20?

                                                           Happy Birthday, Hermana Anna!

                        Talk to everyone. Sometimes you find people to teach and sometimes you get free fruit.

                                                             The view from tree watering

I woke up this morning and my first thought was "am I really old enough to be 20?" " and my second thought was "I guess there's no going back now." To be honest it feels exactly the same as being 19, especially because the only really special parts of today was my roommates singing me happy birthday this morning and we're going to get cupcakes. Oh and Carlos hinted about buying me a giant cheesecake, but we'll see if that actually happens. Mission birthdays, they're just normal days. Also, I still need to wear a sweater some days which is weird for me, I'm used to it being 100 degrees by my birthday.

 
Here's a run down of this week
 
Tuesday: pretty normal day. We did some finding, taught some lessons, and had correlation with our ward mission leader. Oh and did some service where we went up into the mountains to water baby trees. A basic normal day. Actually our only really normal day now that I think about it.
 
Wednesday: it looked like rain and we were running out of miles so we ended up walking for a good portion of the day. We met a very nice woman who gave us some guavas and had a lesson with Carlos. Then as we were leaving a lesson all the power went out on the block, which was exciting, because all the stop lights were out and California drivers are crazy enough to begin with. Fortunately we made it out alive and to our next lesson which was with Joaquin and his daughter Ruth! This is the first time anyone in his family has shown any interest at all in what he has been learning in the church, which is really a miracle. We had a really good church tour and set up a return appointment.
 
Thursday: we had to weekly plan on Thursday, which messes with my internal clock, but it turned out okay. We also had a really good lesson with a man named Gregorio. He as a lot of questions, but is
looking for answers in the right places. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation, and had a member with us who was able to answer a lot of his doubts and questions which was awesome. So moral of the story, help the missionaries out with lessons. They will love you forever.
 
Friday: Mission conference! Elder Gavarret of the 70 and his wife were visiting with us this week for a mission tour, and because they are both from South America, there was a day just for the Spanish
missionaries. It was so nice to see some old faces and to learn from Elder and Hermana Gavarret, amd Presidente and Hermana Villanueva. We received a lot of instruction, which I hope to be able to apply in my area. One of the biggest changes was that we are to start holding baptism services on Saturdays instead of Sundays which is the mission norm. The only scary moments for me were giving the lunch prayer and driving home in rush hour traffic. Other than that it was an awesome day.
 
Saturday: we were supposed to have exchanges with the Sister Training leaders, but some emergencies happened so we found ourselves plan-less for a large part of the day ( we both were supposed to be in the other area) we made it work though, and were able to contact some referrals we hadn't gotten to. Then after dinner we were able to have a short exchange and visit a few people.
 
Sunday: Joaquin received the Holy Ghost! He was so happy, and felt so much better afterward. One of his best fellowshipers, Hermano Garcia was the one confirming him, and it was his first time doing it which made it even more special. Then I had to give a talk. I spoke about the process of conversion, and how it can't just happen in one moment but is the work of a lifetime. I talked a lot about Alma the Younger and how he had to make a huge change, but then was able to go and do a lot of good. All in all it went really well.

Thank you for all the love and support, we'll see you next week!
 
Hermana Christensen