Aug 19, 2013

Hermana Hammer and I

Well this week has been good but hard.  Sad leaving Hermana Miller and saying goodbye to investigators from Mercy Springs.  Luckily I can still see them at church, but won't get to work with them.  Wednesday we drove down to Fresno and swapped companions.  Hermana Hammer is great.  She was born in Ireland!!!  Her birth mother was 14 and didn't know how to take care of her and so the grandma called CPS and Hermana Hammer and her little brother were put up for adoption when she was 5 and moved to Dallas Texas.  She joined the church almost 2 years ago this October.  Her testimony is very powerful and sweet.  I'm excited to work with her.  She is very energetic and spontaneous.  It's good, but at times it's overwhelming.  Hopefully I can deal with it and not get frustrated or angry.  You know me, I like my quiet moments or "stop being annoying".  Ha ha.. The mission may have changed me in other ways, but I still need my space. :)

Madera Grape Vineyard

Long vines, Where do I cut it?

Mmmm

Saturday we met at the church at 6:00am to head to the vineyard there in Madera.  It was very exciting but let's just say I do not want to harvest grapes.  Too complex.  The head guy was giving directions and all of us were just staring with blank expressions.  Hermana Hammer and I for sure ruined the harvest for next year. Ha ha..  What you had to do was cut the old branches off where there were 2 new branches on each side that were long enough to reach the fence.  I had no clue what were the new branches verses the old ones.  They all look the same to me!  Some were easy to tell  while others we had no clue.  There was a good turn out though so the job got done in 2 hours.  Our ward has 2 rows so it wasn't much.  We might be going back this Saturday to collect all the grapes we missed.  I nibbled on a lot and they were delicious! :)  We might go back this Saturday to collect all the grapes we missed.  Montserrat even said she might go with us!

On our way to email today, we locked up the house and realized the house keys are inside.  So we broke in through the window and found them.  Hermana Hammer said she wanted to have fun today!  I showed her the fun of trying to break in!  I am not good with keys.  That was Hermana Miller's job.

We have been visiting with Montserrat again.  Her mom let us start coming again.  And teaching her we found out what's holding her back.  I know she can be forgiven of her past, but it will be hard for her to know that herself.  She brought Joshua to church with her yesterday so that was good!  This Saturday we are having a ward movie night and watching The Other Side of Heaven.  President Gelwix told us we can go as long as we have an investigator with us.  So we are praying Montserrat will go because we really want to go!!  Not sure if I mentioned that we watched Forever Strong the other week with the Lagunas family.  It was so funny to see the connections with what Pres Gelwix says.  A lot of what is said in the movie is said in Zone Conferences.  It was fun seeing him in the movie (he's one of the ref's in yellow).  That movie just brings a whole new meaning to me now.  Great movie.

Watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with the Alvarado-Calixtro's.  They really liked it and believe Joseph Smith was a prophet.  They want to go to the temple.  The dad (Carlos) broke down in tears as he told us that they have a son that died.  He is hurt that many tell them that God just needed him.  He loves that we can be sealed and with our families forever.  The only thing that is keeping this family back is that they don't understand baptism in this church.  I don't know how to push their beliefs further and help them understand.  We will teach them authority again and pray that they can understand and want to be baptized in this church.

Funny story.  We were visiting a Less Active: Mary Opdyke.  She's an elderly lady and just loves to talk away.  She has 2 dogs and is just an animal lover. We called it service after 2 hours of her talking to us.  But as we were there I noticed a bunch of deep scratches on her arms and wondered how she got them.  I was scared she had fallen.  One of her dogs came in and started licking them.  She then told us how she got them.  She was out weeding and fell and the weeds cut her.  Well this weed started growing in the cut.  So she went to the doctor and they asked her "What's that on your arm?" and she replies "a weed" (nonchalantly).  I couldn't help but laugh thinking she was joking, but I guess it really is growing out of her arm!  She teased and said she should spray her arm with weed killer to see if that would take care of it.  I have just never heard of that happening!  I thought of the Odd Life of Timothy Green.  

The Elders here are Elder Badford and Elder Andersen.  I mention them because they might not make it through this transfer.  Ha ha..  We laugh that they are going to kill each other.  It will be interesting working with them.  Our new district is all spanish.  District meetings are going to be awful now with them having to be in spanish.  The District leader is Elder Neeves from Australia.  He's different.  Hopefully he loosens up.  This is actually his last transfer!  Can you believe that I only have 6 transfers left?  I'm in my 6th transfer being here and have 6 more.  Half way!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

- hermana Sorensen