Living the Dream: A new kind of LOVE

Hola querida familia!!! How is everyone doing? This is THE greatest thing of my life. I can't tell you how much I love serving a mission. It really is everything I ever thought it would be and more! It is no longer just a dream! On Thursday Hermana White and I were walking down the street and I looked at us and then the ghetto apartments, the sun shinning down and it hit me. It's real! I am really here and am a real missionary. I couldn't imagine anything better.

Where to even start? Well Hermana White is my trainer and new companion! I love her so much! She has only been out for about 7 months but her Spanish is amazing and I am learning so much from her. She works so hard and is such a great teacher and so sincere. She is from Massachusetts and went to BYU before her mission. She is 21 and we will be together for my birthday and possibly her's too! We get a long so well, I just love her!

Now for the area. We are serving in East Sac in the Del Norte Area. We have a HUGE area to cover (because we are the only Spanish speaking sisters in the area). We cover Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks, Orangevale and a little of East Sacramento. We live just outside our area in Carmichael with a member. Her name is Sister Schow. She is 82 years old and is a hoot! I love her to pieces. The mission home is actually just outside our border and so it is in the Roseville mission. That is where we had dinner the first night, it was so fun.

Some fun facts about the California Sacramento Mission. It is the best mission in the world. It is also one of the most diverse mission's in the world! We have over 12 languages: English, Spanish, Cambodian, Mhein, Marshallese, Tongan, ASL, Laotian, Hmong, Korean, Russian and Chinese. Crazy huh? I am blessed to be in an all Spanish district (which is rare). It is Hermana White and I, Elder's Rizo and Austin (who are actually the Zone Leader's as well, rare to have Spanish one's) and Elder's Lee and Torres. They are great! We had our first district meeting Friday and I really enjoyed it! We also have 3 other English speaking companionship's. Elder Hinckley (English speaking) is serving here and his dad served her 30 years ago!! cool huh?

We are so blessed to have soo many great members here. They LOVE the missionaries. We have dinner appointments at least 3-4 times a week. This week we ate with Hermano Garcia. He was so kind and made really good rice. I love having dinner and talking in Spanish. It is the best! We have like 5 dinners this week from other members of the ward and they know I'm new so they are making authentic stuff, I'm excited!

Something really cool are mission does is MIRACLE CALLS!! Whenever anyone in our zone has a miracle happen (a great lesson, someone wants to get baptized, investigator came to church, etc) they call and leave a message to the Zone Leaders and they send it out to everyone and you get so excited and pumped for each other!

I met the Pinto family this week. They are less active, which doesn't make sense to me because they have such strong testimonies they are just flojo. They are amazing though! Leslie is 15 and we go once a week for an hour and do service and help her with her homework (English) because she is failing.

We went and taught Angelica Mora and her family. She is a recent convert. Wow do I love her. She is so strong and and this desire to continue to learn everything. It is amazing to me how easy it comes to love people out here. Especially the Latinos.

I also met two investigators! Susana! We went by and her son told us she wasn't home, so we left and then Hermana White thought we should call her so we did and she told us to come back! Her friends were over and her one friend talked the whole time about how we has been baptized into every church because they are all true haha. It was very interesting. We tried to remind her of her baptism and to read from the Book of Mormon. I got to testify to her and it felt AMAZING.

We taught Andrea last night. She is our most progressing investigator. We taught her the importance of el dia de reposo and we are going back Wednesday so hopefully she will read and keep her compromisos!

Church yesterday was probably the weirdest, funniest thing of my life haha. At 11 there was like 5 people. Then at like 11:10ish everyone came. They aren't really the best at following schedules that well. Testimony meeting was amazing and the spirit was so strong! RS was very interesting. Hermana Sanchez (yahoo, already loved her once she told me her name) taught about fasting. She said she fasted for one whole week! Fasted from food and water. She also didn't shower because Jesus didn't either when he fasted for 40 days... haha. She took it very literal. I'm over in the corner dying because the Elders brought a new investigator and I bet she was thinking in her mind that we are crazy people, fasting and not showering for a week. Luckily, Hermana de Mexico (that's her real name, so cool) corrected her and told her you fast because you want to and its only for 2 meals. It was interesting haha. Then they left the last 15 minutes for testimonies and the Hermana's would get up and say stuff and others would shout out loud their approvals and stuff. Example "I have a strong testimony of fast" oh yeah, me too! haha Hermana White and I were cracking out.

Well I love it here so much. I am so grateful that I already knew Spanish before because it would be so hard. I love being immersed. I feel at home when I speak and teach in Spanish. It is the language that will be spoken in the Celestial kingdom, no doubt. Verdaderamente, estoy viviendo el sueno. les quiero muchisimo!!!

Con amor,

Hermana Thomas