Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! It was such a wonderful Christmas this year! It made me so happy to be in the same ward I was last Christmas, and to be able to spend it with my 2 awesome companions who I love dearly! And I also got to Skype my family which was such a huge blessing! :)

We got to go to the LA Temple this week and it was so much fun! I love going to the temple. There is such a spirit of peace inside, and I can always feel Heavenly Father's love for me there so strongly. It's like he is telling me "It's ok. I am here and I love you, and you don't need to worry so much about everything else. Just trust in me and everything will work out the way it needs to."

Here is a picture of us in front of the biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen.

On Christmas we went to go visit Richard and we ended up playing pool with him. He is super good at pool! He was also very sassy, it was hilarious! 

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One year ago today is also the day that he got baptized!! It makes me so happy to know that he is still active and that he still loves the Gospel so much. He seems to be so much happier than he used to be, it really has shown me how the Gospel can help people even when they are already living Christ-like lives. So many people think they are satisfied with life,and that they already have a good enough relationship with Christ, but they don't know that there is so much MORE happiness that the Lord wants to give them, which can only be found in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love you all!

Sister Daelemans

The Circle of (mission) Life

I am back in Lancaster! I thought it would feel like constant Deja Vu, but it really just feels comfortable, like I never left. It is a pretty cool feeling!

I am in a trio with Sister Breinholt, who has been out for about 11 months, and Sister Crowley, who has been out for 6 weeks! Sister Crowley is super fresh on the mission, so she is filled with enthusiasm about everything! It's pretty great :) We are having a BLAST! Sister Crowley was already in Lancaster 1st, and Sister Breinholt was in Juniper ward (which meets in the same church building) but the person who was supposed to be her companion in Juniper went home right before transfers because she was sick, so that is why we are in a trio. It ALSO means that we are covering both wards. THIS WAS THE BUSIEST WEEK I HAVE EVER HAD ON MY WHOLE MISSION! It was both wonderful and super stressful. I am also super exhausted. We have so many investigators right now, but so far most of them seem super flaky, but that's ok because there are also a couple of gems that I'm sure are going to get baptized! But Nobody came to church (hence the flakiness) but WE WILL GET THEM TO CHURCH IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!

I was so excited this week because I got to see all 3 of my recent converts who I taught and who got baptized while I was here a year ago.

-Richard: The other sisters had told him that I was coming back, so he greated me and said he was glad to see me again, but I don't think he actually recognized me, because at one point he mixed up me and Sister Breinholt. But that's ok, he is 81 now and already had a bad memory when I was here before, so I was prepared for it. He is just as sweet as ever, and he now has a calling in the ward as the one who greets people at church and passes out the programs!

-Levi: His family actually moved out of the area to the other side of town, but the Dasslers (his grandparents) invited us over for dinner when they were having a family Christmas get-together, so I got to see him! He said "It's been so long since I saw you!" Haha, he told me he forgot what my name was but I told him it was ok. He was excited to see me and told me all about how he is now in the 4th grade and all his classmate are his friends. :)

-Rita: Rita has not been going to church the past couple of months. I left her a note saying that I was back and then we texted her and texted her a time to come over. I guess she forgot my name as well (lol, nobody can say my name or remember it, but that's ok) because when she opened the door when we came for our appointment she was super surprised! She was so happy to see me though and we talked for a while about why she stopped coming to church. We are going to start visiting her again and hopefully get her back to church.

There are a ton of other things that happened this week, with the investigators we found, but I am running out of computer time! (Being in Tehachapi really spoiled me because there were enough computers there for all of the missionaries, but in Lancaster we have assigned email times and there are currently some elders hanging around breathing down our necks, waiting for us to be done with the computers. :P )

This week is going to be so awesome. We have lots of people to go teach and we are going to the LA Temple on Wednesday and of course.......CHRISTMAS!!!!

Love you all! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Sister Daelemans

Back to the Beginning

What a week this has been!

I guess I should start with the news that I am getting transferred. After 8 months in good ol' Tehachapi, I am leaving. It makes me sad to go. I was hoping to stay for Christmas, but the really awesome good news is that I am going back to my greenie area! I will be serving this next transfer in Lancaster 1st ward, which was my very first area on the mission! I am so sad to leave, but happy to be going somewhere for Christmas where I already know and love the people. And I am MOST excited to be able to see my recent converts there again!! :) I will be in a trio with 2 other sisters.

It was so funny when we got the transfer calls. We had been waiting anxiously all evening to find out what was going to happen, and finally the APs called. Sister Gallacher answered the phone: "Hello, this is Sister Gallacher and Sister Daelemans!!!" "Hello, this is Elder Bennett." And then........Sister Gallacher dropped the phone and it fell apart! She hurriedly but the battery back in and turned the phone back on, but it seemed to take an eternity. Most suspenseful moment of my life! We called them back and then they gave us the news.

This weekend was also the Tehachapi Creche Festival! I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but a "creche" is just a nativity. The church building was full of nativities on display and there was also live musical performances from members of the church and members of the community all day Saturday and after church on Sunday. It was a big hit! We had a lot of people from the community show up and they seemed to really enjoy themselves. We were there most of the time as docents. There was also a live nativity with animals, which they recruited us to be a part of because I guess nobody else wanted to sit out in the cold for 20 minute shifts. Their loss. It was super fun!! I was a shepherd. :) Christmas really is the most amazing time of year to celebrate the birth AND atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ, and I think it was such a wonderful opportunity to show people of other faiths, who sometimes wrongly judge us and our beliefs, that everything we do really is centered around Jesus Christ! :)

For the Creche festival, our mission president wanted all of the missionaries in Tehachapi to sing a song. So they made us the very last performers Sunday night. The only trouble is that when we got together to practice the day before, our singing was atrocious. Imagine 2 sisters on melody who sing so quietly you can't hear them, me and another sister on harmony (the other sister was practically belting, so that's probably why you couldn't hear the melody), 1 elder attempting to sing the melody but completely off-pitch, and 1 elder who I'm pretty sure was just lip-syncing. I was sure it was going to be a disaster. But, when we got up in front of everyone Sunday night to sing, it somehow sounded really good! Sister Gallacher said it was because Jesus was singing with us, lol! It was a Christmas miracle!

The somewhat sad news of the week is that we are no longer teaching Hong and Mike. We have been teaching them every single week since I got to this area in August, and they have been reading and praying and coming to church. They have even been living the Word of Wisdom for the past 2 months. I love them and their children so much! But Hong has always struggled with faith, and throughout the whole teaching process she constantly flipped back and forth between leaning more on her faith and leaning more on her doubts. The week before last she told us she wanted to stop taking the lessons, but we still went over and taught them because Mike really wanted to get baptized and we had to finish the lessons with him. Hong sat in on the lesson. Then this week she texted us and said she wanted to get baptized! We were so flabbergasted. Sister Gallacher and I just sat there for probably 3 minutes, and all we could say was "Wait...What?!" In our lesson with them this week we set a goal for baptism on December 31. And we taught them the Law of Tithing. Mike was all for it, and Hong seemed to take it pretty well and said she was willing to give it a try. She told us that she realized she needed to give the Lord 100% in order to show him that she really is sincere. I was walking on clouds! She had finally gotten there! But then the next morning she texted us and said that she had changed her mind, and that they were both officially out. She said they just could not pay tithing, that it was too much for them, and that they wouldn't be coming to church anymore. I was so sad. I don't think I have loved or cared for anyone else on my mission more than them. But I know that there is nothing more we could have done. We literally gave them, and the Lord, everything we could. But I am ok with it now. I said goodbye to them yesterday, and Hong said that she hopes to someday get there. She still has the desire. And it might take them being away from church for a while for her to feel the difference in her life and to realize what an impact it actually had. Mike seemed kind of sad. He was completely ready for baptism, but they were in it together as a family so he isn't going to get baptized or go to church without his wife. Hong told me that she has learned so much from me, but I told her that if she only remembers one thing, it is how much Heavenly Father loves her. I hope she knows that and can feel it. Sorry to end this on a sad note. I am not sad. Even though this was disappointing, the Lord has filled me with peace. All I feel for them is love and hope. :)

And now, I go back to the beginning. I have 3 transfers to go, and I will most likely spend them in the same area where I spent my first 3 transfers. I could not sleep the night that they told us, my mind just kept racing and thinking about all the people I will be able to see again. I have often thought to myself what I would have done differently in my first area if I had known then what I know now. I did my best when I was there, and that's all the Lord expects of me. But I have learned and grown so much since that time. I want to make my last months as a missionary mean the most. I feel so blessed to be in the Lord's service, to serve him and his children. I remember the hard times at the beginning of my mission, when I could not image spending the next 18 months knocking on people's doors. It seemed like it would be an eternity. But the time has flown by. Looking back I realize how much I have learned and how much I have grown from both the difficult times and the good ones, and I think about what would have happened if I had given up any of the many times when things were really difficult. I would have missed out on so many joy!

Have a wonderful Christmas season and remember Christ in all that you do! :) 

Sister Daelemans

Christmas is in the Air!

It is December, which means that Christmas is in the air! We have helped decorate 3 Christmas trees this week, which was pretty fun.

We also watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. If you missed it you can watch it on lds.org. The messages were all wonderful and it was a great reminder of what Christmas is truly about!

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I also chopped my hair off last Monday.

 

Sorry it's a short one this week! Not much too exciting to report on :)

​Much Love,

Sister Daelemans