June 18th

Hello everybody! I have much to say since it has been my first week here. First off, they've started me off in hell. HAHA. That's what an old man told me at transfer meeting in Ventura before I left for here. (Tuesday) So yes, I am in Bakersfield. North Bakersfield. There are 3 bakersfiled missions, North, Eeast, South. I thought you might see that purchase I made at walmart haha. This place isn't so bad, there are some parts that are fairly nice. BUT, yesterday it was 108 degrees. OMG. We have a car but we only have so many miles a month so we do walk quite a bit as well. Probably my second day working (Thursday) we walked a ton. It was about 104 i think and no breeze. Probably walked a total of 5 miles.Oh and i already have a pretty decent missionary tan haha. Mostly on my feet. The walking is hard in the heat, But It's making me stronger, somehow. I ended up with a ton of blisters that day but they are gone now cause the next day we used more miles so we wouldn't walk as much for a couple days. My companion is sister Putnam. SHE IS AWESOME. Seriously I am lucky she is my trainer. We get along really well and she's very nice and patient. Which President told me she would be like. She is from Draper which is so cool cause she lives nearby. She as been out 8 ish months. We are the only sisters in our zone and district here so it's kinda weird ,at least once a day i just tell her it feels like we just have each other and we are alone in this world haha. Good thing I like her a lot.
This morning our alarm didn't go off.... She woke up at 7:20 and was like "uh sister greer its way past wake up time" haha not our fault thought?! Faulty alarm. I'll call it a tender mercy and lets just say i enjoyed the extra 50 minutes. Good thing it didn't interfere with the work though, and just our get ready time. Back to the first day i got here, president and his wife picked us up at santa barbara. They are really sweet i like them a lot. I hope you got my letter we sent on Wednesday? It should include a picture with them. they took us to the mission home and we relaxed for a bit and ate. Then we did other stuff but it will say in that letter. Then we slept at some members house for the night. So the jouney to Bakersfield was a LONG ONE. It was supposed to be 2 hour drive from VEntura. which is still long and i hate driving. But that members that were driving us asked if it was ok they stopped my some rental house they have in pismo beach? So of course we said yes and it would be an additional hour. Ended up being a total of 5 1/2 hours in driving!! Good thing we stopped and had red robin in between. But yeah, I dont even understand what happened there but it was crazy. I literally feel like im not even in Cali and we drove to a completely different state. So far. But glad i made it. Transfers are every 6 weeks. So the next one is July 24. I will either stay here or... not. I kinda hope i stay so i can have the same trainer for 3 months. But whatever happens is meant to be. Also sorry for the grammar in this email.

We've done some tracting. It's not as scary as I thought it would be. Like at doors. We've only have 1 slam it in our face so far. Other then that people listen but haven't seen anything come of it yet. Saturday though we went to the farmers market to do some declaring. Its a little harder since people are walking, and your trying to get them to talk to you. But we met a couple really nice people and something might come from it. Those experiences make me a better missionary cause i am learning to get out of my comfort zone the most those times and approach people.
We have an hour for lunch and dinner. Probably half the week we have a member dinner appointment. The other half we can go out or eat at home. For lunch, we've been napping usually haha cause we will eat fast then spend 45 minutes sleeping. Which is the craziest thing cause I never used to nap. But now I fall right asleep, it's awesome. Probably cause im so hot and exhausted.

But about the dinner with members, I've had some weird expereiences so far.... The first night I got here we didnt drive in till 6, and we have an appt so we ran straight over there. It was just a way awkward couple and it was hard to hold a convo. we were only there for like 30 minutes haha which is way short for a dinner. So yeah weird. Then a few night later we had one with this huge family. I wont go into details on that right now haha but there were some uncomfy moments. But I'm sure we will have some good ones upcoming. I wanna share what happened last night at a members for dinner. We didnt have a dinner appointment set up, and this woman walked up to us at church and asked if we wanted to go over for dinner so of course we said yes. Yesterday was the first time i struggled a little bit. Probably had to do with it being fathers day. But there were moments i was feeling discouraged. I didn't know anything about her. She is in the middle of going through a divorce and has been having a way hard time. When we went over we could tell she had been recently crying. BTW her name is sister noonchester and shes Peruvian. She made us spaghetti and we sat down and ate. She told us what she was going through. Her kids had turned against her, which is way sad cause he cheated on her and i dont know the whole story but she is just really destroyed because of it. So all her kids arent around a couple live with him in riverside. Anyway, after dinner we did the dishes for her and she sat down cause she was exhausted and she just cried and told us how glad she was that we came. She didn't want to be able especailly have fathers day. She cried and said that we were a huge help to her for being there. I felt on the verge of tears many times. Then after we shared a scripture 2 nephi 31 :20. Love that scripture cause it talks about hope. We just talked and she cried and cried talking about how the lord loves her and is taking care of her even through this time. I cried too beacuse i was so touched and i felt Heavenly Fathers love for her so strongly. It was a very humbling experience for me. Here i was feeling bad that day, and when i went over there i realized how great i really do have it right now. And i was glad we could be there for her and help in any way. It helped me to know i was helping someone who really needed it. We are going back over on Thursday, just to help her organzie some of her stuff, since she moved to that apartment from a big house she has so much stufff she doesnt know what to do with. I dont have if someone is an invenstigator, or a less active. She needs our help and we will be there for her.

Sorry if things are way jumbled i just have to type fast. There is a fresh and easy right behind our apartment! COOL RIGHT?! I've been eating a lot of artichocke dip and baby carrots. Yum.
Back to the work- my first day out working I met a lot of people. The first appointment was the Petersons. (we cover the stockdale and brimhall ward here) They are new converts so we do the new convert lessons. They have like 10 kids and its way hectic there. and they have a million dogs. Anyway we talked about prophets and it went well. It was a good/crazy first teaching experience. But btw i think its a code where you have to have a dog to live here. actually like 5 dogs. It's kinda gross they like walk with us down the street and i wont touch them cause they just look nasty.
That first day we went over to a lady named Julies. Shes a way nice lady. She is strong in her faith Christian. She knows the bible inside and out. We weren't even planning on going there but sister putnam felt like we should just stop by. When she opened the door she was on the phone and crying. She hung up and told us about how her Nephew was just murdered. It was so sad. We sat down and talked to her about it. I shared a scripture and she was grateful. then it turned into the book of mormon. the sisters have been seeing her for a while. But she says she cant accept the BOM unless she gets permission from god, and the bible. Its so hard cause she needs evidence to belive anything more. I really dont know if anything wil go anywhere cause she talks a ton and its hard to get a word in. But she likes having the sisters cause she said she knows we are far from home and our moms would want to know we are safe and in good places. so shes really sweet for that. we will see here one more time when she gets back from families in a couple weeks and determine if we should drop her or not. just cause we cant waste that time. but shes a swet lady i wish it would progress.

There are a couple other investigators but i dont have time to talk about. I will write about them next week. Hope this email was okay and it answered any questions i know some of you had. I am glad to be here and have already seen great things happen. I hope everyone has a great week I LOVE YOU ALL !!! Sis Greer