August 21st Letter

Family!

I am emailing later than usual because I went to the temple this morning and did a session. Oh my goodness it was SO beautiful and wonderful. I love the temple :) We get to go every 90 days. Alright highlights from this week...

Tuesday, we played sports with our zone again. It was lots of fun! We then went to the pier with some other sisters for Sister Burdens last preparation day. We got something so delicious! It was a hot waffle ice cream sandwich. So goooooood! 

Wednesday, my second time experiencing eating something I didn't like. We went to a less-actives house for dinner and she made this pasta stuff with peas in it. You all know that I really really really dislike peas, so I swallowed my meal whole. Hahaha. I mean I did try a bite first to see if maybe I like peas now, but I definitely don't. We had a great lesson with Brandon tonight and then we met with our new ward mission leader. He is really excited about his calling and I can tell he is going to be great a fulfilling this calling! He has already been a lot of help to us.

Thursday we had a great district meeting and this girl who is a recent convert came and talked to us. We also celebrated two of the elder's birthdays. Our district is great! Today at the battalion I met this cute couple from Hawaii. They knew the Goo's of course. They have been touring the country the past 3 months going to lots of different temples. I think that is so cool! I want to do that someday. I also met a family from Jerusalem! I told them that my brother lived in Egypt a long time ago and loves Jerusalem and the guy asked me what his name is so I told him Rus Rasmussen and he claims he knows you Rus! His name is Jimmy? Or something like that... He owns a carving shop? Or something like that... haha shoot I can't remember. Is that ringing a bell at all?

Friday, we got a new senior couple-the Rockwells, they are great! Mom & Dad you should highly consider serving in San Diego :) especially at the Mormon Battalion. It is so sweet! Sister Newman and I took this adorable couple from China on a mandarin tour. They hardly spoke any english so we had to speak really slow and mostly just play the movie parts for them. They were so nice and gracious about everything though. We gave them a Book of Mormon. We met with the Brown family again and taught about the restoration. We asked Brother Brown if he would get baptized and he said he would! I love that family so much. I learned today that I need to be more bold in street contacting and actually talk to everyone! 

Saturday, Sister Burden left today. She will be missed! We weekly planned outside and then we had temple shift. We just walk around the temple grounds and talk to people who come visit and we show them pictures of the inside and talk to them about temples and the gospel. It was SO AWESOME!!! I loved it so much and I wish we could do temple shifts more often. First of all there were like 5 weddings while we were there and Mikki Platt was the photographer for one of them so I got to talk to her for a minute. Small world! Haha. The weddings were all beautiful. It was just so neat to talk to people about why we have this beautiful building and about the gospel and ahh I just loved it. Also I don't know if I mentioned this, but my companion was originally called spanish speaking, but they switched her to english to train me. Anyways, at the temple some guys from Mexico stopped by and so she talked to them in spanish and I was so happy because I could understand most of the conversation! Now unfortunately I couldn't say anything back, but I am happy that I at least haven't lost all of my spanish. We also met the cutest family from Finland. They were members and were just here in America on Holiday. We got to eat in the cafeteria in the temple and the food was so good! 

Sunday was so good! We went to ward council and the Brown family came to church!! We were so excited. I helped entertain Jerry the whole time. Brother Brown seemed to really enjoy it and the ward was really good at being welcoming to him. I met an Elder Jeppsen (a senior couple elder) and we made the connection that he was one of Grandpa's missionaries!! I loved hearing that. At the battalion I met these two girls from Germany. They were so nice! I gave them Books of Mormon and they were really excited about it and they even asked for one in German for their mom. Tonight we went to dinner at the Rodriguez's. They are the sweetest family!!! She is filippino and she made the most delicious food! Oh goodness... so so yummy! She even gave us the extras and we were so happy! We had family home evening with them and it was a great lesson. The Spirit was definitely present and that family just has so much faith and love for the gospel. They are truly inspiring. For the treats we had mongolia ice cream. Purple yam flavor and also cheese and corn flavor.... I actually liked both of them a lot! 

Monday we had zone conference! My first one. It was so good! Just a great day of spiritual learning and inspiration. We learned about how to better teach investigators about church and how to ask inspired questions. President Clayton is so awesome! I love being a missionary and I love this gospel so much! At the battalion Sister Stevens and I took a couple from Ireland on tour and they were so great. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they were very grateful and excited to learn more about Jesus Christ. I LOVE when people have that desire. 

Those were just some highlights from the week. All in all it was a super week! Oh Tausha and her family came in! Unfortunately I wasn't there, but she left a sweet note. Also, growing up in Utah, I never knew it was normal for wards to have missionaries. Wards love their missionaries! Haha it is so cool. I think I saw missionaries in our ward like twice in my life, and we had them over for dinner like twice in my life. It is so interesting! I also have never realized how important members are in missionary work until my mission. I am just learning so much every day and I love it. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen