Week 55 - We're building.

Companionship! 

This week was pretty uneventful! It's alright though because we talked to a ton of people and it was great! Because we got transferred to the family ward and  we're opening the area we are just talking to literally every person we see and trying to build our teaching pool! The people of Glendale need to hear about the gospel! It's a party though because we meet the most interesting people! 

This week we also got special permission from President to go to the L.A stake center for church with our mid singles ward to see our friend Davinder get confirmed! It was magnificent. I didn't take pictures of the inside of the building because I didn't know if that was against the rules but that's okay because it was still really pretty. The funny part though was that the member that took us accidentally picked us up early because she though it started a half an hour earlier and so she drove past the Hollywood walk of fame and the Chinese theater on the way  it was so cool! Famous people! 

Sister Escalante and I felt especially fabulous though when the member that was talking us home (because we had to leave after the first hour) showed up in a beautiful black mustang. We felt so fly and it was BEAUTIFUL. 

Other than that we're just building our group of buddies that want to learn about the true church! 

Don't forget to read your scriptures!

Sister Dorrance 

The church that looks like a temple!

 The mustang 

Your face when you wake up with bed head + humidity hair

Our roommates who were burning their negative feelings on our patio

Week 54 - Alrighty pals. This week was a party.

Davinder!

On Monday and most of Tuesday Sister Escalante and I were cruising through missionary work having a wonderful time minding our own business and we got a call from one of the APs who told us they were with President and Sister Wells and they were wondering if we had a minute. We said, "sorry, we don't really have a minute, but is there something that we need to know?" And he said nope, everything's fine we'll call you at 9:30 tonight." So we continued on our merry way with a little less skip in our step and a little more stress. But anyway, 9:30 did eventually roll around on Tuesday night and they told us that we are both being transferred out of the YSA ward and being transferred into the family ward! We're now sharing the family ward with the AP's because "there are so many people that they're teaching that they're struggling to find time for them all." So that's what went down! It's sad to be out of YSA but it's so fun to be back in a family ward! Weve just been visiting and meeting so many people! Plus, there really are a ton of people that want to hear the gospel in this area and we are blessed! 

We taught a ton of people this week and we're super excited! In other news, we still cover the Glendale 9th mid singles ward and we had a baptism yesterday! Davinder was baptized! It was beautiful! Anyway, all is well in zion and the work is still progressing and all that jazz! Its a wonderful time to be alive! Share the gospel with your friends! 

Don't forget to read your scriptures! 

Sister Riley Dorrance 

Pictures from on top of Forest Lawn Mortuary 

Week 53 - WAIT. I HIT ONE YEAR???

temple visitors center! It's so great! Take your friends!

Alright team, so I've been out for a year. You know what that means? Exactly. I've been out for a year. Good talk. This email' s gonna be short because we're going to go and see Michael Jackson's grave. But it was a good week! Sister Escalante and I were able to go to the temple on Tuesday for a meeting with some other missionaries and it was WONDERFUL. I love the temple! We're working really hard on trying to build relationships with members and get them to let us teach their friends! (Side note: share the good news of the gospel with your friends!) And so it's been really hard ( fantastic) work to build the relationships because we're going to all of the activities! So its been a wonderful week and we've also been finding a lot of people on our own and it's a beautiful life to live as a missionary! We talked to this man on the street who's trying to learn English and it was so cute because all he wanted to do was ask us if he was saying words and sentences in English right and holy smokes, our language is so hard. But it was so good. We talked to this guy named Warren who had the coolest gold grille I've ever seen and he thinks that running into us was a sign from God that he needs to come to church. It totally was. We also talked to this man named Ricky who is a vet and he talked to us all about how many religions he's tried out and how he watched a video about how archaeologists found proof that there actually were horses when the Book of Mormon says there were (shocking) and so Joseph Smith isn't a crook! And he watched this video and he kept wondering about where he'd heard of Joseph Smith before and we called two days later. So God has great timing always. 

Alrighty pals. Keep the faith. Don't forget to read your scriptures! 

Sister D'orrance

we went to the DI today and I wasn't that impressed because they're everywhere in Utah, but sister escalante is from Canada and so we took a picture! 

 various zone pictures feat. Sister escalante and I not knowing what to do with a bunch of elders. 

Week 50-52 - The one that makes up for not emailing for a few weeks??????

Finally got a real haircut after a year out

Hello everybody!! 

I've been really enjoying not writing a weekly email for a little while, but I've received complaints from my mission resources department (aka. Mom) so here we are again!

I've been great! I was in a trio all of last transfer and it was a magical time! We all managed to get pretty sick in different ways but all at the same time at the end of the transfer so that was cool. We got to know the doctors office in Glendale pretty well. 

People we're working with! 

ALISA! holy smokes this story is a trip let me tell you. She has the sweetest testimony ever. She's this sweet southern lady that was excited to talk to missionaries because she missed talking about Jesus with people and she knows the church is true because our tithing doesn't go to preachers and the book of mormon answers all of her questions about the bible! So we've been working with Alisa for about three months or so and we taught her the word of wisdom and she's a smoker of about 15 years and a coffee drinker for about 40 years and she just about kicked us out of her house when we told her that God wanted her to quit both. She's also from Oklahoma so when we told her that included sweet tea she almost cried. It was really sad. But we've been meeting with her a few times a week every week and so we know her pretty well. She calls us her Jesus girls and it's the greatest. So we taught her that and she said she'd think about it, but that she'd have to talk it over with God because she wanted to be sure. She says she has an open line straight up to heaven and she's tuned in 24/7. She's going to be a powerhouse when she gets the gift of the holy ghost. So we taught her that and we were helping her work through her questions and things. We did a full 24 hour fast for her to stop drinking coffee and smoking and i kid you not, the very next day after 40 years, she didn't even want her cup of coffee. MIRACLES. Then she got a blessing from the elders! That was one of the sweetest blessings I've ever witnessed, and she LOVED IT. She still talks about it and it was a couple weeks ago. But then everything changed when her preacher attacked (only jokes, her preacher didn't actually attack). 

The elders gave her a blessing on a Friday and that very next morning her preacher took it upon himself to send her a whole bunch of anti-mormon stuff about polygamy and race and all of this stuff and it shook her so bad she was in bed for two days questioning her faith. Then when we came over and talked to her about it she wasn't so much worried about the church not being true,  she wanted to pack us into her car and take us back to Oklahoma to keep us safe from the creepy men marrying little girls. It was sweet really. But we talked her through that and helped her see that if we actually believed those things then we would've gotten into the car with her. So she was good for a week and she had worked up the courage to come to church the next Sunday and THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN and her friend from Oklahoma was texting her about this being a cult and a bunch of other stuff and it put her back in bed for two days again. So that was sad. She actually told us that she was going to just stop meeting with us and have church in her apartment on Sunday mornings. But then we told her that sister vanSon and sister kang were both getting transferred (oh yeah, I have a new companion), and she said she wanted to say goodbye to them! So we got back into her house and we talked her through it again and put her on date for October 7th! 

But then yesterday morning she texted us and told us she's moving back to Kansas and she's just going to find the true church there. So we went over yesterday morning just to drop off little notes to say goodbye and not push her to join the church or anything and she caught us so we went inside and it turns out that she didnt want to find a different true church (which is an oxymoron) she wanted to find the real true church in Kansas because she hates LA. So that was a relief and she's still going to get baptized and I just love her to pieces and I'm sad I won't be there for her baptism, but she's the greatest ever. So that's Alisas story and she's going to do fantastic things in Kansas and in the world and she's going to be a great member of the church when she does get baptized. 

Hmmmm that's all I really want to write about....  

We're working with some other cool people, but most of them have stopped talking to us.... So we're working on finding. If any of you happen to have any really good friends that live in the Glendale area and want to learn about the true gospel of Jesus Christ, then you can use that handy dandy referral button on lds tools and send them our way! We're over the singles wards right now. Just fyi. 

Oh! My new companion! Her name is Sister Escalante and she's from Toronto Canada and she's great and we're working hard!  

Don't forget to read your scriptures! 

Sister D'orrance

ALISA!

Trio in the car

chilling in the doctors office waiting room trying not to spread germs

Face masks with the trio

Big hat feat. Sister kangs arm

Sister kang and yours truly feat. Big hat

Homie lookin real fly with her salad

there was a pretty view! 

Week 48-49 - This one's a good one

Aaron! My buddy! 

Baptism! Left to right: Rick (ward mission leader), Manuel, Sister Kang, Sister vanSon, yours truly, Victor

Alrighty kiddos. 

This week was so funny. Thats kind of all I can explain it as... SO. 

I didn't write an email last week because I didn't want to, buuuuuuut we put Manuel on date two weeks ago, AND HE GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY. It was truly a beautiful day he's so cool. For those of you that don't read every single one of my emails (aka everyone except my mom and my grandma), Manuel came to church because he talked to missionaries a year and a half ago and decided he was missing something in his life so he thought he'd check it out and we put him on date for baptism his first lesson but he got super busy and wasn't able to meet with us for about a month but THEN HE DID TWO WEEKS AGO and we put him on date for yesterday and it was wild. We had his interview on Saturday and our mission president recently made a rule that people need to be keeping the word of wisdom for two weeks to be baptized but because we had put him on date for such a close date we weren't able to teach him that principle until last Monday but he wasn't even addicted to coffee, he had no problems whatsoever keeping it but he had drank coffee on Sunday and so our district leader told him he had to make a new goal to be baptized and he was so sad and so we set a new date and everything but we were like "heck no, he needs to get baptized tomorrow" so we called our mission president and told him the whole story and he WAVED THE RULE. It was a miracle and a tender mercy if I ever saw one and it was the greatest. So he got baptized yesterday and it was BEAUTIFUL! 

Thursday was pretty funny. So we went to visit Alisa because the second ward was having a garden party and we wanted her to get to know the ward better so we went over there to get her to go and she wasn't going to go because she hated her hair and she didn't have anything to wear and so we said, "well, sister kang knows how to dye hair and sister vanSon knows how to sew so her son Eric went and got some hair dye, and Sister Kang dyed her hair and sister vanSon waved her magic sewing fingers and fixed a little romper thing into a cute tunic type dress thing! I was in charge of moral support and comedic relief and despite some of my worst work, we got her to go to this garden party! It was a beautiful day and they had this peach lemonade there and it tasted like unicorn pee or something it was so good. 

On Friday we went to the weirdest birthday party ever. It was for one of the people we're teaching and they had completely authentic Chinese food so I got to try chicken feet and pork stomach and cow liver and bamboo and pork with the skin still on and it was all pretty gross but that's okay because the lady topped it off with some apple juice and cheesecake. So that was interesting. Our friend really enjoyed himself though so that was good!

Today we went to the Korean market! It was so fun! Sister Kang was so excited because she found all this stuff that she used to have when she was little and we got some really good Korean food at this food court thing and it was a party and a half. She's gonna cook us dinner! 

Alright, I'm out of time! 

Don't forget to read your scriptures!

- Sister Dorrance 

Cool mural!

We found some cute glasses to to drink our tampico out of

Home girl with some really tasty Korean drink

Week 47 - The one where I turned 21 🍻🍻🤘

Heyyy not a lot of time but. I'm 21 now. Which means one step closer to being able to sing Taylor Swift's song "I'm Feelin 22" without being a poser. My birthday was a party though! I can now buy alcohol so we had ice cream with a member to celebrate! I was also feeling dramatic so I figured I would run over a curb and blow a tire just for kicks and giggles. That's exactly right. All on purpose. Anyway.... 

This week was good though! Alisa came to church! She was so cute. She was so excited to come to church, and she's from Oklahoma, so she said, " you know, I been need-in to come to church so bad that if y'all hadnt come and got me I'd a walked." And she stayed for all three hours and she LOVED IT. It was the cutest thing in the whole world and I was so excited that she came! Because Alisa goes to the family ward and we're over the singles wards, we went to the family ward at 9, mid-singles ward at 11 and young-singles ward at 1. It was a full day. It was SO so good though. Most of this week has just been finding. We stopped teaching a bunch of people because they weren't really putting in any effort, so we talked to a ton of people and some of the people we found are actually really awesome! We also got kissed on the cheek by an Armenian man this week, and it was just really awkward. He was really old and shorter than I am, but it was so funny. He's such a sweetheart. We also has a lady tell us that she's married to Jesus. I don't know where they met, but I hope she's happy.  

Don't forget to read your scriptures!

- Sister Dorrance

Here's me with my tire, and me with some ice cream

Week 46 - The one with 25 bug bites😅😅

This week was busy! On Tuesday we packed up all our junk and sister Swapp and I said goodbye which was super sad, but we'll see each other tomorrow at MLC so all is well! My new companion sister Kang (pronounced Kong) came and we all went to our new apartment in Los Angeles! Sister Kang is from south Korea originally but lives in nova Scotia now. We live right across the street from Forest Lawn where Michel Jackson is buried, so I guess you could say we're livin fancy. We had a lesson on Tuesday with a lady named Maria who's super cute and she wants her sons to stop fighting with each other so she invited us back! Her son Lloyd is 11 and he was STOKED about the Book of Mormon. It was the greatest. We're passing them off to the family ward elders, but it was so fun to talk with them, and we had a fantastic lesson with them too! On Wednesday we picked up Sister Vanson! She's from Alberta Canada! I'm gonna pick up an accent and start calling the bathroom the washroom, just you wait. It's a party and a half though. By Thursday I somehow managed to get 25 bug bites and I'm not sure where we went, but it was a pretty itchy situation. () 

This week was pretty busy with getting people and things settled in and all of us figuring out how to do stuff but it was good. We had some solid lessons with Alisa this week and we got her a dress so she could come to church and that was so cool. She was so excited to come to church! She got all ready to go and was in her car on her way here and the plastic thing under her car broke and she couldn't come. It was SO sad. We're going to have to move her date back, but it's going to happen for sure. She wants to be baptized so badly! 

We put Davi on date for baptism! She's been coming to church all on her own for a couple of months and just recently decided that she wanted to be baptized so she could go to the ward temple trip and do baptisms for the dead in October! She's so awesome, and she's so excited and ready to officially become a member of the church. It's the greatest thing! 

We finally were able to set an appointment with Manuel! He wants to get baptized, but his work got super duper busy and he's been coming to church every week but he lives kinda far away and we just haven't been able to meet with him but we set another appointment with him! It's gonna be great! Out appointments on my birthday too so happy birthday to me! Haha

This week was really good though and our trio is so fun and this transfers gonna be a blast 

Don't forget to read your scriptures!

Sister D'orrance

Here's the best picture we got this week! #thathighlightthough #itsactuallysweat #humidityisnoonesfriend