First off.. woah. It's weird to be back! 6 months away from Laie makes for a new mission pretty much haha.
Also sorry for 2 emails in a row, I forgot to send the last one... actually why am I apologizing, you're welcome! Jk jk haha
It has been wild being back! I've missed a lot of sisters here, so it's been awesome being able to see them! But at the same time, about half the mission is new, so there's a lot of unfamiliar faces.
Sister Hong and I are whitewashing the YSA Sunset beach branch, and it's been really hard to do any area work because they logged us into YSA 13 (different area) and haven't been able to figure out of how to switch it back because it's merged with some of our YSA branch. It's a mess haha, but that's okay! We're looking at the positive side of things. One of those positive things is that our branch is awesome!! We had 2 lessons scheduled before we got here. One of them rescheduled, but we asked a RS and EQ representative to come and they both replied so fast! They're eager to do missionary work, and it's so helpful!
I love Sister Hong! She is Korean, and is so cool! She's an excellent cook (which is so nice 'cause we're in YSA lol). She is so kind and gives me the kick in the butt I need to practice my language haha. Language study is hard, but we're good at motivating each other.
We have had opposition in pretty much everything this week, but we both agree it's been such a good few days we've been together! We're both committed to work hard this transfer, even if we don't know the area/people!
We had a mission activity last night that we wanted to go to, but there was a relief society activity going on in our branch at the same time, so we decided that meeting the relief society would be more important. We drove there, but we got lost because it was in the middle of nowhere and I didn't even want to go at this point. Just a temptation to be lazy, but we called they told us that we were at the right place! The parking was on the other side tho. We went in and we were welcomed by everyone, met the whole presidency, and had a deep spiritual conversation with our RS president!! So good that we were there! She had an idea for how to make the branch focus more on their spiritual journey, but didn't feel like she could present it to her counselors yet. We talked about it and helped with a few ideas as well. I'm so glad we followed the spirit rather than our desire to be around our missionary friends. It made me think of this scripture from 1Nephi 17:13
"And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led."
I know that the Lord is constantly leading us. He will help lead us to the people we need to talk to if we are obedient to the commandments, mission rules (if you're a missionary), and the still small voice!
I love you all, and hope you have a wonderful week full of thanksgiving since it's coming up!
-王姐妹