The Sea, Savannah, and Santana Row: Faith grows in Santa Clara July 16, 2013

Sorry I didn't write yesterday.  We were at the beach all day and President gave us permission to email today.  We got to go to Carmel and Monterey with President Watkins and his family!! It was so awesome! So yes, yesterday was amazing.  There should be some pictures attached to this message.  So anyway, it's been an exciting week! We got two new investigators!! One is named Jacob.  He believes in Nordic Paganism (like Odin and Thor and stuff) and right now he's mainly interested in just learning about our religion.  We asked him if he wanted to be baptized, and he said, "possibly".  Haha so that's exciting! Our other new investigator is a girl named Savannah.  We kind of picked her up on accident and I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know she's investigating the church.  She's a roommate of a girl in the ward who signed up to feed us last week.  We went over and ate dinner, and then for our dinner message we did the first lesson! Savannah just ate it up! She said she loves Mormons and invited us back anytime.  She's great.  We think she has a lot of potential. 

Cool story, so the other night, we were out contacting in Santana Row in San Jose (the classy, high end shopping center).  Sister Ferrin and I were really tired and we weren't talking to very many people.  So we're standing there, waiting to cross the street and this lady starts walking towards us.  Sister Ferrin said hi and offered her a mormon.org card and we quickly found out that she didn't speak English.  So naturally, Sister Ferrin whips out amazing Spanish, got her number, and successfully gave her the Hermana's number.  In Spanish! After this happened, I told her I wasn't aware that she could speak Spanish.  It turns out, she had taken one semester of spanish in high school, but didn't think she remembered it.  It was so amazing! The spirit speaks every language!

We have had a really cool week.  I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of this whole missionary thing.  But maybe that's just me being confident.  So recently, I've been doing the Bednar Book of Mormon thing where you read the BOM with a specific question in mind.  It has been so cool so far! My question is, How can I develop strong faith as a missionary? and I've been finding things in the Book of Mormon that I didn't know existed.  It's been amazing.  I would recommend it. 

There's so much I want to tell you, but first of all, I don't really remember everything that's happened this week (I have been writing in my journal though!). And second of all, I don't have a lot of time. 

I'm sure Sarge did awesome on her farewell talk (You're gonna be AWESOME:] ).  I wish I could've seen it!

Being a missionary is awesome.  I can't even express the love I have for this place, this work, and the Lord.  My relationship with Him has grown so much stronger since being out here.  I've developed a testimony of prayer and fasting, and I'm starting to develop genuine love and concern for those we teach.  I love it here. 

Anyways, I love you all so much!

God Speed!

 

Sister Julie Catherine Harris