LA Semana 01

HOLA FAMILIA!!!



THE NAMETAG!!!



Yes, I have indeed made it to sunny California in one piece. I had to wake up at 4 am on Wednesday but the flight was just fine and now I'm here! AND I've made it to p-day. What a blessing indeed. My trainer picked me up, I had some training that day, didn't end up getting to our area until it was too late to proselyte, and then got up studied and did more training Thursday. Our apartment is....nice. We have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, washer/dryer kitchen and living room. I mean, it's a little run down but for the amount of time I'm there it's beautiful. And about a million times more spacious than my room at the MTC. My trainer's name is Sister Johansen and she's amazing. She's been in the field about 6 months - all in our area. She knows and loves the people and has been a great help to me during my transition.

I'm in an area south of Los Angeles called Torrence and.....IT'S AN ENGLISH AREA!. Yup. I was the lucky person in our group that was assigned to be trained in an english-area. That means that for my first 12 weeks, I will be teaching and attending wards that are English-speaking. It's ironic because both my trainer Sister Johansen and are are Hermanas, but since we are serving in an English are if we do come across anyone who speaks spanish and wants to be taught in Spanish and go to a Spanish ward, then we have to refer them to the Spanish elders. IN fact, my whole Zone is english-speaking. Of the 9 zones of my mission, only 2 of them have spanish-speaking sisters in them. Hermana Deskins went to one, and I am here in Torrence speaking English. It's weird speaking in English - especially the teaching because I didn't learn how to teach anything in English! In fact - sometimes I'll be teaching/practicing teaching and only the spnish word pops into my head and I have to stop and think about the English. It's odd. But I still have one hour of language study every day and my companion speaks it (not a native speaker, so our levels are about the same) so that's how we get our practice in. Crazy, huh?

Hermanas Deskins and Hensley

ALSO we have a car. Yup. AND I'm the driver. Normally it's the senior companion's responsibilty to be the driver and the trainee is the backer/passenger, but Sister Johansen was in a pretty traumatic car accident a while back in CA so she doesn't drive. Hence I'm the driver here! It's kind of strange to be behind the wheel again but I like it. It's not that much different from driving in Houston and we don't have to get on the freeway very much because our area is TINY so it's all good. However - I am in need of a bike. We bike to the park and drive to places and bike sometimes so I do need to get one. I'll elaborate more on that in a second - i've got it all figured out so y'all don't have to worry.**

Sister Johansen and I cover 2 wards (well, a ward and a singles branch) and so Sundays we go to 5 hours of church! (one of the hours overlaps) and our area has been pretty sucessful so we have a lot of recent converts and less active members that we are teaching. That's something that they don't prepare you for in the MTC so that's been a defininte learning experiance. Speaking of baptisms, I inhereted 3 baptisms in the area! Yup! This Saturday a woman and her son are being baptized, and on Sunday (hopefully if we can work it out with the building coordinator) another girl is being baptized as well. All three of them are amazing and I have the opportunity to speak at their services and then continue teaching them the post-baptizm lesson (which I also have never taught before) like I said, all kinds of adventures. The ward mission leaders here are great too and while we do have some memeber participation it's not as much as we'd like. FAMILIA (or anyone out threre reading for that matter) if you have been called as a ward missionary or ward mission leader - GET OUT THERE AND HELP THOSE MISSIONARIES! TEACH LESSONS WITH THEM! FELLOWSHIP THEIR INVESTIGATORS AND RECENT CONVERTS. The Lord will pour out blessing upon y'all if it happens. And I can testify that the missionaries need you. Truly the members are the KEY to missionary work.

**So, with the bikes, our ward mission leader has a daughter who buys really nice bikes at auctions further south for like, 30 bucks and then they fix them and sell them to the missionaries for like 40 or 50 dollars. YEAH! But, he doesn't have any at the moment and won't until his daughter comes to town for Thanksgiving, so, until then Hermana Deskins is letting me use her bike :) I just....have to assemble it. I'll be sure to take pictures. SO I've got the bike situation taken care of. No need to worry.

Other than teaching lots of recent converts and less active members, we haven't been doing much :) The work is definitely keeping us busy and we're trying to find new people to teach. Our goal is to have one baptism this transfer. We've street contacted a few people this week that we're following up on so we'll see how that goes. We also had a miracle happen on Sunday with a man who was "lead by the holy spirit" to come into our church and listen and take a look. He's looking for a new church to join and stopped in to see what we were all about. He's never heard of the Mormons before and is just an amazing man. he's read the bible numerous times and is just looking to learn and grow more through other and through the gospel. Sister Jo and I taught him about the restoration with 2 recent converts, gave him a book of mormon, and are teaching him again this Friday. Sadly, however, he lives outside of our area so we'll have to refer him to the Zone Leaders. Either way, he'll be taught and hopefully receive some of the answers that he's been searching for.

The Lord truly is involved in missionary work. I'm so greatful for all of your prayers, and for the prayers of all of the members world-wide. I can see and feel the Holy Ghost work in my life DAILY here and my testimony is only growing stronger. The Gospel TRULY has been restored to the earth through a living prophet, and Christ leads and guides the work today. I love being a missionary, I love California, I love my companion, I love the Lord, and I love you.

Off to buy some groceries and go to a zone pumpkin carving contest! I will definitely take pictures! (and I"m also attaching some to this email from my last days at the MTC.

amor,

Hna Hensley



MTC Companions
Holliday, Deskins, Hensley



Re-supply from home.