October 22nd

Dear Family,

Tuesday we went bowling! Then after we got ready and had a lesson with Edgar, Edgar, Neina, and Neil. We talked about how we needed their help to build our ward. After we went to the mission home and picked up the new sister, Hermana Sanchez. She is from ARizona and she's adorable! 

Wednesday morning we had transfers! Not too much changed, but Hermana O'Neill came back! So I am happy about that :) Sister Frampton and I had our meeting to plan this transfer and set up the schedules and then we had the temple! 

Thursday morning we had interviews with President Clayton. Holy hannah he is one inspired man! I am so grateful for him and everything he does for all of the missionaries here in San Diego. It was really good to talk with him and he gave me great advice. We had the booth on Grossmont campus after. It was definitely a lot crazier day today.. people wise. Haha so many crazy questions. People really have no idea who mormons are or what they believe. We had a lesson with William after and taught him the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. He took them very well and said he's already been living that way. I think that's so cool when people already live that way! We did commit him not to gamble anymore though, because he has a problem with that. I dont' think I have ever taught someone with a gambling problem. We are so excited for him to get baptized! He's just changed so much. We had mobat and I took the cutest family on tour. They own a farm by Parowan and they told me after my mission I could come work with them on the farm :) haha so I have that to look forward to! 

Friday morning we got flu shots and then we had district meeting. We have a new district! We learned about teaching simpler. After we had a lesson with Neina about the 10 commandments and keeping the sabbath day holy and really committed her to coming to church. We also got a new date for her! We had temple again. We met this awesome guy named Jeff. He's like 20 and he's living in ARizona and learning from the missionaries. He knew SO much about mormons. He said he's struggling to find his answer, but we told him to just keep the faith and don't give up on God! I also met this family who is in Brock and Julie's ward! OH and this cute girl I took on tour a while ago and bonded with... I saw her at the temple tonight and she had received her endowments and now has a mission call to Croatia! So cool. After one of our members, Adrienne, had a mission party. She leaves the same day as Jorgen and is going to Peru. Most of her family and friends are non members so she had this dinner and wanted us to go and explain what missionaries do and then we got delicious food. I thought it was such a cool idea! 

Saturday I was on exchanges with Sister Wells! Sister Wells is a chinese speaking sister so I got to be with Chinese people all day! It was soooo fun :) We had mobat in the morning and it was super busy. We taught a less active first named Jimmy. He's had a crazy life! They are working on getting him back to the temple. We had an awesome lesson with him and read 3 Nephi 11. He's so nice! Next we met with their 19 year old investigator, Winnie. Winnie is from Taiwan and is here on an exchange for a year and lives with a mormon family. She is incredible and the sweetest human being. She also doesn't speak very much english so that whole lesson was in Chinese. Even though I really couldn't understand what was going on.. I definitely could feel the spirit! And I was just amazed with the gift of tongues. Sister Wells is from Springville, Utah. Just a cute american girl... but she can now speak chinese! Ahhhhh. So cool. Winnie is getting baptized in a couple weeks! We ate dinner and then went to the Johnsons house. They used to be in the chinese branch. He served in Taiwan. We talked with them about patience. Boy are they talkers! haha but they are awesome and they gave us delicious pie. We then had a lesson with the Ding family. Sister Ding is super active and her husband is super not. It was quite an interesting lesson about the Spirit. Sister Wells is incredible though and I had such a fun time with her tonight and I really really love Chinese people.

Sunday we had ward council and oh my goodness... I just realized I haven't told you the great news yet..... our ward got ELDERS!!! We have two sets of missionaries now aka twice the work can get done!! We are so so grateful and have been praying for this because there was a lot going on and we just didn't have enough time. The elders are way cool and one of them is actually from Orem! I ran track with his sister. So our ward was stoked today about having elders and sisters. It's going to explode now! We are so pumped :) We helped teach part of relief society. Laura gave an amazing lesson about missionary work and had us teach the first lesson to everyone. After we had mobat and I helped Elder Affleck with his new computer. He got a mac :) After mobat we weekly planned.

Monday we had a lesson with Elizabeth this morning about building her foundation with reading, praying, and coming to church. She is such an awesome girl! She just lacks a little the motivation to be completely active. We picked up Kassandra after and she came with us for the next few hours. I love Kassandra so much! She is incredible. We tried contacting a few less actives and then we had a lesson with Alan Klos. We haven't seen Alan for a while. He has a girlfriend now who isn't a member which is why we havne't really seen him at church, but he was the happiest and most positive I have ever seen him. We read Alma 5 together. It was crazy cool because my companion was having a rough day and Alan like bore this powerful testimony about our decision and choosing to be positive and after my companion was like wow heavenly father answers our prayers through the people we teach! I think that's pretty cool too. There have been several occasions where my prayers have been answered by whoever it is that we are teaching. The gospel is for everyone! We had a lesson with Neina next about tithing. As we were leaving I could tell something was up with Ortega so I went and asked him and he said he's having a really rough time and he started crying.. so we talked with him for a minute and set up an appointment to go see him tomorrow. We mobat next and it was great! I was finally on shift with Sister O'Neill so we got to catch up. I love her so much. I also took a really awesome family on tour! 

Basically life is good :) The gospel is TRUE. Studying the scriptures daily, praying daily, and going to church every Sunday, really is the recipe for a solid foundation! Those 3 things keep us grounded and help us remember the right perspective and make our relationship with Heavenly Father and the Savior even stronger.

I love you all so much!!

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen