8/17-8/23

Welcome to Bakersfield!

Oh hello! It's been a great week of ups and downs.

Monday-- We had a nerf war for a P-day activity with the other missionaries! It was a blast for sure. :)

We had a Family Home Evening lesson with Sister Nowak at her house and talked about the Sabbath Day and it was really good. She always feeds us SO MUCH PIE. I will be made of pie by the time I get home folks. You are what you eat, right? ;)

Tuesday-- We have started setting time aside to do what we call, "Surprise Service" for people in the ward or our investigators! We stopped by a lady named Jasmine,that the sisters taught a little bit ago to help her with whatever she needed and I think she liked it! :) 

We went on exchanges with Sister Cashin and Sister Fifita and had a great time! I was with Sister Cashin, and we had some really awesome experiences. It was cool to see the hand of the Lord guiding us in all that we were doing. We talked to SO many people and it was just super awesome! We found a kid named Diego who was pretty awesome and seemed pretty interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon and taught the Restoration lesson and then said a prayer with him.

That night we had fifteen minutes until we had to meet at the church for splits with the ward members, so we knocked on one more door and the man we talked to ended up being an atheist. In my head, I was like, "alright, here we go." But this man was WAY nice. He said he is still really open to learning about different religions because that is a huge factor in what makes people tick the way they do. So he asked us what the difference between Christian and Mormon was, and so we taught him about the Restoration and when we started talking about the Book of Mormon, he piped up and said that he had heard the story of the family leaving Jerusalem and coming to America. He then began to mention things about Lamanites and Nephites (he didn't quite get those names exactly right, but it was close haha). So um hello! I was so freaking out because he knew about these things, so we asked him how he came to know all of that and he said that he has American Indian descendants and when he was looking up his ancestors and history about them he came across the record of the Book of Mormon because those people are among the descendants of the American Indians! It was so rad. He mentioned how his grandpa had just passed away and that the funeral was all about the Great Spirit and that Jesus Christ was a huge part of their beliefs and culture, and so I just continued to become more and more excited. (This man probably thought I was crazy, but what's new out here haha) because just that morning I had studied in Alma 18 about the missionary Ammon teaching King Lamoni and how Lamoni believed in a Great Spirit and Ammon told him that was what they believe is God.. it was just perfect. Long story short, he made the connection that he, a Lamanite descendant was being taught by missionaries about this and it was the exact same thing that happened in the Book of Mormon! A-Ha! :) So he didn't say he wanted to learn more, but we left him with a Book of Mormon and a Family History card that could help him research his family. Such a cool experience! Just think, if we didn't knock on that last door, we wouldn't have found him! I love how Heavenly Father just urges us enough to give us the choice to follow His Spirit and what it is telling us to do. We just have to be listening close enough to recognize it and have the faith to follow it.

Wednesday-- We did some service for the Hunter's Neighbor again and then the Hunter's fed us some bomb spaghetti for lunch and some watermelon. I just love the Hunters :) They crack me up!

Lunch with the Hunters!

Thursday-Friday-- All of our appointments fell through and no on was answering their doors. It was the weirdest thing, and pretty disappointing, but it's okay! We went to dinner at the Bey's (also some of my favorites... okay everyone are my favorites here. I just love this ward.) A sister missionary, Sister Stringham, was back visiting the area with her friend who was actually a less active member (little did we know though!) and they joined us for all of our dinner appointments this weekend. It was so fun seeing them everyday and getting to know them. They are both from Utah, so it'll be fun to catch up with them after I'm back in Provo!

That night we stopped in at the Mayfield's and we got to talk to them and SAM! Finally!!!! We haven't had a lesson with her for a month! It was an awesome visit and we established that they will have to make and keep commitments and come to church! and they agreed! So we are seeing them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights now! Yayyyy! Sam still wants to be baptized, so that's a relief, she's just been busy I guess.

Saturday-- We stopped by a less actives home and he wasn't interested in comin back to church, but we left him with a Book of Mormon adn shared some powerful scriptures in it! He showed us around his MANSION! It was so legit! It's so pretty!

We stopped by Diego's and he told us he wasn't interested... so that was sad.

But we then went to Tracy's! I just love Tracy. She is my home girl. I just want to take her home to Idaho with me. So she is like 27ish and has two kids, one is with his dad and the other is a baby. The baby's daddy ditched out on her, so she is struggling hard core. She drinks, she smokes, but she is willing to still meet with us and be baptized in October. She said she wanted to watch Meet the Mormons with us on Sunday, but when we went by she was busy... sad day. So we are hoping for tonight! :) 

Sunday-- Church was awesome as always. I just really needed what they talked about this week. It was definitely the spiritual recharge I was looking for!

After church, Sister Burdick (hilarious Panamanian woman) came out with us to visit her neighbor that has cancer, he said we could come back! We stopped by the Mahan's with her and she ended up knowing the relatives that were visiting them! So it was an awesome connection and I just laughed the whole time because she is hilarious.

Then we had dinner at Sister Smith's and I guess she knows the Knapp's that live in Nampa??? She showed me a picture of her and her family and she was Mrs. Idaho one year and I'm pretty sure her son Mason goes to Columbia?? Anyways really small world! 

After that we took the sisters.. I mean Sister Stringham and her friend out with us to go contact some potential investigators and it was AWESOME. Our first contact didn't go so well, so I was kind of nervous about how the rest of the time with them would go. I wanted so badly for it to be a good experience! So then we stopped by Everly and Tony's and they have the cutest family and we sang them Teach Me to Walk in the Light and then we asked them if it would be important to have a prophet on the earth today, and Tony thought about it and said he thinks it would be a really good idea! We taught the Restoration lesson to them. They said they would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it! The spirit was soooo strong and afterwards, Amber, Sister Stringham's friend was like, "That was so awesome! I want to be a missionary!" (but she can't cause she is now married as of a month ago) but she also expressed how she didn't grow up being active in the church so she never was taught everything we taught Everly and Tony. She was like I'm going to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it now. It was such a spiritual and memorable experience and I know Heavenly Father had it happen the way it did, for a reason.

It was such an up and down week, but what week isn't? I just love seeing the Lord's plan pan out in front of our eyes! It's the coolest (cool is an understatement) experience being out here and being an instrument in God's hands.

I love this gospel more than anything!

Hoorah for Israel!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Loar

xoxo

the pictures-- today in the car! And a couple weeks ago with the Snow ward sisters!

Sister Perrin has family that are actually from Glenn's Ferry Mom! She is related to the Whootan's? haha I'm not sure how to spell it! It sounded REALLY familiar though. :)

Love ya!

The airport is in our area!

.......and some people gave us these huge cups of water!!!  They were really nice!!!!!

We were in great need of a McDonald's ice cream cone.

Exchanges!!!!

The Worthen's, some members have this legit E.T. thing in their house! It's one of the originals from the movie! They knew the secretary of the company that made the movie! so legit!!! Hahaha!!

Found this little guy hanging in a palm tree :) hahaha........it's a dead rat!!!!