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

Week 12: Laguna Beach Ward

My dear friends and family-

This week was another good one! I honestly don't remember half the things we did I think because it's been so busy but it's great because we've gotten so much done and seen so much progress made in the work we're doing.

We did a lot of visiting the members of our ward to boost morale and try to get everyone involved in praying and fasting for the people who could get baptized next (this?) month! August 22nd is the plan and we're not entirely sure who's going to end up being baptized that day, but we're planning a baptism and it's totally going to happen. It's been cool to see how even people that we didn't really see it coming from are agreeing to be baptized and progressing so much. Sister Fetui and I have been having a lot more opportunities to share and discuss the gospel with people so it's been awesome.

We have a new investigator! His name is Jesus and he's great. He loved coming to church with us yesterday even though everyone (not us, don't worry) didn't believe he'd show! Sister F and I were anxiously waiting for him to come and church was about to start so we were like alright we gotta go find him, we know he's going to come! so we ran all around the building and went outside and ran all around and there he was! I think he may have been a little uncomfortable and considering whether or not he was going to come so I'm so glad we found him. We're teaching him this week and he's coming to church again next week because he loved it so much.

This morning for our zone activity we went to Big Air (it's a trampoline place- I can't remember if I wrote about it last time we went) and it was so fun. I grow to love the other missionaries more and more the more time I spend with them. Sometimes at activities I think to myself how crazy it is that they send all these goofy 19-20 year olds to preach the gospel, and then I think 1. how much faith God must have in us, and 2.how good the gospel is that people will come unto Christ after hearing it through a bunch of kids. I truly do believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that it can and will help any person on the earth who accepts it in this life and in the next. I'm so lucky to have this opportunity to see that happening first hand on a daily basis! Being a missionary is pretty cool.

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

Love, Mariah

contacting at our fav park. we found some girls from Olathe, KS who were taking a bunch of pics so we asked them to take one for us

At that silly quittich zone activity last week. Notice the heinous red shorts. they rode up kind of a lot...so usually I don't think they're that short...

Picture.

Picture from ward member, Susan Dexter.

Week 11: Laguna Beach Ward

Aloha Family and Friends!

This week was another good one, but it was especially good because Sister Fetui and I recommitted to work extra hard and we saw so much good come of it!

things that happened:

- I highlighted another sister missionary's hair LOL I don't know why people trust me to do stuff like that but it was fun and she didn't dye it back afterward or anything so hey!

- I went on an exchange with Sister LaFleur, my sister training leader. It was great! She was a little sick so we were at home for longer than usual but it was a chance to study extra and discuss with each other a lot! When we finally did leave the apartment, we went to see this old lady that lives in her ward and I LOVED her. I just wanted to hang out with her forever she was so great. She's a crazy artist and has way too much stuff and is so sweet! We were really there to help her organize all the craft supplies she hoards...but it was so fun. Maybe one day I'll see her again.

- At our district meeting Sister Fetui and I won a how well do you know your companion game. haha I think we just talk about dumb stuff all the time so we know random trivia facts about each other.

-  We do a thing called "windows of heaven" where we plan in advance a time and place that we will be talking to people and in every prayer we say up until that time we pray that God will send those who are ready and open to learn about the gospel there at that time, so this week we had one and a park by the beach and it was awesome! We talked to every single person we passed and we met a family who was so willing to talk to us and hear what we had to say and they said they'll come to a fireside this Sunday (looking back I don't know why we didn't just invite them to church...whatever) but we're so excited! On a side note, we met some girls from Olathe- for those who don't know, that's like right next door to where I live in Kansas. I've met way more people here than I ever expected to that are from where I'm from!

- We had even more awesome contacting experiences this week. It's become clear that when we have faith and do our part (aka get out there and do all we can) that God will put people in our path who want to come closer to him. We've seen so much of that this week.

-Shawn is doing well still! Very slow progress, but she's getting there. Her son comes home from his mission in October, and we think she may be holding off until then to make any moves.

Overall things are going great! Living this missionary lifestyle is so different from anything I've done before and there's so much to learn from everything that happens. I love it. I hope you all are doing well!

Lots of love,

Mariah

 

Week 10: Laguna Beach Ward

Dear friends and family,

This had been a very eventful week! We've seen so many blessings from God and we're super excited for what's to come.

exciting things that happened-

-our car got towed! Ah man it was a nightmare. We failed to read the sign that said we can't park outside our apartment and one day when we went out to leave for the day our car was gone! haha what a mess. But now I know what to do if my car ever gets towed!

-we had the next temple musical devotional night thing. I think they should really come up with a name for those because I never know what to call it and it gets weird. But it went so well! Shawn, who is investigating the church in our ward, came to watch after we begged her for days to come and she loved it! The feeling of the spirit was so strong there. Also my musical number went well even though I was worried about it because my throat felt funny. I prayed really hard before I got up there that no matter how awful I sounded people would hear good things and still be able to feel the spirit and my prayer was answered! Shawn left super fast because she didn't want us to take her on a tour, but we were able to give tours to lots of other people who came and it was so nice.

- we found the nastiest biggest spider ever in our apartment. It was sooo gross...we killed it of course. Can't have that crawling around while we're sleeping or anything like that! The bugs here are different than in Kansas City or in Utah.

-We invited Shawn to be baptized! She didn't really say yes...but she didn't really say no! I think she's slowly starting to see the positive influence that the gospel is having on her life and really feeling God's love for her. She's so great.

-It poured rain 2 days in a row! How crazy is that!? Apparently it's been forever since anything like that has happened. Missionaries who are about to go home say that's the first rain storm they've seen in the whole time they've been here. California needs rain big time and I also love the rain so it was awesome.

-While we were giving temple tours a man stopped at the tent in a rush it seemed like and asked if he could leave this big box under our tent with us while he was in the temple so we were like uhh..ok sure. And as he was hurrying of he was like thank you so much, I just can't leave live animals in the car! hahaha we were like what!?? And we looked in the box and under all these blankets there were a bunch of crazy exotic looking lizards! They were all in little tupperwares with huge price tags on them. We found out later that he and his wife breed and sell them. It was so funny.

Things have been really great lately! I'm loving life here and loving being a missionary. I also love hearing from all of you, so please keep writing to me! :) I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Mariah

Week 9: Laguna Beach Ward

Hello Family and Friends!

I hope you all are doing well :)

This week was a good one for me, as usual. I had another audition for the temple tour night for the month of July and it went well! They liked us again (I sang with Sister Carr again) and we're singing on Wednesday night. It's so fun to get opportunities to do something different, like a little change of pace. We've been visiting a lot of members of the Laguna Beach ward who are less active in the church and getting to know them more and more.  Sometimes people are so happy to see us and for one reason or another just stopped coming to church but have no hard feelings towards Mormons but others get really upset and won't let us talk to them! I like going to people we've never met before because you never know what to expect.

Here's a neat story that happened this week- so a lady who joined the church like 6 years ago or something but fell away when she moved to Utah (I guess she didn't like the people there or something) just moved to our ward. She was thinking she might consider coming back to church when she came here, but wasn't sure and figured she might do it in 6 months or so. She went to the storage unit where her stuff was and was about to hire some people to help her move, but the storage people said nah they rip people off, call this number because people have been really happy with them! So she called and was expecting to talk to some other movers but it was the missionaries from San Clemente! Tons of them went to help her and she took that as a sign that this was the right time for her to come back to church and she's totally in now. How cool right? We had ice cream with her the other night and we love her so much already. People here are great.

Oh man here's a bad story! So on Friday Sister Fetui and I were over at a member's house doing some service and she's really into doTerra so before we left she rubbed us down with tons of essential oils. After that we went to our dinner appointment and it was this old couple in our ward. We walked in and as soon as we did the lady suddenly grabbed her throat and started gasping for air and choked out the words "you have to wash that off!". Apparently she's allergic to essential oils and we had no idea. We felt so bad! But we washed it off really well and she turned all the fans in the house on and opened all the windows and everything was ok. Dinner was tasty too haha so the night turned out ok.

Last thing from this week! Last night there was a fireside for the youth in the stake and David Archuleta (the guy from American Idol a few years ago) was there to speak and sing to us! It was cool to see what a normal guy he is. He's totally not smooth and it's way funny. But he did have a lot of really insightful things to say based off his unique experiences and he sings like a tiny angel!

This week I've learned a lot about what it means to be committed to the Lord. I've been studying that a lot and as I've studied and prayed for strength I've felt my personal commitment grow and I've really felt God's love for me. I'm so glad I have this chance to invite others to feel that as well.

Anyway, I love you all tons! Have a great week :) 

group pic from zone hike this am

walking with sister wilk

Week 8: Laguna Beach Ward

Family and Friends-

I skipped a letter last week ( it was a crazy day!) so I don't remember which week I'm supposed to be on! Anyway, this week was a good one. Sister Fetui and I found out that both of us will be staying in Laguna Beach next transfer so we are really excited to get in there and get things done!

Things we did this week include

- a lot of service again! We got to help a new family in the ward move in and it was great. They're so fun and so excited about getting involved in the missionary work here in Laguna Beach so I'm psyched to work with them.

- spending a lot of time at the temple giving tours! That's so cool and we have a lot of neat experiences seeing people feel the special spirit that is on the temple grounds, but next transfer I think we might not be temple tour sisters anymore.

- having an awesome fourth of July! There was a ward pancake breakfast, a zone lunch, a dinner with some members in our ward, and then we got to go down to (almost) the beach and watch fireworks. It was I think the most spectacular firework show I have ever seen! They had a barge out in the water shooting off the fireworks in this cove that and you could see glows from the shows in the other coves and reflections in the water and silhouettes of palm trees! I loved it.

- making contact with a lot of people from out of town! Laguna Beach is nuts all summer with tourists but it's supposedly the worst over the 4th of July. It was totally packed and the traffic was wild. It took us like an hour and a half to drive what should have been 10 or 15 minutes! But it was cool to be around so many people and have so many opportunities to talk to folks.

A verse of scripture I particularly liked from my studies this week was in Matthew 28- I think this is like the second half of verse 20 but I don't have it out right now to be sure...

" And lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

What a great reminder that we are never alone and that we always have the Lord to rely on! I'm so thankful that's the case because I have no idea what I would do otherwise.

I love you all very much!

-Sister Mariah Wimmer

Laguna Beach missionaries standing as close as we can to the sand on the fourth of July

Sister Fetui and I lovin life and each other

goofing around with Elder Hancock our district leader who is going home on Wednesday. ps it's really cold at night here so we borrowed jackets from the fam we ate with