Hi Everyone!

 

Ok so this has been a whole week of new things and a bit of a culture shock!!!!

 

The ward here in Torrance is great! There are a lot of old people! But they too are excited about missionary work.

Sister Hart is AMAZING! She is so sweet. I'm supposed to be trainging her, but I feel like she's training me. I've learned so much from her already. She is waiting for her visa and so she won't be her forever, which makes me sad, but she's going to school in Utah, so we'll see each other. Oh she is from Iowa, and actually used to live her in the Torrance 1st ward when she was 10! So she knows some of the members! Crazy huh?!

 

Ok so we have this Sister named Marsha Wolper. She's old, and apparently we go to her house every Friday and Saturday to help get her mail, take out the trash, and stuff like that. She is less active. So we went on Friday and it was one of the most memorable expireneces. First off, she was shcoked to see Sisters and not elders. Second, she was a little annoyed that we came at the time we came. She introduced us to her cat Buttercup about 6 times. Her apartment has one of the most interesting smells. She explained that she has to drink coffe for her asthma and that we shouldn't get offended by it. I had to watch her take her Insulin shot. We helped her get lds.org as one of her favortites on her internet page. She told us that she is scared of death. We made her kool-aid, summerized a medical perscription for her, fixed light bulbs, and listened to a lot of great stoies about her friend Linda who passed away last year. So Sister Wolper is one of the most intersting people I've ever met, and when we left Friday, we were both a little scared to go back Saturday. But we did. and we did a lot of the same things we had done Friday. But then we watched a devotional that she like by Elaine S Dalton.  She loved talkling about how special we are to God. At the end she said our prayer for us (she made us all hold hands for the prayer) and she said some of the sweetest things I've ever heard. she was so sincere. She asked God to bless us with all the things that we needed, and that people would be able to look at us and see the difference and say, why are they different, I want what they have. She prayed for us to not feel like coming to her house was a burden, but that maybe we might actually enjoy talking to her.

 Both me and sister Hart walked out feeling glad that we could help her. It meant so much to her that we had come, and we we're grateful for the opportunity to serve.

 

I feel like we are going to have a lot of moments like that throughout this transfer. There are so many people out there who have it worse than we do. We need to look outside ourselves and think of others. My bishop in the YSA ward would always say "if you are thinking your life is hard, if you can't pay the bills, or can't find a job, or feeling sorry for yourself,.. get over it. Get out of yourelf and serve others."

It's so true. If we ever think we've got it hard, just forget about yourself and serve others, it will fix any thought's of "poor me" quicker than anything else. There is so much gratification and love that comes from serving others. So give it a try this week... and forever :)

 

I love you all so much! We are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives! So get out and share it with someone! I LOVE YOU THE MOST!!!!!

 

p.s. We had an old guy at church yesterday say, we could get the lakers basketball team to come and do a practice at our church building so that people will come to the church to find out more about it. haha I love the elderly :)

 

kiera