5-18-15 Hello all!

How has everyone been this week? Mine has been a pretty good one! I made it through my first transfer in the field, so I'm pretty excited about that! This week, I met a lady who lives in our apartment complex who's from Brazil, so I was able to converse with her em Portugues a little bit. That was fun! We've certainly kept busy this week!

So on Tuesday, we had to go to the offices to do a vehicle swap due to the fact that my companion did a little bit of damage to our car concerning the back door and the side of a garage. So we went to swap cars with a couple of Elders who had bikes so we'd be able to get around when our car was in the shop. We felt kind of bad about it, but at the same time, Elders don't have to wear skirts, so we got over it. 

On Tuesday night, we wanted to surprise our ward mission leader and his wife before they got back from a trip to Utah, so we "heart attacked" their front door for his wife and "crashed" his garage door. Pictures will follow, because that's pretty hard to explain. Anyways, we did that at about 8:30 at night, so we felt kind of vandalous and we were praying that nobody would come along and call the cops on us (even though we weren't doing anything wrong, we just looked kind of suspicious.)

Heart Attack on Front Door

Heart Attack on Garage Door

On Wednesday, we had our last zone meeting of the transfer, where we made up a vision for the next transfer and what we wanted to work on for the next six weeks. We came up with "HB (Huntington Beach) Quality Culture. Our new motto is "In HB we do hard things." Which is true. Missionary work is hard, but it's totally worth it. I love the things we get to do as missionaries. When else can you just talk to random people on the streets about Jesus and religion. People look at us like we're crazy, but it's just part of the job! 

Zone Meeting 5-13-15

Friday, we had a specialized meeting for just the sister missionaries. That was pretty nice I guess. We talked about how we should be doing our hair and makeup and dressing, so that was pretty boring. After that there were different trainings about how to control stress and how to be a great missionary pretty much. One sister told us about her conversion story and how Heavenly Father has helped her out of her bad family life and other situations. I was also able to see Sister Magleby, Sister Taylor, and Sister Reisewitz (the other visa waiters)for the last time that day. All three of them received their visas and were able to fly out to Brazil sometime yesterday and today. It was pretty bittersweet, but I can deal with that. I get to stay in California for another transfer and work with the amazing people I've met here, which I'm totally pumped about!

Visa waiters 5-15-15

Saturday was pretty frustrating. On Friday, we had anticipated having our car back, so we switched back with the Elders, but when we got to the office, our car wasn't there, so we were without a car. We borrowed some bikes from a couple of sisters in the zone, so we thought we were okay. Fast forward to Saturday morning. We finish studies and get ready to leave, helmets on, skirts tied, we're ready to go! One little problem: Sister Saintonge cannot ride a bike. We weren't able to get anywhere, so we just went back inside the complex to let her practice a bit. Going back out, we were on our way to an appointment with the ward mission leader, and we were doing pretty well. We made it a couple of blocks down the street and suddenly, Sister Saintonge hits a light pole on the street. After ensuring that she was okay, we continued on to our appointment. However, now Sister Saintonge no longer wants to ride, so she just decided to walk with the bike on her side. I stayed a little in front the whole time riding along. It was a hot day, so it wasn't the best bike ride in the world, but it was more enjoyable than a walk (and much more enjoyable than walking with a bike!) The whole time, I just thought of how nice the wind felt and how fun it is to ride a bike instead of sit in a car, and it worked pretty well to change my attitude. We finally made it to the mission leader's home, covered in sweat and with helmet hair, but we made it!

Yesterday, I was so excited to go to church because we were visited by Bishop Causse of the Presiding Bishopric of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He's French, so Sister Saintonge was pretty excited about it too. When he walked up to shake our hands, she just started spouting off French to him and he just went along with it. At the end of their conversation, he turns to me and says, "She speaks very good French!" and went on his way. So that was pretty fun. He gave a very nice talk in sacrament meeting about his call to one of the Quorums of the 70 and how he and his family reacted to it. He explained the difference between sacrifice and consecration and how we should try to consecrate our lives to Christ and His cause. I really enjoyed his talk. 

Last night I saw a huge duck. Pictures will follow. 

Huge Duck

I hope you all have a great week! If anyone needs a little Lift for the week, check out this video about how service can help us become better people!

Love you all! Have a great week this week!