August 7th Letter

Dear Familia,

Another week? Seriously??? I can't even believe it. This week was wonderful! I experienced many different parts of missionary work. I am understanding why returned missionaries would say that missionary work is hard. It's hard because I am exhausted all the time and it's also hard when people just reject you! If only they knew how wonderful their lives could be if they would just listen to us. Nonetheless, I am loving being a missionary more and more every day.

First of all, San Diego has the BIGGEST spiders. They are soo incredibly disgusting. Thankfully, my companion is not afraid of them so she will kill them. Me on the other hand, I just run away. Okay I wanted to explain kind of how things at the Battalion work. All the sisters at the Battalion live in the same apartment complex and each apt represents an area, so when transfers come if we switch areas then we will switch apts. We have 2 sister trainers that are like the zone leaders of the Battalion, but we also have our own district and zones for our areas. Speaking of districts, we have district meeting every week. Our district is awesome and this past week we had a meeting on the Atonement and it was such a powerful and amazing meeting and the Spirit was so strong. It just reaffirmed why I am out here. I want people to be able to access the Atonement and have this amazing blessing in their lives. Ah goodness, this gospel is amazing. I also couldn't help but think of all the amazing people in my life who have shown me that they get the Atonement. I remember like a month before I left on my mission, Brad Wilcox came and spoke at my institute and he gave part of his talk 'His Grace is Sufficient.' My friend recently sent me that talk and you all should definitely read it. I actually think it is in the ensign this month. It is an amazing talk though and it really puts grace into a whole other perspective, at least it did for me. So everyone go read it :)

I got to experience two things this week 1) I had to eat something I didn't like, just to be nice because they were offering it and that was cheesecake. I still do not like cheesecake, but I ate it, and 2) I got to try something new! We went over to a members house on Sunday for dinner and the lady made waffles and her favorite thing on waffles is cheese sauce! She wanted us to at least try it and you know what? It actually wasn't that bad! Haha it sounds really weird, but I liked it. San Diego can bring some foreign food experience haha. Also yesterday my companion and I got completely lost on our way to zone meeting. We were an hour late and it was a mess, but surprisingly I wasn't stressed out. The plus side is that we drove over the coronado bridge and drove all along the island and it is BEAUTIFUL!!! The scene driving over the bridge was picturesque.

We saw some wonderful miracles this week. We added new investigators. One is a guy named Dee. He loves Jesus Christ so much and has such a desire to follow him, he is just confused how we can know exactly which church is the right one. We are trying to help him see that he has to pray and ask Heavenly Father. He says he can't trust his feelings though and so he is worried he will join one and then find out it was the wrong one to join. He is very open and receptive though and we taught him the restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to pray and he said he would love to do that and meet with us again. Another is a guy named Jared. His family are all members and he is awesome! He too just wants to make sure that this is the right path for him. Him and his wife have the cutest little boy named Jerry who is about 2 1/2 and he reminds me of Makai so much!! He is adorable. Another is this lady named Lynn. She was on a potential list so we decided to go visit her yesterday and we caught her out on her porch. She is from the phillipines and is such a sweet lady. We told her our purpose as missionaries and taught a little about the Book of Mormon and asked if we could come teach her more. We were so excited! She also said that as soon as we came to talk to her, she knew there was a purpose for us meeting. Ahhh the Lord blesses us all!

The Battalion has been a little slower this week, except for Sundays. Sundays are always crazy! This past Sunday a family from Denmark came! I was so happy and they told me I look Danish :) I proudly told them that I am. After the tour I talked to them about religion a little and offered them a Book of Mormon and sadly they declined. They were such a sweet family though and I hope someday their hearts can be open to the gospel. It made me think of my setting apart blessing though when President Camp said that many people I met on my mission would get baptized after my 18 months of serving and now I can see that is because I am serving at the Battalion. I meet so many people in such a short time and it's just about planting that seed in their hearts at the Battalion so one day they will be open to accepting the gospel.

Well, that is all the time I have today. I pray for you all every day and I hope you are well and happy. Isn't this weekend the Burley Fair? Is anyone going? Let me know how it is! I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen