Hey everyone!

This was probably the best week thus far in Rancho for me and sister Cook.

The work is starting to move a little more here.

Honestly i cant remember a lot of the week haha so i will just go over the highlights..

Well on Wednesday we had the Chaffey Booth again..and it was really good. We met 2 or 3 people who seemed sincerely interested...and then we got yelled at again by a group of Atheists for about an hour or so...But the funny part of this story was that they split sister cook and me up and we were each talking to about 3-4 people and trying to answer all the questions they were throwing at us. And then this lady who was about 45 came up and said "HI SISTERS!" and started getting family history stuff. And they she started getting int o the conversations. and we were both thinking "awesome! a member to help us answer questions!" and she sort of came around the table to sit by us but then she started saying things like "oh yeah God and Jesus Christ are the same person.." and other things we definitely don't believe. And me and sister Cook panicked, we just started at her for a minute and then started correcting her. But we were both kind of in shock for a minute... It was funny.

We also taugh a new investigator! His name is Gilbert, he is one of the people we met at the college. He is super cool, he has some sort of disability that makes him need a walker, but he give speeches and things on campus and started a club for people with similar conditions as him. Sad thing is...we have to pass him off to the elders in our ward haha. But thats okay :)

Really the highlight of my week was that we had been working with a less active member named Curtis. He is a really nice guy, he loves the gospel, loved his mission, but some where along the way just got lost. BUT this sunday he came to church for the first time in about a year! we were so excited.

K so it doesnt seem like an exciting week...but it was just good haha :)

Anyways i love being here! I can't believe that i has been 9 months this wednesday! its crazy how fast time has been going.

I love and miss you all :)

hope to hear from you all soon

Sister Rebecca Redd

Transfer week!

So I'm staying in the Rancho YSA ward. But it was a week full of nerves for sister Cook. That girl HATES transfers and President Hobbs ALWAYS throws us curve balls.

It was a really good week over all though :)

Tuesday... We had a interviews with President Hobbs. It was so great to talk with him. It's always just very insightful when i have my interviews with him. He is such a soft spoken person but at the same time super funny and he carries the spirit with him, so that you can always feel it. I LOVE IT! He asked me some interesting questions that really got me to reflect on how i have changed lately. And something I really realized this week was how much my testimony has grown. From a faith to a knowledge of the thing i am teaching. I know i still have doubts and struggles but i know how to work through those now in a way i didn't know how before. My mission has truly Blessed my life in more ways then i can count :)

Wednesday... I got to go on exchanges with a sister from Rockville MD. It was so nice to be with someone from the east coast! haha it was just cool because we got to talk about all the difference between the DC area and here. Plus Hermana Beaz is just really funny so we had a great day!

OH also! we found a girl that lives in Upland named Jessica Redd! it was so weird i saw the name and said we had to go to their house. But when we got there, the mom wasn't very happy to see us. She was polite (probably because i was so excited she didn't know how else to act) but didn't want us to come back. But i though it was neat.

Thursday was great!

We set up our booth at the local college again. But this week was not as successful as last week. We had multiple groups of people come and yell at us and asking us ridiculous questions. Only a few of them were sincere in wanting answers, but it was okay, me and sister Cook had a good laugh about it later and we had some good practice trying to teach large groups of people.

We also got a new investigator! His name is Miguel and he's awesome! he's been around the church his whole life. He has tons of friends, he goes to institute a ton, works at the bishop store house, ect. But he's never taken the lessons! When we asked him why not, he said no one ever invited him! haha we think people assume that he is a member already so that's awesome! the only down side is that he is 36 so we have to pass him off :( but we're still excited for him!

Friday I went on exchanges with sister Christensen! I had a blast! We were on bike and i loved it! We got to talk to so many people because we were biking. We made a goal to stop other biker too and it was really fun to see how they reacted! also we met a crazy guy who thought that God was the sun. He then told us it was okay if we hadn't come to the realization yet, but that we would soon. haha i love people :)

Saturday were transfer calls. SO we met as a Zone for lunch (and also to celebrate sister Cook's birthday) and our Zone leaders read out the transfer news, we also took pictures and wrote in each other's journals. It was really fun :)

Sunday was GREAT! Church was so good, even though there were only about 15 people there haha. I think the best thing i learned was that Sacrifice no matter how small is an act of love. Jesus Christ Sacrificed everything for us, so we know that he has a perfect love for us. It was just something simple, that hit home. I know Mom asked if i had seen the "because of him" video. And i have and it is SOOOOO good. If anyone hasn't seen it yet i wont spoil it, but PLEASE go look at it! its at mormon.org/becauseofhim you will love it!

Anyways that was my week :)

i love hearing about everyone else's weeks so keep me updated!

I love and miss you all!

Love, Sister Redd

Fwd: almost to the half way!

Fwd: almost to the half way!

I feel like every week this transfer has been NUTS, but this week....it bets them all haha.

Monday..I became a official California Girl. I got my licence, but to be honest i thought i wasn't going to pass...there were about 10 questions on alcohol and the whole time all i could think was "how the heck should i know...I'm a missionary..." but thankfully i passed. The DMV worker thought it would be funny to trick me and tell me i didn't. BUT i did :)

Tuesday...So we got to take Sister Brown (one of the sisters we live with) to the doctors, she has been having really bad migraines and need to see a doctor. But the doctor was NUTS. He talked sooo fast and just kept telling her to do silly things like pat her knees and pinch her fingers. and as soon as she'd do it he'd yell "no! faster! faster! faster! " haha it was pretty funny. In the end though he gave her some new medicine...which ended up not being so good. But ill get to that later.

On Wednesday i got to go on exchanges. It was tough. The sister i was with was particularly bad at conversing with people. Me included. So...it was a long day. I think the best conversation i had the whole day was with an 80 year old woman who had just had a stroke and was learning how to talk again.

When i got home though i found out that sister Brown had been having bad reactions to the medicine and had been throeing up all day. and sister Christensen was taking in for an emergency root canal. So she was i horrible pain also...So we had to take care of them a little that night.

Thursday was awesome! well. Mostly..we did have to get Sister Christensen new medicine also because hers wasn't strong enough. But we took her to get ice cream at this delicious place called Handel's, and then went to the local college and set up out booth. When we got there the elders had set up the table right in the sun. AND IT WAS HOT. we were going to move but we realized that people were talking to us a LOT in that location so we stayed. It was awesome and we talked to TONS of people, gave out a few Books of Mormon, and set 3 return appointments! It was great, except sister Cook got burned  really bad.

Friday i went on exchanges again....I was with a Sister from Monticello, Utah. And she is awesome! we had a blast together! We had a few lessons, but we also had a few uncomfortable door approaches that day, that we laughed about pretty hard later.

Saturday. Me and sister Cook FINALLY had our first investigator lesson together! it was soo good. We started teaching this girl named Jazmine, she's from LA but is dating a guy in our ward. She is a rock star and already committed to baptism and has already been to church 3 times! It was a little rough though because we haven't had the chance to teach much so we were out of practice :( BUT it still went well and we are so excited! We also went to Fontana that day and helped a member of our ward make sack lunches, and then we went and handed them out to homeless people in the parks. It was really fun. She is from a HUGE Tongan family and we were in the car with them and she would just yell out the window to people and throw them dinner. It was really fun.

Sunday was great, I think the highlight would be when i got home that night the sisters we live with told me i had a present on my bed. I went and got it and it was the shirt from Eric's Run! I was soo happy. They told me that some lady came, dropped it off and said she had worn it in the race but she didn't say who she was. I was so excited and i was seriously about to cry. I was so sad i couldn't be there but was so happy to have a little piece of it brought to me. SO thank you to who ever that was! (i think dad said kami wallace?)

Which brings us to today.. We had a tennis tournament for our zone activity. Mom i think you'd be proud to know i made it to the final round with my partner. We lost in the 5th match just barely. I guess your tennis skills got passed through the family :) I was really fun though.

And that was pretty much my week :)

I love and miss you all so much. I hope you are all doing well. By your letters it sounds like it.

Keep me updated. Thank you for all the letters :)

I love you,

Sister Redd

also the picture are of sister cooks HORRIBLE sunburn, us in the car after the root canal, us in the car after tennis, some chickens that came out of NO where while i was knocking on a door. and if all of them don't send.. ill send them separately

This week was crazy, but soo good :)

Before I get into that though I wanted to add a story I forgot to send out last week.

So last week we had an earthquake. And it was AWESOME! I just wanted to share the experience with everyone because it make me laugh so hard. Me and sister Cook were in for the night making some phone calls and we were talking to some sisters on the phone who were driving home. All of the sudden we heard the apartment start shaking and then we felt it. Immediately sister cook hid under our kitchen table and started yelling. This then made the sisters we were talking to freak out because they hadn't felt it (they were in the car) and so they started yelling. Then out of no where one of the sister's we live with who we though was in the shower, come running out into the living room in a towel and started running in circles saying "oh my gosh. I'm so Scared. ooooooh my gosh. I'm scared" over and over again. Meanwhile I sat at the table dying laughing. I was sooo funny. Our district leader ended up naming it "Rancho Quakamonga" and its been really funny to hear everyone's stories about it.

 

Anyways! back to This week.

On Tuesday I got to go on exchanges again. It was a really good day. we got to teach a few lessons. I think the highlight was a fun law of chastity lesson we got to teach that SOMEHOW turned into the lady yelling at us about how women cant have the priesthood. It was not fun. BUT we ended up getting her to commit to read the book of Mormon, and actually do it, which was the first time since she started taking the lessons (like 6 mo. ago)! woo :D

Oh also we had a party for our district today because everyone was having mission "birthdays" our DL had been a dl for 1 year straight, S. Cook and an elder hit 11mo. Me and s. Christensen hit 8 mo. s. Brown and another elder hit 1 mo. And another Elder had 1 m. left. SO we had Birthday hats and treats :)

 

Wednesday was really cool. Me and sister Cook have been trying to set up a booth at the local college and this was the first day we actually got to do it. It was funny though because when we got there, there was a booth right next to us called "Ask an Atheist". they were all super nice though and we got to talk to them a little bit. We did end up getting to teach the Restoration on the stop which was awesome :) and we got to be apart of a Shooting drill, which forced about 20 kids into a small room with us and the elders. One of the elders leaned over to me and sister cook at one point and said "I feel like I need to be proselyting....but I have a very unfair advantage" It was really funny.

 

Thursday We had a meeting ALL day. it was good though. It a meeting for all STL's and Zone leaders, and we had a lot of really great trainings.

 

Friday...On exchanges again! It was really fun I got to go with one of the Spanish sister names Hermana Bushman. She came to my area this time though so it wasn't nearly as stressful. We actually had a TON of fun. And we FINALLY found a new investigator for our area :D. We had been visiting people all morning and NO ONE was home. So in frustration we drove to a random street and decided to tract it. We had a little success, but at the very last house we saw a guy standing in the drive way. Now I want to explain this guy first. He was a BIG guy, wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, He had a little Mohawk and a snap back hat on, and he was drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag. Now when we saw him. We just looked at each other and started laughing because we knew we needed to talk to him. So we went up expecting him to probably be drunk, but he was SUPER nice and was actually interested in having a lesson right then! His friend names Edel came out and we taught both of them on the spot, they both took Books of Mormon, and they seemed excited to read them. It was SOO cool!

 

On Saturday we got to watch conference, which was as always awesome! In between sessions, some of the sisters all went and got ihop and brought it back to the church and we eat at a picnic table. It was really fun.

And on Sunday we pretty much did the same thing :)

 

It was a really good week, I had fun, got to teach, but most importantly, I really felt my testimony of the gospel grow this week. Through study and my own prayers being answered this week I have felt so blessed to have this gospel in my life. I just want you all to know how much I joy it has brought me. I know that Jesus Chirst truly is our savior and redeemer, and that God is there for each of us.

I love you all.

Sister Redd