Stockton

I LOVE STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA!!!  Wow.  Stockton is full of diversity and a lot of humble people who are ready for the gospel!  This ward here is a lot younger than my last one.  The bishop is in his 30's.  We have two Deaf members, but one of them is less active.  Lani, the Deaf member who comes every week, has me interpret Relief Society for her but she has other volunteers for the first 2 hours.  I can totally handle one hour of interpreting.  She hasn't had a good interpreter for a long time, so she's excited that I'm here and I can sign fast.  There aren't as many Deaf people here, so we are mostly teaching hearing people, but I love it.  Being a missionary is so wonderful and it fills me with joy.  Before my mission, I would have never approached 5 black dudes smoking a joint.  The Lord is blessing me with confidence and with safety!!

Its been really fun to be back with Sister Konou, she's such a sweetheart.  I'm helping her deal with the recent diagnosis of diabetes and we go to a diabetes class every Friday.  She's learning how to keep her blood sugar levels up into normal range, but its also been really good for me to learn about MY lows.  We even have the same blood glucose meter.  hah.  The lady that teaches the class (its a free community class) talked with me last time and she's going to give me some advice and help next time we go even though I'm not diabetic.  What a blessing. 

Remember Sister Landon (teaches in spanish) that I lived with in during my Marshallese transfer?  Shes my roomate again.  YAY!  I LOVE HER.  She's training a new baby, Sister Marroquin, who is a spunky little sister missionary from Colorado.  We have fun when we come home at night to those two.  Its a great apartment. 

Thats basically it!  It was a fun week of being confused.  Thats what happens when you dont know anything about your new area.  But luckily I have a GPS this time, so I use it everywhere we go!  We are on the search for more Deaf people...

Story time: my area had a baptism last week just before I came. Her name is Zina and she's a black lady full of energy. Zina was walking on the street and she asked two people: "Where do I go to church to feel GODS PRESENCE?!" And they must have been LDS because they said "Go to the LDS church on Brookside!" So she came. Got baptized 3 weeks later. She brought 7 nonmembers with her to church this Sunday. Talk about a MIRACLE! One black lady who came (Linda), has been praying for God to lead her to a church. She said two days later that Zina knocked on her door and they became friends then she came to our church! She LOVED it too! One other lucky thing about Stockton is that our ward actually has black people in it. In Carmichael, none of our black investigators wanted to come to the "white church" and when they did come, they never came back because they were in the minority.

Stockton is a mix of colors and cultures, so although Linda still said there were more white people than she was used to at church, she still accepted everybody because they were all so nice to her. She has been to every church in Stockton searching for the right one but she never felt like any of them had very good people in them. Linda prayed and told God if he would find her a good church, she promised Him that she would go every week. Miracle. All 7 are coming back next week because they loved it and Zina said: "Oooooh girrrrrrl! This is just the beginning! I am gonna bring you all my grandchildren and kids and you can do your bible studies with them and lets get em in the water!" She's basically going to invite everyone she knows to come to church and meet missionaries. She wants us to teach them all our "bible studies" in her home, too, which is wonderful. Maybe we should set a goal to baptize 5 people this transfer instead of one...

I love all of you and I love this gospel!  Go read the Book of Mormon!

Sister Wilson

half way

What a WEEK!!!  I have way too much to say.  I'm sure I'll forget something.  First off, on Thursday, I got pregnant!

 Yay for a happy 9 month mark!!  The baby bump doesnt look too real, I know, but thats because it consists of a blanket and a popcorn bowl.  It was fun to celebrate my half-way mark and I am excited for the other half of my mission to start!

  Later that day, ALL FOUR of our appointments cancelled.  And then dinner cancelled on us, too, so we went to see a less active of the Deaf branch.  Get this.
  Her name is Stormaliza Beautyspella Powmacwizalord.  No, she wasnt given that name at birth.  She sleeps with a giant iguana.  She likes storms, not sure what beautyspella is for, pow is for power, mac is for magic, wiz is for wisdom, and lord is because she loves the Lord.  She was really sweet but we're pretty sure she's slightly to moderately crazy.  

On Saturday, our ward had a kite-flying activity (that, I admit, Ive been looking forward to since we planned it in January)!  We met some nonmembers there who were friends of some members so that was good.  Sister Despain and I didn't want to buy the cheap $1 kites so we took it "up a notch" and bought $5 kites.  They were harder to keep in the air, but we had a lot of fun.  We won the "ground hog kite" award because our kites would just dive bomb straight down after 10 seconds of air.  We all had a lot of wind, so the Lord answered our prayers for it and the activity was great!  

Our branch interpreter, Mark Crosley, moved his records back to the hearing ward where he lives so all of the interpreting falls to....yours truly.  Sister Despain cant hear well enough to interpret clearly, so my Sundays are slightly more stressful but I'll be alright.  You know what I love about the Deaf people here?  They're so childlike.  not childISH, but childLIKE.  Just like Jesus said we all should be.  Innocent, Meek, Humble, Submissive.  I love it so much.  They're so easy to teach and they havent been tarnished by the worldly grime of anti-mormon literature or other religious battles.  They are just so simply trying to be good people.  Trisha came to church again on Sunday and she is so overwhelmed by the holy ghost that she just grins from ear to ear during the 3 hours.  She loves it, and I am so happy.  We are basically going to teach her the discussions during the gospel principals class we teach and hope one day she'll be baptized.  Kelly is finally coming to church next week and Heavenly Father answered my prayers for her to have a bad experience at that other Deaf church she tried.  I am sure she will LOVE ours and the wonderful spirit there.  I can't wait.  

Ashlee is still trying so hard to quit smoking.  I love her dearly.  One day she will be baptized, that was Sister William's dying request when she flew home.  

 Randomness:

*I bought Connect-4 at Goodwill the other day for 50 cents.  Totally worth it.  We play on Mondays and at lunch time.  Ive won 25 of 27 games total.    

*I may be developing some slight pollen allergies.  I guess Sacramento is the worst possible place in the WORLD to be if you have allergies.  Lucky for me, I've never had allergies before and I don't think I will have them when I go home, but I wake up sometimes with a sore throat and the small sniffles.  No biggie, just annoying.  great.  

*The senior missionary in charge of bills called us the other day.  He asked us if we had a FAX machine.  (The zone leaders all have fax machines)  We said no.  He was kind of upset (not at us, just the situation) because he'd been paying $60 a month for us to have a fax machine, so he cut off the service.  Come to find out, it was actually the line that fed our Video Relay System (VRS) to web-cam chat with Deaf people.  Oops.  He's working on getting it back for us.  We use that VRS all the time when Deaf people don't have phones.  haha.  

*The back: the back is still up and running.  It doesn't really stop my work at all, it just gets sore sometimes.  Pene, a woman in my ward, offered to give me a free massage therapy treatment every week after the chiropractor and she says that will really help the muscles keep my bones in place better.  It should double my recovery.  I am going to start this Wednesday so I'll see if it helps.  Going the whole Marshallese transfer without treatment was a bad idea.  I'm just lucky that the mission nurse is letting all of this slide under the table.  (dont tell anyone!)  

I cant wait to skype home this Sunday and see all of your faces for Mothers Day!!  

Love you!

 Sister Wilson