Week 14: Laguna Beach Ward

Dear friends and family-

This week has been another good one!! Things are going so well in Laguna Beach. Jesus, who's planning to be baptized this Sunday, is still going strong and loving church and everything we talk to him about. We got special permission to have him baptized in someone's tiny pool! haha it's going to be such a fun day. The only time he could do it is early in the morning before church and we would have had to be up at like 4:30 to go fill the font so we're extra excited this is going to work out. Other people have been out of town a lot which is really sad because I just found out...I'm leaving Laguna Beach! :( I'm so sad! I really love it here and all the people are so awesome. Not only will I go to a new area, but my new companion is going to be fresh out of the MTC! I'm hoping it'll be a trio with someone else because I still feel like I'm trying to figure out what's going on half the time. I'll find out about everything tomorrow afternoon and officially be in a new place tomorrow night, so this week will be interesting. I think it will be good though!

Something exciting that happened this week- there were SO many weddings at the Newport Beach temple and our tour days are Fridays and Saturdays so we were there to see almost all of them! There were 17 on Saturday alone! How crazy is that? Anyway, one of them was the wedding of a girl from our ward named Savy and it was so fun to see her looking all perfect with her new husband. We got to go help out at her reception afterwards too and it was a really fun day. We even got to do missionary work while we were there! We were the ice cream girls and someone asked us for a Book of Mormon haha. It was great.

I thought I'd include a picture:

Sister Fetui, Hope (a member from the LB ward), her friend Maria who we are teaching, and me after they did our makeup last p-day...if you ask me Sister Fetui looked pretty and I looked sort of crazy...but it was fun!

I love you all very much!

-Mariah

Sister Fetui, Shawn and me after a morning hike. I'll miss her!

Week 13: Laguna Beach Ward

Hello friends and fam!

This week was so good and so busy that I hardly even wrote down anything about it in my journal...so I'll do my best to remember the things I wanted to tell you all about!

-This week I had the #1 best meal I've had so far since I've been out here!! I know that sounds extreme but oh man...it was so good. If you're ever in southern California make a point to go to Baja fish tacos. You won't regret it!

-I got to go on an exchange with Sister Forbess! She came to Laguna Beach with me for 24 hours and it was loads of fun. I like switching things up for a bit, it makes life exciting. Plus I got to know Sister Forbess a lot better and I could totally be great friends with her! While we were together we taught Jesus, the mexican guy that Sister Fetui and I met a couple weeks ago, invited him to be baptized, and he SAID YES!! We're all so excited (including Jesus. both people named Jesus actually.. haha we couldn't stop making jokes about Jesus following the example of Jesus and being baptized...)

-My district got to go to the temple! It was so lovely and so peaceful. I wish we could go more often, but I'm so grateful that we can go at all! I know not all missionaries get to go while they're out and I'm just so glad we have the Newport Beach temple. 

-We have a new investigator! A lady in the ward named Hope has a friend from work named Maria who is seeking God during a hard time in her life right now, and Hope thought she might like to hear the hopeful message that we have to share and she was right. We have already met with Maria twice and it's amazing to see how God really provides what his children need when they seek him.

I love you all and I hope this week was a good one!! Until next week :)

love, Mariah