#26 - Wonderful Week

Exchanges (Sister Baldwin is in the back and Sister Sheffield is on the left)

 So Tuesday we went to a training at the mission office, which was really incredible. We learned a lot about adjusting to missionary life, and it was a good reminder on not focusing on stress, numbers, and a million things to do, but just focusing on what you can do right now to be a bit better and be the person God needs you to be. It was also fun to meet up with other missionaries and talk about old areas. Afterwords we went to Clovis for exchanges. It was SO DIFFERENT, because Sister Baldwin and Sister Sheffield (Who I found out was a clarinet player in BYU's marching band last Fall as well, and she was Sister Oldroyd's roommate for a semester!) are English missionaries. We're not that far away from them, but our conversations, the food we ate, just everything was so different. It was so good to learn from them though. And they let us borrow one of their bikes! They stopped sending sisters out with them the last couple of transfers so I don't know how much longer I'll be using mine.

Giving service cleaning out someone's backyard 

Friday was the ward and branch Trunk or Treat. And both of the families we're working with went! And they started talking and are becoming friends! That was a miracle. We had so much fun getting to know more people.

Not sure what these are for, but we saw them at Walmart.

Hats a member made us

I've been thinking a lot recently about planning. I've heard crazy stories where missionaries get the impression to go to this street at this time and they find this miracle person and I was wondering why that doesn't just happen to everyone. Something I thought about is that this life is for us to learn how to make decisions and how to act more like God. He trusts us to make plans and we pray before and after to confirm that that's where we need to go and what we need to do, and He lets us learn for ourselves. And even when not everything goes as planned, if you're doing it while being obedient, you will be blessed.  An example of this was yesterday! We were going to see this family and then they weren't there, so we decided on our two back up plans and they weren't there either. But at the last house we saw this guy all the way down the street and decided we should go talk to him. We didn't want to seem like we just picked him out and were stalking him, so we drove the car over, and decided we would knock on a random house and ask if the Ortiz family lived there, and then nonchalantly walk back over to this guy like we were just talking to people nearby (I know, Hermana Oldroyd and I overthink everything). No one answered the door and by then the man had walked inside! We debated whether or not it was weird to knock on his door and finally we just said, this is literally what we do as missionaries, and we knocked and he came out all excited that we were there! He said, "Are we going to pray or something? I really want to pray!" and then explained how he lost his bible and was looking for another one, and after we talked to him he said, "Can't you feel the Spirit that's here?" MIRACLE! It made us so happy and we were so grateful that God trusted us to make plans and then put someone in our path who was prepared. The only sad part is that he doesn't speak Spanish so we had to give him to the elders, but we're so excited for him!
--

Spanish words

Mogrero - junk

Love you!

Hermana Marin Fisher

California Fresno Mission

1814 N Echo

Fresno, CA 93704

From Fresno Mission Blog: Marin meeting her new companion

From the Fresno Mission Blog: When new missionaries arrive, they gather together and often sing