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