Missionary Pranks

Some wierd things that have happened over the past few transfers..

For some reason, hiding pictures of people we know around the house and cars has become a thing, as well as in the toilets, in the showers, in our food (thankfully not in that order)  and tons of other places.

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11 Months Today

Today I hit my 11 month mark!

It is so crazy that time flies by SO fast. I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that Mom, Grandma and Grandpa were dropping me off at the MTC. But then I look back at everything that has happened and it's crazy how fast it has all gone by, Some of me hope that it will slow down so I can really enjoy the next 7 months, but part of me is glad it goes so fast so I can see all of you again haha :)

 

Anyways this was a little bit of a slower week, we had a lot of things fall through, but I definitely saw the miracles too.

Really the week was pretty slow until Saturday. Before that is was just typical meeting with people and Teaching, and knocking doors, but nothing out of the ordinary. I did have the chance to have an interview with my mission president, and it was great! I love having time to talk with President Hobbs one on one even if it is just for a few minutes. We talked about a lot of things, but one thing he told me was to read the talk "Becoming Perfect in Christ" by Elder Gerrit W. Gong. If you guys haven't read it, you should it is SO good. It talks all about how we don't need to be perfect NOW, and how we can just be happier. Its good, you all should definitely read it.

Anyways, On Saturday we got to do service. Our Bishops daughter is moving and we got to help move her family. It was soo fun to be able to do service, in our ward, we rarely get to help anyone with anything so it was really fun. But then that night we had Stake Conference. I have never enjoyed church on a Saturday night so much haha. It was really great. We talked a lot about missionary work, and they had a lot of people speak, most of which were converts to the church so it was really cool as they talked about the importance of missionary work. At one point though the Stake President was speaking and he decided to make it a more interactive. He started asking everyone questions and things. At one point he had all the missionaries hold up their missionary handbooks (the rule book essentially for missionaries) so I whipped mine out and held it up. He then called on me and an elder to come up and answer questions about it and how we can help the members help us keep mission rules haha it was SOOO embarrassing but everyone in my ward got a pretty good kick out of it :)

Then Sunday was great! WE had another session of stake conference, this time I was not asked to participate haha, but it was still just as good. Afterwards we had a kind of cool little experience.

So all day we had been trying to be really diligent and not waste ANY time so we were super speedy all day visiting people, and we went to go visit a girl I met a week or 2 ago named Mariland. We go there and she wasn't Home :( but we saw a lady across the street so we went to go talk to her. She had a Cowboys lanyard on and I started talking to her about Texas and found out she was from Fort Worth. After talking a little Sister Cook offered her a FamilySearch.org card. Immediately her demeanor changed and she said "listen im born again Christian, I don't need this" I then explained that the website had nothing to do with our religion but that it was just like Ancestry.com but free. Her Demeanor changed again, "REALLY?! I just quit ancestry because it was too expensive!" she then proceeded to tell us ALL about her family history. Super cool.

Then we started walking down the street and sister cook said "if you feel like we need to knock on any doors let me know" I not really wanting to, said okay and kept walking. We got to the end of the street and I looked at sister cook and said "stop, there something we need to do here" she then said "I know, I was trying to ignore it. I really don't want to go tracting" I told her I didn't want to either. Then we turned around and there was a guy walking out of his house :) we talked to him for about 15 minutes and he seemed semi-interested. But after we talked to him right when we went to the car, Mariland showed up at her house and we set a return appointment with her and her friend! It was small but it was a miracle that the lord stalled us and got us to wait for mariland to come home.

I don't know if it sounds as cook as it was...but it was cool haha.

Anyways that was my little miracle this week.

Sorry I haven't sent any pictures lately, the library here is SUPER slow and I can never get them to send...but I will work on it.

I love and miss you all!

Sister Becca Redd

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had great weeks! Your emails all sounded like you did. Haha it never ceases to amaze me the crazy things you all do. I didn't realize how spontaneous and just how crazy my family and friends are until i was reading it from the outside haha. I love it!

My week was pretty good :)

On Monday I went to good will and got a new skirt :) anyone looking for long skirts, goodwill is the place to go. At least in southern California. Between me and my companion and on other companion, i think we bought 7 skirts? haha it was great :)

On Tuesday was a typical day of visiting people and knocking on doors haha. Thursday was pretty much like that too.

Wednesday was really good. I was on exchanges with a Sister from Tennessee, and we got to teach a new investigator! I LOVE teaching! haha it is so cool to help people understand the gospel and just what it means in their life. I love seeing when it finally clicks for people and they realize the hope that comes with the gospel. It definitely my favorite part of my mission.

Friday I was on exchanges again and it was a really great day. The night before we were planning for the day and i felt so bad because i was having a complete blank on people we could visit. So we planned the best we could and just said a prayer that we would be prompted to just be where we needed to be. As we were going out the next morning we were driving around and just doing our best to find places (our GPS broke so now we use like 7 pages worth of maps) when i recognized some street that i had only ever been to once. I remembered that a former investigator lived there, So we flipped a u-turn and went down it. Her dad had told us to only come after 5:00, but we figured we might as well try. When we knocked on the door, a little Spanish woman came up and we asked for Selia. She got really confused and just walked away. She didn't close the door all the way though so we weren't sure if we should leave. SO we waited about 3 minutes at their door contemplating leaving when the girl showed up! and we set a return appointment with her and she told us she has been wanting to go to church! i t was a miracle! :)

Then Saturday was the BEST!

We went and taught Selia from the day before and she was awesome! Sadly she has a baby though so we are passing her off to Spanish missionaries in the family wards, but it was still so exciting, she was so happy to hear how the gospel would help her :) And after....Our ward had a LUAU! it was sooooo cool. Our ward has a lot of Polynesian people so they put on this huge luau, it had soooo much food, and it was so good haha and it was so pretty, and they had Polynesian dancing. It was awesome. And it was really cool because lots of people brought their friends so it was really great :) Ill have to add picture next week when i get some from the people in our ward.

and lastly Sunday. We had a really great Sunday. AT one point, we were waiting for church to start, and we were passing out the programs when this guy Gabe came over and gave everyone around me and Sister cook hugs. Then Gabe started walking towards me with his arms wide open, about to hug me. I PANICKED haha i like freaked out and just stood up super straight and right before he hugged me he BUSTED up laughing. He just wanted to freak me out and he succeeded haha. But then the rest of the day he kept telling our ward about it and people kept doing the same thing to freak me out. It was horrible....But pretty funny too. haha

Anyways that was my week :) i love and miss you alll soooooooo much!

Hope your next week is good :)

Love Sister Rebecca Redd

This week was great!

i wish i could go into a lot of detail....but i we arent email for super long this week so im going to go through it super fast.

Our investigator Sawyer came to 2 of the ward activities this week, FHE on monday and Volley ball on tuesday. Then on Wednesday we had a really good lesson all about prayer and he told us that he lied when he said he didnt believe in God, but he said he just wasnt sure because on somethings that had happened in his life. BUT it was really cool because his friend (who is a less active member) said he didnt know why prayer was important and Sawyer was teaching him all about it! it was great. Then when we ended the lesson, we asked if we could have a kneeling prayer, and he looked at us for a minutes and said "OH yeah. HECK YEAH!" haha its was great :) on saturday though we found out that he had moved back to riverside for a job and we were so sad because his friend said that he didnt think sawyer would be coming anymore because he is super busy, BUT sawyer still came to church! He made his friend go pick him up from riverside, It was great!

Umm our other investigators didnt do so well but its okay, we are still working with them!

Other things that happened, on exchanges, on of the companionships of sisters that we do exchanges with live with a member who has horses on her property to i got to feed and play with some horses this week.

Ummm....OH! this week, sister Cook and i had to do a training for all the missionaries that are in leadership that are serving in the valley. So there were about 25-30 people. We were a little nervous but not to bad, because it was only supposed to be 10 minutes. So we prepared for that on Thursday and everything was going well, untill we woke up on Friday and sister cooks face was SUper swollen! It was super funny and we had to train with her face all swollen up. Thankfull we covered it up really well, she had bangs and we put her glasses on and used a lot of make up to cover up the redness. We are pretty sure it was a spider bite but were not sure. Either way its gone now haha.

I think that gets most of the highlights i think.

Anywas i need to go soon so i will write you all next week. I love and miss you all :)

Becca

Miracle week!

This week was a miracle!!

Sister Cook and I have been trying so hard to do our best in this area and i feel like this week we really saw the blessings from it.

Miracle #1 on Tuesday we went to teach a recent convert we have been working with who has been struggling a lot lately. Normal she is always a lone at her house and but when we got there she was yelling something at someone up stairs, when we went in she told us that she had a friend upstairs. She initially said he wasn't interested, but with a little push she called him down stairs and we got to teach Arthur our first investigator lesson in probably 2 months. It was so AWESOME!

Miracle #2 on Wednesday almost the same thing happened. I was on exchanges with a Sister who was just reassigned here from Ukraine, We were having a weird day BUT it was like 8:00 and we had an appointment set up with a less active that we've been struggling to met with and we go over and he has a friend there with him! We started to teach the Restoration but Sawyer (the friend) told us he didn't believe in God, but that he wanted to and we just had this amazing lesson with him and it was sooo good!

Miracle #3 On Saturday we went on exchanges to with some sisters who are in a brand new area, and so we spend 7 hours tracting. and there is no exaggeration in that. We knocked doors for 7 hours and the rest of the time we were walking to and from referrals they had and street contacting people. By the end of the day my feet were killing me, i was SUPER burned (yes i now have a sweet t-shirt tan) and i was a little frustrated that NO ONE let us in, BUT then sister Cook came to exchange back and she had taught 2 of our potential investigators, and met and taught a new investigator. made mad a total of 5 that week!!!

Miracle #4

On Sunday Sawyer came to church! He stayed all 3 hours and an extra hour for linger longer. He was so awesome, he was participating in class and he was loving it (Except the singing) It was so exciting. And him and his Friend Jerry (the less active that we've been teaching)  made plans with some of our ward member to come to FHE and then go to the beach on Friday. It was so awesome!!!

Ahh it was just the best week in a LONG TIME haha we were so excited and it has just strengthened my testimony that God is always mindful of what we are doing, and that if we are working hard, and doing whats right he sees it, and will bless us for it.

Other then that....I had a really awkward encounter of a guy asking my on a date...  i tried to explain to him that i was a missionary and didn't date for 18 months, but that we would love to teach him about the gospel...he then said he didn't want to talk to us for 18 months until we weren't missionaries.... My companion and I had a GOOD LONG laugh at that later, but it was so creepy at the time.

Anyways I hope you are all having a good summer so far :)

thanks for always writing me

I love you all, and i love being a missionary :)

Sister Becca Redd

Another Transfer Week

I only have little time this week,

But here are some Highlights, and ill start with Wednesday since i wrote on Tuesday.

Wednesday...Zone conference. It was so good, we met with all the stake presidents and our mission president and just talked about how we can work better with the members. It was super helpful and me and sister Cook are already seeing the blessing from it!

Thursday...a lot happened but the only thing i really wanted to write was that we had a lesson fall through again. Which was a bummer but, randomly i felt like we needed to go follow up with a guy we met who wasn't super interested in taking the lessons but was really nice so we had invited him to church (this was like 3 weeks ago). So we went and he was in his front yard and when we got out of the car and pointed at us and said, "THIS WEEK! ill be there this week!" We were so excited because he didn't really expect him to take us up on our offer to come to church.

Saturday... Was NUTS! it was transfer call day, so our whole zone met together and had lunch. everyone but one companionship had been with their companions for 2 transfers already. SO we though about 1/2 of us were leaving. BUT only 1 elder left the zone! which is nuts, our mission president only moved people if they were training. Which is CRAZY and never happens, so... Sister cook, Christensen, Brown and I will all be staying in our apartment for another Transfer!

Sunday.... We FINALLY had a non-member come to church with us!!! SO Freddie (the guy from Thursday) came to church! It was so awesome, we he only stayed the first hour, but we had the BEST testimony meeting ever! he was really touched by everything our members said, and at the end he looked at us and told us it was way different then his church, but that he liked it a LOT, he said he like how peaceful it was and how sincere everyone was. And then he said he was going to bring his sister Next time! Plus that night we got an awesome referral!

It was a great week. I'm so excited to keep working in this ward :)

I love and miss you all. Thank you for writing me about you weeks, i love hearing from you guys :)

Love sister Redd