June 13, 2011 & New Address

The Pendleton's, my mission president and his wife, are really nice. Sister Pendleton told me that I have a nice, beautiful voice, that she kept wanting to hear me speak. That was nice of her. I never thought of having a nice voice. Did they ever send you pictures of me coming into California? Or pictures with them? I thought they said they would, but maybe I was mistaken, who knows... well at least I don't know. My companion is nice. Her name is Sister Emily Grant from West Valley, Utah. It's her first time training. She's been out 10 months and she's going on her 6th month of being in this area. Yep. But yeah, we get along real well. We are in Citrus Heights in the Woodside ward. Not too far away from Roseville or the mission home or office. They like to keep their sisters close. My zone seems fun. I met them all last Wednesday. We are the only sisters. There are about 7 other pairs of elders. Which Elder Holyoak is part of. He is companion's with my District Leader. I talked to him. He was excited that he knew where I am from. And I told him that I remember his dad being in the stake presidency; he was excited about that too. He's about the same about what I distantly remember of him. Ha, yep. Oh! I totally forgot to tell you when I talked to you on the phone the other day, but I met two sisters at the MTC and they both knew two of my cousins. One, was from Fillmore. She knew the Thompsons. Also apparently they are helping her pay her for her mission since Jacob's not going anymore... what happened with that? I always thought he would make an amazing missionary. But she was a nice girl. And then another sister went to High School with Andrew. Her name was Sister Smith... I don't exactly remember the others... maybe it was Sister Anderson? Crazy coincidence. They were both in my branch. So random fact of my life: Normally the sister missionaries here do service at this old people place... I forget what they are called right now... anyways, usually they do bingo, but they canceled it Thursday and signed us up for something on Saturday. Saturday, me, as a LDS missionary, served coffee to old people. Ironic! Haha... I really didn't enjoy it. I really greatly dislike the smell of coffee. But at least people appreciated us. AND! we have a possible potential investigator. She works there, she doesn't live there. But she said she knew a lot about our church since she had lived in a lot of "Mormon communities". And she was willing to listen. So we almost left, but we were both feeling guilty at not asking her, so we went back in and asked if she wanted to learn more and got her number as she was in the middle of escorting old people back to their rooms. Maybe not the best time to ask, but at least we asked and got something from it. We were both scared, but we asked and hopefully she'll listen to whomever because we don't even know if she lives in our area. A lot of this missionary work is ... well, we have to be careful because we can only teach people in our area, so I have the fear that I won't care about people if they aren't in our area. That is a bad thing to do! The whole purpose of my mission is to bring others to Christ through baptism. It is helping them see the great plan of salvation, to bring happiness into their lives. It is their eternal salvation at work. I really hope I will be able to help them understand that there's more to life. More happiness found in obeying God's law. That there is a purpose to this life: this life is a time for learning and overcoming challenges. It won't be easy, but with a smile on our faces and with the faith that all will work out, we can endure to the end. I believe this with all my heart. It is the only way I have found true happiness in life. By smiling and understanding that I am to learn something from the experiences that are thrown my way. And every minute of it is worth it to me. All the hard times and especially the good times. I know that there will be moments out there when it is hard, but I know that with faith in the Lord, faith that it will work out, and with a smile it will work out just fine.
Another random fact of my life: Yesterday we were driving home after receiving referrals from a lady in our ward, and as we were driving Sister Grant said, "Llamas!" "What?" I was totally confused. "Llamas just walked across the street." "What?" Now I was curious. We turned around the car (since she had seen the llamas from the rear view mirror). For sure, as we drove by, there were llamas walking down the sidewalk! Crazy. Even funnier, a lady was walking them... like a dog. Haha, and according to my companion (this was the second time she saw this), the lady does this often. Crazy! A lady walking her llamas. It makes sense why she does it. Why not? People do it with their dogs, so why not a llama. :D It was awesome. We even got out of the car and talked to her and asked if she was interested in knowing more about her church. She told us no and that she was Buddhist. And then she wished us a "good fortune." Ha, that was funny. Sister Grant kept laughing. She LOVED it. Ha, yep. Something else I have learned this week is the importance of members. Members can help missionaries find people to teach. They know the people out there better than we do. With their help, we can find investigators. Also, like the saying, "every member a missionary." It is so true. We were talking to a lady in our ward last night and oh boy, she is a missionary. She will invite her neighbor's to activities, yet even if they say no, she knows it will take time. We can't change people in an instant. It takes time and slow humbling for the person to accept and realize how important the gospel is for their life. The reason I know that the gospel is true is because without it I wouldn't be happy. Without it, I would be a totally different person. I would probably hate life, be depressed, and who knows what. But the gospel, the Savior, helps me to realize to find the good things in life, to always be happy no matter the circumstance, to find the good lessons from the hard times. With Him, I know who I am: a royal daughter, his spirit child. And I know that he is there, through the blessings He has given me. Anyways, I should probably get going. Oh! Here's the address of my current place of residence, so you can write me here and it will get to me quicker:
Sister Kristi Walston
6904 Walnut Ave.
Orangevale, CA 95662