Temple Week and Transfers!

I LOVE this picture of the Oakland Temple!

Tuesday: Transfers!!! Sister Shkapich is my new companion!! She's from Chandler, Arizona and she is 9 months into her mission. I've already learned so much from her! She's a dancer too (but hasn't done ballroom) AND she went to BYU Idaho like me!! Today at district meeting we discussed the Christlike attribute we're studying for this transfer which is diligence and it really put it into perspective for me what it actually means to be diligent. We said goodbye to Sister Lee and Sister Chiang today :( 

Wednesday: I wrote down a lot of notes from reading Helaman Chapter 5 today at the Visitor Center. We have a new exhibit here at the Oakland Temple Visitor Center!! It's still shots taken from the Bible videos the LDS Church has produced about Christ's life. Oh, I forgot to mention but I found out about 3 weeks ago that the Oakland Temple will be closing in February 2018 for a year or more because they are moving the entrance to the front since it's on the side. When the construction is done, they’ll have another open house for the public to come see the temple and then they're going to re-dedicate it. Our lesson with Linda went great and we found someone from our ward to do a special musical number for her baptism this Saturday!! Sister Sargent is going to play the harp!! We had dinner at Sister Davis's house and got to see her newborn girl! So cute!! It was cool to hear how she gained her testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

PINK! For Linda's Baptism reception this Saturday!

Thursday: At Visitor Center training today, we have been doing what's called "Exhibit Mastery" to help us revamp our introductions to the various exhibits. Today we did our introductions on the Life of Christ exhibit. However we didn't know we had to do it as a companionship and we had to talk about all of the new still shots. So Sister Shkapich and I did it on the spur of the moment and it went great! I feel like, for me, I always struggle with the first few words trying to figure out what I'm going to say or connect it to what my companion just shared but I've realized that once I get past those first few words and trust that I will know what to say, I gain more confidence and I'm more comfortable as I teach. Then we met some other people and that night we got Little Caesars pizza and Italian bread.. 8D Then we talked with leaders in the Young Women’s organization about how we can become more involved with the youth and got some great ideas! I am recognizing where I can improve and striving to do so. And it makes me happy. 

Friday: OUR TOILET FLOODED!!!!!!! We spent our morning scooping up poop water :( BUT! Never fear we got it cleaned up and working. What's more important and super cool is while we were on Mormon.org, Sister Shkapich clicked on a random chat and it turned out to be a church member who was 16 and wanting to go on a mission but she has cystic fibrosis. Lo and behold, Sister Shkapich has CF and had many of the same concerns as this member. Sister Shkapich was able to give her some really good advice based on her personal experiences! So cool!! A teacher that works at my Grandma's school came to the Visitor’s Center because her dad lives here in Oakland. He volunteers at the Visitor’s Center and engraves the copies of the Book of Mormon with our names on it. She was able to bring me a Valentine’s Day present from my Grandma. We also got 2 referrals today!!! 

 

This is the Chinese New Years/Valentine's Day package I got from my Grandma!

I got a new Dress and new Name Tags!

Saturday: Sister Shkapich has the General Conference talks on CD's so we've been listening to those and a few talks stood out to me. One was "The Healing Ointment of Forgiveness" by Elder Kevin R. Duncan and something that stood out to me that he said is that we must forgive everyone or else we can't be forgiven. And it is so true. PLEASE if you have someone in your life that you haven't forgiven for something, no matter how big or small, please forgive them. And "Be Thou Humble" by Elder Steven E. Snow. He said we should be happy for others successes. And not expect blessings. 

Sunday: I've found that so many things have had the subject of love (gospel wise) around this time and I think it's a wonderful opportunity to reach out to others. 

 

Picture of the Sunset and the Cityscape.

Monday: We went to the Ghirardelli chocolate factory!! And we had the most amazing crepes from Frodo Joes!!! We met with a member and her non-member friend and we might be able to add her friend as a new investigator! Miracles! We walked her friend home and on the way back to our car we got a referral for the Spanish speaking Sisters!! 

Tuesday: HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!! I met my first Gay LDS member! His story is amazing! He is such an example of keeping your covenants because he knows this is true and he's sacrificing the opportunity to have a relationship with someone so he can keep his covenants and be able to go to the Temple!! We got in contact with our 2 investigators!! It's amazing how the Lord puts people or things in our path to help us. We've definitely seen that this week as we try to find new investigators because after Linda gets baptized this Saturday we wouldn't have had any investigators.

Wednesday: TODAY!! Because of transfers we had our P-Day today. We went to the Temple and then after we went to Zachary's pizza and it was amazing!! And now I have to go! Bye! Love you all!!!!