Little Ms. Missionary: Letter #41 (June 31, 2014)

Missionary time is so strange. I feel like I just emailed all of you at this Laundromat yesterday, and I'm already doing it again! Crazy. Seriously though, time flies by so fast! It's insane.

Okay, so let's see if I can even remember what happened this week.

Okay, so first of all, we did some service at a less active/part member family's ( the Diaz family) house. The mom is a member but the kids and husband are not. We had stopped by the week before and Sister Diaz just seemed really frazzled. So we helped her fold their clothes (while her teenagers watched) and then set an appointment to help her clean her daughter's room next (so this past) week. So we go to do that and there was just so much underlying contention and disrespect between the girl and her mom. Not saying that me and my mom always got along, but it was just so sad to see because I know that their relationship, and just their priorities in general, would be so much better if they were living the gospel. They had so much focus on material things and so didn't really have family relationships or righteous living or anything very high up on their priority lists. It made me so grateful to have grown up in a home where we were taught the value of saving our money and, more importantly, the value of having a close family.

In contrast, we just had dinner with this awesome member family last night. They are all just so sweet and just really good, righteous people. They obviously have a desire to do missionary work and help their friends to find more happiness in their lives through living the gospel. It really made me ink about what things will be like when I have a family, and I just really want to have a family like theirs. They still had material goods, they had a nice house and a pool and nice clothes and things, but that didn't seem to be high on their priority lists. It was just such a testimony builder for me of how much happier and more loving families are when their focus is on the gospel and on each other. I just love them.

Same idea with another member family we met this week. There is a single mother and her 7 year old daughter that we visited with this week. We sat in their very humble and messy home in teensy little kid chairs (because we insisted that they sit on the couch, not us) and I just have rarely felt happier or felt more love for anyone in my life. I can't really explain it. The girl's dad died in a plane crash, so it is just the two of them and you can just tell that they love each other so much and that even e little girl just loves the gospel so much. Crystal (the mom) could have easily been bitter about their situation, but instead she was just beaming with a sweet inner joy and just bore sweet testimony to us that she loves the Savior and knows that He has overcome all for us. I had a hard time not crying as she said probably the sweetest prayer I have ever heard and I did cry a little bit when I got home. I just have he best job in the world. Most people would find sitting in a mini chair in a tiny, messy home to be not quite ideal. But I just felt that there was no where else I would rather be. I was just so filled with love in that moment.

Anyway, ow that I have gushed a little bit. The rest of the week!

Miracles continue to happen in this area. One example is Jennie Supa-Wong (coolest name of your life no?) She is a former investigator that has a member sister in another ward. We tried to find her a couple of weeks before, but never managed to. So then this week we were locking our bikes and this lady walks towards us (she was walking a dog) and starts talking to us. We talk for a second and she tells us that she has met with missionaries before. And then when we ask her name, it is (of course) Jennie Supa-Wong! (Which doesn't sound nearly as cool when she says it in her Thai accent.) So we set an appointment with her and taught her for the first time this week.

Another miracle happened the day we taught Jennie and is going to sound rather strange. My companion got a flat tire. Why is that a miracle? It's not. The miracle is where. We were on our way to Jennie's house for our appointment when we got off of our bikes. Sister Fjeldsted found a thorn in her tire and it deflated right after she found it. Luckily this happened right across the street from my (and Sister Fjeldsted's who also served in Pasadena) old apartment. Which also happened to be very close to Jennie's house. So we rolled our bikes to our old apartment (the six pad that unused to live in is actually in Huntington ward boundaries), opened the garage with the garage code, left our bikes there, and walked to our appt. After the appointment, we walked to a member's house (who happened to live very close by) and she drove us home to get a tire repair kit. Of everywhere she could have gotten a flat tire, Sister Fjeldsted got one in the one part of our area where here was somewhere that we could quickly store our bikes, our investigator's house, AND members who could help us fix it. Now that's a miracle. AND we saw some people near the six pad that we later got a referral for! What!? Yeah. Pretty much.

Lots more happened this week, but I'm going to stop more.

I love you all. I love being a missionary. I love this gospel!

~Sister Kretchman

Crazy car they saw