Your Debt to Society has been Cleared

This transfer will end 3 days before Christmas..so I'm kind of praying that President doesn't transfer me. That would be super frustrating. I wouldn't know ANYONE! But we already have good plans for Thanksgiving dinner, which should be good. One of the families in the ward is inviting us over at the same time as all of their friends who aren't members. They're going to invite us to sing a Christmas song at the end and share a thought. That will be cool. Maybe we will find some new people to teach.

This week has been a little stressful..but I am doing good. My companion is adorable. I don't think she's 5 feet tall. She is from Arkansas, and she has a thick southern accent. Luckily- only when she speaks english :) President called me the morning that I was supposed to go and pick her up and gave me permission to drive the car to the mission office by myself. I was so excited! The first chance to be alone in a whole year!!!!! And do you know what happened? I walked outside that morning, and my car had been towed. I had to call someone to pick me up and was almost late for the meeting- which would have been super bad. So I didn't exactly start off on the best note. We had to get a ride to pick the car up from the office staff, and they were all frustrated because it was like 30 minutes away and then we got there and it was $230 dollars...

It was just not a good first day to say the least. But we have been having fun since. I'm working on teaching her Spanish, and having to speak a lot more of it by myself. Teaching lessons has been interesting, but fun. She will get it  It's funny to think that that is how we all are when we come out. I totally thought I was making sense to people... And I still do think that! We'll never know.

This Sunday Rosa came to church for the first time, she is Mariela's Mom. We were super excited to see her there. I think she felt uncomfortable :( Hopefully we can go back and see her this week. I don't know that she's ready for all of this. We'll see.

It's been weird without Hermana Kelson!!! I miss her like crazy but I love it here, and Hermana England and I are having a good time.

PS.

Yesterday Elder McCoy, the Vehicle Coordinator called me and said: "Your debt to society has been cleared.” Lol...meaning that I don't have to take care of the $230 dollars for the tow away. He said that a 3rd party took care of it for me and they weren't going to let me pay for it...I don't know who that was, but it is such a relief.

Cool Story for you

When I was in San Jose last week I stayed with the Yerba Buena Sisters. It was so neat to go back and teach all of my peeps!!! :) Well, they had planned to take Santa Gillardo to the temple on Tuesday morning. (Somebody that Sister Alvey and I started teaching together) and her ride cancelled on her last minute. We spent all morning calling everybody we could think of, but nobody was willing to take us. Santa said it was okay to do it another day, but for some reason we felt this urgency to go that day. Finally, we decided to say a prayer, hoping that we could find somebody who was willing so that Santa could go to the temple. I picked up the phone and started searching through it, and stopped on Juselle, somebody who had moved out of the ward months ago when I was still there. It made no sense to call, but I did, and it turns out that she is living with her mom in the area. When I asked her how she had been she told me about all the problems that had been happening in her life. She said she'd stopped going to church, and she was so glad we called. She asked if we could meet with her later that night. I asked her if she wanted to come to the temple with us, and she was so excited. She said she would drop everything she was doing that day to go.

It was so neat to see. It was a reminder to me that we really can pray for anything...even a ride to the temple. God answers our prayers, and often in doing so he will answer the prayers of others as well. Juselle and Santa immediately became friends, and they are both excited to help each other out through this time in their lives. We never would have thought to call her. The Sisters in Yerba Buena had never even met her, but it both Santa and Juselle needed to go to the Temple that day. Santa needed to have the support to make the decision to be baptized.

I had been frustrated with the fact that I was having to leave my area for 3 days, and cancel all of our appointments while I waited for the new missionaries to come in. But it was cool to find out that there was a purpose in my being there. I was needed there, even for a day.

Missionary Work is Awesome :)

Loves to everyone!!
-Mariesa

I am reporting the injury of my companions leg...

Lol...so my leg got messed up this week, and they made us talk to the doctor. Everything is fine- It just looks super nasty. I thought you would laugh at the story.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alexandria Nykole Kelson
Date: Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 2:25 PM
Subject: Sister Bergin's Leg
To: johnlymanmd@hotmail.com

Hello Dr. Lyman,

I am reporting an injury of my companions leg. On Monday (Oct 25) we were playing soccer and Sister Bergin was kicked on the calf. It swelled up immediately but didnt have any color. The next day, there was a bruise 2x2 inches. And daily it has been getting bigger and darker. We did have a member who wanted to get the color taken away so she put hot water and salt on it followed by burning aloe vera and i think it is now a little burnt. The color has gone down into her ankle and her ankle has swelled up. It hurt right when the accident happened but went away and now it is becoming more and more painful. If you could let us know if it's anything that we should be worried about, that would be great! Thanks! Love,-Sister Bergin and Sister Kelson.

The Little Nuns

So yesterday we asked somebody if they had our phone number, and he said “of course I have it! It’s programmed into my phone.” He showed us his phone, and sure enough, our number was there under the name: “Las Monjitas” translation: “The Little Nuns” lol… nice.
Last night was the outgoing fireside for all of the missionaries leaving. My companion spoke, she did a wonderful job. I’m going to miss her so much! It was awesome to be there because I got to see all of my old companions and Roberto was there!!! We talked for a while, he said that he is planning on going through the temple in March- and he’s counting on Sister Cowley and I to be there. That will be so neat!
Efrain and Esperanza have been moved away. They’re in some kind of protection program right now…so we can’t see them. Church on Sunday wasn’t the same without them. Normally it’s spent running around trying to get all the kids in their classes, entertaining Brandon and Yalily during sacrament meeting…and this week we were all alone L We’ve been kind of out of it since they left. It feels like we’re starting over again. Redwood City wont be the same without them. There were 3 other families who lived in that house with them. We had been teaching all of them, but they’ve all been moved to othere cities as well. We miss them like crazy! It is for the best though. The government is giving Esperanza and Efrain papers, and they are going to pay for them to get an education here so that they can start a better life for their family. I am SUPER excited for them. I just wish we could be there to help them through it!
Our mission is now on a rotation with The Salt Lake City Temple Visitors Center. So, every 3 months we get a Visitors Center sister who stays for 3 transfers, and we are also taking in all of the missionaries who are waiting for Visas. Because of that, transfers have been all messed up cause we have missionaries coming and leaving inbetween transfers all the time. President Jackson called us this week to tell us that all of the Hermanas were going to be transferred on Wednesday (even though transfers weren’t for another 2 weeks) EXCEPT for me and my companion. He told me that I was going to be training the new Sister coming in from Arkansas. Yikes! Haha. It should be good. I’m kind of scared to death, but super excited at the same time. It will be fun.

Funny Story…so everybody in the ward thought it was my companions birthday, not mine. We don’t even remember talking about our birthdays with anyone, but somehow they found out, and somehow they got it confused. Haha…so we had two surprise birthday parties on Wednesday for my companion! It was kind of super lame, and super hilarious at the same time. It was way too awkward to tell them that it was my birthday, so we just played along. It’s okay though because our investigators totally made up for it the next day, and the elders all made me a cake. It has been a fun week.

THANK YOU for the packages Grandma & Mom!!! I loved the book, and the candy, and the new clothes!!! Mom, I have needed a camera so bad. That is perfect. I enjoyed looking at all of your pictures from Europe! I will send you more pictures now J I’m guessing it’s on loan until I get home? 5 more months! Crazy! Tell Chris thanks for writing, I’ve missed hearing from him. And Chels’ I totally bought bread today so that I can try out your peach jam! I'll write soon. I miss you all a ton.