Sister Riley Dorrance's California Arcadia Mission: WEEK 5

On top of a random roof with a pretty view

WOOT WOOT

I never know how to start these things.

Last Tuesday after emailing we taught Steven, who my companions have been teaching for a while. And I extended my first baptism invitation! He's such a cool guy and he said yes to getting baptized on November 4th! Holy cow guys. I was stoked. I'm still stoked. Then on Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders! We knocked so many doors that day. We got rejected so many times. It was crazy. BUT we made some contacts and met a couple potential investigators. It's really difficult to find people here in the East Pasadena ward, because nobody really wants to talk to us, and the members are so so great, but we haven't gotten a lot of referrals. But it's okay because we're making these people mega-ready for the next missionaries.

Basically Thursday-saturday was a whole lot of rejection and a little bit of make yourself feel better frozen yogurt. But on Friday we did meet with this guy named Enrique who is so so smart and he's a member of maybe 2 or 3 years, but I think he just likes to talk to the missionaries. Pretty weird guy, but we had an awesome talk about the Book of Mormon.

I TURNED A WHOLE MONTH OLD ON FRIDAY. SUPER WEIRD. I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DAYS AND 80 YEARS ALL AT THE SAME TIME. But it's pretty cool.

Yesterday we went and talked to a bunch of less active members to see how they were doing and we ended up at this couple's house for maybe 45 minutes. Let me tell you about the Jeanmaries. He is this little man from the carribean and she is a small asian lady. Both have thick accents from where they're from, and both of them talk like you wouldn't believe. I understood less than half of that whole conversation and by the end we left with two grocery bags of food and a stuffed animal for all three of us. It made my whole week I think. She kept telling me that since I'm the newest one, if I ever get homesick to just go over to her house and she'll put me right to work and I'll forget all about it.

Yesterday was stake conference too, it was awesome! We had Elder Dyches from the 70 presiding, and he gave an awesome talk about building up families and building up testimonies. He said, "keep it simple, build it strong, and make it work."

Today we had our zone activity and we played Wilson ball which is basically dogeball, but every man for himself. It's pretty intense. The elders all started racing each other in the parking lot, and this one elder who I'm pretty sure is 7 ft tall lost pretty much every time.

Missionary work is super difficult, but I love love love being a missionary and getting rejected isn't really that bad. Especially when we get yelled at in Spanish and I don't actually understand what they're saying. But I am learning Spanish, it's just going to take about 5 years at the rate I'm going. Anyway, I love being a missionary and I miss fall in Utah. It's 90 degrees and sunny here.

Love, Sister Dorrance