Transfer 1 Week 2

I have been here for two weeks. Week one felt like an eternity. Week two has flown by. Each day seems infinitely long but then at the same time it feels like yesterday I was sitting here at the computer emailing you about my first week. Sister Khumaryan tells me the whole mission feels that way—each day is long but weeks and months seem to fly by.

Fun fact about my companion: she knows five different languages—Armenian, English, Spanish, Russian and Greek. I tell this to people and she says "No! My Greek and Russian are so bad!" and I'm just like, "Whatever, you are amazing!"

It is getting cold here at night, and sometimes even chilly during the day. I was not expecting this, because before I came out here I kept checking the weather for Bakersfield, where the temperature is a lot higher. Here in Lancaster though I guess it can get pretty cold in the winter and some members have told me it sometimes even snows.

I had my first Zone Conference last week. My Zone has nine sets of missionaries, and we all gathered with President and Sister Wilson, as well as the senior missionary couples in our mission, to receive further missionary training. It was pretty great. President Wilson was talking about how as missionaries we need to be bold. He gave each of us a small rock. He looked at me and said "Sister Daelemans, what is that?" 

I said "......It's a rock."

He said "Yes, or you could think of it as a little boulder.....And that what I want each of you to be: a 'little bolder'!" :) It was pretty funny!

The Gospel is True!! I'm so grateful to be a missionary and to share the message of the Restoration with people every day!

Love you all,

Sister Daelemans

Lancaster Greenie

Well, folks, last week I told you I was an official missionary. This week though, I am ACTUALLY an official missionary. Officially.

I flew into Bakersfield last Monday and met President Wilson, my mission president, and a bunch of other people, and did a bunch of orientation things. On Tuesday I was assigned my trainer/companion and the area I will be serving in for the next 6-12 weeks. My companion is Sister Khumaryan. She is from Armenia and only has 12 weeks of her mission left before she goes home, and I feel very lucky to be her last companion before she leaves. We are assigned to the Lancaster 1st Ward/Area. As far as I understand, Bakersfield is in Central Valley, and Lancaster is in Antelope valley, about 2 (?) hours southeast (??) of Bakersfield.

Lancaster is a desert. I saw my first tumble weed the other day (people told me they were in Utah but I never saw one while I was there.) It is also very flat, with the Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. Part of our area is farm land that surrounds Lancaster, and we have to drive on dirt roads to get to some of our appointments. On Thursday we had a crazy thunderstorm with hail and everything, and our phone kept giving us flash flood warnings. We were fine, but there were areas around us where there were mud slides that got cars stuck in the roads. Apparently, some of the cars are still stuck.

Since I have been here, I have already had many opportunities to talk to and teach people, and have seen many miracles. Most of our time is spent trying to contact potential investigators (people that the missionaries in the past have talked to and who seemed interested in the gospel) and former investigators. We knock on a lot of doors and talk to a lot of people, but most of them are not interested. Also, it seems like a lot of people out here have talked to LDS missionaries already. Apparently our area has been heavily tracted by missionaries in the past.

Sister Khumaryan keeps telling me that I brought a lot of good luck with me, since this week we found four new investigators and all four of them committed to be baptized. All of these are miracles, and I wish I had time to tell you the story for each one, but suffice it to say that the hand of the Lord was definitely guiding us to these people. These people were already prepared and ready for the gospel, and all my companion and I did was to show up at the right time to tell them about it.

God loves each of us so much. And I love you too!

Sister Daelemans

MTC Adventures

Family and Friends,

Well, I am officially Sister Daelemans now, name tag and all! I have been in the MTC for just over a week now, and I really don't even know how to express all the things that I have learned and felt here. It feels like I have learned more about the gospel here in the past week than I have in my entire life. There is a very strong spirit that resides in every inch of the MTC (even non-spiritual random places like the gym and cafeteria.)

I came into the MTC thinking that what I needed to know was the doctrines and the lessons in Preach My Gospel. I've since come to understand, through a lot of humbling, how much more there is to know in order to teach people. Being a missionary is learning to love people with God's love. Everyone I will be teaching has different needs, and I've learned that the most important thing to accomplish as a missionary is to show these people, these children of God, how the Gospel can help and bless them. We practice teaching "real" investigators (some of them are actors pretending to be investigators, but some of them are actually real, though we don't know which ones are which.) From the experiences I've had practicing teaching these investigators I can tell you this: teaching is hard. And teaching is even harder when you try to rely on yourself and your own knowledge and not the Spirit. When you let the Spirit take over, it ceases to be your lesson, and becomes his. It's a cool experience to know that what you're saying isn't coming from you. It hasn't happened every time that I have taught, but the times that it has were amazing, and truly humbling. My companion and I could feel the love that God has for these people, even though we had only met them a few times.

My companion's name is Sister Isom (pronounced like Awesome, but with an I. And she is pretty awesome!) We are both going to Bakersfield, and so are the two other sisters in our district, (our district is the group of missionaries that all have classes together.) There are also four elders in our district, who are going to serve in Roseville, California. We all get along pretty great and have helped each other to learn and grow together.

Besides teaching, we also have class. A lot of class. In fact, we probably spend 8-9 hours in our classroom each day, and sometimes we go stir-crazy. But our two teachers are amazing and we have learned so much from them.

This past weekend was general conference, and it was a really cool experience to be able to watch it with the hundreds of other missionaries at the MTC. We all sat in a giant auditorium (it was really just the gym) and watched conference together. It was kind of funny, because anytime one of the speakers would say something "quote-worthy" or specifically about missionary service, you could hear hundreds of pens clicking open so that the missionaries could all write down what was said. (We were told when we first got here that "A short pencil is better than a long memory," so I am constantly taking notes and writing things down.) I learned so much at General Conference! It seemed like every talk was about missionary service, but of course it wasn't. But it just goes to show that the messages shared are all inspired and you can find an answer or guidance so matter where you are in life. If any of you didn't get a chance to watch Conference last weekend, I invite you to still go and watch it! It should be on YouTube and on LDS.org. [Can you tell I'm a missionary?! I've already started committing people to do things ;) ]

Our district has already received our travel plans. We leave the MTC next Monday at 3 in the morning. For some reason we will be flying to Denver first (??? don't ask me why...) and then on to Bakersfield (I didn't even know there was an airport there.) It seems that I have been in the MTC for ages, but at the same time it feels like I just got here. When you hear from me next I will be out in the field teaching real people. I know that the Lord has called me to serve in Bakersfield for a reason. There are people there who are ready to hear the Gospel, who have been waiting for me to come knock on there door to share the glorious message of God's love for them. There is power in testifying of God's love for people, in telling them that God love's them, and that He is their Father. I cannot wait to continue serving him for the next 18 months with all of my heart and with all of my effort.

I love you all!

Sister Daelemans