I Had No Idea It Would Be So Hard To Leave My Area

This has been a crazy day and I don't even know where to start.

Saturday was transfer calls and this morning were the changes. I had no idea it would be so hard to leave my area. I love it there so much and it was really hard saying goodbye to the people and the ward. I guess it is just so hard because my whole mission has been there, and everything I know is there.  I am now here in Anaheim with sister Longoria (who was in the MTC with Eric), and also sister Henrie.

Disneyland

Sister Henrie was actually called to Spain and is just here until her visa comes and we don't know when that will be. We are training her until she leaves, and we will only know like a day or two ahead of time. They are both so sweet and I am super excited to work with them.

I know that it will be good to change and it will be good to have new experiences in this area. By the way, Disneyland is in our area.

Wahoo! Well, things were great for my last week in Orange. _______ came to the christmas devotional and brought a friend (different friend than the ones he brought to church) He is an amazing missionary. We also taught _________ who has a lot of problems in his life, but has a sincere desire to change. He accepted a baptism date and seems to be doing really well. I am grateful for the miracles that we were able to see before I left. _________ was able to receive the priesthood on Sunday and he is going really well.  This week all of the Catholics were celebrating the Virgin Maria's birthday and there were huge groups of people marching down the street holding a huge statue of her. It was... quite the experience. There was also a big Virgin Mary party next to _______'s house and there were people who we've taught in there and they brought us tacos and said that we can come back later to pray with them. It was funny. 

Mom I got the packages. Thank you so much! I feel very spoiled and was not expecting that out here on the mission. I'm glad you sent makeup remover because mine is almost out. I was super excited for you homemade hot chocolate, and stuff to make a cheese ball. I will save the presents to open on Christmas... maybe one on Christmas eve cause I can't break the tradition of course. 

Anyway, about the calling on Christmas  I have no idea what time but hopefully I will know next Monday.  What time would work best for you all? They actually gave us permission to Skype this time if we want but I don't remember my account and I don't know the members in my new area, so it all depends if we can find someone who would let us use their computer that day. 

I am excited if I get to room with Alta! What is Brittany Nenneman doing? Thanks for everything. Love you all and I hope I answered all of your questions.

Anyway, sorry this is a really short email but I can't think right now because it has been a crazy day. I love you all! Thanks for all of the Christmas cards! :)

Six Month Mark - Already!

Sisters Breitenstein & Layton at a Ward Activity - apparently held in Texas

Hello my dearest family!

We have had a great week. We have been trying to figure out new ideas for finding people so we decided to start teaching English classes. We are planning on doing them 2 days a week starting on the 18th. 

We will start the classes with a prayer and spiritual thought, and then end with a prayer. This Sunday we started inviting the members and asking them to bring friends and we've also been puting flyers all around our area. A couple people have called asking about them, and we have seen people pull our flyers down and take them, or read them and put the number in their phone. Missionaries have done this before and lots of them have had success stories, but others have tried it and it hasn't worked out in their area. We are going to see how many people come for the first few times and see if it is worth our time. We will see what happens though. The sisters from another area sent us their lesson plans that we are planning on using. :) 

My 4th of July was great! It was just like every other day and our exchanges got changed so I wasn't by the Disneyland fireworks for the 4th... but guess what.. the 4th of July was my 6 month mark! Woah, time flies! I really think the time needs to slow down. I just love being out here so much. 

This Saturday I went on exchanges with the sign language sisters. It was so cool watching them communicate. I learned how to pray in sign language, but thats about it. It was a fun day. 

Sister Breitenstein and I get to be companions again this transfer. I am so excited! She is the driver this time though. They made a new Spanish zone, so we have 3 zones now instead of 2. Ours is really small now. Our President asked for some more Spanish speaking missionaries so it will grow eventually. 

The other good news is that we have 2 more sisters in out zone now! Wooo! Growing up with all brothers, I always wanted sisters... and being around so many Elders all the time, has really made me want sisters even more! Haha! 

We are changing apartments this Friday. I am so happy. The Cockroaches are nasty. I was sitting on the couch and a big one crawled accross me. I screamed so loud and think I really scared my companion. Haha! But lets just say I am so grateful that we are moving. We are going to have washers and dryers in the new apt! Wahoo! :) Anyways, thanks everyone for the letters. Love you all. Thank you Nennemans for the cookies! :)

Also, dad I just have to tell you, everyone loved that "Biggest piece of Sacrament bread" pic that you sent me. Too funny. :) Oh, and just one question... How is Ginger? :) Haha... Love you all so much! :)

The Gospel Can Change Lives For the Better



Sister Layton at a Ward Party

Hola familia!

The sisters activity this week was a lot of fun. It is nice to hang out with sisters sometimes since our zone and distrect is all Elders.

We did a lot of tracting this week because so many of our appointments fell through. We had 17 set appointments this week with some pretty awesome people, and all of them fell through except for two. It makes me sad because these people don't know what they are missing out on.

The gospel can change lives for the better and so many people dont understand how great is is until they try living it. We changed the appointments for some of them and the others just weren't home when we went. Mom, you asked about the lady who had a dream about us. We went back this week to visit her but she was walking out as we got there. We are planning on going back soon but we haven't taught her again since then. 

Sisters Activity

We were planing on going by Sunday to try to get her to come to church but we got a phone call of an old lady who wanted us to come talk to her friend. She said that her friend was asking her about the Book of Mormon and wanted to know more about it. We happened to be right around the corner when she called so we told her we could stop by right then. We thought it was going to be a house and that she was talking about her neighbor but it was a rehabilitation center, and this elderly lady was talking about her nurse. The nurse had asked her about the Book of Mormon when she was reading it so she wanted to call us. When we got there we gave her nurse a Book of Mormon but she didn't really want anything to do with it so she walked out and the old lady started talking to us. We couldn't get out because she was talking so much and we didn't want to be rude. I have to figure out how to just tell people when we have to go though because we ended up not having time to get any of our investigators before church which was really sad.

My companion and I have like 4 old ladies in their 80's that we are teaching right now and we dont really know what do do about it because they just agree with everything that we say but I dont think they really understand much at all. I think they just like having people there to talk to them.

Sister Layton With Local Children

This week I am going on exchanges with the sign language sisters. They cover the entire mission, and I have heard that it is a completely different experience than working in the spanish areas. I'm excited for that. I wont be with my companion for the 4th of July, but I will be pretty close to the Disneyland fireworks which will be fun.

Mom to answer your questions, it is really hot here but I am not complaining. You know how I love the heat. :) You asked if you think I will be with Hermana Breitenstein for a while.. we have no idea whats going to happen but hopefully we will be together for a while. We have one week until transfers so we will find out soon if we are going to be together for another one. Hopefully we will though. And yes, training has been over for a while now. It is nice just having one hour of companion study instead of two.

It sounds like Curtis had a great birthday. Mom, way to beat the guys at bowling. We did that for our zone activity a couple of weeks ago, it was pretty fun. We usually still play soccer for the activities. I love it so much!

I heard that that Olympics are starting soon. Are you going to watch them? Oh and also, there are cockroaches all over my appartment. It's nasty. Haha. We have had the bug guys come spray our appartment but both times the cockroaches doubles in amount and trippled in size. Ewww! Haha! Oh and mom, I made banana bread this week. Yum. Good bye my dearest family. :)

Love, Hermana Tarde Sobre