Interviews with PMarz and Pioneer Day

I ate an entire box of dory shaped Kraft mac and cheese by myself for dinner once this week. I didn't even take it out of the pot to eat it.

It was wonderful.

We had interviews with President Marston this week. Woohoo! I love having interviews. My interview this time went really well. We talked about how after this transfer, I only have four left. We both decided that I will be staying in auburn one more transfer, and then I will leave and go somewhere else to train. Wherever that place is, I will die there most likely. In case you don't know that terminology, dying on the mission means you finish your mission somewhere. Don't worry I'm not actually dying in real life. I hope.

This week was another slow week, haha I feel like nothing can top the excitement that was last week. It's ok, weeks rise and fall all the time with missionary work. What matters is your attitude towards it and how you react to it. So I choose to stay positive and make fun in every situation. I have seriously learned to make any kind of thing fun while being a missionary. I even enjoy teaching kids now. That's happened.

There are now two weeks left of this transfer. Each companionship is getting a new companion after this one in the auburn zone. Wow that was fast.

Again, not much happened this week. I found out sister wall will be leaving for sure, which makes me sad. Transfers are August 9th. It's been so fast, I can't believe it.

Again, not much happened this week. We did go on exchanges on Saturday, and I got to be with sister Mackay again! I was her companion in Corning. Being reunited with her was fun, we talked about some of our favorite families there most of the time. Good times, good memories.

We had Pioneer Day on Saturday, all the missionaries came to help. It was so much fun. The sisters and I ran the snowcone machine. There was a huge dance party afterwards and they played Dancing Queen so you know I partied hard. There was a hula learning class and I learned how to hula dance. I got a homemade lei, my zone leader elder Kirby did it with me too. And so did sister rosa. We had a blast. They also had chicken legs for dinner and I showed people how I eat the bones. Most of the people thought it was pretty cool.

That's about it, I know it's short but that's what happened!

I love you all a lot. You're all my favorite people. Have a great week!

Love

Caroline <3 p="">

We Got a Baptism Oh Snap!!

So Danielle got baptized. *internal screaming*

It was wonderful. We were about to set up for the baptism, when we realized that another baptism was starting at 6:30 in another ward.

Apparently someone in our ward did not schedule the building. So we were scrambling around for an hour trying to push the baptism back to

7:30 for like an hour. It was 5 pm around this time, no one was answering their phones, we couldn't get ahold of Danielle, and we were starting to stress. Sister Wall had a minor breakdown and tore up a bunch of paper and laid on the floor for a while. We finally called a neighbor of Danielle and explained the whole situation to her, and she ran down to Danielle's house and told her what was going on. Her name is Sister Sanders and she saved our butts. We finally were able to tell the whole ward that the time had been changed to 7:30 through divine intervention and texting. So that happened. Anyway, the whole ward showed up and Danielle wasn't there yet. She was so nervous she almost didn't come. She did finally come though which is good, it's always nice to have the person getting baptized show up for their own baptism. We helped her find a white jumpsuit to change into, and we stayed in there for about 30 minutes because she did NOT want to go out of the changing room. We had to coax her out. That was fun. She finally did go out and after that it turned out great! We were able to teach the restoration while she was changing clothes, and when I got to the part where I recited to first vision the whole room went completely quiet. I started a crying a bit because I could feel the spirit so strongly in that moment. This was my first convert baptism where I taught someone and was apart of their baptism. It was pretty cool. The entire Lake of the Pines ward showed up. Elder Shepherd was there too, my first zone leader ever. It was neat for him to be there, he's been around me pretty much my entire mission. He saw me start and now he saw me have a baptism. I love that guy a lot.

That was pretty much the highlight for the whole week. We also had zone meeting this past Wednesday, and since I'm still and STL I had to teach. I tried to teach about repentance and I hope it went well. I think it did. It's weird that I am a leader and a teacher, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just 20. Ok. Something I learned from studying repentance is that asking someone to repent is an expression of love. You want this person to change and for the, to be better. You want them to feel the blessings of the gospel. You love them because you understand that they are your spirit brother or sister and you love them enough to ask them to change. I love so many people here in California. This piece of it will always have my heart. I would never live here but I will definitely visit multiple times in the future.

OH HERES A COOL THING: So Saturday night we were walking about the Lake of the Pines neighborhood. It's a gated community so we aren't allowed to knock doors, but we walk and talk to people on the streets.

There was this lady who was walking her dogs and we went right passed her. Sister Wall kept turning around and said "we need to go talk to her", so we turned around and headed back towards her. We started talking to her and it turns out she was the boss of one of the people in lake of the pines ward. She told us she has great respect for Mormons. We told her what we do as missionaries and she thought it was awesome. She wasn't super interested in hearing more about the church, but the fact that sister wall and I were able to oym her and share our testimonies was huge. I suck at oyming and I've done it like five times on my mission, so this just gave my confidence a huge boost. It was awesome, we knew the spirit had prompted sister wall to turn back and go talk to her. Her name is Daren, and hopefully we will see her again walking her dogs soon.

Guys, I've changed a lot. I'm still the same Caroline, but I'm different. Spiritually different. I like this change. I like becoming closer to my savior. I know him as a person and a friend. I would not change that for anything. I have social skills. I am not afraid to talk to random strangers anymore. If I need something done, I'll go do it. I've learned so much in the last year, I can't believe it. I still have a ways before I'm home, but I'm gonna work hard til the very end.

I love you all! I know for a fact the only reason I am still here is through the prayers given on my behalf.

You all are wonderful and amazing and beautiful.

With love,

Sister Ginn

1. Zone meeting

2. I am so short

3. Danielle got baptized!!!! Me and sister wall, and that's sister ford who found her and taught her but got transferred. She came out with me. The little boy is Danielles son Jeremy.

(Sorry, not a lot of pictures, we didn't really take any this week) 4. This is what happiness looks like.

I Feel That Most Missionaries are Screaming Internally All of the Time

Hello one and all. Something I have pondered this week is what it means to be a missionary. We talk to literally any human we see, despite the anxiety and fears we feel. Hence my subject line.

Anyway.

HAPPY AMERICA DAY, YAYYYYY. We have to be in by 7 pm tonight which is fine by me, I'll be sleeping like a rock by 7:30. I'll see fireworks next year. Sleep is far more important to me.

This week was kind of slow, everyone is either on vacation at this point in the summer or sleeping the entire day. We knocked a lot of doors this week and our usual appointments all cancelled. Go figure.

Not too much happened, it wasn't the greatest week. That happens sometimes. Life goes on.

Something really interesting did happen on Wednesday though. We had dinner at a members house, and this member invited her nonmember friend to eat with us. This friend did not want to have a gospel conversation, so we were just chill and casual. We had a good time, she was nice, we talked to her a bit, it was great. We didn't think anything of it. On Sunday that member told us that her friend had said we made a huge impression on her and said she felt like she really connected with us. Holy cow that made us smile. We will be having dinner again over there pretty soon. I'll keep you posted. Her name is Marcy and she is already a perfect Mormon.

Tuesday was transfer day, and since I am a tech missionary I went down to the mission office to set up iPads. Literally everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. We were there for four hours trying to fix all the problems. Sister wall went on exchanges with someone in Roseville so she wouldn't be stuck there all day. There's a group of tech missionaries, and sister Morrison is one of them <3 a="" as="" best="" day="" friends.="" friends="" got="" greatest="" her="" i="" is="" life="" lot="" love="" make="" mission.="" morrison.="" much="" my="" of="" on="" one="" p="" plus="" see="" she="" side="" singer="" sister="" so="" some="" spend="" the="" to="" too.="" was="" well="" with="" you="" your="">

Friday was Canada Day, and one of our zone leaders is Canadian so sister wall and I decided to make a big deal out of it. We color coordinated our outfits to match the Canada flag and we got our zone leader maple syrup. It was fun, we made waffles for all the missionaries for lunch and everyone ate maple syrup. Happy Canada Day to one and all. I will never again in my life celebrate it probably.

Friday night we had a dinner with a part member family. The mom is the member, the dad is not. And he is SO not interested. At all. The mom however has been sliding in little bits of spiritualness here and there for like the past 8 years of their marriage. She told us how she is slowly trying to subliminally convert him and I think it's hilarious. You go Sister Davis.

One of the coolest elders ever got transferred out of our zone on Tuesday. You honestly don't realize how much of a difference a missionary makes in your zone until they leave. His name is Elder Behr and once he left I felt a change in our whole district. Appreciate what you have people, it can be ripped away from you any second, and in my case in six weeks. I also said goodbye to one of the most influential elders in my whole mission, Elder Willis. He went home. I only cried for fifteen minutes. Maybe fifteen and a half. Elders are my favorite part of the mission, let me tell you. They are all so amazing and like my brothers. Ugh I love them all so much.

That's probs about it, like I said not too much to report. I love sister wall, we laugh so much every day at the dumbest things. We've been making American jokes nonstop and it's getting slightly out of hand but we don't care. There's an elder in our mission from The United Kingdom that we are going to call today and tell him that we won and it sucks to suck. We are such a good companionship <3 p="">

I love you all. The church is so true. I know it is, otherwise I would not be here. If you're ever sad or upset, go read the Book of Mormon.

It helps. I promise you all that.

LOVE YALL

love,

Caroline

1. This is elder Behr. He is the happiest person I've ever met in my life.

2. Me and Sister Carlisle, who is also a tech missionary 3. Sister Morrison is bae 4. Happy Canada Day, we found a real Canadian to celebrate. Even Jesus is celebrating Canada Day 5. Proud to be an American 6. WE FOUND RAINBOW ROAD (Mar

So I have five transfers left What????

Transfers were this week and sister wall and I were staying together!

I am so pumped, sister wall and are excited to be together 6 more weeks. We have gone through many theory discussions about lord of the rings and Harry Potter and just recently we found out that as kids we were both obsessed with the Barbie movies so this transfer is gonna be good. We also have one of our investigators on date for baptism. Guess who it is? DANIELLE. yep she told us she wants to be baptized after meeting with our mission president and that she wants to have the Holy Ghost to help her in her life. Um, ok. Yes. We can do that. We had a really good week. We're all jazzed up, especially with our lesson with Danielle.

Anywho, so my trainer came to see me! Rylee is adorable. I love her.

She surprised me last Monday and came to visit me with her mom. Oh my gosh I had the best trainer in the world. It was so good to see her.

We went on exchanges this week and I went with Sister Rosa, who is from Indonesia. She doesn't speak a lot of English, and it was interesting to have a companion from a foreign country for the day.

She's actually really sassy and I like her a lot. No one was home at all the whole day except this one less  active who sister wall and I had been trying to contact forEVER. Her name is Wendee. We pulled up to the house and knocked on the door and she told us she wants to quit smoking and come back to church. Ok. We can help with that. Oh wow the tender mercies of God are gr8, m8.

Ok so get this, we had a little extra time before we went to dinner Friday night. We decided to try tracting this street in the only neighborhood in our entire area. We get to the first house, knock, and we are shut down hard. K fine sucks for you buddy, you're missing out on salvation. We knock on the second house and this lady invites us right in before either of us say a word. Her name is Pam. She was talking to us like she knew exactly who we were. She just moved to California from Georgia and she had the most amazing southern twang I've ever heard. You people have no idea how much I miss southern accents. Anyway, I was convinced this lady was a member of the church.

I asked her if she was, and turns out she isn't. What. We talked to her for like thirty minutes. Her husband walks in and greets and is so nice to us. He goes to the kitchen, comes back out, and hands sister wall and I our own case of root beer. Double what. We talked to the couple about family history and they were both super interested and want to learn more about how we can help them start their own family history. THE HECK. THIS WAS A MIRACLE. They told us we could come by whenever we wanted. Are. Are you serious. What even happened. That was one of the coolest experiences I've had on my mission. Sister Wall and I walked out to the car and we were both shell shocked. We get in the car in silence, start driving, and then we start scREAMING AND PRAISING JESUS BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE WERE SO PREPARED FOR US, WHAT EVEN IS LIFE. We listened to the entire track of the lord of the rings and relived the moment for about thirty minutes between the drive from Pams house to dinner.

Missionary work is amazing. It's even more amazing when the lord blesses you with nice people who give you free root beer and want to learn about family history. I don't even care if these people get baptized or not. That was seriously one of the nicest things someone has ever done for me on my mission.

Saturday was a zone blitz in another ward in the Auburn Stake. We blitzed the heck out of the Penn Valley ward. For those of you who know Norwood Truelove who served in this mission a couple of years ago, he served in that ward. The people still remember him and love him so much. It was so cool to be able to talk about him with some of the members there. He made such an impact on those people. Tim and Ann, if you're reading this, please tell Norwood that the people of Penn Valley still love him and talk about him all the time. He is a legendary elder there.

I went on splits with a sister named Sister Price for the blitz. She let me go to her house, let me pet her car, and got me Taco Bell haha.

It was a great day.

Jesus Christ is my savior, I know it without a doubt. I taught gospel principles again and we talked about the gospel and how it blesses our lives. I love my Heavenly Father so much. I love you all so much. You are all my rock.

With eternal love for all your souls,

Sister Caroline Ginn