November 27th Letter

Dear Family,

Wow what a week it has been! Transfers!! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving together! I saw Abby, Paige, and Cacia's pictures in memory of me, haha thank you so much! I love you so much and also you girls are so stylish! Here are the highlights of the week . . . 

Tuesday we celebrated Sister O'Neill's birthday by walking around Old Town and eating at Miguels. So delicious! Sister Davies and I got to pick up a new sister at the mission home so we did that. Her name is Sister Mulipola! She is from Samoa and is the cutest thing. We took her to our area with us. We had a lesson and dinner with some members and then I went and said bye to Brandon and also the House family. I will miss Chula :( 

Wednesday morning was transfers! Here is the verdict...... I am now serving in the La Jolla YSA ward and my companion is Sister Pagel!!!! I was stoked. I love her and serving in a YSA ward?? That is so cool! Sister Page and I had started becoming really great friends and then they put us as companions and I was just so excited! We get along great and I can just tell we will be friends forever! I love all these new friends I am making :) We actually had been talking about how we hoped we'd be companions some time but that we didn't think it would happen because of all the new sisters coming in January, but look what happened. Woohoo! Sister Davies found out she is training Sister Mulipola! Haha she had no idea she was training until the morning of! We usually find out the day before, so that was a fun surprise for her. We got to go down to Old Town Square today and help decorate the huge Christmas tree. It was fun! After we had to move apartments so we did that and got all organized and Sister Pagel helped me learn a bit about our area.

Sister Rasmussen and her new companion, Sister Page

Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving!! I had MoBat in the morning shift and it was surprisingly busy! Also the senior couples are so good to us and made us an amazing thanksgiving lunch! Mmmm. It was so delicious!! We weekly planned after that and then met with our investigator Keri. She is so cute! She is about 28 and she loves the gospel! She's already so excited to get baptized and she just is a really sweet girl. Brandon.. you should come down to San Diego, haha. We also found out we would be speaking in church on Sunday, joy! Haha you all know how much I love speaking. We aren't allowed to proselyte on Thanksgiving or Christmas and we serve in a YSA ward aka all our members were home for the holiday so we just tried making lots of phone calls and get more organized. I am so grateful for the restored gospel, for this chance I have to be a missionary, for the Book of Mormon, for my Savior and all that He did for me, and for my amazing family! 

Cassie said there was lots of yummy food for Thanksgiving!

Friday we tried a finding activity that included walking around a park and having people take a survey. It wasn't very successful, mostly because no one was outside, haha. We contacted a referral and set up an appointment and then we had temple from 12-5. Oh my goodness it was so busy! Probably one of the busiest since I've been here. We got to meet so many people from all over the world, member and non-member. This awesome kid from Taiwan who we talked to wanted to learn more. He was so sweet. I also met this old man from St. George who is a member, but he is not sealed to his wife because he loves his coffee. We had a great talk and I challenged him to trade it for something else and in a year when I am home, I am going to come to St. George to visit him and he better be sealed. They were such a nice family and his wife was grateful that we got to talk with him. Oh ps it was pretty chilly today! Our appointments after fell through. We had a lesson with an investigator, William. William has quite the story! He got into drugs and then stole some bikes and sold them so he could have money to buy more drugs. He got caught and had to go to jail for a few months and now he is on probation for a year. He found God in jail though and shortly after he got out, came in contact with the missionaries. He is a completely different person! He basically is a member in the sense that he cleaned up, he comes to church, he comes to activities, he reads and prays every day! He just has to wait until his probation is over to get baptized. We still are going to meet with him every couple weeks though just to help him learn the doctrine and principles more fully. He just loves talking about the gospel and how it helps him be so much happier! It's so cool.

Saturday we had a lesson with Pierre. Pierre is great! We challenged him to come to church because he hasn't been in a while. We tried contacting a few people and then we had district meeting! It was great. Definitely different then my last district, haha but still great. MoBat was super busy tonight!! I took a mandarin tour with 4 people from China and they all wanted to learn more! One of them came right up to me after the tour and asked how he could get a book of mormon! So awesome. One of our assistants family came into the MoBat so we talked with them for a little. They took a pic with me and sent it to mom :) Oh and we started this great finding activity where we are texting everyone in our phone and just asking if we can meet with them. There are potentials, formers, and members! It's working great! We already got quite a few appointments next week. 

Sunday I got to sleep in until 6:30. Woohoo!! I now have MoBat  in the morning on Sundays so that was different. It was so so busy! Everyone came by on their way home. It was also my first Sunday in my new ward! There weren't a lot of people there since everyone was home for the holidays, but it was great! Sister Pagel and I spoke on gratitude. I focused specifically on finding gratitude in afflictions and weaknesses which is definitely something I can work on so it was great to study that topic! I just love the story of the currant bush from Hugh B. Brown. I don't if I told you all this yet, but go watch the will of god mormon message at mormonmessages.org. It is my favorite!! We also had to teach gospel principles because the teachers weren't there. Oh this was also my first Sunday in the mission going to all of church! Haha weird right? As MoBat sisters we just have to make sure we all get sacrament so before I only could go to sacrament and Sunday school and then I had to leave so other sisters could go take the sacrament. It was refreshing going to all of church :) I loved it! After we had a lesson with Keri and taught the Plan of Salvation. She said it was super comforting for her to hear that. Next we tried contacting a few people and then we had a lesson with a member. He told us that he's been having a little bit of a hard time just with life and I stole dad's tactic and asked him if he was reading his scriptures every day, if he was praying every day, and if he was finding someone to serve every day? He said he was not and so I challenged him to try those 3 things and see if it made a difference. Dad you always taught me that! So thanks :) I know it makes a difference. 

Monday. Okay wow Monday we had a full day and let me tell ya, it was  FULL day. So by full day I mean we didn't have MoBat  or temple, just the whole time in our area! We had 10 appointments. It was a record for both of us! It was so wonderful though. We were able to add a new investigator, meet with an investigator, meet with some less actives, and get to know more members! And the investigator we added was from us doing the texting all our contacts thing. Soo cool! We had most of these lessons at the institute building. So most of our ward goes to UCSD. The institute building is like their hang out place, haha it's kind of cool. But we also joined our ward for HE and got to know more people. It was great! We were both exhausted by the end of the night and didn't know if we could think anymore haha thank goodness we didn't have to until this morning.

I love my new area and I am excited for this new adventure and new beginning to rededicate myself! I just love being a missionary so much :) It's actually getting pretty chilly here in SD. Bring on the tights! I love you all so much :)\

Love, 

Sister Cassie Rasmussen