Sister Jessica Garfield California San Fernando Mission

Hey!  I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had the chance to have dinner with a family in our ward, along with the Elders, together. It was pretty fun! Favorite Miracle: Until recently, most of us were advised to do some of our studies at night since it isn't necessarily the safest thing ever to be out in the dark in some of the areas of our mission (ie, Compton). However, just last week there was a change in missions on the West Coast to allow us to spend all of our time from 5-9pm out finding and teaching people. At first some of us were a little skeptical about the details of the change and the ability to find people (safely) when it's super dark outside. But we have seen so many little miracles from it already! Just since Monday, we have talked to Giovanne, Gary, Simon, Jorge, Zach, Larissa, Karl, Trevor, and Dariya all after dark, most of which were on the streets between walking to people who we were stopping by. And those are just the ones whose na...

Hey! Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I hope that everybody has a really good holiday! Favorite Scripture: I have been asked to give a talk on the new Home Centered Church Supported thing in a couple of weeks, and found this scripture that I thought was really good: 3 Nephi 17:3. I liked how it talked about going to our homes and pondering the things that we've been taught, praying about it, and seeking further understanding. That's what this is all about. I think it's really cool that the church wants to help us to deepen our personal conversion to following the Savior. After all, this is His church and His gospel. We need to know that for ourselves. The end of the verse talks about how He is going to come again, to share more with us. I thought about that like the second coming, and how we know that these are the last days. I know that this new concept can help to strengthen and prepare each of us for the Second Coming! Favorite Miracle: This was really simp...

Hey there! I hope that everyone has such a great week and is enjoying their Veterans Day! Our week was pretty good, with some fun service opportunities and a decent amount of teaching, in both English and Russian! We're slowly but surely getting things going here.   Favorite Scripture: Alma 60: 6-12. So, this is actually going to seem like a super depressing scripture when you read it, but the reason I put this on here is because I was thinking about it from a missionary perspective. Moroni is accusing Pahoran of neglecting his people and withholding provisions from them that they need to survive. I was thinking about how, as missionaries, we have the spiritual provisions people are in need of in order to make it through this battle against Satan to make it back to our Heavenly Home. From this perspective, I was thinking about how I never want to be caught withholding those spiritual provisions from people who are seeking the gospel. Instead, I want to do everything I can...

Hey everybody! Hollywood is freaking crazy, man! So, I very much believe that a big part of why I got sent here is because, if I ever do meet someone famous, it won't phase me. I probably won't even know who they are, haha. But I just want to make things very clear: no one should ever think of Hollywood as being glamorous. If you're going to use a word that starts with a "g" to describe it, I would use "gross" instead. ; ) But that means it's pretty great for the work! There are so many people here! They're all super crazy, but that means they're also pretty fun, haha. Favorite Scripture: Alma 37:44. I thought this was a super interesting comparison, because one would think that it would be super easy to follow a straight path, as easy as it would be to follow a compass north. But as we learn from Laman and Lemuel, sometimes it can actually be really hard to do that. This world is crazy. Life is crazy. It can be confusing, and som...

You get 2 posts this week, because mom forgot to post last weeks letter. This letter is from this week October 29th. Hello from California!   I have some pretty interesting news! Drumroll please... I got transferred. So I know that that part isn't all that exciting, so hear me out. First off, I am going to be serving in Hollywood, which is going to be crazy. We'll be in the heart of the city! My new companion and I are going to be whitewashing in, which is also going to be crazy since I've never left the valley and my companion is right out of training. We are replacing Elders, which is always fun, so we'll be picking up their car and keys and stuff at the LA Stake center from their previous zone leaders. But those zone leaders are not our new zone leaders, because we won't be in that zone. We are actually going to be in the international zone. Why? Because Sister Howard, my new companion, speaks Russian! We are going to be double covering Hollywood with a ...