July 29

Hola, sorry I wrote on Tuesday last week. We had interviews with President Becerra last week so we took pday on Tuesday instead of Monday. Sounds like you (mom and dad) are super busy. how do you do the missionary leadership meetings? how big is your mission? does it take a long time to get from one are to the other? We're really blessed here, it takes us a little less than an hour to drive from one end of our mission to the other. In fact, a couple months ago, we got lost driving back to our area from the office and ended up driving pretty much the entire borders of our mission in about 2 hours. (don't ask).

This week the ward did a girls camp and they asked us to talk about modesty. It was really fun and funny- it was in the morning and the girls were super quiet. It was also a little awkward since half of them came in tanktops and super short skirts. they are all super cute girls though and it made me appreciate my YW leaders when I was in yws.

I am so grateful to be serving with these people. they are so precious and so amazing! I looooove missionary work. I love the gospel. People are so funny sometimes, and they are all so different. It makes life so much more fun to get to love and embrace these people. They are incredible.

I love you all so much. Thanks for your love and support.

Love,

Laree

Hermana LaPierre

July 23

Hello Family!!!

This week was great! Things are improving alot in Rimgrove. We've been picking up alot of new investigators every week, but haven't been holding on to many of them, which has been suuuper frustrating. So we spent our week "cleaning up"- we had to drop some of the people we met the first couple weeks I was here. That was really rough, but also good because it's helped us open our eyes to people that have real growth potential- people that will actually be baptized rather than people that have no ganas.

In the process though, we met started teaching this woman, Leticia. I mentioned her last week, she lives with one of the members in the ward and she's been coming to church the past month with her friend. She is LEGIT!! Our first lesson we invited her to be baptized and she said yes, but it was funny because she kept saying " I don't know why I'm saying yes, but I feel something!" She showed us her arms and legs and how she had goosebumps all over her. She kept saying, I don't know why, but I feel something. Then. Next lesson- The Restoration. We were talking about how we have 12 apostles today and she said "What?! I didn't even know that! I never knew that!" We invited her to be baptized on a specific date, and she got a little hesitant because it's one week after the 28th anniversary of her daughters death. I love this woman! She is incredible! She needs the Gospel so much and she knows it, she feels it! She's married to this man, and we kept talking to her to see if he'd be interested in learning more, she kept saying how he's more hard hearted and probably won't want to listen, which makes us sad because it's way harder for these woman to progress when their husbands don't want it, and there's more real growth when we teach families. So we decided to fast that he'd be open. We had a dinner at their house this past Sunday, with the member that they live with, and had planned a short lesson with Leticia after. We went to the dinner and started the lesson and it was really good. We taught about the Book of Mormon. About half way through the lesson, her husband walked in from work, so we invited him to sit down and listen and HE DID!! At the end, we invited them both to read a chapter and he said that he would and that he'd be there for our next visit!! We also talked about how these lessons prepare us for baptism and he was really open. I am super excited. The Lord listens to our prayers and fasts. I can't wait to go back there!

This week has been so interesting. I had to do exchanges with another sister in a different area this past week, so while I was with her, we had this crazy drunk guy come up and talk to us for a while. We talked to him for a while and at the end, we went to leave and he started following us. Well it freaked out this poor sister and she took a while to get back together. We were fine though, I just felt bad for her. It made the exchange super interesting. I have 2 more exchanges to do so hopefully the others are not as exciting :)

Everything has been great! love you all!

Love, Hermana Laree LaPierre

July 15 Letter

Hello Family!!

I'm still alive! Sorry I didn't get to write a big e-mail last week, I was responding to other ones. Thank-you for the birthday wishes! It was a good day.

This week was good, we had a lot of things fall through which was kind of frustrating, but we were able to find some investigators because of it, which was really good. A couple of them have lots of potential. Last Sunday, was a really intense day. We have a couple investitgators who had baptismal dates in July and who NEEDED to be there if they were going to get baptized this month. Well, we had worked super super hard to get them at church and no one came. It was really frustrating, but while I was sitting at church I was trying to think of opportunities that we may have been missing for people to teach, people that will progress. We have people to teach, but not alot of solid ones who meet with us regularly enough. They all work at least 2 jobs, so it's a big struggle for them, understandably. Well, while I was sitting there, I realized that one of the members in the ward has been bringing her friend to every activity, and has been bringing her to church too for the past month. Ummm.....why aren't we working with her?! Well, turned out there was a baptism that afternoon, so we invited her to come and she came!!!!! She definately felt the spirit there's no way she didn't. We were also able to go back that week and teach her a brief lesson too. We're going back to teach the Restoration tonight and I am SO EXCITED! the Lord is so smart.

On Friday we had a party with the Mission. We had a fireside in the morning that was really good. something I was really impressed by that sister Becerra talked about was not being paralyzed by our weaknesses. Everyone kind of touched on the theme of feeling inadequate, overcoming feelings of being overwhelmed by not reaching our potential. It was really powerful. Made me think alot. In the afternoon, we had a major water fight and it was SO FUN! we made a bunch of water balloons and played some water games, but then it just turned into just filling up buckets of water and dumping them on each other. It was fun.

Saturday night, we had a cockroach the size of California in our bathroom too. It took us a half hour to finally catch it. They fly?!?!?!? who knew that, I didn't! oh and by the way, they dont' die. yuck yuck yuck!!! it was funny though...after a weekend of counseling I can finally say that :).

the church is true!!

Love you all!

Hermana LaPierre

Quick Note

Hello family!!

Well this week has been quite interesting. It's been kind of weird going back to Rimgrove, but it's also made the transition a lot easier, because I already know alot of the members, so I at least I don't feel like we're starting at square one completely.

We've been teaching this one woman who is really interesting, Janet. We were working with her this week to get her to come to church and she kept giving us excuses for why she couldn't come. We promised her at our last lesson that if she paid for the bus she would have money/ needs sufficient to get her through the week. she accepted that promise. We told her we'd take the bus with her. So we did. yesterday, we went to take the bus with her and at the bus stop she turned to me and asked "so which of you will pay for my bus ticket?" what?! I think there was some selective hearing going on there in that last lesson. Well, it made the next couple minutes a little awkward, but we figured it out. We got to church an hour and a half early because we had planned on the bus taking longer,but it was good because we got to do a tour with her before church. all day she kept saying how she didn't feel good, but I didn't think much of it.

Well, right before relief society she threw up! she has diabetes and depression and had taken meds for it earlier,but didn't eat enough with it so her blood sugar was suuuuper low. she just about passed out too. well that was a great welcome to church! anyways, before that she said she was learning a lot so hopefully the positive outweights the negative right?!

i'm about to get kicked off! love you! the church is true!

hna. Lapierre

Last Weeks Letter

Hello Family,

This week was great! Maria finally got confirmed. It was a little weird. We had confirmed on Saturday with our bishop that we could do the confirmation, but he must have forgotten, so we had to have one of the elders remind him while he was conducting the music. Minus the communication error, it was so powerful, she was in tears, and I know she felt the difference. Ah! The perfect finish to the past 3 months in Pomona.

Speaking of which...we got transfer calls this weekend! I'm back in Rimgrove (La Puente, Hacienda Heights, and Rowland Heights) and I'm companions with Hermana Southworth, who was my companion in the MTC. I'm excited! I'll also be training again, so that will be fun as well. I'm excited for new experiences, new fun, and new challenges. I'm also excited to see the people I worked with in Rimgrove. I can't believe it's already been 3 months since I was there. Time moves so fast here. I can't think too much about it.

Something also that was really exciting was getting to see a less active that we've been working with for a while at church yesterday! I felt so bad because I didn't get to talk to her after church, but it was great!!

I was impressed by the broadcast yesterday, I had alot of thoughts and impressions that I'm excited about. There is so much more potential to be done everywhere. The Lord truly is calling a hastening of his work, and a hastening in the conversions of everyone- investigators, and members, all of us! He's shaping us up!

We started teaching a man, Saul, about a week ago. He's a really interesting man, I think I talked about him in my last letter. Anyways, he's pretty interesting- from Guatemala, was a teacher there, moved here, and now does who knows what. Every time we meet with him, he really seems to get it, as far as understanding what we're saying, but he's not really letting his heart get too involved right now. We're changing that (well...now the other hermanas will be changing that). We had a tour with him on Friday before our English class and it went well. He's slightly irreverant, so it's kind of funny...and frustrating... because we'll be teaching, or there will be a moment when we feel the Spirit and then we'll look at him and he'll make some off handed comment or do something silly. We haven't quite found what he needs yet, but we're working on that.

We also had a couple great lessons with an investigator, that's a part member family. He's a stereotypical part member family investigator- been worked on by pretty much every set of missionaries that have walked into the area, almost baptized a couple times, but never did it. Well...he's doing it now. He committed to a baptismal date this week, and we're working on him. He says he just needs to get an answer, but really, he just needs to recognize that he's already gotten it. He already knows. I got to see him last night before I left and I was able to share my testimony with him. The Spirit was there. He knows what he has to do. I'm excited to go back for his baptism.

I love you lots, and miss you all too.

Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana LaPierre