Captain Crunch

October 19th, 2009

Hey Y’all!

Wow, has another week gone by already? Geez, they are just flying past. Does anyone know how to make time stand still? If you do please let me know, because I would just LOVE to slow time down a bit. I got a real reality check this week of just how close my mission is to coming to an end. Even though Sister Davenport and I were not being transferred we were right in the thick of all of the transfer madness. Why you might ask? Well Encino Park is the closest Sister area to the mission home, we are only 4 miles away from President’s house. So that means when we have new sisters coming in or sisters departing a lot of the time we, Encino Park sisters, play chauffeur. So on Wednesday night we went to President’s house to pick up Sister Boyd the newest Sister in the TSAM. She was the only sister to come this transfer, so we picked her up and took her back to our house to spend the night. It was a lot of being with her and it was like a crazy flash back as Sister Davenport and I thought back on our first night in the mission field. We spent quite a bit of time talking that night with Sister Boyd as she picked our brains about the mission and asked us for our best mission advice. She was so just so excited to start her mission and she was just so full of that greenie spirit- it was awesome! It was a lot of fun to have Sister Boyd for the night and then we got to take her to transfer meeting in the morning which means we had an excuse to be there for the meeting- always so fun to go to transfer meetings!! We then parted with Sister Boyd as she went off with her trainer and Sister Davenport and I went back to work as usual. Then Thursday night we got another sleep over buddy, my sister! Sister Maroquin, who was also trained by my trainer Sister Moran, was going home. So she spent her last night in the mission with us and then we took her to the airport in the morning. This is where the reality check came in, having Sister Maroquin with us and taking her to the airport- man it was weird! Sister Davenport and I just felt like sooner than we want, that will be us getting on the plane. It is truly a very scary and sad thought to think about. I DO NOT want to leave my mission. Not that I don’t miss my friends and family, because believe me I do, I miss y’all a lot, but man my mission means everything to me!! I want to be a missionary forever!!!! I guess I will have to come to grips with the fact that I cannot be a full time missionary forever, but I do have four months left- so I am gonna make them count!! Then when I go home I will be a stink’n awesome member missionary!

Well the work has continued and we have been richly blessed. This week we had some sweet lessons with our super awesome progressing investigators. Emylie is doing great and we had a lesson with her at our Ward Mission Leader’s house this week. He has a way cool set up where they’ve got this projector in their loft and so we watched the movie Legacy and it was way fun. Emylie really liked it and totally felt the spirit as well as her mother. I was hit really hard as we were watching the movie, I kept thinking about all the trials those early saints went through and how their trials seem way more difficult than the ones that I deal with today. It made me realize that sometimes I am such a wuss and complain about my meager trials when really I’ve got it easy. We also had some great lessons with the Oakley Family this week and they are praying about being baptized on November 7th. (It’ll be my Birthday present to you Kev, I will bring some souls unto Christ to celebrate your 21st birthday!) lol :) We also invited the Oakley’s to come to this play that the North Stake was putting on last weekend, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was really well done, the stake did a REALLY good job! The best part was that the spirit was there and the Oakley’s loved it! We had a lot of fun and when we left Sister Davenport was like, um wow I feel apostate! I just laughed at her, I was like dude, that was totally G rated and um, we are allowed to have fun every once and awhile! Lol I thought it was a great play and a really good experience for our investigators! So we also had a lesson with Sandra Villanueva this week and she is praying about being baptized on November 29th. We helped her to see the urgency in progressing in the gospel. This is important- we are talking about Christ’s true church here, there is nothing casual about this! She is doing really well and we have some appointments set up with her for next week- should be good. So ya we have got quite a lot going on and we should have a lot of baptisms next month!!!


We found some new people this week as well which is always cool. We were knocking doors in an apartment complex and we knocked into this middle aged divorced guy named Nathanial. He let us in and then talked our ears off for about an hour. We got a quick lesson of the Restoration in, but the rest of the time he proceeded to tell us all about his problems and all of the sins he has committed. It was pretty awkward, Sister Davenport and I kept exchanging uncomfortable glances but we both knew that it was no accident we found this guy, he was lost and he needs the gospel. But we did decide that when we go back for our return appointment next week we will be bringing some members with us for sure! We also did a bunch more service this week. It feels so good to help people out and also it is a great way to do missionary work!! We helped a new sister move into the ward and unpack, we helped the Oakley’s with more yard work and we helped plant the winter flowers at the San Antonio Temple. They had a big flower planting day at the Temple on Saturday and had a ton of volunteers from different wards helping out with the project. What a blessing it is to be on the temple grounds and be able to help beautify the Lord’s house! It was also extra cool cause two of the other volunteers happened to be some of my favorite people from P-town! The Partridges! They came up to help with the project and so they were in my group and we planted together- so fun! Also while we were planting on the street corner I saw a car waiting at the stoplight that looked really familiar- it was the Wildes from San Marcos! They were just leaving the temple from doing a session- so I ran over and gave Sis. Wilde a hug through the car window and we got to talk for a sec before the light changed. It was so fun to see them!

So today I will end with a little bit of an inside scoop on living with members! Ha ha. Ok so the family we live with, The Smiths, are totally awesome! They are so sweet and take such good care of us, we are totally spoiled! Mama Smith always helps us with whatever we need and she buys everything for us. They buy all our groceries, whatever we want. We just write it on the list and she picks it up when she’s at the store. Well, Papa Smith loves this because whenever there are new missionaries he gets different food. Lol Well I wrote on the list that I wanted some Captain Crunch cereal and so Mama Smith got it. One morning I went down to eat a bowl of cereal and found to my surprise that the box was almost empty- turns out Papa Smith likes Captain Crunch too! Ha ha he had eaten like the whole box!! So now Mama Smith buys a couple of boxes when she goes to the store, that way I at least get some before Papa Smith devours it! Ha ha Well then the other day I came down stairs and Sister Davenport said, Papa Smith ate all your Fritos this morning. I was like, wait what! Mama Smith had bought me a big ‘ol bag of fritos chips just like 2 days before and I thought there was no way Papa Smith could have eaten them already. Well Papa Smith heard what Sister Davenport said to me and he just shook his head and said, nope it was Mama. Then mama Smith confessed, ha ha but she didn’t eat them, she spilled them!!! As she was getting something down from the shelf that morning she spilled the bag of Fritos and all but like 10 chips fell out onto the floor. As they were falling Papa Smith was laughing and said “Uh oh Mama those sound like sister Fritos!” Ha ha. Yup so living with members is really quite entertaining!! We love the Smiths!!!! We have so much fun with them, they have been out of town this week and we hate it! It is so weird not having them here, luckily they come back today! We are happy!


Well y’all got a pretty long email today, I am trying to keep y’all updated but man we are just so busy, it’s hard to find the time. This should keep you covered for a few weeks right? Lol :)


SMILING ALL THE WHILE
Hermana Kleisler