Thursday, October 1, 2015

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:



Week 13: Laguna Beach Ward

Monday, August 3, 2015

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

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

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

Monday, July 20, 2015

Week 8: Laguna Beach Ward