'm so nervous to have to teach someone else about an area that I don't even know very well yet! Extra prayers this week please?? :) We are going to San Jose tomorrow to meet our new companions and then I'll return back to Livermore and Sister Green will go to her new area with her new companion.
 
Other than transfers, this week was really good. Oh I have a funny story...so my bed doesn't have a frame it's just matresses stacked on top of eachother so they slide around a lot. One night I had one of those falling dreams except I really did fall off the bed and my matress fell on top of me. Sister Green woke up and we both just started laughing our heads off. It was funny, but in the moment I was scared to death!
 
We started piano classes last week and it was so fun to teach the little kids about piano. I'm definitely not as good of a teacher as Sister Johnson was with me though. We also started volunteering at English as a Second Language classes and I absolutely LOVE that. There are people in there that speak all sorts of different languages but most of them speak Spanish. I love being able to speak both so that I can help and I can't wait to learn more Spanish. It made me want to be a teacher....maybe I'll teach elementary spanish? Who knows. Also,  The relief society president was telling me about medical translating and it's definitely something I want to look into when I get home.
 
My 100th day in the mission was on....Friday? I can't remember which day...but one of the days. We celebrated by making the gluten free pancackes that mom sent with the yummy maple syrup :) Sooooooo good. I love mexican food but the american food really hits the spot.
 
On Thursday we went down to San Jose for a Sister's Retreat. I told you President spoils the sisters right? We listened to some talks about sisters and then had "exercise time" (yoga-- which is not exercise. At least not how we did it.) And then we had lunch. Sister Watkins made a salad that tasted comparable to zupas! Loved it. Then we got our pillows and blankets and listened to stories about Joseph Smith. Sister watkins went to a whole bunch of stores and bought tons of new clothes. They were on a whole bunch of tables and we could just choose which we wanted. So I got lots of fun new clothes!! It was like shopping for free.
 
Okay now for our investigators....Blanca is doing AWESOME and we asked her if she'd like to move her date up. She's been to church twice and she told her teacher this last Sunday that she has to miss all of her classes on Sunday so that she can come to church. She also came to a baptism with us on Saturday so she could see what they're like. It was in English so she didn't understand very much but at least she got to feel the spirit and see the ordinance. Everytime someone would ask her when she's getting baptized she would say "feb 16 or sooner". So she's definitely considering moving it up but she's worried she doesn't know enough. She makes really awesome comments during church though and we've taught her all of the lessons. We got a surprise new baptism date with Erika. I don't know if i've even mentioned her before. We hadn't seen her for awhile but we felt like we needed to. We taught the plan of salvation and the spirit was really strong as we were talking about the atonement. She said she doesn't even remember her baptism because she was a baby. We shared moroni 8 with her and then invited her to be baptized and she said yes! And I was lucky enough to extend the invitation. It was definitely a prompting from the spirit. Something that I'm recognizing more and more everyday. Her date is feb 16 also. Two other investiagators accepted baptism but without a date- Eva and Sylvia. I'll tell you more about them once we get a date this week. It's impossible to get lessons in with Sylvia. She just likes to cook for us. Her food is my favorite though! We met with Ana and her family and really stressed the importance of the book of mormon and baptism. THeir 8 year old daughter said she wants to be baptized and the parents were so shocked. I think it softened the heart of louis though and he was almost trying to talk ana into it. But neither of them commited and we haven't heard from them since. We're not giving up though. Haven't heard much from Apolinar either but we're giving him to the elders because we can't meet with him unless we have another sister so it's be more beneficial for him to have the elders teach him.
 
Yesterday I gave a talk in Spanish for 20 minutes! I used to not even be able to do that in English haha but I prayed for help and I know I received it. I honestly don't know what I said or if I even made sense but I did my best and that's all I can do! It was fun though and I enjoyed it. I also played the piano for a musical number  (6 elders sand brightly beams our father's mercy) in the departing missionary devotional in San Jose last night. All of the departing missionaries bear their testimonies and it was really neat to see. The ones that speak SPanish usually bear their testimony in Spanish and one elder started bearing his in Spanish but was throwing in words that aren't really words just like jibberish so everyone that spoke Spanish was laughing and all the English people were so confused and then a cute litte grandma sitting in front of me said, "All the jokes are in Spanish!" haha it was so funny. I think that's exactly what the elder was trying to do and it worked.
 
Jessica thanks for the pictures! Your house is so cute :) I can't wait to see it when it's done and the boys look so grown up! How funnnnn! And I hope everyone in Texas is enjoying the warm weather. It's probably warmer there than here for sure. Can't wait to see pictures of the trip and hear everything you did. Andrea I sent a letter to your old address last week so I hope you get it but I have your new address now. Thanks for the letter :)
 
Hope to hear from everyone soon!
Love, Hermana Billings
 Pictures to come in the next emails!

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