Staying in Ceres

I'm doing well, we only had one person follow through with church. Keith came even though Sarah was sick which was surprising but good. We had two good friend lessons both with members involved, and like 6 other member lessons. Everything else fell through though, which was a lot.

I will be staying in Ceres this next Transfer, and my new trainer will be Elder Astel. I don't know much about him, but he came out in March. We'll be going to the Wetenkamps for Thanksgiving, and they are going to have a lot of family over, so it will be nice to see some young people. Also a lot of people will make it feel like a typical thanksgiving. We had two lessons that went through, we taught Zay about keeping the sabbath day holy and scripture reading. He sounded pretty committed to trying to read this weekend and had hoped it would give him strength to not drink, so we'll see how that went when we meet on Tuesday. Carol read a page everyday like we asked her to, but didn't go to church. I felt a little bad because when I asked about the reading she was like, "oh yeah, I did. You scare me, I make sure to do what you say." Then she laughed and said she was joking with me, and said, "You say what you mean and mean what you say" and she appreciated it and could tell I was serious when I asked her to do things. But, now I'm scared I'm a little too forceful, so I told her if I was being too forceful she should just say "hold on, Elder Wardle, just chill." But, I was super excited about her reading and she asks good questions to understand what's going on. Carol believes everything we teach, but doesn't see a need to go to church I guess, so we'll keep working on that. She said she'll pray to know again this week. We haven't seen Aman yet, but hopefully he'll finish with Exams soon and we'll see him in a couple weeks.

Mary, Isaac, Ruben nothing, but we met Ruben's dad, who is also named Ruben. He only speaks spanish, so we used google translate to ask if he was interested and he is down to meet with the Spanish missionaries, so that was fun. Marquita had to cancel this week, she is moving, but I think she'll still be in our area, so hopefully we will meet with her again soon. I was on an exchange in Ceres with Elder Huffman, who is also in training, though finishing this week. We got a couple return appointments, but they both fell through. Israel got a job and that's why he missed, but we haven't been able to contact Adrian, so who knows about him. I also went to Hughson and Waterford on an exchange with Elder Markstaller which was fun, but also really sad becaused I missed the Ceres' ward pie social and I was super excited for that and had hoped to see some friends there. I was able to talk to HaoMing again and teach a little more, I love how much he is willing to help me learn Chinese and listen and pray about the lesson. Honestly, we're gonna be way better friends when I get back because of it. Challenge: White washing an area is hard for missionaries and their friends. We finally got in contact with someone previous missionaries had taught and we often have info on what they've been taught, but since we weren't there, we don't know how receptive they were or how much they understood. We don't want to repeat all that the previous missionaries did, but we also want to make sure they understood everything. Carol and Zay could probably be a lot further along if they had consistent teachers, so I feel bad. Our mission talks about the importance of filling out lesson reviews. You want to be a good missionary, but you also want to be a replaceable missionary, meaning you took good enough notes for someone to come in and pick right up where you left off. Sometimes those notes take a while though. Good News: I'm staying in Ceres so I have some idea of what everyone we're teaching needs. Also I'm getting a new trainer that is apparently pretty cool according to Elder Mangum. Miracle: When Elder Huffman and I went on exchange we got a return appointment with like everyone we talked to that night. A lot have fallen through, but most still want to meet they just had something come up. Love you all, Elder Wardle