Great Week

June 29, 2015

¡Hola Mamacita!

I hate to say it, but I think it might be best if you don't go to church on Sunday just because I saw  everyone in the Goethe park ward on Sunday and I had to talk to a bunch of members after church. It would be impossible not to see you unless I were to be an antisocial missionary. The branch member would get offended :P I love Hispanic culture :) 

I was actually talking to Sister Wright about the Stoeltzings and she said Brooke's wedding was beautiful. It's a lot of fun living with a sister who just barely came from serving in Folsom 2nd and 4th wards :) she's been filling me in on what's going on. 

Well, as you can see, I went to Folsom this week! I didn't think there were any Hispanics in Folsom growing up, but oh boy was I wrong! We went to the Spanish pockets looking for potentials and visiting an investigator we have there. There were some Hispanics blast in some Mexican music, then we also found a Russian. What?! They're everywhere! Haha We're planning to go more this week so we can go to Chick-fil-a! YUM! And of course work, chick-fil-a is just a perk!

My companion, Hna Fly has been super amazing!!! She's the same age as Hna Burke in the mission so she is older (not by much) haha so therefore she does get dibs on driving. It's okay, I have a hope that one day I will be driving again, but today is not that day :P she's from Virginia which is super cool! I'm already planning on visiting her home so that I can go to the warm beaches with her! Haha we haven't biked yet because Hna Fly's bike is still in North Sac, but once she gets it we probably will. We're thinking about biking in Folsom which would be loads of fun! :P

Para Siempre Dios esté con Vos,

Con Amor,

Hermana Twitchell

New Area

June 22, 2015

Hola Mamacita!

Sorry, this ones going to be short, but I sent lots of pictures!  Haha it was crazy seeing Aaron and Jacelyn!  I can't believe I'm the first sibling to see her, and I'm the one on a mission! Haha  I'm pretty sure the Jardines knew that I would see my brother, they were sitting on the pulpit when I saw Aaron's family and I thought, I bet they're watching me! Haha it was fun. I talked with one of the APs the other day about my situation, he just said, well, after a few times of seeing your brother you'll get used to it. Huh? That's so weird! Haha my whole zone was freaked out when they heard where I was from. The Elders in our ward said, "Hermana Twitchell! You're going to tract by your house, right?" No, I'm not crazy! I never saw any Hispanics over there! Haha but I told him if someone sent me a referral over there then obviously I would have to. Ah! Scary!

So far I am loving this area. There are a ton of Hispanics and they all don't live in just one or two apartment complexes like in Carmichael, they live everywhere! I am super excited to serve here!

A few days ago we also went downtown to do service. Woo! Downtown's in our zone! We live in an apartment with another companionship of English sisters. It's really weird, I've never lived with sisters and since they're English they don't have to do language study. That's just unheard of! How could they not do language study! They are also STLs, our STLs. It's my first time since my first transfer here having English STLs, so it should be fun! One of them just came from serving in Folsom 2nd and 4th wards, Sis Wright. So that's super fun to talk to her about! Well I better go, but I love you!

Para Siempre Dios este con vos 

Con Amor,

Hermana Twitchell

PS Hna Kaaa is still in east sac. So I'm still going home with her!

Also, I'll think about my b-day...

Enviado desde mi iPad

My last night with sister schow! We brought home leatherbees icecream. I'm miss her so much!

Service project we did a few weeks ago as a zone :)

Our zone and district in our zone shirts

Hermana Twitchell, Hermana Burke, Hermana Sanchez

Hermana Sanchez went home today!!

Map of our area

My New companion Hermana Fly (on the right)

Hermana Twitchell on the Day of Transfers

Sent to me by a friend  Nancy Edwards

Look who Doug found at the Mission Office today,Klaudia Johnson Twitchell. He used the words gorgeous and vivacious to describe this sweet sister. She sends her love!

Translados!!!

June 16, 2015

Hola Mamacita!

Why yes, we did have transfers!  haha so the truth comes out! I am staying in SACRAMENTO!!!!! Woohoo! I made the cut! haha!  and something even more crazy is that I am serving in my home town!!! What! haha So, I have been called to serve in the Cordova zone, La Riviera ward/branch, Rancho Cordova East, aka Rancho and Folsom. Of course there aren't a lot of Hispanics in Folsom, but we still cover it, and hey! I remember shopping at Ross and hearing people talk Spanish. :P We will be meeting at the same building as Aaron's ward (talk about scary!) and be careful because I'm going to be there when Landon gets baptized. Haha I'm going to be super close to home!  Don't come and find me! 

So the even more fun thing is that I am shotgunning the area with my new companion, Hna Fly. *Shotgunning means that they pull out the missionaries in the area and put in a new companionship of missionaries that don't know the area. So we are going in blind :) It's a really great way to do finding in areas without previous bias from experienced missionaries in the area.

Hna. Fly was in the CCM with Hna. Burke. Hna Burke absolutely loves her, so I know I'll probably love her, too! Oh! and Hna. Burke is staying in Carmichael, haha I get to leave her this time! She is going to do great with her new companion Hermana Webb! The neat thing about transfer calls this time is that if a missionary was called to the Modesto mission, President Jardine would personally call them and tell them so. Two missionaries in our zone received that call, one of our zone leaders and Hna Greenfield (Hna Burke's trainee and Hna Kaaa's current companion). We'll miss her lots! but she's going to Stockton South so she will have lots of fun! 

I got the 4th of July package! I showed Sister Schow and she thought it was cute... I'm going to miss her sooo much! But I told her that I'm going to take her to the temple after my mission and I'll write her letters so it will be good.

Our ward hasn't had a ward mission leader this whole transfer because our old one decided that he wanted to go to an English ward and there aren't any priesthood holders to fill that calling, so our correlation meetings, gospel principle classes, and relationship with ward council has been a little interesting. The Elders have been teaching the GP class for a few weeks and finally I asked if they wanted help in teaching it so they don't have to do it every week. So Hermana Burke and I taught the Gospel Principles class on Sunday and we made cookies! At the end of the class I said, "Traemos las galletas!" (We brought cookies!) and someone said in a thick Spanish accent, "cooookies!!" Haha then they all started saying it. :) I love Latinos.

Last week we did a zone service project at a member's house, the Hunt family. After a while of being there, I realized that it was Lexi Grimsman's grandparents house! Hey that's pretty cool! :P It's always little things like that that remind me that I am so close to a lot of people I know and care about. It's weird!

I am super excited for this next transfer! I know there will be challenges ahead, as there always is, and some of them may be more personal than my recent ones, but I know that transfers are inspired of God. I know that I am going to Rancho for a reason and that I will do my best to stay on purpose and not be distracted! haha even with the iPads!  

Para Siempre Dios este Con Vos

Con Amor,

Hermana Twitchell

Our District with our new IPads!!  (too many Hermana's)

Our Zone with their new IPads!!!  (Haha yes there are quite a bit more Sisters)

Us with William!!
 

We went to a Pita kitchen which is owned by a Palestinian  --  Arabic food Yum!

Food!  We went to a Russian Restaurant ...  We started handing out Russian Pamphlets to those we see that are nice enough to accept one

La Separacion de la Mision .... y los iPads!!

June 8, 2015

La Separacion de la Mision …. Y los iPads!!!

Hola Mamacita!!

This is it! Next week I'll know what's going to happen to me for the rest of my mission! haha It's pretty exciting! 

I got Joylyn's bike at the beginning of the transfer, haha you know when the APs came to revive our car? the reason why they were there was because they were bringing the bike from my last area (That was the day I hit a pole). I have started riding Joylyn's bike since this week, though. When I wrecked the first bike, we fixed it up that weekend and we still kept riding it. Joylyn's bike had flat tires and we were too lazy to fill them :P But a week or so ago, Sister Jardine asked us if we had a spare bike, so we gave her the fixed up bike and then we had to fill up Joylyn's tires with air. I LOVE Joylyn's bike! The handlebars are nice, the seats super cushy so my butt doesn't hurt as bad :P, There's a shock right underneath the seat so I don't feel on the bumps and rocks on the road... yeah it's a good bike, at least better than the other one's I've ridden. We went biking the other day and it started raining. Haha ok California, you're in a drought, but you decide that you want to start raining while we go biking! Ayayay! It was fun though! 

Some people honked at us and some Elders in a car stopped in the middle of the road to make fun of us. Haha they're just jealous of Joylyn's bike, I know it! Haha I like biking a lot though, it's fun. We get to stop whenever we see people, where in a car you speed by and say, "hey look there's a Hispanic guy over there..." but it never amounts to anything. Biking is great!

I got my hump day package on Wednesday! Thanks Mom it was perfect! Haha I liked how the poem said I still had a year left, that bummed me out a little bit haha jk it would be great to have a year left, but 9 months is great too! 

We also got our iPads! We got them right after conference on Thursday (we don't have navigators on our cars. I think that might just be confusion for the Tiwi, which does not navigate our cars :P). We weren't allowed to set them up until Friday during District meeting.

Hermana Autumn Twitchell  & Hermana Brianna Burke

 We took some pictures, but their on my iPad and we're not supposed to email on them quite yet, so when we can I'll have some more pictures for you. :) They're pretty fun, a little distracting at times, but we're learning :P We have the "Because He Lives" video downloaded on there, so yesterday while we were contacting we used it and it really opened up a lot of people! We were talking to this one Hispanic woman and she said, "I don't know when you can come by. I'll call you." Which basically means: rejection! haha I love Hispanics, but they will not say no! Then we showed her the video, asked her a few questions, then said, "Hey, you can come by tomorrow!" What!!! Haha la obra misional esta progresando! 

We lost Ramiro for a while, which was really weird because we had daily contact with him and then all of a sudden he just disappeared! Well, Hna. Burke felt prompted to call him the other day and he finally answered the phone! It turns out that he lost his phone and he moved to Bakersfield... Aww Man! That's okay though because he's still interested and I know he'll get baptized! We just need to send his information to the missionaries in Bakersfield.

I'm probably not going to go to the temple this transfer, we can only go 4 times a year, so I'm trying to save up all my chances. :) Right now I only have 2 names, so if you want to send me more that would be great!

During the zone conference we had lunch and President and Sister Jardine came and sat with us at our table. It was a lot of fun talking with them. President Jardine said that when he was serving his mission in Fresno, it covered San Jose. He said that he served in Milpitas and the border of San Jose. Haha that got me really excited and I told him that I used to live there. He said he would bike on that hill that we lived at the bottom of. Oh I would not want to do that :P It was really neat! 

We have one investigator right now that has a baptismal date for the 4th of July! That's a pretty great day! Haha His name is William and we are praying that he will come to church! I've been here for 11 weeks and I still have not had an investigator come to church! He's coming next week! I know it!

Para Siempre Dios este con Vos,

Con Amor,

Hermana Twitchell

HUMP DAY

June 1, 2015

Hola Mamacita!

That's so exciting that Ashley got married! I'm so happy for her! My shoe size is usually 8, sometimes 8 1/2. I have not received a package, I could ask the people in the office if they've seen anything. I occasionally get emails from other people, it's not bad. Yes, you do have to pay for the iPads, they say that they work it out with the stake president and our parents. You have to pay $300 initially, then $80 at the end of my mission if I want to keep it. I'm pretty sure the stake pres should've informed you or something... I don't know. :P

We had our mission wide conference and it was really awesome! We still don't have iPads, and it wasn't really a training about iPads, or at least they told us not to think of it that way. :P It will be interesting to see when we get them because the Modesto mission will not have iPads. So if they give them to us before the mission split, all the missionaries down south will only be able to use them for a few weeks. Haha lots of rumors are flying around the mission about when we will get them, but no one has a clue! We're having another conference this week, so we're hoping to hear more info. It's going to be a 6 hour meeting, which means free LUNCH! haha we're excited. 

Yes, I reached my hump day. Bah! It went by too fast! that's okay, I try not to think about it and my day goes great! For that day we celebrated by doing service and going to get ice cream. It was a good day.

Then we had interviews! I love having interviews with President Jardine! He is so great and I always feel uplifted when I talk to him. I feel like every time I talk with him, he talks to me about transfers and the mission split. I asked him about whether I should eat with the Burgoyne family and I told him that I thought no, but I wanted to be reassured by his thoughts on it. Well, it does say in the white handbook, that visits from friends and family are against church policy... so he told me no as well. He asked me how I was doing in Carmichael, being so close to Folsom. I told him, that I really wasn't having too much of a problem with seeing friends or family. Then he made me a promise that if I am obedient, I could serve in Folsom and I wouldn't have a problem with that or focusing on the work. Wow. The spirit was very strong, it was amazing. Then he asked me what my thoughts were on the mission split. Well, I'll go where the Lord wants me to go. I want to stay in the Sacramento mission, but then I've never even been to the Modesto area while on my mission. There is a huge population of Hispanics in the Stockton and Lodi area. Modesto will definitely be a big mission for Spanish work, but I love Sacramento. I don't know, I'll go where he wants me to go!

Well I have to go, our zone is having a water balloon fight/capture the flag for zone sports! I love-a-love-a-you!

Para Siempre Dios este con Vos

Con Amor,

Hermanna Twitchell

pics:

-selfie with Sister Schow!

-Sister Schow's "no more cookies!" note :)

-mangos from the elote Ladie that rolls around a cart in the apartments, honks her horn, and all the Hispanics come out! just to buy her corn and mangos! They're everywhere in South Sac

-Hna Burke and I eating at a member's house, they made us eat chiles de arbol (basically jalepenos)