Aiden came to church again & Happy Father's Day!!

San Francisco-Oakland Visitors Center Missionaries

We talked to a guy Named Douglas who came into the Visitors Center and told us he was God and Jesus Christ. We talked to him for about an hour. He said that since he was little, he has been receiving and fulfilling prophecies.

We talked to a cute 13 year old named Charice who said she'd try to come to church. 

We had a miracle while on the phones at the Visitors Center! We set a goal to send 4 referrals to local missionaries at the teaching center. We only had 15 minutes left on the phones and we got 3 people!! One lady wanted us to mail her a copy of the Book of Mormon and told us that two of her friends wanted a copy of the Bible! So we were able to get their contact information and arrange for the local missionaries to deliver them. Then, while I was on the phones; a member gave me a referral for her son's best friend!!

Saying Goodbye to Sister Mikkelson.

My new companion - Sister Bosco

We found a new investigator! His name is David!! We also talked to this guy named Tom who was a Disciple of Christ and very into sharing the gospel with everyone! He didn't want to read the Book of Mormon but we finished our conversation with him with a good feeling that at the end of the day, he's still teaching others about Christ :) We also went to a less active members home (the Gomez's again) and were able to really gained their trust. We mentioned how missionaries sometimes play soccer on our p-days and when their 15 year old son was walking us out he asked us about soccer again. So we're going to try to use that to fellowship him and get him active!

We got invited to the Oakland 7th Ward's Chinese program with Mangoes!

As the title says, Aiden came to church again!!! He also went to the ward’s young men's activity on Wednesday. He ended up playing basketball in his suit because he didn't know you don't have to wear church clothes to the activities. He's also going on a hike with the young men next Wednesday through Saturday!!! 

My Yummy Dinner!

We also had an amazing dinner last night!

With ice cream for dessert!

We went to contact a family of 7 who are potential investigators. When we met with them, they said we could come back. While we were there, we saw a boy named Chris playing basketball so we stopped and shot some hoops with him. Sister Bosco challenged him that if she won he would agree to let us teach him and he said yes. Sister Bosco won so we taught him a quick lesson and hopefully we can come back :) Also, while we were talking with Chris there were several 7 or 8 year old boys who were riding their bikes and doing tricks. They rode past us several times and after we were done talking with Chris they stopped us and were asking us all sorts of questions about the afterlife, etc. So we answered their questions and committed them to not curse this week and to try to come to the Visitors' Center. We also wrote our phone number on some of the cards we gave them and told them to go to mormon.org if they have questions. It was SO cool to see how the Lord puts you in places to fulfill His work. Even if we never see those kids again; we will never know how big of an impact we may have had on them. I hope they will join the church later on in life and I'm glad I had the opportunity to share that message with them. 

Love you all!! 

Sister Phillips

Transfers!!!!

Picking up supplies at the Mission Home

Hi everyone!! 

So as you can tell from the subject of my email, transfers are tomorrow. Thankfully I'm staying in Alameda but my companion Sister Mikkelson is leaving :( But I'm super excited for my new companion; Sister Bosco! She's from Louisville, Kentucky and she's just what our ward/area needs! 

Monday: I was able to talk about the gospel while checking out at the grocery store :) We also went to help the Ravello's pack and ended up "helping" her make dinner (more so, we just talked while Sister Revello did the work) and then we taught her and her kids (they're members) the Plan of Salvation. At the end, I felt the spirit when Sister Ravello testified of the simple truths of the Plan of Salvation to her children. It reminded me just how simple and amazing the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation is and how happy I am that I have the knowledge of it. We also had a great lesson with our investigator Kam and she said she might come to church this Sunday!

Tuesday: LUNCH WAS SOOO GOOD!!!! We went to lunch at a place called "India Palace" and their Indian food was SO GOOD!!!!! And then we had an amazing District meeting with tons of miracles for our area!! The San Lorenzo Sisters were finally able to contact a potential investigator named Vincent that we met a few months ago but couldn't ever get in contact with him after our initial contact. The Samoan Sisters told us that a RM (Returned Missionary) helped them finally talk to his family. They've tried for a few months to get in to talk to his family. They taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel and the father said he wanted the Sisters to teach all of his kids and family all they knew about Jesus Christ!! They have like 8 kids and last time I heard it'll be about 15 people or more that they'll be teaching and potentially baptizing!!!! AND… when the Sisters tried committing the family to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it; the mom and daughter said they didn't have to because they have already read the whole thing and they know it's true!! We also had an amazing and busy night at the Oakland Visitors Center!! We took SO many tours!! And got 2 non-members to fill out referral cards!! One was Tameka; she had always wanted to learn more. The other was a guy named Kao who had always wanted to come to the Visitors Center and wanted to learn more about Christianity and was VERY interested!! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation while he was there. We were able to put his mind at ease about his father who had passed away and let him know that his father can learn about and accept the gospel and repent if he wants to in the spirit world :) And, here's one of the greatest miracles of all!! We had a lady from Provo, Utah come into the Visitor Center asking for a copy of the Book of Mormon that she could give to her non-member nephew who was walking the grounds with them. They came in later and toured around the Visitors Center and the nephew was given a copy of the Book of Mormon and said he'd read it but he didn't want to give us his contact information. So we gave him the church info for the Sunday meeting schedule. (REMEMBER HIM HIS NAME IS AIDEN). Then we also talked to this awesome older lady who was on her way to the family history center. We caught her interest and showed her “Days of Harmony.” Afterwards we found out that she's a less-active member who is trying to return to church and rebuild her testimony. She was married to a member passed away. After his passing, she fell away and got remarried a non-member who recently passed away. Before he was about to pass, he randomly said they needed to go to church (he's Catholic). That kind of confused her, so she said "Ok, Well what church?" and he said "The Mormon church of course!" Her daughter who fell away is also coming back as well :) Also the Tongan Elders came in to the Visitors Center for a tour with their investigator, Moana. We took her around while they were waiting for their ward member to show up and we talked about the Book of Mormon and showed her Elder Christofferson's special witness of Christ and how he came to know the church was true by praying and reading the Book of Mormon. She said people keep telling her she's not ready, but she knows it's true and is prepared to get baptized! The elders were surprised by her countenance after we were done and asked what we showed her and talked about. 

I’m almost out of time but a few other neat things: We have a member who looks like Ryan Gosling ;) 

Friday: we had a family from Nepal who lives in El Cerrito come in. The son is the only one who spoke English but he was so open, knowledgeable and interested and filled out a referral card to have us send him a Book of Mormon and have the local missionaries visit. He said he wants to come back to learn more so he can go home and teach his family!! 

Sunday: OK, remember Aiden? HE CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!! 

Gotta go, but I love you all!!!!

BYE!!! 

Sister Alyssa Phillips

Baptism Miracles!!!

Zone Conference

Ok a few things that happened last week that I forgot to mention due to time and my memory! Last Monday, May 29^th (so weird to think we're already in June.. where has this year gone??) we did service for a member by weeding/hoeing her garden and in return she gave us fresh eggs from her chickens! Did you know that Chickens can lay green eggs!?!?! Not me! But we got some!! Although I neglected to take a picture of them before emailing. We also tried to contact a potential investigator some Sister Missionaries had passed along to us. This was our 3rd and final try with her and she wasn't home. Though her mom's care taker said she would be home after 5 pm. (We tried earlier in the afternoon) so we went on with our plans and around 5 o’clock, Sister Mikkelson said; “Let's go try Barbara again.” I didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until we were walking to Barbara's house that Sister Mikkelson said she forgot we had already tried visiting her today but since it was a little after 5 pm we decided to still try and lo and behold there was Barbara walking up the steps with her two dogs! So we were able to get her phone number! :D Then a member took us to a Chinese restaurant called ‘Chef's Wok’ for Sister Mikkelson's Birthday dinner. :) I love the member; Brother Aliling! He's Filipino and he sang for us and told us why his wife chose him out off all of the other guys :) Part of it was because he sang songs to her :) I really want my future husband to take notes from him... Also! After we spent time at the Oakland Temple Visitor Center emailing potential investigators; we met a guy on the street who was really quiet and we taught him a brief version of the Restoration of the Gospel. He asked if we had a church nearby, so we gave him the church info and a lesson one pamphlet and added him as a new investigator! 

Ok now for this week!! 

Thursday, June 1^st: President and Sister Frandsen came to our weekly Visitors Center training meeting this morning and talked about the doctrine behind modesty. They also told us that we need to remember the little things; that we sometimes just teach the main big things and gloss over everything else. President Frandsen also shared a story of when he went out with the missionaries recently and at the end he said "Elders, our purpose as missionaries is to invite other to come unto Christ, have we done that today?" He was reminding us that even if we aren't seeing any "success" we are still fulfilling our purpose. Also, a guy I'm talking to online at the teaching center who has met with missionaries in the past. But he got put in jail and ended up reading the Book of Mormon while in there, told me that he knows it’s true and that he wants to meet with the missionaries again. So we set up a time for him to meet with the missionaries in his area!! Brent Swan is another cool guy that I’ve met online from the teaching center. He was supposed to get baptized last month but ended up not following through. He had a stroke and it humbled him so he started looking for religion and reached out to the church. I found out today that he is still getting baptized!! He just needs a little longer to overcome his smoking addiction :) 

Friday, June 2^nd: A cute family from England came into the Oakland Temple Visitors Center today! We get a lot of non-members who like to visit to take pictures up here on the temple grounds. Another lady and her friend came into the Visitors Center and one of the ladies said that she was alive in 1963 when the Oakland temple was having its open house right before it was dedicated and she got to go through it! We also got a member referral for a Russian lady who recently lost her husband! We’re super excited to go and contact her! Member referrals are the BEST! Also, the Samoan speaking Sister missionaries found a new investigator for us. His name is Herbert! We're having a pass off lesson this week :) Also! We were finally able to find a former investigators address! This former investigator is a grandma and went back home to Jamaica but the previous sister missionaries told us that her grandchildren seemed really open to being taught the Gospel they just didn't ever think to teach them while they were working with the grandmother. When we talked to them, the oldest sister said she would be interested in letting us teach them but she'd have to ask her mom, who wasn't home at the time. So there's a potential family for us to teach!!

Saturday, June 3^rd: I had an amazing personal study session today!! I read John 15: 1-16! Also, a guy came onto a mormon.org chat and he's an Uber driver and apologized for the stereotype or the way he thought about Mormons before because he gave a ride to some members and said that they were some of the nicest and coolest ladies he's ever met! And he lives by an LDS temple!! 

I'm running out of time, sorry!! But to explain my blog title, we had a lesson with our investigator Kam and she accepted an invitation to be baptized on July 29th!! Then, on Sunday night (June 4^th) we went to the Visitors Center with our potential investigator, Susi. Before we left, we checked the teaching center and a lady I had contacted to follow up for a Book of Mormon request called and left a voicemail for me saying she wanted to be baptized and didn't know who to talk to about doing it!! :D She said she was a former member of the church but had her records removed. She said she finally decided to find out for herself what the Book of Mormon was about and she's been reading it almost every day and now she has a testimony and tells me that she knows it's true and has a hunger to read it! She now understands what it feels like to go a day without reading it! Your day just doesn't go well! 

Also! Yesterday (Sunday) when I was online at the teaching center, I've been talking to this guy named Abdul who is planning on getting baptized (he's Muslim) and I've been helping him through his doubts and the hard trials he's endured. He shared with me that he didn't want to be baptized anymore because he just heard some bad personal news. He told me about how the girl, who he's been engaged to since November, dumped him because he's getting baptized and I was able to help him through it and use what I’ve learned in my studies to do it.

San Leandro Zone Picnic

Love you all!!! 

Sister Alyssa Phillips

TEMPLES, EXCHANGES, BIRTHDAYS AND BBQS!!!

Hello all! So, I forgot my journal! However, I'll try to remember all that happened this week :) 

Hanging with Sister Herbine during companionship exchanges in Alameda.

Monday (5/22), We went on exchanges!! I was left to lead the area that I've only been in for 3 weeks.. Yay!! It was super fun with Sister Herbine! Plus I got to drive a 2017 Chevy Malibu for a day while our car got fixed! :D But when we switched cars at the dealership, we forgot to bring our clicker to open the gate to our apartment. So when we got there that night at 9:30 we realized that we would have to park on the street. If any of you have ever lived in Alameda you will know that finding a parking spot on the street is nearly impossible, especially at night. But Heavenly Father gave us a miracle by allowing us to find a parking spot on the same street as our apartment that late at night. Plus the Malibu is a really long car and it fit perfectly! Blessings!! 

Sister Herbine and I having lunch with Elder and Sister Pimentell.

Tuesday (5/23): We had lunch with Elder and Sister Pimentell. Elder Pimentell is a member of the Area 70 for the San Francisco/Oakland Mission and since they live in our ward boundaries, they invited us over for lunch and gave us some awesome Ideas for missionary work. They they used to be over the Berlin, Germany mission :) Funny story about going to lunch at their house though: We parked in front of their house about 60 minutes early to tract around their house and at 5pm we knocked on their door and it didn't look like anyone lived there. Then I remembered Sister Pimentell telling me they had just moved! So we rushed over to their new house which was about 10 minutes away and thankfully it was ok because they were waiting for family that hadn't shown up yet and when we got to their house, they found out they mixed up the dates and their family was coming next week. BUT! If we wouldn't have made the mistake, we wouldn't have talked to a lady named Debbie! She wasn't interested in sharing a message but she was super nice and asked us questions about the temple since she has some LDS friends :) we also talked to a super cute lady named Kaitlyn who is a Quaker :) 

Other things that happened this week:

I got sunburned while out knocking on doors. Guess I'll have to make sure I have sunscreen in my bag.

My locker at the Oakland Temple Visitors Center

My Uncle Steve will laugh at this; he's a big Jack Black fan.

We had a missionary fireside on Saturday (5/27). We also had a really great lesson with our investigator Kam! She hasn't been putting in the time to read the Book of Mormon and in this lesson we taught her the Plan of Salvation really simply so she'd understand because English is her 2nd language. By the end she really understood why this life is important and the things we need to do. She also mentioned, by herself, that she needs to put God and Christ more as a priority than other things in her life; so we're hoping that she'll keep her commitments! We're having another lesson with her tonight as well :)  

On Sunday (5/28) we also had a couple who are from Russia but who live in the Bay area come in to the Visitors Center. We gave them a tour and talked a lot about the Book of Mormon with them and the guy said "You've almost sold me!" a few times. So we hope they'll come back soon :) 

Tuesday (5/30), we had Zone Conference!! It was really awesome! We also had someone come and talk to us about stress management and taught us breathing exercises and committed us to do them 5 times a day. 

Lunch at Zone Conference

The Relief Society decorated our tables so cute!

Sisters trying to eat healthy but look at all that yummy food!

Today is Hadley's Birthday (my little sister) and my companion, Sister Mikkelson's as well! We also got to go to the temple today and had a really fun BBQ at the mission home where we also got to play sports! My mission president is awesome at basketball! 

Happy Birthday Sister Mikkelson!

-- 

Love,

Sister Phillips

Sunburned... but happy :) 7 months!!

Selfie in front of the Oakland Temple Visitors Center

Monday (5/15): like I mentioned in my last post (last Monday) we went on a hike/walk around Lake Chabot with some of the other sister missionaries in our district :) Then we washed the car, and got a referral :)

Tuesday (5/16): We had interviews with our mission president :) This transfer period our Christ-like attribute to focus on is Knowledge. So, during our district meeting we shared our favorite scripture about knowledge and how it helped us or someone. We also went out to lunch with our recent convert, Joaquin, to a fancy Italian restaurant :) And when we were on shift at the Oakland Temple Visitors Center the young men and young women from my last ward (San Lorenzo) came up for a missionary activity (which I totally forgot about even though I reserved the space for them xD). So it was a really nice and happy surprise for me because I got to see them and say hi! :D I also was able to talk to a girl online who was trying to decide if she should to go on a mission or not and I was able to put her at ease about it and give her some info about what a missionary's daily life is :) Also, something really cool happened while at the Visitors Center today!! A Chinese sister who works in the temple was waiting outside for her ride when she saw a group of Chinese people taking pictures of the temple and brought them inside. Luckily her ride was delayed and she was able to sit down and tell them a bit about our basic beliefs (because we only have 1 companionship of Chinese speaking sisters at the moment and they had already left for the day) and we were able to show them the 6 minute "special witness" movie on the restoration of the gospel and afterwards the Sister was able to tell them more about Prophets and Apostles and we gave them referral cards in Chinese and the Chinese sister's number and they said they would call. 

Sister Ye

Wednesday (5/17): We had an awesome lesson with Lashaunda! She's a former investigator as of a few years ago and we set up an appointment for today and we committed her and her family to read the Book of Mormon and pray daily as a family. We also gave her kids a storybook version of the Book of Mormon as well. Then, when we stopped by a few days later, she said she and her family had read it!! So her family of 5 kids are potential investigators!! We also had another wonderful lesson with our investigator Jennifer! We were actually there for about 2 hours.... luckily it didn't interfere with any other appointments... She's a talker! But we have high hopes for her!! Then we had an awesome lesson with our less active sister Keh (kay) and she have us dehydrated banana chips :) yummm :) And she said yes to our invitation to come out to the Ward’s Relief Society chili cook off!! And she’s super excited!! We also saw a less active family who has some health issues. The family we found last week from our district finding activity told us they weren't interested, but thankfully we have 2 other potential families to teach instead! :) Blessings :) We had dinner with the Sherwoods (ward mission leader) and we had an AMAZING experience! We went to the chapel to do some preparation for our missionary fireside and we walked out and our member was with her co-worker who is interested in our church! We were able to introduce ourselves and give him a copy of the Book of Mormon!! Then we went to contact a referral and we saw him walking to his house but didn't realize it was him until he was walking in the front door while we were still in our car. After we parked and knocked on his door no one answered :(

I'm finding that you come across all kinds of unusual people while you serve on a mission.

Thursday (5/18): WE HAD AN AMAZING VISITORS CENTER TRAINING!!!

The San Francisco/Oakland Visitors Center Sister Missionaries

It was about what we do with investigators that we remove from our active teaching list because they are not ready to progress right now and what we can do to get them ready. The local ward members play a HUGE part in doing this because they are able to spend the time getting to know them, etc. when we aren't able to!! So please help the missionaries!! We also talked about other things as well which I don't have time to write. We had our Relief Society Chili cook off and sister Keh came!!!! And When I was online I got a Book of Mormon referral I called to verify his address and he said he already had one and had been taught by missionaries but went to jail and that's when he read the Book of Mormon and knows it's true and wants to meet with missionaries again!!! We also did our studies in the Young Woman’s room at the church building and it's decorated SO cute! (I guess you can do that when there's only your ward in the ward building :) ) And I had an AMAZING PERSONAL STUDY!!! 

The cute Young Woman's Room in the church building

LOVE the seat cushions!

It's decorated SO CUTE - they even have curtains in the window!

Friday (5/19): At the Visitors Center we had a guy (member) come in and he was about to leave but I asked if we could give him a tour because he hadn't been back for 25 years (he used to work there). We showed him ‘God's Plan for His Family’ even though he made bad choices and lost his family/marriage and afterward we were able to talk and he said he was grateful for the trials he's been through because it brought him closer to God but was still sad about it and I told him something about how he can now help someone else because of his experiences. He said that that's what he'd been thinking about while watching the presentation and said we helped confirm what the Spirit was telling him. We committed him to pray on his knees and ask God what He thinks of him and to not get up until he gets his answer. (I suggest everyone do this regardless if they think they have problems or not)! :) Also, I had a really golden referral I sent to missionaries! He said he wasn't ready for baptism yet because of old habits and addictions and I was able to begin teaching him and he said thanks for supporting him. He's going to keep trying to overcome his addictions and prepare to be baptized later on :) Also! The 2 referrals we sent the Zone leaders are now investigators and are awesome!! And a really inspiring guy came on Mormon.org to chat. He's investigating the church and overcoming a drinking addiction and asked us for scriptures to help him because his missionaries were asleep. 

Saturday (5/20): talked to someone investigating the church online who wants us to talk to a Catholic friend of hers who isn't happy with her church. She said that because of her friend's example she contacted the missionaries to have them teach her!! We had five large group tours all at 9:30 am!!! 

Sunday (5/21): Saw a less active part member family at church! 

Monday (5/22): Got sunburned while mini golfing on our P-day today! :) 

I'm going to have a tanline where my watch is!

Guess I better start carrying sunscreen with me.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!

Picture with Sister Hilton while we were hiking at Lake Chabon

Hi everyone!!!! I hope your Mother's Day was as fantastic as mine!! I got to skype my parents!!! 

I can't believe I've only been in Alameda for 2 weeks! It seems like I've been here longer! 

Monday 5/8/17: P-Day! We went shopping for groceries and then we had some extra time so we went to Daiso (A Japanese dollar store where everything is basically $1.50) because Sister Mikkelson hadn't gone to one yet :) Then we met the other sister missionaries in our zone and ate at Chipotle. Then we visited a LOT of people today. We saw our investigator Felipe and he hadn't read the Book of Mormon and said he'd study on his own first and then ask us questions. So we'll check back in a few weeks. If anything it was a seed planted :) We also went to see a less active part member family and it was the first time in history that someone buzzed us in without knowing who we were and then opened the door! The non-member wife answered and asked us to come back (she's a cute Korean lady :)) because we could obviously tell her husband was asleep by his snoring. :) Then we went to contact a potential/former investigator named Rafael; but when we got to the house 2 guys answered the door and said he's in El Salvador and they don't know if he'll be coming back. But they said they'd be interested in learning about our message so we gave the Zone Leaders their info :)

Tuesday 5/9/17: We did a service project at Joaquin Miller Park where we cut back the invasive grass, pulled out lots of Hemlock and a plant called "broom" and we saw 2 scorpions and a newt (which I held ;) - the newt not the scorpions). I learned a lot about plants and stuff! We also saw a wild strawberry plant and there were wild blackberries and wild mint leaves and an edible kind of lettuce and bay leaves and learned about poison Oak. There were 2 ladies in charge of our service project and one of them used to be a long time news caster lady! Oh!! We also saw some awesome flowers too! Forget-me-nots, Scarlet Pimpernels, English Daisies and a cool grass or plant called Rattle Snake because it has pods that rattle when they are shaken. The news caster lady also had her cute dog named Lucy with us :) I also learned that Redwood trees are really cool because the super tall ones can have like 3 different climates! We also had some awesome deep doctrinal conversations while at the Oakland Temple Visitors' Center with the other Sisters there. We aslo had some miracles! Sister Heath and Sister Madsen talked to a lady who was having a hard time and came into the Visitors Center. They talked to her in front of the Christus statue for an hour and the lady agreed to learn more and possibly meet with the missionaries! Now here's the BIGGEST MIRACLE!!!!   I was on Mormon.org chatting with people and a GOLDEN person comes online! His mom and her family were LDS but she got ex communicated but he's been praying and wanting to come closer to Christ and he got an answer that he should join the Mormon Church. So he wanted to meet with missionaries to learn more!! 

Heart Stump at Joaquin Miller Park

Hanging with Sister Rice (my last companion) at Joaquin Miller Park during our service project.

Redwoods at Joaquin Miller Park. It was really cool to learn about the ecosystem here.

Wednesday 5/10/17: I chatted online with a member who had her name/records taken off of the LDS Church Rolls because of some stuff and she wanted to know how to bring the Spirit back into her. We were able to help give her some ideas about family home evening, reading scriptures and praying daily. Eventually, when she's ready, we talked about going back to church. More happened but I'm almost out of time. We went to visit a former investigator and she knew it was us before she opened the door because her son went like this 🙏. Cool huh?

Thursday 5/11/17: Happy birthday mom!! Go read Matthew Chapter 7 and read the footnotes! Mindblowing! Now compare it with 3 Nephi Chapter 14!!

Saturday 5/13/17: We got 6 new investigators today because we had a District Blitz in our area. Basically our whole district came out to our area to help contact potential investigators and tract in our area!!!

Picture of my district. These awesome missionaries helped us with our district blitz in our area last week.

 Sunday 5/14/17: HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!! It was amazing to hear the talks in Church today and also to skype with my family!!

Sister Hilton and I climbing a tree on our hike at Lake Chabon.

Breakfast courtesy of Elder and Sister Grow! They're the BEST!

Monday 5/15/17: Today for P-Day Elder and Sister Grow made us breakfast and we hiked at Lake Chabot <3

-- 

Sister Phillips

Alameda Week 1!

Meeting my new companion, Sister Mikkelson, in Alameda for the first time.

Meet my new companion sister Mikkelson!

We are already seeing miracles here in Alameda!!  We went to go contact a referral from one of our local members and when we got to the house it was a care facility and the referral had just moved out about 1 week prior. BUT!! We talked to 2 of the girls that worked there, Kam and Kekela, and shared a brief message about the restoration and they said they'd like to learn more so we got their info and gave them both pamphlets on the Restoration of the Gospel and copies of the Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment so we added 2 new investigators!!! Later we went back and taught Kam about the Restoration of the Gospel and Book of Mormon intro and extended a soft baptismal invitation which she accepted! 

We also went to visit a less active member; Sister Morales. Apparently she has had bad feelings towards missionaries in the past because they push to try to teach her daughters (Alex 11 and Sophia 6) so we decided we'd just go over there and get to know her better and not really mention teaching her daughters. Toward the end of our visit she did bring up that missionaries wanted to teach her daughters in the past and how she didn't like that. She brought that up a few times and we tried to let her know we were there just to get to know her and see if we could help in any way and we talked about prayer and out of the blue she said “On one of my next days off, you can come and teach my daughter Alex.” Totally unexpected! But it made us very happy afterwards :).

So Alameda is doing pretty well! :D We're just trying to gain the members trust and show our competency and love for this work and that we really do want to help out in any way we can. We also went to see another less active member in our ward (he’s the son of a member in our ward) who recently married a Catholic woman from Mexico. When we went over to visit, he (Brother Pope) was working in the back yard but his wife, Lori, came around the front and was talking to us while we waited for him. She is a really nice lady! We got to know her a bit better and gained her trust. After we talked with both of them for a few minutes she left and it was just us and Brother Pope outside. He said that now that he finally gets weekends off with his job he and his wife were going to try going every other week to each other’s churches! And he really wants his wife to convert! He just says that slowly but surely she will :) So those are some of our awesome miracles that happened this past week :)    

Some Random Thoughts...

*I really loved this Mormon Messages video about the ‘Music of the Gospel’ because it reminded me of when my mom would take me to "Indian pow wows" when I was younger. I find the culture, their music and dance fascinating. And I love how this video related the gospel to their beliefs about music and dance.

*Here’s a great message that addresses all of the negativity we see in the world and how we can look for and find greater optimism and joy.

My last P-Day in San Lorenzo!

Love you all!!!  

Sister Alyssa Phillips