December 11th Letter

Dear Family,

First of all I want to give a shout out to Ric, Tami, Jorgen, Karsten, Cacia, Daven, Ayden and Soren. They all wrote me a letter this past week :) thank you so much! I will write you all back soon! Also happy birthday to Ric on Sunday!! I hope it was a very happy day for you! Here are the highlights...

Tuesday night we met with Keri and we also had a lesson with Da. My first night in San Diego I went out with the La Jolla sisters and I got to teach Da, so it was cool to be able to teach her again as her actual missionary! We did a demo with her that helps visualize why we have the gospel. It really helped click in her head and she loved the demo.

Wednesday we had to take one of the cars in the shop to get fixed so we did our studies while that was happening. After we had a district lunch which was good :) Then we had a lesson with a recent convert named Hugh. We talked about temples and are working with him to be able to receive his endowments. Next we had a lesson with William about his beliefs in the gospel and about keeping God's commandments because we felt like we needed to let him know that if he goes to Hawaii he will be breaking one of God's commandments which is obeying and honoring the law. At times it would click in his head, but then other times he would justify why he was going :( We had temple shift tonight. It was so pretty!! I love the lights. Hopefully I will show you pictures of that soon. I love the Christmas season.

Thursday we had zone meeting. We talked about getting over mental blocks. It was really good and truly inspired by our zone leaders. I am the only one who plays the piano in my zone . . . which is surprising to me so I think I will get good practicing this transfer. After we had another lesson with William and his mom and some of the elders. Keri had her baptismal interview tonight and she was so nervous! She is so cute. But she knows everything so she passed :)

Friday we met some potentials and invited them to the Christmas Sunday program. During the Christmas season at the mobat we have both of our theaters open and this awesome tree and we play the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with David Archuleta and it makes us all so happy and in the Christmas Spirit. We had a lesson with a member about building the foundation of going to church, praying every day, and studying scriptures every day. He is getting married soon so we felt like it was a good thing to talk to him about so he can have that good foundation for his marriage. He also brought us delicious food!! 

Sister Page and Sister Rasmussen with Keri at her baptism

Saturday I took a HUGE tour and this guy passed out! It was really scary. Thankfully he was okay though. Next we had Keri's baptism!! It was SO wonderful! The Spirit was strong. I love her so much. She had to get baptized like 6 times because her foot kept popping up, haha but it was great. After she bore her testimony and it was so sweet about how the gospel has given her hope and made her really happy :) I got this really overwhelming feeling throughout that whole baptism of gratitude to be a missionary and represent Jesus Christ and invite others to come closer to Him. It's amazing. We had coordination after and then we ran to give a book to that guy we met last week who used to be mormon but now doesn't believe in God. We feel like we met him for a reason, and I just felt like I needed to give him 'Our Search for Happiness,' by Elder Ballard. Such a good book!!  Next we went to our ward Christmas party. We got to know some people in the ward better and we had two potentials come! 

Sunday the MoBat was pretty slow. I made a Christmas banner that tells of all our events going on. Sister Jarrett and Crawford helped as well. During sacrament meeting today we had a special Christmas music program. It was awesome! There are so many people in our ward that I had no idea they were so musical. Also we had a really cool miracle . . . yesterday we got a referral from the temple of a girl named Iris. We called Iris last night and invited her to church. She came!! We talked to her after and she had a great experience and we taught her about God and about prayer. She is from China and she said she doesn't believe in God yet, but she really wants to and she feels like He can help her with her life. We were like yes he can!! We invited her to pray and she did with us :) it was her first time! She said it was really cool and then she asked for a Book of Mormon :) we are meeting with her again this week! There was also a member who brought a friend and we got to meet her and get her information and she too wants to learn more. Wow! Miracles. Oh also Keri was confirmed today! It was so wonderful. We met with her after church to talk to her about her experience and she already wanted to pay tithing so we showed her how. She is so awesome! Next we met with a former at the temple. His name is Wenchao and he's from China. He is the most tender spirit I have met thus far on my mission! Oh my goodness. He said he knows God is real and that the Book of Mormon is true. We were like, why are you are former!? Haha we didn't really ask that but we wondered. Then we went to our stake Christmas concert and met some potentials who members in our ward brought. We also met this professor who is from Austria and was part of the Holocaust! He was an amazing man. 

Monday the MoBat was unusually slow . . . we practiced our song for the Christmas concert. We tried seeing a few potentials and then visited a less active. We went to the temple with our ward and some potentials and Wenchao came! The temple had a Christmas concert outside tonight. It was beautiful! 

Well that was my week! I love the Christmas season so much. Everyone is closer to the Spirit and I love that we all come together to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. He is my everything! I am reminded of that every day. 

I love you all so much!! And I hope you have a greeeeeaaattt week! 

Love,

Sister Cassie Chea Rasmussen

P.S. enjoy the VoiceMale concert!!!