September 4th Letter

Dear Family,

Let me just say that I love you all so much! This week has been great as usual. Here are the highlights..

Tuesday we went to the zoo! It was a lot of fun! The zoo is so big though. We went on a bus tour to see most of it and then we just walked to our favorite animals to take closer up pics. We got in for only 18 dollars so that was nice! The zone leaders in our district know someone who works at the zoo so they helped us out. We got to meet some of the new sisters this night!

Wednesday we had transfers in the morning. I am still in Chula Vista with Sister Stevens and I am so so happy about that! It is her last transfer so we are going to work so so hard so she can leave with nothing left. They also opened a new area for the MOBAT (Mormon Battalion) sisters. We have 4 new sisters and 3 sisters left. The new sisters are so wonderful! 

I came across a wonderful quote this day which is, "The shortest distance between a problem and a solution, is the distance between your knees and the floor." I LOVE that, and how true it is. 

Cleaning the courthouse

Thursday we had temple shift. Since we have 10 companionships now we will have more temple shifts which makes me really excited because I love temple shifts! We taught Brandon tonight the gospel of Jesus Christ (Lesson 3 in Preach My Gospel) and invited him to be baptized at the end of this month. He said he really wants to pray about it so we are hoping that he sincerely does and will get his answer. It was Sister Miller's birthday today so this night we sang happy birthday to her! 

Making an agreement to not eat treats

Friday Sister Stevens and I made an agreement to not eat treats... haha we'll see how long this lasts. So far so good. I am learning how to cook better... kind of? Haha. I finally had some people email me back from my referrals at the MOBAT. There is this one guy named Zhimin from Hong Kong and he is so awesome! I get to teach him through emails and it is such a neat experience. Also everyone should read this months Ensign. It is soooo good!!! It is basically all about missionary work which is a wonderful thing. I think I have said this before, but I never realized how important members are in missionary work until my mission. I am already excited for when I get home how I can help the local missionaries out, haha is it too soon to be thinking about that?

Saturday the MOBAT was sooo busy because of the holiday weekend. I like when it is busy! We had district meeting today and met our new district. We have 2 new elders. I definitely miss my old district, but I know that change is good and this district will be great as well. We challenged the elders to street contacting this night and we got 6!! We definitely beat them and we are learning how to be better at street contacting which is nice. One of the contacts was this guy who was working in his garage. We talked to him for a good 30 minutes about the Book of Mormon. We gave him one to read and he was amazed that we weren't making him pay for the book. He said he loves reading and that he would definitely read it. We set up an appointment with him for this coming week! I love little miracles like that. 

A San Diego sunset

Sunday was good as always. Fast Sunday is always a little hard at the Battalion because we have to be standing and giving tours and using lots of energy, but the Lord helps me with the strength I need :) We had dinner at a members tonight--an awesome family! The wife is from Germany and the husband served in Germany (which they didn't even meet on their mission) but it's cool because they are teaching their kids German so their kids are fluent in 2 languages! 

Monday the MOBAT was busy again. Sister Stevens and I also went down to Old Town Historic Park to clean the courthouse so that was fun. Also someone came through that knew Brock and then I had my first experience of someone asking me if I was related to a Megan Rasmussen because I looked like her... haha I was just waiting for that one! In our area we had an appointment with Brandon but he wasn't there.. so we tried some other contacting and then went to a members (the Dixons) for dinner. They are such a great family! She made us such delicious Mexican food. They are all about member missionary work. It is so exciting!! After we decided to stop by Brandons again and he was home thankfully. We watched the restoration with him and just bore testimony about Joseph Smith and the restored gospel. It was such a neat experience! He gave such a sweet and sincere prayer after. We ended at like 8:00, which is the hardest time because we have to leave Chula by 8:30 in order to be home at 9:00PM, so we were trying to decide how to best use our time and we decided to pull over and say a prayer. After the prayer we felt like we should go visit a potential named Victor, who was kind of out of the way, but we decided to follow that prompting. When we got to his house, no one was home. At first I was super disappointed and couldn't understand why we both felt like we should go there... and then no one was there.. but then i just to this huge overwhelming feeling from the Spirit and heard specifically in my mind "your efforts are never wasted." Maybe the purpose of that was the Lord wanted to make sure we would follow the Spirit? I don't know, but what I do know is that the Lord has a reason and purpose for everything and I am really grateful that I was able to have that experience and know that as long as I am working my hardest, my efforts aren't being wasted. 

I love this gospel and this work! And I love you all!

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

P.S. The fam I havent heard from yet... I think it's about time to hear from you :)