Sister Jessica Garfield California San Fernando Mission

Hey everybody! This week was a little weird. We just ended up doing different things than usual, still missionary-work related, but just different. We are working on trying some new finding activities, since knocking hasn't been working lately. Any ideas would be much appreciated! Favorite Miracle: Last Sunday, the young women were combined with the relief society, and one of the young women leaders mentioned a few young women (not present) who were struggling. We decided to reach out to those girls and see if there's anything we can do to help them. There are these twins who live at the top of our area that we'd never met, so we planned to stop by them right after a lesson we had up there, but then the lesson fell through. We're a little low on miles right now, but we decided to still go up there. When we got there, the girls weren't home, but the mom was. She has been renovating her house, pretty much by herself, so she can sell it and move to Virginia. ...

The temple visitor center with the whole Alfarro crew!!  Hey everybody!  Thank you all for your prayers for the people we're teaching! We've seen so many miracles this week because of it.  Favorite Spiritual Things: We had so many cool experiences with our recent converts this week. First off, we got to go to the temple visitors center with the Alfarros again because they wanted to take Jason. It helped him so much! He sent us a really cool text afterwards telling us how much he really means it now. It's really cool to see how much the temple has helped him be more committed.  The next day, we got to do temple baptisms with the older Alfarros and Emilio! That was so cool too. Emilio got to baptize Sister Trujillo, and Brian baptized me. Karla was so sweet afterwards, talking about how she wants to come all the time. I hope they will. They are so excited to get sealed in a year! Emilio spoke in sacrament meeting (again), and President and Sister Hayn...

Hey everybody!   Favorite scripture: This is probably in Isaiah too, but I don't have time to try to find it, haha: 2 Nephi 8:12, and also a few verses after that, but mostly twelve. I liked this because the Lord is trying to help us to know with such confidence who He is. Because if we know who He is and what He's done for us, we have no reason to fear anyone or anything. He is the one that comforts us. Favorite spiritual thing: Brother Alfarro and his oldest son passed the sacrament on Sunday! It was so cool to see. Then, after church, the son went with the other priests to do in-home sacraments and blessed it for the first time too! It's so cool to keep seeing people progress. Favorite funny thing: Sister Trujillo and I had to drive to a meeting in LA this week, and we had to leave pretty early in the morning, when everyone was still driving to work. First off, it took a ridiculously long time to drive about 15 miles, but what was funnier was the cars...

Comp Picture Hey everybody!   This week we became a part of the California Los Angeles Mission! It's pretty exciting. There is a lot of craziness that's happening, but everybody is working hard to make it as smooth as possible. We have a big meeting next week to get a lot of stuff worked out, but it seems very much like President Haynie wants this to be a merge and not a take over. He wants to learn from us, and we want to learn from him. I really hope it works out that way! Since a few people asked, I am still an STL for now, and Sister Trujillo will still be my companion for another 6 weeks. We are no longer required to do KnockOut, but President Haynie purposefully didn't bring up a few big topics when the mission first met him, so we'll see what else we find out about that this week. I like President Haynie so far. He seems to care about us a lot. Sister Haynie is... different for sure, but I'm doing my best to be patient and to unde...

Hey everybody! Favorite scripture: I'm going to steal one from my awesome mom this week. Amos 8:11-12: "Behold, the days come... that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And [people] shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." My mom shared this with me because she knew that we'd be a little low on investigators after the baptism, as a reminder that there are lots of people out there who are seeking the word of God. This scripture is about the apostasy, and how there were people then who could not find it, because the gospel wasn't restored yet. Well, it has been now! And what a blessing it is. I am so glad that I get to help people who are searching for the truth. It's really amazing to see the miracles that the Lord brings to pass every single day. (This is a littl...

Hey guys! I'm going to have to be a little quick with this one, but here I go! Favorite adventure: I'm doing this instead of a funny thing because the reasoning behind it was actually kind of sad. The Hermanas in our zone had a baptism that was supposed to happen the same day as the Alfarros, just in the evening. Their investigator dropped them less than 24 hours before her baptism. They were super sad and were just having a really hard time with it, but we didn't know until 9 pm, when we were over at the church, setting up tables in the cultural hall for the baptism the next day. It was late, but there happens to be a McDonalds like 200 feet from our church building, so we decided to bring them ice cream. We got President Henrie's permission since it would mean we'd be out past curfew, and then we went through the drive through and headed to their apartment as fast as we could. We were literally sprinting through their gate before it closed, McFlurries i...