Transfers...

Hello from Fremont, CA! If it's cold where you are, then you can be jealous of the amazing weather that we have here. I got transferred from the Temple Square Mission to the California San Jose Mission and so far it has been great! Fremont is the only area in the San Jose mission where sisters are on bikes so I have been getting my share of exercise so far--it has been really  nice. On my first day here I got a flat tire. The members in this area are great, though, because Brother and Sister Wheeler came right away to rescue us and help us get the tire fixed. It was amazing! They are such a wonderful couple and they even took us out for lunch at a Chinese buffet. It was very kind of them. 

My companion is Sister Kim from South Korea and she is a great missionary. I'm senior to her in terms of the number of transfers I've been on my companion, but I would be lost out here without her. We're keeping our schedule full and contacting as many people as we can. This past Saturday we went to the lake here and walked all the way around it (I think it is about a 2 mile walk) and tried to talk with people and hand out pass-along cards. We handed out over 200 pass-along cards so I hope that something comes of it. The park is a popular contacting spot for missionaries here so some people told us that they already had a pass-along card. I definitely want to improve on engaging people in conversations, though. 

We had dinner at the ward mission leader's home the first night I was here--Brother and Sister Kalff. They are a wonderful couple and Brother Kalff is actively involved in his calling, which is great. They fed us a wonderful, and organic, dinner and I learned a lot about how I can help as a missionary here in Fremont. 

The next day we tried to contact some potential investigators that we found in the area book. We tried to contact them by actually going to their homes and knocking on their doors--a new approach for me, but quite fun. We tried to contact someone named "Grandma" so we went to the address and knocked on the door. I don't know how we got that potential, but Grandma wasn't interested. We were on our way back to our bikes and the front door opened again and a man came out and told us that he was interested to learn more about the church and so we set up a return appointment for the next day. We went back and our prayers were answered because he was there and we taught him the first lesson. It was a new experience for me because I've never taught the first lesson without the backdrop of Temple Square or having so much time. I think it was a pretty good lesson. We taught him how to pray and invited him to pray both morning and night. He said that he would. We also invited him to be baptized and he said that if he comes to know that this is true, then yes. So we're going back to visit him tomorrow and see how that goes!

Something else that we do here is visiting people that are less-active, that we don't see at church very often. It is so great to get to know these people and to come to love them. We have such a great message of hope to share--that Heavenly Father reaches out to us, His children, and helps us be happy and return to live with Him again