week 11

Dec 14, 2015

Week 11 in California is a wrap. This Wednesday, the 16th, marks exactly 3 months since we dropped her off at the MTC, which also means she has completed 1/6 of her mission. That is feeling like a big deal this morning. This past week they had a Mission Christmas Party and posted lots of photos and videos. It is so fun to see her! If you want to mail her anything for Christmas, do it this week! I am hoping to get my package of Jamba gift cards for her and her companion in the mail today.

Her zone all together at the Christmas Party.

Blythe and her companion, Sister Shumway, are together on the left. I see Sister Smith with the plaid shirt, she roomed with her at the MTC, but I don’t know the other Sisters.

Some sort of Rudolph Nose competition?

Found this in her Dropbox account – What the cow is that? Some sort of ear shaped cookie? Candy?

Another Dropbox find…is she asleep from exhaustion or hugging the computer with great love and gratitude because she gets to email us?

So, we got transfer calls on Saturday, and Sister Shumway is being transferred. :( Very sad, but I’m sure it’s for the best. I will miss her. We’ve become such good friends. I’m not with my new comp yet and won’t be till tomorrow afternoon or night and Sister Shumway doesn’t know where she’s going. We go to the transfer meeting and they announce everybody’s changes, new comp, area, designated driver, and everyone switches around, and crazy stuff happens, and we leave. Pretty awesome! :)

This week has been great. Inci gave us Turkish Delight. Yes, the real thing! I wasn’t even sure if it was real, but it is. She also came to Follow the Star, which is a live nativity, with real animals and actors, and it’s really great. They’ve had some wonderful stories over the years.

She also brought her son Cevik (chevik). She speaks Turkish, German and English and here’s why that’s important now: Emily, a Laurel who did a study abroad for language and speaks Turkish, has become great friends with Inci. We introduced them earlier this week. When they came to Follow the Star she met the rest of Emily’s family and they were talking and amazingly her mom speaks German! We were just blown away! We’re like “Hmm, who should be her friends, I wonder…” Inci is here for only a year from halfway around the world, Emily speaks Turkish, her mom speaks German, the way we found her is pretty crazy anyway, etc. There is no way that is a coincidence.

We also finally saw an investigator we’ve been trying to teach since even before I got here. He went to Follow The Star and supposedly he went to seminary with his friend this morning (he’s 18).

There’s another teenager who is friends with a girl in the ward, who basically has no religion. She came (her name is Ana) with her friend and is willing to hear more. She’s super cool and her friend is planning on giving her a book of Mormon to read on her flight she’ll be taking for Christmas.

At Follow The Star last night we met Elder Clayton, the one who spoke in the Christmas broadcast. He’s one of the seventy, so that was pretty awesome.

There was a lady there with her friend (who is a member) who we’ve been doing community service with and she brought her daughter. They are both really great and we hope to teach them.

Basically, this week has been full of work and the Lord’s help. There is so much good going on.

Love to all!
Sister W.