Light at the End of the Tunnel

legitimately broke my bed
by sitting on it...

Hello, Everybody--

Welcome back to the missionary meltdown. Here in the valleys of Northern Cal, we've got some good news of hopefully cooler temperatures coming around the corner! Guys there was actually a day in the 80's this week! Of course today is supposed to be over a hundred, but then it will drop again, at least for a little bit.

This statue has been there forever, but we
finally stopped by it

LEAF TIME. Something else dropping are the leaves on the trees out here too. There are not half as many trees as back home, but there are still enough to get a layer of leaves down in some areas. It reminds me of all the leaf raking I don't have to do! Ha. But then again, watch--I just said that, so all my service this week will be leaf raking. I wouldn't complain though! Side note: one of my favorite small things out here is crunchy leaves. CA has some of the best leaves to step on, because it's so dry. They're super crunchy 95% of the time.

Just a really cool picture where the
Book of Mormon was facing in
exactly the right direction

Another cool mural

POLICE CHECK. I'm a missionary...that means I'm exempt from the occasional DUI check, right? Apparently not; I got to experience that recently! Ok, ok, it was just a normal check, so they were stopping all the cars on the road we were on, but it was still funny to pretend I got checked. The officer did ask about my license, though. Massachusetts drivers are not common in these areas, believe it or not.

closeup of the cool mural

I told him I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the usual bit), so of course he asked if I had any alcohol on me (jokingly). I wish I'd had the guts to say, "Yeah, we've got a trunk FULL of it," because they would have opened it to a bunch of church pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon. Ha! But, I figured joking like that with an officer at that particular time wouldn't be my brightest idea, so I kept my mouth shut. Next time, though!

hammock planning!

UNEXPECTED SERVICE. Final funny bit: the epitome of Wrightsell service. Yesterday we were doing our weekly reading with Jessie and Yvonne (101 and 96), but Yvonne forgot her scriptures so we went back to her room to get them for her. Naturally, her roommate was sitting in her wheelchair with her pants down around her ankles. She called us over for help. She's not super coherent, but she did understand enough to know that she needed help getting her pants up. So guess what Wrightsell did: we walked out of there.

I exploded a can by dropping a toy on it,
don't ask I really have no idea

Kidding! We just did something we never expected to do on a mission, and that's helping an old lady pull her pants up! Unexpected. But necessary and appreciated.

NEW FRIENDS. So, aside from the ridiculous times, we did also have amazing spiritual experiences this week too as we always do. One huge thing Sister Wright and I are stoked about is two new investigators from last week. We've taught them twice now (James, I think I mentioned him?) and the other is the guy we ran into on the street and his wife. He's a bit more skeptical about the religious discussions, but she's way into it!

toes everywhere
(from Mom: I can only imagine
from this angle they're all supposed to
look like toes...?!)

She asked questions that were pretty good, our first visit, and then yesterday she had a whole list of things, and was accepting of all of the answers! She's having foot surgery Thursday, and when James suggested we meet in 2 weeks, she just got this concerned look on her face and said 2 weeks was too long. So we're meeting with them again next Sunday in spite of the surgery :) She's amazing and she's really interested--it's cool to be teaching a young family!

exchanges! Lighter rain before the downpour

WATER FROM THE SKY. Hey, guess what: IT RAINED THIS WEEK! And brought a miracle with it! I've learned that there are no coincidences on a mission. We got to do exchanges (where you switch companions for a day, to have the experience of working with someone different). I got to go to the Spanish area and pretend to do Spanish stuff for the day. Kidding, everything we did was in English. But we were knocking on some doors when we heard thunder! And the clouds looked just about ready to dump some water on us, then of course as we were talking to a lady it started to rain.

We have some new cards to hand out if we feel
so inclined, and I just want everyone to see the
little boy's face in the back left :)

We finished our short conversation, then immediately ran to the parking lot and started dancing in the rain because it's been so long! At the end of our dance party a guy pulled in to his parking spot with a severely flat tire. After he got out, we started a conversation with him. Mike, an awesome guy. We ended up talking to him for 30 minutes, and he wanted to go to church! Also, during our whole conversation it started downpouring, and there was lightning, and it was a short rain, but still rain! It was so cool, especially because I was on exchanges. Had it not started raining when it did, we would have missed Mike, who had just gotten home from his 3-hour drive. We were there at the right place and time to see him! It was just a great exchange all around, so cool to see people prepared to hear the message.

service!

IT TAKES ALL KINDS TO MAKE A WORLD. A big lesson I had confirmed to me this week was being yourself on your mission. Believe it or not, I'm kind of sarcastic or sassy sometimes (whaaat?), and that's a bit different from how most of the sister missionaries are, and I know that. But I was never planning on coming on a mission to change my personality to fit the sister missionary mold. It's been wonderful to be able to bond with people at church a little differently than other sisters or missionaries do. I get to see a side that doesn't come out as often, and it's cool to see people just act more real or sometimes goofy around me.

shoutout to the best mom
for labeling the package like this!

For example, a church member gave Sister Wright a hug after talking to her and as she was hugging her, she stuck her tongue out at me. This was a lady in maybe her 50's, mind you! It's been cool to have people act comfortable around me, where members don't think they have to act more formal around me, just because I'm a sister missionary. I'm still me, I just have to wear skirts a bit more often than I did at home! And I've never tried to fit the mold. It just stood out to me a little more this week.

Good luck this week with everything!
Keep me updated on the world so I don't get too stuck in the mission bubble.
Keep it real!

Sister Whitesell
teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net
244 W. 20th St. Apr. B
Chico, CA 95928