May 21st Letter

Dear Family,

Such a great weeek!!! Wooohooo! And it's an exciting week for you all this week because of the wedding! So awesome :) I am so excited for Rus and Marin! Here are the highlights from my past week...

Tuesday night we had a lesson with Kassandra and Chris and they fed us yummy food. After we had a Book of Mormon study group with some people in the ward and some of our investigators came! 

Wednesday we did a booth at Grossmont College. It was definitely different than the booth at UCSD campus, but it was fun! We ate lunch at the institute and then weekly planned. Then we had a panic attack because juan called and said he couldn't make his baptismal interview at 8pm, that he could only come at 3pm and it was 2:15pm and he didn't have a ride and either did our district leader... so we made lots of phone calls and said prayers and we got our district leader and juan at the battalion at 3pm! He passed and he is excited to get baptized!! Arthur (from my last area) came to the battalion for a lesson so I got to see him and he looks so happy! He is getting baptized this weekend as well. Sam came that night to the battalion for his baptismal interview and he passed and is excited as well! And I am sooooo excited for them!!

Thursday we had training and then we had zone meeting. It was my first time with my new zone and it was great! Different, but great! My new zone leaders are very creative. They taught a cool lesson about the spirit and how sometimes we have this end goal and the path that we think we'll take us there, but if we do those things that keep us in tune with the Spirit, then the Spirit can help us get to our end goal through another path that is better :) so sweet! We had mobat next and it was pretty busy! Sister Madsen's grandma came in and she works with mom at the temple! I took her on tour with Sister Madsen. Sister Crawford and I also took the craziest tour with this guy who is a real estate agent and is proud of it! Hahah he gave us his business card. He also told us that we got an A+++ on the tour. Some of north zone came into the battalion so I got to see some of my fellow missionary friends and then a ton of people from the La Jolla ward came in so I got to see them as well and it was so fun! Arthur took me aside and told me that he wanted to thank me and sister riggs from the bottom of his heart for knocking on his door that night and for not giving up on him.... sooo cool :) his heart has changed so much! All the credit goes to the Lord and His amazing gospel. 

Sam's baptism

Friday we had mobat in the morning and it was busy and then we hurried and made cookies and then headed to the church to fill up the font and get everything ready for Juan and Sam's baptism!! There was a little drama among Juan's family because he didn't tell them until like right before and they were upset and wanted us to change his baptism, but thankfully we were able to figure it all out. They showed up and got in their suits and we took pictures. Right when it was starting the assistants texted us and asked if it was at the blossom lane church and we were like no the orange ave one! So President and the assistants went to the wrong building, but they made it halfway through! The service was wonderful though! The speakers did so well and brought the spirit strongly. Sister Crawford and I sang and then Juan was baptized by Neil Spackman and then Sam was baptized by Edgar Felix. After they bore their testimonies and they were both so sweet. I looooooooooooooooooooooooooove being a missionary!! 

Juan's baptism

Saturday we had mobat in the morning and then had a lesson with a former named Benjamin. He has such a firm belief in Jesus Christ and wants to follow Him, but his heart is very hardened towards the Book of Mormon. He thinks the bible should be enough and that we don't need another testament. He said he is really trying to be open and that he wants to try it out. Next was Arthur's baptism! I got to go. I was so happy :) It was such a neat experience! His parents even came, which is soooo cool. When I greeted his mom she started crying and just said, 'thank you so much for helping my son.' Casmier gave the talk on baptism and he blew everyone away! It was his first talk and it was soooooo gooooooood!!! Ahhhhhhhh. I was so happy I got to see him and David Yang, and just everyone! Sister Riggs, Miller, and I sang the special musical number, 'Did You Think to Pray,' because it is Arthur's favorite song. Tyler baptized him and he bore his testimony after and he just looked so unbelievably happy :) We finished weekly planning and then had a lesson with David Payne. He said he's feeling better about the prophet, but still not 100% sure. We asked him what he thought about the baptism last night because he came, and he said he really liked it, that it felt like a holy moment. We read 3 Nephi 11 with him and just talked about the importance of baptism and asked him to pray about being baptized. He is just so humble and genuine. 

Arthur's baptism

Sunday happy birthday Brandon! We studied and then had Stake Conference which was great! One of the recent converts in the Helix ward got his mission call! He's going to Texas :) so sweeet! He is pumped. We had a lesson with Sam and Edgar about the Spirit. Next we had a lesson with a referral named Isaac. He is awesome! The way he was referred to us was through the temple square sisters who got it from his friend. We were asking him about his friend and he was like, 'yeah scott is way cool...' and I interrupted and was like wait scott who?? And he said, 'Scott Sadleir' And I freaked out and was like that is my cousin!! Haha sooo cool. Definitely not a coincidence. Isaac is super open and excited to learn more so we were able to add him. We taught him the restoration and invited him to read and pray. We had mobat and then after mobat we had dinner with some members. It was great! We had a lesson with David after about prophets again and kind of the organization of the church. He has a testimony about everything except for modern day prophets.. we are just trying to figure out how we can help him see that because he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith, that means he has a testimony of modern day prophets. 

Monday we had a full day! We studied and then visited a less active who just moved into our ward. She is super nice and we taught her a little about how God gives us strength and invited her to church. We then drove to contact a referral who supposedly lives with a member from the Granite Hills ward and when we got there the referral wasn't there but we ended up talking to the lady who is a very less-active member. We talked with her about the importance of prayer and she said she feels awkward praying, we invited her to pray every day this week and we are going to make sure the missionaries of that ward go visit her. We went to the church and ate our lunch and then had a lesson with Robert and Megan Magoffin came. She is the funniest person ever! Haha I love her so much. She made me laugh so hard I was crying. Robert brought us all smoothies! We had a lesson about seeking God first and using the atonement in our life for strength to do so. Robert is having a bit of a hard time because now that he's a member his life course has been completely flipped around. The things he used to want he knows he shouldn't want, but he's saying how it's just hard to think that everything he used to want and dream about, is not what he should achieve anymore. He is so awesome though and he has such a good heart and wants his life course to be changed by the gospel, it's just hard for him right now to figure it all out. We had a lesson with the edgars about the temple. Edgar Ortega got a job! We are so happy for him. Next we met with Juan and talked about the Holy Ghost. He is super excited to receive it on Sunday. We met with a member, Adrian, next. She is preparing for a mission. We role played with her! It was fun. We had dinner next with a member, Laura, and her family. Funny story... Her last name is Kuhle. Her dad is in the stake presidency right now, but anyway.. he said that grandpa jesperson was his stake president when he was in high school/missionary age. He also said he knows who mom is and knows Uncle John. Then his wife annette I think her name was, she lived right by Uncle Eddy and Aunt Glena and is best friends with Kelly and that's how she was introduced to the church and was converted!!! Dang. Small world :) It was fun to make all those connections. We had delicious pizza though! And then we went to fhe. There was a good turn out! It was funny because our relief society president's name is Cassie and Sister Crawford and I were walking from the hall into the room where the lesson would be and someone said, "Oh CAssie!" And I turned around and was like "yeah?" hahaha then everyone just looked at me awkwardly.... it's so weird! haha every time someone says her name I get confused. We had a lesson with Alan after about building a sure foundation, a talk from this last conference by Bishop Davies. Such a good talk!

Well that was my week! I can't wait to see pictures from the wedding! Aka you best send me pictures :) I am so grateful for the gospel. I am soooo grateful for the Book of Mormon and for a modern day prophet and apostles! We finally got our conference ensigns and I just love reading the talks over and over again. We are so blessed and Heavenly Father loves us all so much! 

And I love all of YOU so much :) Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen