November 19th Letter

Dear family,

MOM AND DAD I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! You two are going to be UNREAL. I can't wait to tell you all about your mission :) haha. Also this is a super surreal and bittersweet email to write.. but here are the highlights!

A San Diego sunset

Tuesday Sister Lehmitz and I got to go on the Naval Base! We've always wanted to do that. Our member, Caitlin, is in the Navy and she's the cutest and she fed us dinner! It was so delicious and fun. Base is like it's own world! We talked with Caitlin about temples. She opened up to us and she is such a rock! Her family situation isn't the best.. but through it all she is the example to them. 

Wednesday mte's with La Jolla! Sister Jarrett and Sister Teanoa. We temple and we met this cute armenian couple. I also had this awesome conversatino with this guy and basically taught him the restoration while the other sisters were teaching the Armenian couple the restoration, haha it was awesome! Missionary power. We met this super cool girl who just got home from her mission and she was so nice and went and bought us pizza! It was delicious. We had a lesson with Patrick Burnes at the mobat. I used to teach Patrick when I was in La Jolla. He is less active. He is really struggling just with motivation and with justifying everything. We talked a lot about prayer and God's will for us and by the end his heart really did soften! We tried visiting two less actives and caught one home and so we shared a scripture with her and talked a little about prayer. Then we had a lesson with their investigator, Joseph. We read Joseph Smith's testimony about the Book of Mormon with them. Sister Jarrett and Teanoa are both so wonderful! Sister Jarrett and I laid in bed talking forever. It was fun and nice :) Oh and this is the day that I found out about mom and dad! Elder Seegmiller called me and I was freaking out and I was so excited!!! Then the next morning I told all the sisters and they are so excited! 

Thursday we had training. We followed up on the character of Christ and then we played signs! To work on our arms and hands for presentation skills. Then the six sang our song for all the sisters because some of them didn't get to go to the fireside and it was a sweet moment. Lots of tears! We went to MTE follow up and studied and then had a lesson with Neina. We talked about gratitude and read some of President Monson's talk with her. She's super excited to get baptized this weekend :) We went to contact a referral but it was the wrong house and we ended up meeting this awesome girl named Isla. She said she wanted to learn more so we set up another appointment with her. Next I had an eye appointment because if you remember last week I told you my eye was hurting and first of all, my vision is still 20/20!!! Wooohoooo! Yay for PRK :) and second of all, I wasn't crazy because there was something stuck in my eye! He numbed up my eye and took it out and now my eye feels great! 

The six sisters who came out to the mission together

Friday we had flickerball and then MTE's.This time with spanish sisters! Sisters Bermudez and Harris. Sister Bermudez is from Orem and she was in the spanish ward that Uncle Mark was the bishop over! Cool huh? We had temple and there was a really cute wedding. Something cool that happened is that some elders came to teach a lesson at the temple and one of the Elders, Elder Cena, is from Italy and this guy came to see what the temple was and he spoke Italian! So Elder Cena told him about the temple and we were able to show him pictures and we got his address and he wants missionaries. So cool! Also this 28 year old guy named Michael Tuner came and had lots of questions! He used to be a baptist minister. He also used to travel a lot for work and he stayed in Marriotts so he's read the BOFM! He and his wife live right by the temple and he's attending grad school at UCSD. He had lots of deep questions and so we answered as simply as we could and finally we told him that the BofM was the way that he could find out if this is all true and that's when the spirit was the most powerful, was when it was the simplest. He agreed to having missionaries over! We had 2 lessons with their investigators after. The first one was about the word of wisdom and I kind of understood it.. but the lady was awesome and has so much faith and was just so willing to give up whatever she needed to. The second lesson I got pretty lost in.. haha but I could still feel the spirit which is the cool part! 

Saturday we had MTE follow up. It was sweet! President talked about the power of positive thinking. At the end those leaving bore their testimonies.. aka I was one of them. It felt surreal being up there after watching so many missionaries do that over the past 18 months. MTE's were at my old chula ward building so I got to see some of the House family! We had district lunch and then district meeting. Mobat was kind of slow tonight.. Sister Patterson and I had an awesome chat though. I love her a lot. 

The six with the Seegmillers

Sunday church was great! Neina came to church!!!! Which means she can officially get baptized :) I am so excited for her! Our new investigator, Lauren, also came to church and everyone was really nice to her. Relief society was an awesome lesson about serving others. Laura taught it and Laura also told me that she is going to go on a mission!! Ahhhh! I am so excited for her. She is amazing! 

The six at breakfast

Monday the six of us got to have a breakfast with the Seegmillers. It was delicoius! We talked about things we have learned about ourselves. I love the six so much! And the Seegmillers. I had mobat and took this awesome tour with Sister O'Neill with these people from Israel! And we had a really cool conversation with them about mormons, jews, Israel. It was sweet! I had a meeting with Sister Frampton and then we went to Edgars. It was his birthday today and when we asked him what he wants for his birthday he said he wanted a lesson with us :) haha he is the best! We also got to talk with Neina, so that was good! We had a lesson with Lauren about the restoration and Stacey came. Lauren really is seeking for truth and she is so shy and so sweet and I know this is going to make her so happy! I had a meeting with the Seegmillers. I will miss those meetings!!

My brain is super frazzled right now.. so sorry if this email is too. I am speaking in church on Sunday and it's about gratitude which is fitting as Thanksgiving is next week. I read a talk this morning called "Live in Thanksgiving Daily" by Elder Wirthlin and it was SO GOOD. Oh my goodness. He said "Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable." "Those who live in thanksgiving daily, are usually among the world's happiest people. And they make others happy as well." He talks about 3 things that will help us to live in thanksgiving daily.. the first is we must open our eyes. Open our eyes to all that's around us that God has blessed us with. The second is to open our hearts. Open our hearts to the gospel. To Heavenly Father. To the Savior. To the Atonement. And the third is to open our arms. Turn outward! Serve others. As we serve others we serve God. He quoted President Hinckley who said... "My plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we accentuate the positive." It was a super amazing talk! We really do have SO much to be grateful for. And it's all because we have a LOVING Heavenly Father. He cares so much about all of us and he really just wants us to be happy :)

Ah. Life seems unreal right now. I am excited to give this last week my ALL. It's going to be a jam packed crazy week, but I am so excited for it. And I am excited to be able to see all of you soon and to hug you and express in person my gratitude for all of you. For your support, for your love, for your firm testimonies in this gospel. For the examples that you have all been to me! I am so deeply grateful for you all. I am so deeply grateful for my mission. This has been the hardest, craziest, best, awesomest experience of my life! I am so grateful I decided to come serve. I have learned more than I could have ever imagined. Mostly I am deeply grateful that I have become more fully converted to this gospel. I know it's true! God lives. Jesus is the Christ. They have a perfect plan for all of us. As we live the gospel that is when we will truly be happy. The gospel has been restored for ALL of us. The Book of Mormon is true! We have a living prophet on the earth today, Thomas S. Monson. This gospel will never cease to amaze me. I love, love it with all my heart.

And I love you all so much!!!! See you soon! Haha weird.. :) 

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen