Attempts and ultimate fails.

Hey Everyone!

So This week has been an amazing week. Seriously it has just been hilarious. We were tracting and I went up to this guy with the purpose of life pass a long card and the guy was hesitant about taking the card and said to me " I know what the purpose of life is do you?" he was very almost mean about answering, I think he wanted to trick us or something.  Thankfully I knew the answer and he calmed down just a bit and then asked us if we were jehovas witnesses or mormons. It was interesting...then I offered a Christ picture to a man who should of had a shirt on...and he told me that that wasn't what Christ looked like...Christ was black and he adametly said this. Well, we left it at that. It was very interesting. We have had a few others tell us that the picture we have isn't what Christ looks like, I just want to know how they know that this isn't the way Christ looks. I am actually almost afraid to ask them though, I just don't know what I would do with the information they gave me. Well we were looking up former investigators this week and made a few return apts and we looked up less actives in the area for back ups. We then discovered that our back up for the former investigator was the same person. Her husband was actually a member. So we have decided that we are going to not give up on this family. That was a very cool experiance. Then it happened again well kinda. Last night we had a less active/active member apt at 8. We like those appointment times because we don't like to be out at 8 knocking or contacting. It gets dark at 630 and we find people to be much more friendly before 8 than after. So we went to this house of a less active we were trying to find at 7  and the other member, the one we had an apointment with came out all excited. She had told us that we could come earlier if we wanted. So we then had an apointment at 7 instead of 8. We both wanted to turn around and pretend that she didn't see us and we didn't see her and come back at 8. But she was so excited to see us that we couldn't do that. So we went out knocking for other less actives at 8. Needless to say no one let us in and only one person answered the door. Their face was hilarious though. They just looked at us like we were crazy. They confirmed that this less active had moved but I went to go into making this a great contacting moment but he just litterally looked at us like we were nuts! I said well we are missionaries and we share messages...he cut me off and then said "At 9 o'clock at night?" with a what??? look on his face and we just were like no we would just set return apts and we just stopped there and said goodbye. Hopefully he gets another opportunity to hear the gospel message. I know he will, it was such an interesting experiance...See how these experiances all were meant with such great love and zeal to do missionary work but just didn't work out??? Yeah don't worry though we have had great experiances. We met two new investigators and they are both looking for new churches and we asked them to live the word of wisdom and they agreed to it. We just have to follow up. But they are interested and it has gone really well!

So mon freres et ma souer et ma mere! Will you committ to finding one person that the missionaries can teach before the end of the year? Like Elder Ballard's talk suggests???? You can do it! Pray for it! The members are huge in the mission work!

Love you all! Know that I love serving a mission and trust me I am not put down at all about my fails...I have just learned how not to contact people and I thought you would enjoy some of the stories!

Sister Pendleton

P.S. Next week we are going to the L.A. temple on Monday, but we will get to write on Tuesday.  oh, please send me Michelle, Anthony, and Stuart's email addresses!  Love you all!

Week 2 of Cali

Hey everyone,

#1 So my p-day was the following thursday after I entered the MTC and then I flew out on tuesday so I missed my mission p-day. So mondays are my p-day I just had to wait till now. I made it laundry wise though...barely! So Mom sorry I didn't e-mail you, apparently you don't have the makettle email and I never learned the other one. So now I have it! Jess, I would have called but my calling card only allowed me to call once. So I should have really just sang to you! Don't worry I still love you and thank you so much for the pictures of the Conner. Anth Mckae, would love more pictures from you as well as Dianna...So these past two weeks have been a blur. First off so the MTC was great! I learned a lot and had 9 people in my district. One Elder was my age but I was still older than him. Everyone knows I am older and it is funny  because they are all afraid to ask me about how 0ld I am. So I flew out to Cali and the Lord answered my prayers. I sat by a complete stranger who for 2 hours we just sat and talked religion. It was GREAT! She took a pass along card and she said how she probably wouldn't have let one of the missionaries in but I hope now that she has met one of us that she will. She was such a great person and the gospel could add so much to her life. So then I got off the plane met the president and his wife and some AP's. Then I was assigned temporarily to a three some. Yes Aunt Faun...your words rang in my head!!!! It was actually okay. it wasn't as bad as I thought it could have gone. That day we met with this family who turns out to be the family of Will's last companion, wilhelm. Which made me laugh because it really is like the whole where ever I go I am "Will's Sister" which is actually kind of comforting in a sense. I was reassigned the next day to Sister Folsom, and we are white washing an area where sisters havent been for probably at least 30 yrs. We haven't figured out why except that the ward we are in have been praying for a year or longer for sister missionaries and have been expecting them since february so we are the long awaited sister missionaries. It has been great working with them. We have a lot of less actives in the area and the area is really nice, and friendly. There are areas where we are not allowed after dark and we have a car once it gets dark. I love my companion though she is great! She is from North Salt Lake and is just such a sweet girl. We live with a member who reminds me of a grandma. So the most different thing I have seen is a drug deal... NO ONE FREAK OUT! Hahaha it was so funny to watch cause as I was watching (inside my car) I was like seriously this isn't happening is it??? but it did!!! I was so shocked...needless to say it was amazing and honestly I was looking forward to seeing something like that. Then we walked into an area where it was potent of weed. It was crazy! Don't worry we smelled it and then it kept getting stronger so I looked at my comp and said "Sister, you know what that is right?" and she just said slightly rejected "Yes, yes I do." So we turned around before we even got close to anyone. Lets just say there was a mass amount of people there. And then we actually went to see someone else, who took us to the person we actually wanted to see in the first place. It was AMAZING because God really watches out for us and I saw that first hand. Mom, Grandma don't worry we are smart and have quickly learned what area to avoid and we have God's protection. You will hear all my awesome stories as they come.  It was eye opening in the least! We haven't been able to teach many people but we have a lot more planned for this week. The elders have just handed us 3 investigators with a date but we haven't met with them yet. We keep missing them just barely. I will be sending letters here soon. Will someone please send me Ben's address please!!! Thanks. So yeah umm...learning so much very quickly. Yes I did see Abigail. That was fun. I saw her the training day we had for everyone leaving on Oct 8th and then I saw her at the airport when we left. I saw sydnie carter too at the mtc and Shayla clifton. I think my favorite thing so far is contacting. that is pretty fun. Will someone please get me Kami's email address??? Kelly maybe? I would really appreciate it! Well that's it for this week!
Love you all!!!

Sister Pendleton

The MTC

Hey Everyone!

I don't have much time but I will try to get everything that I want said. So pretty much I have pictures but I won't be able to load those this week apparently. Unfortunately. I am very sad about that but it's okay. So my comp is sister correa which is brazillian which means the two rr's are a BIG H. so hopefully you can pronounce that better than I could for the first day. So I love her though. Big adjustment to Sister Pendleton though. It was crazy and now that it has been a week that is my first name. Hahaha everything is happening so fast. I feel like the days are like months but the weeks fly by!!! We have been teaching progressives and the TRC people who come in from off the street. This person we met with last time totally dominated the conversation and I learned that when the investigator controls the conversation the Lord cannot speak to them at all. I am quickly learning what I don't know and just trying to remember what I do know. But thankfully I have a strong testimony and just know that this is right so of course I am going to keep learning. So something I didn't think about prior to buying new scriptures is that all of my lovely scriptures that I had highlighted and knew where they were by flipping and what color they were highlighted don't exist now so I feel like I am at square one with the scriptures. Oh well, I love starting over. I now know that I have a lot of coloring activities a head of me.
So I don't know if I got mom's email right so will someone please pass this onto her. It might just be jess that I have right right now. So Mom, I need my pants. Did you send them somewhere cause I don't have any? And could you also send a t-shirt that doesn't have any logos or writing on it. That would be much appreciated. Send it to my mission home address. I fly out at I think 6 in the morning on Oct. 8th. So I guess if we call expect it then! I know I am just a bright happy early bird and would love to wake you all up!
There are so many things that have happened and I just don't know what else to say. I do love the strength of the mtc and seriously I just LOVE the Lord. He knows exactly what I need and can handle. Also my brain feels like it is literally growing because I have to take in so much information.It kinda hurts sometimes and I feel so tired but have been literally having nightmares the past week because my brain won't shut off which doesn't help me with sleep. I think it is because everything is so new. Extent of nightmares....I dreamt I was a nurse and discharging a baby and the baby died and I had to do CPR and the baby lived but yeah...positive note about not sleeping well...I have been able to get up early and on time everyday without too much resistance. Also I have come to realize that I need to strive to understand the Lord not have the Lord understand me.


Well Love you all!!!!

Sister Pendleton