Transfers... and a surprise!

Hola!

So, the end of the transfer!  I thought for sure that nothing would change with this transfer, since it's my first transfer in the area, but I was wrong!  President Wade called me on Thursday morning and called me to to train a new missionary!  Sister Perez is going to be transferred out of the area, and I'll stay here in Daly City with the new missionary.  It's exciting, and also scary!  I'm still getting to know the area, so my new companion and I will be learning a lot together.  I will get to meet her on Wednesday this week, so in my next letter I'll tell you about her!

This week was kind of up and down, like all weeks!  One of the highlights was that Nay came to a ward activity!  It was great.  The ward reacted really well and by the end of the night she had 4 or 5 new friends.  She's really lonely so I think it was great for her to see the love that's here in this ward.  Unfortunately, she didn't make it to church this week.  I think sometimes we as missionaries forget that a lot of people are coming from a very different lifestyle and that something that's almost automatic for us, like going to church EVERY Sunday, is not what's in their mindset. Many people see it kind of like going to the gym, or going to get a physical, or donating blood, I think.  It's something good that you do every once in a while and you feel better after you do it, but if you don't get to it, it'll have to wait until next week.  But what a blessing it is to have the scriptures to teach us about the commandments, and to know that every commandment God gives us is something that can be a constant and consistent blessing, as long as we are constantly and consistently
obedient.  We'll keep going with Nay and hopefully help her understand a little more about the importance of coming to church. 

We also spent a lot of time getting to know different parts of the area together.  That has turned out to be a blessing, since now I'll be the only one who knows anything about the area!  We've been finding a lot in new areas, trying to search for Spanish-speakers.  We've been finding a lot of Chinese people lately!  We've also been able to find a lot of new people, so now we're sort of going through the "sifting" process to find those who are willing to keep commitments.

I was able to give a talk in church this Sunday.  It was weird to hear myself speaking Spanish in the microphone, haha.  The talk went well, although as it is every time I give a talk, I don't remember anything I said.  Nobody gave me weird looks, so I'm assuming it was ok.   I can already tell that it will be difficult to talk about the gospel in English though, so be prepared to laugh at my accent (it's true, I'm getting an accent on words like "zone," "precision," "decision," etc.).