I Love Simi Valley!

Family,

I absolutely love it here in Simi Valley! Our area has so many things going on right now. It's wonderful to be a part of it! I really love the ward here as well. They are so focused and more than willing to help us in the work. It is going to be such a blessing to be in a ward that is really dying to help us and our investigators.
 

We are the only set of English sisters in all of Simi. It is a little crazy because this stake just barely got sisters a little over 3 months ago. Sister Proctor has only been here 3 weeks, so neither of us know the area and the ward very well. It has been going so well besides that!
 

The sisters! Sister Proctor, me, Hermana Romero, and Hermana Cannon

I love Sister Proctor! We have been able to work well together and get along very well since day one. It is too fun to be with her since we already know each other very well. We are very different, but I already love it here and I love being able to work with her! She is from Renton, Washington and she is turning 21 TOMORROW! We already decorated the apartment and we have a few little birthday plans for this week! We will be going to the temple at the end of this month with a wonderful recently reactived member :) We really just have too many exciting things to look forward to! This week Elder Russel M. Nelsen is coming to our mission too!

Our birthday house! Let me just tell you that this couch
is the best thing that has ever happened to us!

We had so many great lessons this week. We have really been inviting every one to be baptized out here! It has been great to just be thrown into the work here. There are so many great people we are working with.
 

We were able to meet with an investigator this week with her son (who just got back from his mission a month ago) and it was a really powerful lesson! We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit was so strong when her son would bear his testimony about the gift of the Holy Ghost or why she really needs to develop faith. It was incredible!
 

She also came to church this week, so we are excited about her! She has been taught for a while by missionaries, but we are hoping to be able to really get her progressing towards baptism! We are now starting to do yard work with her, so hopefully we will be able to spend more time doing service for her and be able to get to know her better and gain more of her trust. She is such a wonderful woman but it is a little frustrating because right now she isn't really sure why she even needs God in her life.
 

Her oldest and her youngest children are members of the church. The daughter went to BYU and got married in the temple, and her son just returned from his mission. We are excited what the future has for her because her children are such great examples to her.

Another celebration of Sister Proctor's birthday.
Me, Sister Jorden, Sister Proctor and the adorable Gianna.

We also started teaching this man named M this week. He has a baptismal date of June 14th, and he is such a faithful man! We were able to have two lessons with him this week and it was so great! He told us that he already knows what we are telling him is true, so we are so excited for him.
 

We also met with two of our other investigators, J and B, and had lesson with them about the Plan of Salvation. It was a great lesson and they always have great things to say. They talked to us a lot about the purpose of life and the resurrection. It was just great because throughout their lives they have already known these things, but they have been really searching for answers! They both came to sacrament meeting yesterday and they loved it! J said that he loved it because of the family atmosphere, and that he already feels like the ward is his family. This was their first time coming to church so I am so glad that they felt welcome and could really feel the spirit.
 

We came out this week to find plastic on our car while
they are working on our apartment parking lot.

This week we also started teaching an 11 year old girl G. Her mother is an inactive member and her dad is not a member, but her mom invited us over for dinner and a lesson with G. We taught her the Restoration and she really enjoyed it. We also committed her to be baptized June 7th, so that is so exciting.
 

The best part of it all was to see the sweet look on her mother's face! You could tell that the mom was so happy to see us teaching the gospel to her daughter. I think that this has always been a dream of hers. The mom talked to us many times about how she wished she would have gone on a mission, and how she hopes G will want to go someday! G is really the sweetest girl and this is something that might completely change her whole family!

Me & Sister Proctor

This week Sister Proctor has been a little sick, but we have had some great quality time together while she was trying to get better! We also were able to get a lot done this week even though she was sick. She is such a trooper and even went to a few lessons while trying the whole time not to throw up. She is so strong and we are having too much fun together!
 

We have equestrian communities in our area where everyone has a horse,
and there are even dirt horse paths instead of sidewalks on half of the roads

Things are really going great here! Tons of the neighborhoods are gated communities or places where we aren't allowed to knock doors, so that has been a little tricky, but we are seeing great success with the investigators we have now! 

  

Love Love Love Youu,

Sister Mason