January 12 - Miracle Missionary Moments

So today I received the best text ever from the APs:

"Will you please let Hermana Sheffer know this: Dear hermana Sheffer, you are formally invited to the best day of your mission.  Bxxxx and Jxxx Lxxx and the kids will be getting baptized on January 17th at 6 PM promptly after their wedding.  Please wear purple.  Love you! -Hermana Cuesta and Hurley"

Bxxxx AND HER FAMILY ARE GETTING BAPTIZED! 
Bxxxx, Jxxx Lxxx, Jxxxx, and Junior. Axxxxxx is too young.  I miss them so much and I am so happy to have known them! I am so happy!

Their story is a miracle and she has been a powerhouse through so much!  She is an amazing mom and I love her kids so much! 

Another missionary miracle is that someone in my new ward, who I barely know, offered to drive me to North Sacramento so that I can be there!  I want to be a saint when I grow up like all these amazing people. I am so excited for this weekend that I can hardly stand it. 

I am so grateful to be a missionary and see these little miracles every day... to see how everything works together and how the gospel and truth guides peoples lives.  I cant even say what I am trying to.  But I just feel really grateful that I was able to experience this in my life.  They are helping me in my life.  

The church is true folks! 

LOVE

Hermana Sheffer

This is the biggest dog I have ever before seen in my entire life.  It liked me a lot.

It was SO NICE.  It was just the sweetest calmest dog ever.  I want him.

January 5

Ok I can't really think of anything to write/say so when that happens in the mission JUST TESTIFY!

I know that we have a Father in Heaven.  I know that he is a huge part of our lives everyday and that he works all things together so that we can learn and experience everything.  I know as a missionary that he makes our paths cross with certain people everyday.  I am amazed at the work we are able to do everyday.  There are miracles that happen everyday!  I know that there are a lot of every days in that testimony and it is the every days that matter most.  Daily scripture study and decisions to do our best and try our hardest.  YAYA.

Ok where I live is not that sketchy as of now.  I live next to a giant pond with geese that you can ride paddle boats on soooo its pretty nice.  About the same as North Sac, but I haven't been to all the areas yet.  I love it though because it is really "California"-y.  Lots of random palm trees and drier.  It has lots of colorful OLD shops and there is this really cool river boat/ American memorial  (add that to the Stockton visit list) but I do hear a lot more sirens.  We were taking the sacrament on Sunday and a whole blockade of police cars went flying past #stocktonsacrament

Also I got to meet my new ward!! They seem to be really awesome and I am excited to get to know them better but I really really miss Rio Tierra.  I love that ward. I miss the Ochoas!!! I am excited to love this one over the next few transfers.  We are working hard to find new investigators! 

#contactingtycoons 

One of my new years goals is to contact every single person I see.  It has been going great so far!  We have a couple we are teaching right now and they are amazing! They have really smart kids that understand really well.  One of them is 7 and we taught him the Plan of Salvation.  He was like "so if I get good grades and am nice to other people I am going to live with Jesus again?" Sounds funny bu it was super powerful to me.  

I haven't heard anything about Bxxxx yet! 

Anyways have a great week!!

Hermana Sheffer

JANUARY 1 - GUESS WHERE I AM????

SOOOO. Want to guess where I am right now?

Lets play a game.

I am no longer in North Sac.  (waaaahhhhh :( )

My revelations indeed proved true and I have gone to the southern part of the mission.

This is a very big city.

I have heard gunshots 10x already (..... haha not sure which were actually gunshots or fireworks....)

This city is the coveted city among the elders because of its ghetto-ness.

Ladies and Gents I have arrived in.....

 STOCKTON CALIFORNIA.

Delta Pacific Area. 

My new companion is the Hermana Shawcroft!

We were in the CCM together!

This is crazy I tell you.  We just got down being follow up trained so we are both super young!

I love it here already.  

So you are right too mom I did move! The other 2 sisters and Hermana Cuesta and I all went to a restaurant for our transfer calls and we were all huddling around the phone at 9 pm for the call.  It was sooo intense.  We were all just laughing and laughing because we were nervous.  Haha.  But I was super excited because Hermana Shawcroft is amazing and Stockton is known for being awesome.  

I am really excited because I know that we are on a more even level, so I am going to need to step up and talk more and be more prepared.  I am just so grateful because I feel like I had gotten into a rut and now I am going to be able to talk and share more than ever!  I am so grateful! 

Three cheers for rough learning times!!! This is going to set me for the rest of my mission.  I am grateful so much to be here! 

I WENT TO MY FIRST FLEAMARKET TODAY!

it is called la pulga.

It was like there were 50 garage sales going on at the same time haha.  I would need hours to look at everything, but it was really cool.  And I talked in spanish a lot!

I love spanish!!!

It is just the 2 of us in our apartment.  We are the only 2 sisters in our whole zone again!!!!! 

I wanted to say thank you for all the pictures and I FEEL so good after talking to all of you on Christmas. I was really happy.  I am excited to start my missionary year of 2015!!

This has made making New Year's resolutions really easy though because I am going to be a missionary all year!

I LOVE YOU ALL AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEK!!!

Love 

Hermana Sheffer

p.s. Mom what you said in your letter is exactly how I feel.  It is crazy how much you realize you are provided for looking back.  

Another video

NOTE FROM SONJA:

Here is a video sent to me by a member.  I LOVE TECHNOLOGY! And I love people who take an extra minute to share little tidbits of my daughter with us.  They really are tender mercies.

Emily is NOT confident at all in her singing ability and is also painfully shy, so it is no surprise to me that you can't really her her voice much or that she looks like she wants to die during the entire song.  

CHRISTMAS DAY

NOTE FROM SONJA:

We didn't hear from Emily on Monday, December 22nd... we assumed she didn't have a P-Day due to the holiday being later in the week, like it was at Thanksgiving. We missionary parents are slowly learning the ropes here!! HA

We originally did not think Emily would be able to Skype on Christmas Day. We were told she would be able to call on the phone her companionship shares.  We were so surprised to find out that she would get to Skype after all.  HAPPY HAPPY DAY.

Skyping with Emily was the best experience ever.  I get teary even thinking about it.  She seriously looked like an angel.  We beamed up her picture on the wall so we could all see her.  She brought her palm tree to show us... and was wearing the palm tree socks we got her as well. She is SO FUNNY.  Emily is so quiet and shy until you get to know her. She is so worth the effort.

We tried to figure out how to record the whole thing but when the technology didn't immediately work we abandoned the effort as we didn't know how much time we'd have with Emily.

I did record a few little clips, listed below. I wished I would have recorded more but it is enough to be able to play these and hear her voice every once in a while.

The first clip starts in the middle of a story. We had asked Emily how she spent Christmas Eve. She told the story that they were playing soccer or something like that in the gym at the church when one of the sisters in her apartment got hit in the face with a ball... knocking out a tooth.

They quickly called a dentist and were told they could do certain things but it was recommended that they glue the tooth back in for now with superglue. So the elders ran to the store and got superglue and etc and brought it back for the procedure....  click below to hear the rest of the story.

It was the best Christmas present ever to get to talk to her Christmas Day. SO HAPPY.