Letter #49 (September 1, 2014)

Where does the time go!? It's Monday already? What?!

This week was SO GOOD. We taught four lessons with a member present,
which is a new record for us in this area. I love this ward, but it is
kind of a tough area. I love it's though. We've been very blessed this
week with referrals. There are Chinese and Spanish missionaries that
work in our area, so we get a lot of referrals from them and from the
Pasadena Sisters since they live in our area. We started teaching a
few of our referrals, which was great! We also went to see this really
sweet less active lady and her grandson was there and we taught him
the Restoration! She would chime in every so often and explain things
too, it was really cool. Her grandson is 25 and just so open to
learning. He doesn't actually live in our area, so we got his
information to send to YSA the missionaries where he lives. I'm really
excited for him!

We also got a referral this week that was kind of frustrating. It was
a self referral from Mormon.org, so we were really excited about it,
but he referred himself so that he could try to convince us that we're
wrong. He was really nice and I think that he thought that he was
helping us, but it was just so sad. He just kept saying that we were
young and deluded and naive and stuff and we needed to read the Bible
more. He started Bible bashing, which I hate because you can
misconstrue verses all day. If the point he was trying make with the
scriptures he read us was accurate, then other things in the Bible
would have to be false. It's so contradictory. So obviously we just
stopped him, respectfully told him that we were there to help him come
closer to Christ, and if he's not interested in that, then we needed
to go so that we can help people who are open. And then we left. It
made me so sad because I really think that he was trying t help us,
but was really just further distancing himself from the true gospel.

Anyway, this week also consisted of a lot of service. We started
volunteering at a food pantry in our area. We go there every Tuesday
now. It's not in the best condition though, there's lots of stuff that
had gone bad, so we spent quite a bit of time throwing out rotten
fruit and broken eggs. It was nasty, but kind of fun because we
started squishing the rotten fruit into the trash can. So much juice
spurted out! It was entertaining. Gross, but fun.

We also helped someone move in! It's a family of six that just moved
into the ward. Huntington ward really needs fore solid families, so
this is perfect! They have four boys that range from 10 to 17. Brother
Berry is hilarious. He is an actor, which is why they moved here from
Massachusetts. You can find him on IMDB! Phil Berry. And while you're
at it, Google Julia Berry. She's an author! She's written a few
different books, all which look pretty good! What a family! Brother
Berry thinks (as many do) that I look like Jennifer Lawrence. So he
said that he'll call me Sister J-Law and call Sister Fjeldsted Sister
J-Feld. So there you go. Oh, AND they all song and are into musicals!
But I digress. Sister Fjeldsted and I thoroughly impressed them.
Everyone thinks that sisters are so weak and pathetic. Think again! We
carried some of the heaviest stuff actually. Oh. On a side note, one
of their sons banged his knee and we hear "SON OF A..... Baconator."
it made me day.

We also worked at a homeless shelter with our one investigator. We did
it with her and the elders in the East Pasadena ward. It was a family
shelter. It was so sad to see that there were no fathers there. They
were all mothers with 3-5 kids. It broke my heart a little bit, but it
also made me so grateful for eternal families.

And then more service! Well, sort of. We were on exchanges this
weekend and me and Sister Walker (the only other sister to come out
into the field with me) went to help our investigator move some boxes
and things around, but she also fed us lunch. Well. We were helping
her do the dishes when I hear Sister Walker go "Sister Kretchman, I
just broke her cup!" I go and look and then I go "Sister Walker you're
bleeding!" She was more concerned about the cup, but I made her put it
down so we could deal with her gushing finger. The rest of the the day
was pretty much spent dealing with her finger. We had to wrap it all
up and then bike home so that I could email Sister Child (the mission
nurse and my last comp) some pictures of her cut. It was a decent cut,
I actually still have pictures on here if anyone is interested in
seeing it. Luckily. She didn't need stitches or anything, but we did
need to make an impromptu trip to CVS to get her some more bandages.
In the mean time, Sister Fjeldsted and Sister Walker's comp (who,
coincidentally, came out together as well) were in Pasadena when their
phone died. So we couldn't communicate with them to re-exchange! We
went ahead and biked to their apartment and then waited for them. And
waited. And waited. The Spanish Hermanas didn't show up either, so we
were kind of freaking out. But eventually they all got home and it was
fine. But late. Oh do late. Quite the adventure no?

Anyway, despite all of the craziness and everything, it was truly a
wonderful week. But oh so fast. Why is the time going so fast?! I've
almost been out for a year! NOT OKAY.

Anyway, I love and miss you all! Write me!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #48 (August 25, 2014)

So the number of miles that we have biked in the past 3 months is almost equal to the number of cockroaches that we have seen. Which is about the same number of miles from here to Salt Lake City Utah. We've biked about 670 miles and seen about 600 cockroaches. 50 of those cockroaches being this morning alone. Nasty. But impressive with the miles biked! I feel like such a beast! Well... Not really. But it sounds super impressive! So now I know that I could bike to SLC in less that three months! I may have to try it someday..... Probably not. But it would be pretty sweet if I did! Gahhh, do you want to hear something super nasty? Here is an exchange between Sister Fjeldsted and I last night: 

"That gives me the heeby jeebies!... What are heeby jeebies byway?" -Me

"It's what happens when you wash your face with a cockroach" -Sister Fjeldsted.

Which is precisely what almost happened. I started to wash my face when I looked down and saw a cockroach on my washcloth!!! Yeesh! They're EVERYWHERE.

Anyway, I'm done ranting about cockroaches. Sorry about that. I'm going slightly crazy here. They're really not that bad. As a missionary that is. I would hate to have them in real life. That's something that I've learned about being a missionary; things that would not be very fun in regular life isn't really a concern here. For example, I would hate to have to wash my laundry at a laundromat every time I did my laundry at home. But as a missionary, I'm just like "this apartment is awesome! We have a wall air conditioner and wifi and there's a laundromat right around the corner!" It doesn't bother me at all. You really learn to be grateful for all of the little things. I love it! Something I've really learned is that stuff doesn't make a happy family. The happiest family I've seen didn't even have a dad, they live in a teeny, messy apartment, and they are so happy. And then I see rich families in San Marino that have both parents, kids to to the best schools and get every little gadget that they want, and here obviously miserable. Not all the time, but you can see that they don't have the same closeness with their families and with God most of the time. It really shows you where our priorities should lay. Not saying of course that you can't be rich and have nice things AND be happy and loving and a disciple of Christ, but you don't need wealth to be wealthy if that makes sense. I think that ate one of Satan's biggest lies. He says that riches will make us happier than family relations and following Christ. Not true!

Anyhow. This week we had our mission president and his wife come to meet that one less active/non-member couple. We were hoping that since 1) they're adults and 2) they speak Spanish, they might be able to get somewhere with them. But it ended up being a taco party! We get there and start talking to them, and then all of a sudden a bunch of other people show up! So we're not sure how much the Villanuevas were able to gather. I'll email President today and see if they were able to learn anything helpful. We're also going to see if the Villanuevas can invite that family over for family home evening or something. We'll see what happens I guess.

We had a really cool experience with a different LA/non-member couple though! We've only been able to catch them both at home a couple of times, but they are wonderful. Last time we were over there we didn't end up being able to teach the Restoration, but we really got to know the two of them better and we could see that the Spirit has definitely been working on them. The non-member boyfriend said that he knows that he needs to make changes in his life and what not and get going to church. But then when we invited him to church this Sunday he immediately said no. He said "I smoke and stuff still, I'm not ready to go to church yet" to which we of course told him that you don't have to be perfect to come to church and what not. Anyway, then we showed them Because of Him (which if you haven't seen it yet, you need to watch it. Pronto.) The bf was teary eyed by the end of it and also when I prayed at the end. So we leave and start biking away when the quote "church isn't a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners." And I just felt like we should go back and leave a note on their door that said that. So we turned around and Sister Fjeldsted tried to sneakily leave the note on their door (the go totally saw her, but who else would have left a note like that anyway?) Getting to my poor. This time when we were there, we were talking to them a lot about the Atonement and baptism and things and it was so cool, the LA sister pointed out that she had put the note that we left inside the door and at she reads it all the time! And the bf said that she had told him that she could tell that we were totally sincere and that we really know what we know and what not. It was probably one of the highest compliments anyone could have paid us. The Spirit was SO strong. They still haven't been to church, but I really think that they're going places and I'm so excited! I just love them so much already!

And I love you all so much! Have a great week!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #47 (August 18, 2014)

To clarify, I neither ate a dog nor drank a Redbull.

This week sure has been interesting. It went by super fast, so I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened, but I'll do my best.

This week I:

-Was on exchanges both times we went to our Thai investigator's house

-Possibly accidentally stole Redbull from the grocery store

-Biked 26 miles in one day

-Almost had our bikes vandalized by an 80 year old

-Re-started teaching someone that just popped out of no where

-Taught a super-cool high school teacher/motorcyclist the Restoration

-Talked to a lot of dog walkers

And last but not least

-Listened to some dang interesting talks in sacrament meeting

So Sister Fjeldsted is a sister training leader, so we do exchanges a lot. I always stay in the area and she goes to a different area. So this week we went on exchanges twice. We also went to see our Thai investigator twice. Both times, it was me and a different sister. What's funny is that we have another appointment with her is Wednesday, and we're going to be on exchanges again! So our investigator will have seen four different sisters with me in a row! 

When we got home from the grocery store, I reached into one of our bags, pulled out some stuff that we bought, and then pulled out a can of Redbull. What the heck?! I wasn't mine, it was as Fjeldsted's, it didn't fall into our bag out of our member hat drove us's bag. So we have no idea how it got there. We checked our receipts and it didn't show up on either of them. So we don't know where it came from. But it is probably just going to end up in the trash, because nobody needs Redbull.

We got a referral for someone living at the very top of our are yesterday, so up we went into Wonderland (AKA San Marino, the land of the rich people with massive, multi-million dollar mansions). It is all uphill to get there, and pretty dang far. Then we had an appointment pretty much on the other side of our are! So we biked there after lunch. We basically went through every area in our ward boundaries. Hence, 26 miles. That is quite a lot. Usually it's more like 8-10 in a day.

While we were in San Marino that day we went up to Huntington Gardens to see if we could volunteer there. Huntington Gardens is basically a giant, rich people place with a museum argue rounded by this huge, beautiful park. Unfortunately. We found that the Gardens are closed once a week. Which happened to be the day that we trekked all the way up there. So we go to walk back to our bikes and we see this old woman messing with our bikes! We nought that maybe it was illegal to lock our bikes there or something (San Marino has a few strange laws) and at maybe she was reporting it or something. But it turns out that it was an older member in the ward! She recognized our bikes and so left a note in Sister Fjeldsted's helmet that said at we should stop for some water or something. It was so sweet! She ended up feeding us lunch.

So there is this Motel in our area called the Golden Motel. We always seem to meet people around there that live in this Motel that are willing to listen to us. But it's a Motel, so it's kind of sketchy and most people are only there temporarily. So we had started teaching his really sweet couple that is going through a really tough time, but then when we went back they had left because they couldn't afford it anymore or something. We were so sad! So then we were at the motel the other day to go see someone else and we pass the door of the room that they used to stay in. Sister Fjeldsted says "I miss them, I wish that we could have seen them before they left." Lo and behold, we keep walking, and she's standing right there! Apparently they had scrounged up enough money to get a new room at the motel after that day! So we taught them yesterday.

I also taught this really neat lady that we met walking on Saturday when we were on exchanges. She was having some motorcycle troubles and I happen to know someone nearby at used to work on motorcycles. So we stopped to see if we could help. I had her talk to the person I know on the phone and she gets her bike up and running again. So then she sat and talked to us for a while. She looks like she is my age, but she's already a high school history teacher! She was really cool and very sweet. I'm siphoning that we can start teaching her soon.

We met a lot of people through street contacting this week. We have been making an effort to not bike so much so that we can talk to people while we walk from place to place. So we talked to a lot of people that were out walking their dogs. We met a pretty promising man that way the other day. We have high hopes for him.

And then sacrament meeting. Something I love about this church is that everyone is given an opportunity to speak/teach. However, that means that you get some interesting talks sometimes. We had a youth speaker yesterday that started out with "I was told to talk about obedience" and included "and then she was pulverized by a car." He's 12 and the bishop's son. It was quite entertaining, but not quite spiritually uplifting. And then the next speaker was much better, but he got some unintended audience participation. He was talking about how the world is so diverse. There are good people, bad people, shady people... To which a young boy in the congregation yells "SHADY?!" Well, little kids need to learn the gospel too. It sure ended up being an interesting Sunday.

So transfer calls are is Saturday and Sister Fjeldsted and I both feel like we are going to get a call. We don't know which one of us it would be, but we're kind of feeling like one is coming. I really hope not though! I haven't even been here for a full two transfers, so I really don't want to go. And Sister Fjeldsted only has one transfer after this, so it would stink for her to have to be in a new area for just six weeks before she goes home. Whatever happens though, I know that this is the Lord's work and that He will put us where we need to be. I'm just hoping that it's here still.

Welp, I guess that's all for this week! Sorry that this wasn't the most spiritually uplifting email of your life, but some weeks are just like that.

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

~Sister Kretchman

Oh. And I realized that I didn't actually say anything about the dog burrito. I just made a breakfast burrito for lunch and the eggs and peppers and everything ended up smelling like dog in the pan! I said something to that effect and Sister Fjeldsted thought that I was just being dramatic. B then she smelled it and agreed! It tasted fine, but did NOT smell like it was edible. Nasty.

Our bike miles log:

Letter #46 (August 5, 2014)

Oh my goodness gracious this weekend was the greatest thing of my
life! If you didn't see on Facebook already I had QUITE the Saturday.
I woke up at 5:50 so that I could be ready at 7 AM to get a Skype call
from Pennsylvania. The purpose of that Skype call was not Christmas or
Mother's Day. The purpose was the baptism of a friend of mine and Aj's
from high school. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost at said baptism and
was then able to watch my friend enter into the waters of baptism and
come up perfect clean and pure. All via Skype. I am so grateful for
the technology that God has inspired man to create so that we could
have such incredible channels of communication.

Then, right after that baptism, I went to an 8 year old baptism that
the child's grandfather asked me to go to. Very different dynamics,
but still wonderful.

Then we came home and ate lunch.

Then we did some service for our investigator Jennie.

Then we had an amazing lesson with a less active woman and her NM
boyfriend. The Spirit has obviously been working hard on them. The man
was teary eyed by the end of it. We have I hopes for the two of them.

Later that day we got to witness the most beautiful sunset of my
entire life. I'll send you a picture, but it won't do it justice.

Then we tried to contact a less active member, but his apartment
complex was gated. So we waited a little bit, said a prayer, and then
a car pulled up that was going in. So we went in behind it... Only to
find that there was absolutely no way out unless another car came!
Usually with places like that there is a little door next to the car
gate that you can of in and out of, but this one didn't have that.
That door was on the other aide of the row of apartments. The part
that we went into was in the middle of two buildings, where all of the
garages were. The other side of each building had the doors to the
apartments (which is what we needed so that we could knock on the
door). We figured that if we went in the way that we did, we could go
around the back to go to the side with the apartment doors. Not so.
Dead end. So we were stuck. And it was night time. Basically we
probably would have had to wait until it was. Little but later and it
would b less likely that people were watching, and then climb over the
fence to get back out to the street. Luckily, Heavenly Father was
merciful and another car came in so we were able to get out. Oh boy.

And then that night it rained!!!!! It was so glorious. We went and
stood out in it for little bit. It hasn't rained here in months. I
miss it!

So basically it was just a super wonderful day. And then Sunday was
wonderful as well. It was a really lovely testimony meeting and then
Sister Fjeldsted and I got to do singing time in primary! It was so
much fun! They were kind of a tough crowd, but we still had a blast.
Afterward we gave them all a pass along card to give to their friends.
So fun.

The rest of the week was really good too!

We were on a panel for a stake achievement days camp. We talked about
preparing for a mission and how being a missionary prepares you for
the rest of your life. The. We opened up for questions. The only
question we got was "is it hard to ride a bike in a skirt?" But then,
they are pretty young, so it makes sense. Oh my goodness, it was so
funny/disturbing. One of the other ladies on the panel asked if anyone
had clubs at their school, and no one raised their hands. Finally, one
solitary little hand goes up. "We have a poker club at my school! They
use pennies." What!?!? In an elementary school? What?! I couldn't help
laughing though.

We also had a cool experience where twice in one day one of us felt
like going. See a particular person, and they weren't home. But then
they dove up right as we went to leave! So we were able too talk to
them and set appointments with both of them. Very cool. And something
similar happened yesterday too. I love that.

Oh, random thought. I don't know if I wrote about this last week or
not. But last Sunday a family just showed up to church! Apparently
they live nearby and so have seen it and just decided to give it a
try! It was so cool. That same Sunday and NM friend of a family in the
ward gave a talk. That was only her second time ever coming to church.
It helps that her friend's husband is in he bishopric. We also spoke,
but her talk was the best by far. So good.

Anyway, lots more happened, but ain't nobody got time to read a super
long email! And this is already pretty long.

I love and miss you all! Have a great week! Share the gospel with your friends!

~Sister Kretchman

Oh! I forgot, for anyone who was at Amanda's baptism (or anyone that's interested) here are the notes from my talk. I prepared for days but then didn't say even half of what I planned of course.

You are going to receive the most expensive gift of your life. I know that it is of great value because of its high price.* This gift is the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is about equal in value to all of the sins and mistakes that we make, and all of our weaknesses. Thankfully, we only have to pay the teensiest fraction of this price. Really, Christ paid it in full, all He asks of us is to follow Him. 

So what makes the Gift of the Holy Ghost so valuable? The Holy Ghost is what brings us the most joy that we could ever feel, it is our guide, our voice of warning. It protects us and comforts us. And, probably most importantly, it is what cleanses us. The Holy Ghost really is that baptism of fire. It is that fire that burns within us and rids us of anything that makes us unclean. It purifies us like a silversmith purifies silver. It burns away all impurities, allowing us to forget about our mistakes and weaknesses. The Holy Ghost is what cleanses us to enable us to enter into the presence of God someday. No unclean thing can enter into the presence of God,** which creates quite the problem since none of us are perfect. But because God loves us He sent His son Jesus Christ*** to make up the difference for each and every one of us. We receive that help as we accept Christ into our lives and keep Heavenly Father's commandments. When we are baptized, we commit to God that we will follow Him. And because He loves us and WANTS us to come back to Him, He sends the Holy Ghost to not only help us, but to give us the opportunity to move on and to start fresh.****

The Gift of the Holy Ghost compensates for all of the sacrifices that we make every day to follow Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Being a follower of Christ isn't easy. We have to give up the things that we like and replace them with the things a God likes. It can be difficult at times, but think of it like this: we give up temporary pleasures for eternal joy. As we do the things that God would have us do, we feel such joy and comfort from the Holy Ghost.

* "The gift of the Holy Ghost is one of our Heavenly Father’s most precious gifts. Through the power of the Holy Ghost we can feel God’s love and direction for us. This gift is a foretaste of eternal joy and a promise of eternal life." (Preach My Gospel)

** 3 Nephi 27:19 "And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end."

*** "Heavenly Father has provided us, His children, with a way to be successful in this life and to return to live in His presence. However, we must be pure and clean through obedience in order to do so. Disobedience moves us away from Him. Central to our Father’s plan is Jesus Christ’s Atonement. The Atonement included His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane as well as His suffering and death on the cross. Through the Atonement we can be freed from the burden of our sins and develop faith and strength to face our trials." (PMG)

**** D&C 82:10- "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." Heavenly Father will ALWAYS keep His end of the bargain. You will always be able to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost if you continue to strive to live Christ's teachings.

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #45 (July 28, 2014)

Okay, let me see if I can cover the last couple of weeks without this
email being the longest thing that you've ever seen.

So last week we had plumbers in our apartment on and off throughout
the week. We found a notice on our door that said that the whole
apartment complex was going to be repiped, so we had to move
everything out of the bathroom and away from adjacent walls and away
from the kitchen sink. So basically everything was on our table or in
our room. So the plunger was in the middle of our bedroom all week.
Gorgeous I know. We never knew when they'd be there though, so all
week we had lunch with members so that we wouldn't have to go home
where we would have no access to the fridge or microwave or anything
really and we would have to work our plumbers. So this week was pretty
crazy.

Luckily, this ward is has the sweetest people in the world in it, so
it wasn't hard to mooch meals and stuff. I seriously LOVE this ward.
We can call people at the last monte for anything if we need to and
they will be more than happy to do it. The sister that drove us to e
grocery store paid for our groceries too and pretty much even Monday,
whoever takes us to the store also takes us out to eat. I just love it
here. Oh! And last Monday Sister Fjeldsted and I made homemade bread
with a 93 year old! She's the classiest, funniest old lady ever. She
makes the sacrament bread EVERY weekend! I'll send pictures later
(hopefully next week) when I can get to a computer.

The past couple of weeks we have been doing a lot of less active work.
We have about four families that we are working with. In one family,
the mom is a member but the kids are not. They're the ones that I
wrote habit a few weeks ago that we're having some serious family
problems. And while it still makes me really sad that the parents are
separated now, it is seriously so much better. The dad was kind of a
tyrant and kind of a crazy person, so now without him, we are really
being able to make some progress with them. We've seen them a lot in
the past few weeks and are starting to do FHE with them tonight. I
really think that we're going to be able to help them get back on
track and I am just so excited for them! It was funny, we were helping
the mom pack some stuff in her car to take to their new apartment, and
she handed us a wine opening kit... Which we conveniently put back
later. She also put us in charge of grabbing some food from the
cupboards and I conveniently did not grab any coffee or tea. I felt
like the elder from "Best Two Years" when he was at the grocery store.
She may have grabbed at stuff since then, but at least we didn't help.
We'll work on that.

Some other exciting it's from the week:

I help dinosaur poop!
And a bomb!
And my bike exploded! (Not from the bomb though)
And I got attacked by a dog!
And we taught a lady that agreed with everything we said, but then all
of a sudden changed her mind and started throwing out anti stuff.

So the poop and bomb were at one of the less active's houses. He was a
geology teacher and has all sorts of rocks and what not (which he told
us about in detail) he also handed us what is supposedly fossilized
Dino poo and a rock called a bomb (which is a term for a lava that
shoots out and hardens on it's way down into a rock, or something to
that effect.)

So I haven't got a flat tire my entire mission. So apparently times
all building up towards the moment when my tube would just explode.
Which is what happened. We got out of a lesson with our Thai
investigator Jennie, we start biking, and then all of a sudden it's
getting kind of harder to pedal and I hear something flapping. I yell
to Sister Fjeldsted to wait for me, she looks back and goes "WHAT THE
HECK?!?!" Pictures to come. We were quote impressed with my bike.
Neither of us have ever seen anything like what happened and the
member that helped us fix it hadn't either. Basically the tube didn't
just get a hole, it burst, came out of tire (but the tire somehow
stayed on the rim) and hen proceeded to wrap itself into my gears.
Yup. When bad things happen. Me, it's go big or go home. Every time.
Hahaha. Really though, we were able to grab a new tube from the
Pasadena sisters (who live in our area, very close to our member's
home AND Jennie's home) and then our member got it all fixed up for
me. The whole ordeal took probably less than an hour. I was really
blessed at I didn't get thrown off my bike and hat we were so close to
people that could help us.

So it sounds as though the last little bit didn't send after the

picture of my bike, I didn't say a whole lot more, I just explained
about the dog and the lady we taught.

The dog was an adorable puppy named Mashi. He was just overly excited
to see us and was playing around a bit harshly, so I ended up with lit
scratches all over my arms, complete with blood (he's losing his
teeth, so it was his blood, not mine) it looked really intense, but is
didn't manage to get a picture.

And he lady we taught was just super frustrating. During the hole
lesson she agreed with everything that we said, and then all of a
sudden she didn't anymore and wasn't making any sense and wouldn't
listen to anything we said. It's just so frustrating when you can tell
that someone knows that what we are saying is true, but they just want
to believe what they want to believe, whether it's true or not,
because it's easier. People just don't realize that their lives will
be SO much better off if they follow the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's
not easy, and there are. Lot of rules to follow, but don't you think
that if Heavenly Father set those rules, then they're probably worth
following? Yeesh. It's just frustrating.

Anyway, I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #44 (July 21, 2014)

I had a lot that I was going to email you all but we taught a lesson
at the Laundromat instead of emailing, so I didn't end up having time.
But That's a lot more important, so... sorry.

This week was really good though! I will update you all about it next
week hopefully!

I love you all! Thanks for emailing me this week! I tried to reply to
as many as I could!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #43 (July 14, 2014)

I bet that caught your attention. I always think that I have gotten over how crazy the people in California are. I haven't. We were biking to our ward mission leader's house yesterday when all of a sudden I hear a motor behind me. I move to the side to let whatever it is pass me. And then I do a double take. I kid you not, riding past me is a regular bicycle with a motor attached to it, with a giant dog cage with a huge dog inside trailing behind it. The biker goes past me and I just look back at Sister Fjeldsted who has a very bewildered expression on her face, which confirmed that I really did just see what I thought that I saw. You probably don't believe me. But it happened. I absolutely promise.

California makes no sense. His is just one example of how insane this place is. It's great.

But anyway.

This week started out kind of rough for a few different reasons, but it ended really well! We taught Jennie Supawong again and I just love her so much, she is so sincere and so sweet. And she's really funny. It always catches me off guard because most of the Asian adults that vie met here tend to be more serious, but she's hilarious when she wants to be. And yet she totally respects us and is completely genuine during our lessons. She's wonderful, I'm really excited about her.

Something else bizarre that happened this week is this referral we got. We have gotten about 6 headquarter referrals (either people who order things from pass along cards or who someone else refers to us through Mormon.org) and all of them have been fake addresses. Some of them had real phone numbers though, so we are working on setting up appointments with those people. But anyway, we for one this week for a Chelsea Owens. We looked for the address and it didn't exist. BUT. It brought us to a Chelsea St. Clever. And then when we called the number, no one answered and the answering machine was for an episcopalian church! So we just deleted that referral. Frustrating, but I must admit, it kind of made me laugh at he same time.

So then this weekend was so good. Saturday was a momentous occasion. Saturday was the first time ever on my mission where every single person we tried by was not only home, but answered and talked to us. It was SO GREAT! We didn't get to teach all of them, one of men was just about to leave, but the fact that we got to talk to all of them was huge. 

And then yesterday was way good. Although it started off with an asthma attack. So get this, Huntington ward has recruited us to be in the ward choir (which is a service to everyone, trust me). So we went to choir practice yesterday and the song that they are singing ends on a high B. It had been a while since I've sung anything at high, but I hit it. I also gave myself an asthma attack by singing that high. Yeesh. That was not okay because Sister Fjeldsted and I were asked to sing a duet this Sunday, so I kind of needed my lungs as they are slightly necessary for singing. I was very blessed tho and ye asthma attack went away before we had to sing. We sang Because I Have Been Given Much. It was really pretty, mostly because our accompanists is a piano genius and just made up the arrangement for us, based on our voice types. Handy. It went really well AND two almost investigators cam to church to watch us sing! They're the ones whose house we painted a couple of weeks ago. We have an appointment with the wife at least this week, we haven't actually manage do teach them yet, but they came to sacrament meeting! So exciting.

One more thing that was neat about this week: we met our new mission president and family. They went from zone to zone and had a "Meet the President" thing where the family introduced themselves to us and told us a little bit about themselves. It's so crazy because of he whole family, President Villanueva's English is the worst! It's kind of funny. They seem like such a fun family though, I love them already. It's crazy, apparently they were told that they would be called to a Spanish speaking mission, so they figured get would stay in South/Central America. So boy were they surprised when they got called to California! About half of remission is Spanish speaking, but there is also English, Chinese, Korean, and Armenian. And most of the Chinese missionaries are actually from China and so English is t there first language, and it's not President's first language either. So I'm sure communication between them will be interesting for sure.

Anyway, that's about it. I love you all! Invite your friends to learn about the gospel! It will help them no matter where they are in life. Do it!

~Sister Kretchman