First Week In California!

So the mission has been great. My companion is Sister Bowen and when I was meeting with President Godwin before meeting her he told me she was calm, well he was wrong. She's a lot like me.

 

So I assume Sister Godwin told you that we stayed at their house the first night in, so now I've had a co-ed sleepover, yup just like that. It wasn't really a big deal but it was kind of fun to just hang out with the Elders and talk to them for most of the evening. So that was fun, and then we got waffles for breakfast and they were ok, they weren't very crispy sadly. Funny story with that, I mentioned I liked my waffles crispy at the table where I was sitting with Elder Whiting and Elder Dixon, and Elder Whiting told me I'd have to come visit his house sometime and try his mom's waffles cause they are super crispy. It was pretty funny. I miss those two
Elders quite a bit, we had lots of fun.

 

So I met my companion Wednesday afternoon and we didn't talk a lot, we stuck to our comfort zones pretty well, I hung out with my Elders and she hung out with the other Trainers, but we talk now and have lots of fun. I'm super grateful for her cause we really do think a like and it's working well for training.

 

Ok area, I'm in the Park View ward/area in the Victorville Stake/Zone, so I'm up in the high desert and if you ignore the Joshua trees (I'll try to send you a picture of them later) it basically looks like home. It's kind of nice. And our ward is pretty amazing. They are really willing to help us in anyway they can and they want us to have a member go with us to every lesson so if that works out I think it will really help any investigators we get feel welcomed and wanted in the ward. And while our area is good it's been kind of trying this week. We're both brand new in this area so we don't really know anyone and there weren't any progressing investigators so we're working from a blank slate, which is good in some ways and hard in others. We went through the ward list the other day and color-coded it so we knew who was active, less-active, and part member families. And it's pretty depressing I really hope that our ward doesn't have as many less-actives as this one does and if it does something needs to be done about it, because it's just no right. And the other trying thing is that we're living in Hesperia which is about 30 minutes away from our area, they might be moving us closer this week but we haven't heard for sure about that. So who knows what will happen there.

So when we moved into our area it was kind of a circus. Sister Skinner was on the dinner calendar and it said she was bringing us dinner but she never came so we brought our stuff in and went to Taco Bell for dinner my first night. Always . And right before we got there we got a call from the Zone Leaders telling us that the three sisters who were in Mesa Linda needed to be moved out of where they were so they were putting them in with us. And of course they got there right as we sat down to eat. So it was around 8 at night and I still hadn't had dinner and I was kind of starving. But we're living in a huge empty house that someone is renting to the church and I am currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And since the house is practically empty and ,large and new with all wood floors it's super echoy, but I kind of like that we just have it to the five of us it's been nice. And it came with a washer and dryer so we won't have to go hunt down a laundromat, at least for this week.

 

Oh so little random thing; they have a Cresh Festival out here, it's a Christmas Festival and a lot of different people are involved and the mission is doing a missionary choir and I decided to participate and I'm doing well. I don't know for sure if I hit it today, but I think I hit the high G in Away in a Manger while we were practicing today, so what do you know apparently I can kind of sing :). But yea it was fun, I was able to see a couple of the Elders from my MTC district there and that was nice.

 

I went tracting this week and that was interesting, yes I did speak and approach people. We met one person who took a Book of Mormon and she was interesting. She's a Catholic Hippie little Black Lady and we're going to see her again on Saturday so hopefully it will go well.

 

And Thanksgiving, we had two dinners one at the Bishops so we were able to meet him and then one at the Ochoa's. The Ochoa's are a less active family and they are pretty interesting. One of the rules there is what happens at the Ochoa house stays at the Ochoa house so if we ever need to just relax we can come over and watch TV or use the computer or just whatever we want. O.o yes that's the first thing they told us. But they're nice people, just a little different. P.S. I learned there that they make gravy that you just pour out of a can, yea that was different. So as for food Bishops food was better but it was all good.

So yea my address is 8280 Utica Ave Ste. 150 Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730. Note that will be changing here pretty soon since the mission office is moving, but I'll get the new one to you as soon as I have it.

Sister Coon.