Adventures!

Well here I am again and here are my adventures from the past week!

1. Last Monday we had a zone activity and we played capture the flag. My team won best of 5, no big deal :D

2. Paula is AMAZING! She not a morning person but she has been going to seminary for the past three weeks now and LOVES it!  When we went over this week for a lesson we asked her how her reading was going. She told us all about how she was reading her seminary homework and how she loved being able to go to class and talk about it. She even gave the devotional this past week. We went over the Strength of Youth pamphlet and she LOVED it. She was like, "So many people at my school need this!" We of course proceeded to talk about missionary work and who she knew might want to listen. He even told us how she was with some friends and one said, "Hey, we are all Mormons here." She said that it was finally true. She was Mormon.

3. Chloe was hard to get a hold of this week since they are moving BUT we were able to help her mom Clara a lot with service and have lessons with her. Clara is going through a  lot right now and whenever we talk about the gospel is just makes sense to her. Chloe was so happy to finally be confirmed on Sunday. Both her and Paula’s confirmations were beautiful and had a lot of promises for them. I have tried to be like Denise and write them down for them like she does-Thanks Nee Nee!

4. Went on exchanges with Sister Flemming… LOVE her! She is a really solid girl. She knows who she is and knows why she is here. We have two booths. One at a college and one at a park. Then we had this amazing lesson with this lady who has been less active for years but wants to come back now. She is a great teacher too. She knows how to relate to people which is KEY in missionary work.

5. Chloe and her sister Katie and her mom Clara made fun of my prayer knees this week. I swear people have really noticed this week for some reason. It what I get for praying so much… I’ll take it.

6. Sister Butler and I had a booth here in Monrovia with other elders on Friday. I finally met the Anti guy, Bob. Wow. He does NOT like sister talking to him. It is hilarious. I was trying to contact him and he just stops talking and starts using his phone. I wasn’t trying to bash like he was to the elders when we showed up. So sad.

7. We met with this part member family this week, Suriweics. She comes to church with her son but won’t go to the classes. Just stays in the foyer. She was so nice to us. And we invited her to come to church. Now that we know what she looks like we can invite her to come to Relief Society. She has a testimony… just needs to be nurtured.

8. Favorite scripture this week was 3 Nephi 14: 7-8. Jesus Christ has just come down and the people have been converted. He tells them something we ALWAYS read in the scriptures. Ask, seek and knock. How simple. All action words too. We HAVE to have action and He will guide us. I know that. I have seen it in my life. Before the mission and during and He will after too. We just have to then act on what he tells us.

LOVE YOU ALL!!

Sister Arbogast

BIG News!

Hello everyone!! I hope your week was as wonderful as mine!

1. I went to Chinatown again... not so wonderful. I have been too many times now hahha BUT my companion LOVED it and wants to go again and again. Give and take. In the picture... umm lets just say it was hard to get on that poll thing BUT the pictures were fun :]

2. We had a great FHE with Chloe and Paula on Monday. We went over the 10 commandments and law of chastity. Oh yeah did I say how president Becerra and his family came to FHE too? President, his wife and son knocked on the door right after we finished the law of chastity. Thank goodness for that HUGE blessing. Would have been awkward to teach to him and his son who is 14. Either way, the girls are great. They were already living the commandments we taught that night.

3. I had zone leader council this week. A lot of it was about what we can do as a mission to double our baptisms. That has been the thing since president Becerra got here. We looked over all our funnel charts and everything has doubled except baptisms on the chart. We were discussing what changes we can make to make it happen. A member of the seventy came and he said that in about 3 months something big is going to happen in this mission. Well that was a little over a month ago... its happening. So Cal is getting ready and I LOVE being a part of it for now.

4. Peter dropped us this week. The spirit was so not there in the lesson. He came in just prepared to not really learn. I feel like he is just not willing to act on the answers he receives. Its sad.

5. The new joke between Sister Butler and I is, "Remember when…" and say an embarrassing moment or funny thing that happened. The week she was like, "You have never seen Star Wars? That’s an abomination before the Lord!" It was hilarious!

6. Went to the dentist… my mouth still hurts.

7. Got home on Thursday for dinner and Brother Card come to hand the mail to us… I saw that it was from the mission and I started to worry. Open it and yep, its what I thought. All my checkout stuff and my flight plan to get home. I cant believe it. It makes me want to work harder though. I fly into the Seattle Tacoma airport May 8. My flight lands at 1:03pm. Weird.

8. The past couple Friday nights we have been having a booth at the street fair in Monrovia. We have a banner thing, videos from

9. Chloe and Paula were baptized yesterday. It was AMAZING! We set up the chair to fill the primary room like normal. Yeah, we had to move it to the chapel and it was full. The ward was AMAZING in support. The talks were given by Paula’s high school teacher that is in our ward and another was by their seminary teacher. Spirit was strong. Everyone kept commenting on how wonderful the girls were and what a reflection it was of their parents. Both of the girls parents are taking the lessons and I’m sure was nice to hear that support and love for the girls and their family. The girls were SO happy after. After the service when they were welcomed to the war and each given a new quad scripture we had refreshments in the gym. The girls were skipping around with all there LDS friends and so happy. I LOVE it!! The gospel changes people for the better. And being able to see two girls that don’t have really the same friends at school be so close and happy together with the gospel… such a blessing. It was a WONDERFUL day to say the least.

10. My favorite scripture of the week comes from Doctrine and Covenants 130:21. I have been really thinking about obedience this week for myself, after zone leader council and then on Sunday it was our gospel essentials lesson. Scripture says, "When we obtain any blessing from God, it is obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." Heavenly Father wants to bless us. It doesn’t have to be a HUGE disobedience factor but it is in refining the little things we could be better at. In class on Sunday our teacher read Romans 5:19. The changes we make good or bad… will and can affect many. We just need it to be for the better.

Love you all!!

Sister Arbogast

mormon.org and Mormon messages, a church table cloth, the works. The Spanish elders have been getting people from it but not so much the English work. We shall see. At least people can see we have Christ pictures everywhere.

Monrovia, 3 Weeks Later

Hello!! Here we are 3 weeks later. I can’t believe it!! It has gone REALLY fast!

1. I got my hair cut last week... just a lil' trim but WOW. It needed it bad hahha

2. Chloe and Clara are amazing. We have met with Chloe this week and she is SO excited about her baptism. She is really progressing. She is such a great example to her family. She is excited to have FHE with them and her sister who we didn’t think would be able to come to her baptism will be now. Chloe really wanted that so it will be amazing!

3. One of our investigators Peter... well he says he is honestly meeting with us to learn more but in reality he hasn’t prayed to know. So when we met this week we answered a few questions and then he brought out some other books to try and tell us what he learned And we didn’t want it to turn into a bash so we just bore testimony and told him he needs to pray to find out if anything we or the elders previous have said is true. He said he would so we shall find out when we meet tomorrow.

4. Mike is a less active man we are working with. He had an AMAZING experience, well is currently having an amazing experience. He has been on multiple drugs including medical marijuana for his pain in his joints. He said that he had a prompting to stop taking them on Sunday. We met on Thursday. By then he had been off of them and he was having no pain whatsoever. He is really making an effort to seek first the kingdom of God. He shared with us he has had no real desire to go to the temple and now he wants to do all he needs to, to get there. I LOVE being able to hear things like that :]

5. Eric and Natalie are new investigators. They are recently married and looking for a church. Eric has a LOT of questions. When we were on our tour we could tell Natalie was feeling it, Eric just has a lot of questions. BUT he did say he was going to take the Book of Mormon and read what it was about. We shall see.

6. I went on exchanges with Sister Eggleston to Diamond Bar. FUN! We were able to teach a man who is married to a member. He has met with missionaries a lot but is starting to really improve. His biggest hurdle is that he is an alcoholic. Not sure if he wants to change that yet.

7. I also went on exchanges with Sister Filimoehala to Creek side and West Covina Samoan ward. Well… you all know I LOVED the Samoan ward! I love the culture. Thank you Lakewood for starting it hahha But we had this AWEOME lesson with these two sisters who are coming back to church. You could just tell the strong desire and will they had for themselves and their family.

8. Interviews were this week with President. It was GREAT! We were in there a long time but it was very comfortable and we were just talking about things that were going on. He told me he wants me to extend for a year but he knows that’s not possible. Told me again how much Sister Becerra loves me and how she has people she wants to set me up with when I get home… awkward hahah He is a good man. I will miss him and his family when I have to leave.

9. My favorite scripture this week… 2 Nephi 9:10. Shares with us how Gods plan is so great to escape the monster… I LOVE the visual of that. It has never before stuck out to me till this week as I was preparing the lesson for the youth Sunday school. The evil around us today is the awful monster… we need to stay away from him.

LOVE YOU ALL!!

Sister Arbogast

Week 2 in Monrovia

Hello EVERYONE!!

1. So our car died last week... it was pretty fun being able to walk everywhere so now we just do it even though our car works haha

2. I am back to doing laundry at the laundry mat... not fun BUT we get to talk to a lot of people and tell them about the church so that part works out WONDERFUL!

3. Chloe and Clara are doing great! We had a lesson on Tuesday and Clara had a LOT of questions answered with the plan of salvation. It was pretty amazing. Her biggest realization was of the Godhead. How they are all 3 separate beings. It was like, "Oh yeah... that makes sense. I've felt the spirit before!" She was really happy about it. Then I went over with my mini missionary for the day and we set a baptismal date with Chloe for March 10th. She had told us Tuesday that next time she wanted to talk about what she needed to do to be baptized and so we did. Clara is really supportive of her and excited for it to. She even said, "Who knows. I might even jump on the bandwagon sometime." I hope so. She keeps telling me I have to come back and see them so we can hang out after my mission.

4. We got to do service at the Unity Center here in Monrovia. It is for people with low or no income to get food. They get a cart of food and we take it out to their car and load it for them. SO funny. One man that was there every time I walked by would say, "Oh girl you are beautiful. Oh. Girl. So beautiful" Lets just say AWKWARD! And then we were talking to a man about the church and he asked about what we did before the mission and I told him how I was student teaching 9-12 graders. He goes, "How? You look like a senior in High School." It was pretty funny. It that was all by 10:30am... great day.

5. Paula is still doing amazing! She is well on her way for March 11th. When we met this week she was telling us how she really liked the scripture in Alma 32:21 about faith. She just kept saying how beautiful it was and how it was so true. We talked about the restoration and the authority that was brought back. She was really attentive and accepted it.

6. The ward has given us a few names of people to check and we have officially checked them all. We have even already had a lesson with one of them. It has been fun to get to know the ward members and their reaction to sisters in the ward. We just keep hearing, "Oh we haven’t had sisters in so long! We are so happy you are here now!"

7. We set up a booth on Myrtle where this street fair is every week. Well we had a lot of people looking at us but we just realized today there is a spot for people of non profit to be. Sister Butler and I had an appointment at 7 so we left for about an hour and when we came back the elders told us they had a man come to them and tell them anti feelings. Poor elders. We are going to do it again this week so hopefully it goes better. And more missionaries so we can go walk and have some at the booth too.

8. We had mini missionaries are Saturday. SO fun! I was with Rachel Potter again. She was my first mini missionary every in the mission and we got to be together again a year later hahah We were able to set Chloe with her baptismal date, talked to a black J-Dub, a Russian Baptist with a HUGE Mercedes van with, "Where do you want to spend eternity? Heaven or Hell Your choice" plastered on the side of it, and we talked to a less active who was the nicest guy and being strong even though his family is not and apparently will not come back to church with him.

9. My favorite scripture this week… well it’s the book of Enos. Wow. I have read it a million times but I just need to be like him more hahaha I LOVE putting my name into verse 27. It becomes alive and real to me the promise that is given.

LOVE YOUA LL!!

Sister Arbogast

　

Hello from Monrovia!

Well hello everyone!! Here are the adventure for the past week!

1. Had a lesson with Chloe and her mom Clara. Chloe has been going to seminary this whole year and been going to church for about 2 years now and never met with missionaries... why? Couldn't tell ya hahaha But Sister Cornwall her seminary teacher invited her and we met at their home. Chloe is SO ready, her mom is just meeting so she will know what her daughter is learning. She is very supportive of her though which is great. She can see the change that the Gospel is bringing to Chloe's life.

2. Valentine’s Day!! I got my new companion! Her name is Sister Butler. She is from American Fork, Utah. She went to University of Utah for 2 years. She is the middle of two brothers. It was funny an elder reminded me it was Valentine’s day... my days are just dates and names now. Crazy.

3. We met with a lot of members this week and we are trying to get to know them and ask about anyone they know who needs a little extra visit. Many names are coming to us.

4. We had a training session with the trainers and trainees this week and during we had a break out session. Us trainers when to a question and answer type of this and WHOA! We got into a really deep discussion about Faith. At the end president just goes, "Can you feel it? The spirit is teaching us all and telling us the answers to the questions we haven't asked out loud." Every one of us raised our hand. It was awesome!

5. In a meeting with Paula one of our investigators, WoW! The youth are so much stronger. She is amazing! She is friends with president’s daughter. She has come to church and committed to be baptized on the 11th. We were able to meet with her mom as well this week. She knows her daughter is ready and wants to learn more too. She also wants her son who is at Weber in Utah to meet with missionaries too. Paula is doing great. She is up to 1 Nephi 10. Well that was on Saturday. She was at church on Sunday and really seemed to be talking to the other youth and seemed to enjoy it.

6. We had dinner with this pretty funny family. We were shown a video of when eh got his eyebrows waxed earlier that day lol SO funny! They are ward missionaries. We have heard from the Relief Society that they might need a little extra help to stay active. They like to pick and choose commandments to live apparently. We shall find out.

7. Favorite scripture this week... Alma 56:16-17. Not sure if I have shared this one before but I have been thinking about it a lot since I don't want to be "conquered" by an area. I want to be able to show the people here what the gospel is all about and the blessings that can come to them.

I miss and LOVE you all!!

Sister Arbogast

Only 12 weeks left!

Hello!!! Umm this week was crazy and it is about to get even more crazy!

1. On Monday we had a "sisters" hike with our mission presidents wife and all the sisters. We went to this canyon in Monrovia which is really close to Pasadena. We were all told it was really flat... it wasn't flat. BUT it was fun!! There was a baby waterfall at the end of it. not so much worth it but oh well!

2. We went to play with a bunch of other missionaries. While we were there I was talking to a few different missionaries and I was thinking about how these friends will forever be my friends. We are all going through something and are learning so much being missionaries. it brings me comfort to know I'm not the only one.

3. I got to meet with president this week and it was AMAZING! I just had somethings I needed to talk to him about. He just kept saying "Be candid with me. Tell me how it is." So I did ahhaha I really felt SO much better after I was able to talk to him. He gave me a wonderful blessing. I LOVE the priesthood. I think every time I receive a blessing, all the wonderful feelings of true, peace and love come back to me from past times. SUCH a great feeling.

4. We went to a members for dinner... She had a non member there and we were able to have a lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. We even set up a return appointment for the next Monday. We goes currently to a Christian church.  The member is a running partner and he is also a math tutor to her daughter. I hope tonight goes well!

5. I went on exchanges to Diamond Bar this week with Sister Mello. She is so sweet. The area was super slow but she wants to do more and is willing to try new things. The area needs something new.

6. I went to the Zone Leader council and wow! President said there was going to be a LOT of changes in leadership this transfer. A lot of the training was also on change and how its okay to change and how we need to focus on the doctrine of Christ. It was REALLY good!

7. When we met with the Vasquez this week... WHOA! We had a lesson on the priesthood and he FINALLY really understood the importance of it and how much he wants to baptize his sons. He even told us what things he was really insecure about with coming back to church. I'm really sad to be leaving him.

8. Moises had a GRETA lesson on the plan of Salvation and a tour of the chapel. He is coming along and FINALLY came to church! We had been trying to get him there for forever now and he finally came! He was just starting to open up to me too. But he is in good hands.

9. Can you tell I'm leaving Pasadena? We got a transfer call and I will now be in the Monrovia ward... just down the road from here. Another kicker is ready?! I'm training again. The only sister coming in tomorrow for English work is Sister Butler from American Fork, Utah. We went over today to clean the apartment that we are going to be living in from the elders... I shouldn't be surprised but DANG! It was NASTY!! This shall be interesting in either of us knowing no one and getting to work. But I'm excited!

LOVE YOU ALL!!

Sister Arbogast

Getting Hit on at the Gas Station

Alrighty!! Here we go...

1. SO this week wasn't the most exciting but on Monday we went to go get gas for the car and we went in to get the receipt and this guy Phil hit on us. We got free drinks out of it so it was fun lol

2. Liz is doing good. We had a dinner and lesson with her and her family. Her daughter who is a member was there and her husband. Her husband is very NOT interested but is okay with her learning. Our stake president is going to help us and invited them over to have a lesson at their house. We shall see how it turns out.

3. We had Zone Conference and pretty much AWESOME! It was a recap of the things that we learned at the zone leader council but it was still great. Main thing that I learned it to Be the Light. Love it!

4. Got to go on exchanges with Sister Pack and WOW! It was pretty amazing! We stayed up pretty late and talked BUT it was really needed for both of us to be honest.

5. We had a great lesson with Cesar and talked about the second coming. Pretty much we need to just be ready for it tomorrow but live like it isn't for forever.

6. Favorite scripture this week was Moroni 10:32. It talks about grace and we are SOO blessed!! LOVE IT!

I know its short BUT I still Love you!!!

Sister Arbogast