09 FEB - ONE AND DONE

I am leaving Stockton.  

Yes I am a liiitttlllee bit sad.

First off because I was not prepared for this.

Second off because I love Stockton.

Third off because I haven't found a bullet shell yet.

Well I guess life goes on! ( with a higher expectancy outside of Stockton ha ha). 

Me with Jxxx Sxxxxxz.  I love his shirt and hat.  He wears this type of shirt all the time.  He is really awesome

I have been called to TRACY EAST, in the Manteca Zone.

MANTECAAAAA!!!
DREAM MAKAAAA!!!!

So I have traveled from North Sac down to the bottom.

I am really excited because I will be serving in the ward of Hermana Gomez! 

Also Hermana Skidmore served there!

My companera is Hermana Cavasos.  I don't know a lot about her, but she was in English work and got switched to Spanish work, but she knows Spanish pretty well.  So lots of good stuff.  

I think they are getting ready for the mission split because they are going crazy combining zones and and I am going to be covering 2 areas down there.  Just lots of crazy switches. Lots of crazy things.  But I am excited to just keep working on.  I know that Stockton has been good for me for a lot of reasons and I have had some of the best times on my mission here.  I am really sad to leave, but I am excited to start over again.  I am going to make Manteca my home!  

Our last picture together! District 5C Represent! I am going to miss her and Stockton!

Favorite memory of this week.  We eat dinner every week with a Hermana named Hermana Towns.  If I could pin her to a person I know, it would be Grandpa Sheffer.  Just genuinely good and lively and funny.  

She loves music so we decided to sing a song.  We were singing and she was like yelling because she was so into and waving her hands and telling us to sing louder.  "RENDIRE !!.....MI CORAZON!!.....EN SECRETA!!.......ORACION!!......GANARE!!..... EL GALLARDON!!.....EN SECRETA ORACION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was yelling and the three of us were just yelling and getting into it.  Good times. 

Well that's it until next week folks! I am happy to be a missionary and I regret every time I feel sad because I know that everything is just to help me learn something about myself, and to improve!  I really want to improve this next transfer!  I want to become a real missionary, and I know I can do it.  I really want to be happy.  So I am excited for the times to come! HAPPINESS is coming my way.  I am going to choose it and all that jazz.

LOVE LOTS 

Hermana Sheffer

PS

I will wave at Juliana from CA.

My weather IS like that all the time.  I am moving to California for the rest of my life.  I LOVE it.

I can't believe Lizzy finished 4 years of drill team! wow.  Tell them good job!

Saying goodbye to the geese!

Last day in Stockton Yogurtland tradition!! ASL sisters and DANA.  She takes us all out last day of transfer!

02 FEBRUARY - Family traditions in spanish!

This week was great! We had a zone conference. We learned how to better use scriptures in our teaching. 

It was fun to see all of our missionary cars lined up in the parking lot and have some good times with all the other missionaries. We are an army of Chevy-Cruz-driving-Jesus-in-the-window-people (but not really in the window because we don't want people to get angry at the Jesus card/missionaries if we drive wrong and get honked at or something HA).  I am actually working on a card art project.  I have put a card in the window with a paper over it and am sun-dying the card. I am going to sun dye it logs of times so it will be layered.... hope that makes sense. It is going to be my planner cover. Here is my planner  cover now:

Our lessons have been struggling a bit. It is difficult to know what to teach and what direction to go. I know we are trying hard. I heard it takes an average of 7 encounters with missionaries before someone is ready to be serious enough to be baptized.  One thing I am really proud of this transfer is Hermana Shawcroft and I have talked to EVERYONE. Seriously everyone we see. Imagine that for a second. I am really proud of us.

In order to improve I am in the process of organizing mini lessons for every point in Predicad mi Evangelio.  I love doing it and I feel so much more organized in lessons. I also have a journal with each section sectioned off so I can easily find my notse again, and I don't have to search through a notebook. I also finalized a color coding system for my scriptures. I love study times!

I am also proud of us as we have been doing a role play a day. Role plays are a STRUGGLE, but we have don it. Now we have earned ourselves a visit to Dairy Queen!

We are teaching a lot of amazing people right now. I am so excited for their progress.  We were really excited because one of our investigators came to church (sweetest man ever) and he CAME EARLY. It was crazy. Good times! I want to say that Sunday's are GOLDEN. It is a testament to me that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that he gave us a day of every seven to just rest and be with our family and have that time together. I LOVE SUNDAYS.

Craziest thing and saddest thing is that we helped a man on the street. We saw him struggling to move so we decided to ask if he needed help.  It was the closest thing I have ever seen to a living zombie.  He was completely out of it and shaking.  Along with some passerby's we were able to get some help. I hope he is able to improve! I love America because the paramedics were super respectful. It makes me sad but it was a good wake up call to what I am doing.

Something fun that I thought you would like to hear. Hermana Shawcroft and I play "Something In My Basket" in espanol! It is pretty good practice (not for the person saying si... no.... si... but for the OTHER person).  Sheffer family traditions translated into Spanish!

Also we went biking this week! 0ne lady we talked to was like, "Sorry we are Christian" and I said, "We are Christian, too!" and she was like, "HONEY NO YOU ARE NOT!" all super snappy. Hermana Shawcroft was so mad... she was like, "Don't tell me what I am and am not! (not to her... to me later).  Biking gave me some great tan lines, too! Ha.  Also some really cool old guy from Africa told us that we had found each other in our love of Christ, and we were sisters in Christ. He like disappeared around the corner and we saw him in front of every house we had written down to contact. HAHA he was like leading us to the houses.

Also we go to the gym in our apartment every morning and I am pleased to announce that for the first time in my life I ran 22 minutes straight! I already conquered my New Years goal! I am liking running more and more! 

Jxxe Sxxxxxz is doing good. His spanish is still really hard... like level 65 of Spanish... but Hermana Shawcroft understands him pretty well so that is good.

I did not have flapjacks for Groundhogs Day today but I did think about it! I am not sad that it is six more weeks of winter as I am enjoying here what it feels like in May and June in Richfield! I love California!

It is transfer week next week. I love Stockton a lot so I am glad my chances are really high to stay. 

Tell Elissa and Elizabeth good lunch at State and WOW about Lizzy getting Academic all region. Smarty dance short short pants!  What happened with the Super Bowl? Let's just say missionary work was a little hard to do that day but two men from Michoacan offered us some BBQ and tortillas! We ate outside with them. HA

I am glad things are going well in your super crazy lives. I am excited you get to drive to Las Vegas. Road trips are so fun. I love being in California and though humanity and myself test me sometimes, everything is going good!

Thanks for the emails and everything!

Love 

Hermana Sheffer

January 26 - They were having a baby!

We are official.  Last Pday we bought an aloe vera plant. 

 

Most houses that we decide to knock on have aloe vera plants outside.

It is an indicator.  They love plants... I love them. 

One time we saw a lady whack off a leaf/stem/arm of this plant and drink its juices. So I STARTED A NEW TRADITION!  Along with wearing the Stockton sombrero that has been passed and worn by the generations,

every time you leave Stockton you drink some aloe vera!  We will probably wait because it is still small, but still! I am excited.

DAD!  Stockton isn't really scary!  Weeelll at least where I am.  It is almost exactly like North Sacramento but I LOVE IT.  We live right next to a delta (probs where they dump the bodies) and it is really cool because there are lots of boats and machinery.  It is also like old town California.  All the houses are different too.  I want to start a home pinterest board, but I don't know if it would be too weird to be taking pictures of peoples houses.  Probably illegal or something!  Also there is a college!  The Pacific.  I remember when I was on my going to college somewhere near the ocean kick so I can surf, I looked at this university!  And now I drive past it everyday!  It is fun.  I love California though!  I got to go to Lodi this week for exchanges!  It was really cool because it is the place where grapes are grown.  So I saw field after field of grapes vine plant things.  It was awesome!  It was also really cool because there were trains driving through the town all night!  I loved it.  We are going to go visit their pulga when we are next in Sacramento together because I hear it is AMAZING! 

Remember that guy who was marking in his Book of Mormon? Ya we passed him off to the young single adult ward so he can grow in that environment.  We have now sworn to not teach anyone who speaks English again because it is painful passing off people!!  We are teaching a man named Jxxe Sxxxxxz.  He speaks SO FAST and SO MUMBLED that after each lesson Hermana Shawcroft and I just look at each other.  It will be a miracle/inside joke forever if this guy gets baptized because we don't understand him at all.  But I love our lessons because we always walk over to the park and talk.  I always feel happy.  

We are teaching an amazing family of parents and 2 young boys, a toddler girl, and she is expecting another baby.  They were planning on coming to church but the Saturday before they didn't answer anything from us and didn't show up to church so we figured she was having her baby.  It was funny because every time someone didn't answer us or a lesson fell through we figured that they were having a baby.  Ya it was funny.  But she really wasn't having her baby so.... not too funny :(  But good times.  

Lots of love, wish mom a quick improvement of health, and give everyone a hug for me!

Love Hermana Sheffer!

January 19 - THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING

 This week was amazing.  There are going to be just a lot of little stories that I can think and type as fast as I can.  ENJOY.

I am 6 months old! In honor of turning 6 months old Hermana Shawcroft and I made waffles. We gave a nod to the CCM in Mexico by using Nutella! Six months ago we entered the CCM together.  I wore my Harry Potter shirt I bought myself at WalMart for Christmas!

Also I ate a Totino's Pizza ( the first one since my college days) in honor of a momentous day! (Don't worry I only ate ONE!)

 

We do service two times a week at Stockton's Habitat for Humanity.  We sort and tape, and clean and organize.  I LOVE IT.  Partly because I find super cool old stuff and also all the money goes to making people houses!  I love serving there.  I am completely remodeling my house with second hand stuff and my first couch I will ever buy, I have decided, will come from a second hand store.  HAHA.  There was a yellow floral one that came in the other day and I loved it.  But anyways in honor of our birthday we also bought habitat for humanity shirts to wear when we go so we are more official!  

We met a new person to teach!  We knocked on his door and he answered and ya.  New investigator.  Fun how that happens sometimes.  His name is David.  He is in his 20's and was in the military! He is going to college right now at Pacific College.  But he is really awesome!  He is super into studying and is really believing everything we tell him!  We had a not super great lesson with him, but he still said he is going to read the Book of Mormon we gave him.  It was funny because this morning he texted us and asked "Ok, I never asked you or not, but is it ok if I highlight in my Book or Mormon?" We were like "Claro que si!!!" HE IS SO AWESOME! 

Funny story.  Hermana Shawcroft and I were trying to figure out our route one night in the car.  We had our map out and everything just looking, when all of sudden our back door opens...  I was like STOCKTON ATTACKS! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.  We whip around and there is this lady trying to get into our car.  She sees  us and starts saying sorry sorry sorry.  She only spoke spanish. Ha we speak spanish! So we got her house number!  She thought her ride had pulled up to come get her and just walked right into our car haha.  Car broken into.  But that's the scariest Stockton has got for me.  We were like yes! God works in crazy ways! But we went back to visit her and when the people answered the door, weed smoke came out in a fume from the house.... not interested...bummer... but maybe later!  There is a reason we have her address! And know about her!!

Alright so the last thing. BUT THE BEST.  Bxxxx, Jxxx Lxxx, Jxxxx and Junior got Baptized!  It was the best day of my whole mission.  I came back to my home.  I saw all of the companions that I had ever had. My apartment sisters. The whole ward was there that I love, and more than anything this amazing family got baptized!!  This is what missions are for.   I know I had absolutely nothing to do with that.  But I am so grateful for the relationship I have been able to make.  This family is BEAUTIFUL.  I am one lucky missionary!  

I had really missed everyone.  Axxxxxx said he had missed me, and he would always wave me over to where he was haha.   

I was just so happy to see them.  

I cried a bit I had so much joy.

I am so lucky! 

I am so excited for them.  They are going to be a workhorse power of good in the world! I love them so much!

Anyways!  I love you all, and I hope you have a good week!  Remember mother earth and eat some vegetables this week!  Be green!  

Read your scriptures!  Everyday!

Pray every day!

Be happy!!!

Love Hermana Sheffer

I miss him so much!

I got to see Sister Gomez again!

My two favorite people of my mission of all time!