Because He Lives

This week seriously flew by!!! I can't believe it's already Preparation Day again!

This week the new Mormon Message, "Because He Lives" came out and we have just been showing that to everyone we can. It's a really good video so you all should watch it. It's cool that even though its only 2 minutes long you can feel the spirit so strong. My favorite part in the video is where it says something along the lines of, "no matter who you are or who you were, he is there for you" I love this Gospel because through the Atonement we can all change.

On Saturday morning the zone leaders texted us and asked if we wanted to play basketball at 5:30 am!! So the whole zone came and played basketball at the church office! It was really fun, my zone is pretty fun. During the day on Saturday we went to the CAL Expo Center in Sacramento for a service project, when we walked in I thought I recognized the place, then I realized it was where I went to the California State Fair when I was like 13 years old!! hahaha who would've thought that I would be back here 6 years later on a mission? Anyway we were at the CAL Expo Center from 12-6 helping homeless people get free dental work, we basically just had to babysit a bunch of homeless people, it was so much fun! We played charades with them and it was so much fun. There were 2 other zones of missionaries there so it was fun to be around other missionaries.

We had fast Sunday yesterday which is always super interesting, one lady got up to tell us she lost 2 pounds, so she knows the Church is true! hahahah and one guy in our ward always gets up to the pulpit and says how many baptisms the other wards have had that month and then looks at Sister Lavea and me and says, "BUT THE LA SIERRA WARD HAD NO BAPTISMS" which is super awkward.

Last night we went over to a members house for dinner, The Claysons, they are probably around 70 years old and we love them! They are so awesome. We showed them the new mormon message, and tried to explain what a hashtag was! Brother Clayson pulled out his phone and typed the # pound button in his dial pad like 30 times hahahaha yeah he didn't really understand the concept, but he yelled out, "Heck yeah I’m now a hashtagger!!" hahahaha it was pretty funny!

We ran out of miles this week…shocker, so we had to bike everywhere! Sometimes at the end of the day I want to chuck my bike over the edge of our apartment balcony. When I get home I never want to ride a bike again hahahah! But, other than that it was a really good week. We are trying to teach everyone we can, but most people aren't interested, or if they are interested they want to know if the church can give them money:( it’s sad.

Well I hope you all have a great week and have a good time listening to General Conference! Have a great Easter Sunday and remember that Jesus Christ lives today and he is there for us.

--
Love,
Sister Sobotka

First Transfer Day!

Wow I feel like I haven't emailed in years!
I made it through my first transfer!!! YEEEEAH!
So this past week we had the new missionary meeting for all the missionaries who came out with me! It was pretty good and we just talked about our experiences we have had in these past 6 weeks.

On Friday we had a special "Sisters Meeting" for all the sisters in our mission there is 60 Sisters in our mission and 200 Elders. But anyway at the sisters meeting we talked about not flirting with the elders hahah apparently there is a big problem with that!

On Friday night we had a  ward party! It was awesome!! So many members brought their non member friends and we got to meet a lot of people and a lot of less active members came as well. People will come to anything with free food lol, but its good:)

On Saturday we had this huge service project at a huge park in Carmichael. It was called "Park Day" and it was basically the whole city helping clean up this park and a giant BBQ! it was so much fun!! we got to meet and talk to a lot of different people about the gospel which is always super fun.

Every Saturday night there is a temple tour of just the outside of the Sacramento temple and people in the stake are called to do the tours and they just talk about the importance of the temple and what happens there. We invited Molly and Diana and it was really cool. The next night we went over to Molly's and she just started crying saying how thankful she was that we had been coming over to teach her. She said that she felt the spirit so strongly and that she knew how important the temple is. It is so amazing to see how much Molly and Diana and Will have been growing these past few weeks. Some days Sister Lavea and I get frustrated with them because they like to make fun of other people and they aren't always listening to what we are trying to teach, but on Sunday night when Molly was crying we realized that it's important to just keep teaching people even if they seem like they aren't listening. No effort is wasted.

Monday we had transfer calls, but since I am being trained I stay with Sister Lavea for 12 weeks. So I will be with her for another transfer in Carmichael :)

-Love Sister Sobotka
Letter Dated 3-24-15

Sister Sobotka, Molly and Sister Lavea

Sister Lavea, The Dreamer and Sister Sobotka

Elder Bednar Visit

Ok so this week was my favorite week of the mission so far and this week flew by!!

I had my first bike crash!! hahahha I was just going so fast and took a turn way to fast and totally just skidded out (it was kinda sick) hahah but I didn't get too injured just some scratches on my legs but i was laughing so it was ok hahaha

On Tuesday we moved apartments and let me tell ya...my arms have never been so sore in my entire life. Moving killed me! But we got into our a new apartment and we like it better than the old one:) It rained on wednesday and we had to bike out there in the rain but it felt pretty good! And we needed rain because apparently there has been a big drought here.

I learned how to use a weed wacker!!! heck yeah. Dad you better be proud hahah i learned how to string it and everything, but my arms were SOO SORE!!! We weed wacked a whole cemetery and im pretty sure my arms were going to fall off by the end of the day. But we got some sweet protective glasses hahaha

Friday was one of the best days of my entire life. We drove to Elk Grove where we met all of the other missionaries in our mission and met in the gym of a church building and President Jardine lined us up to take a mission picture, and guess what! I GOT TO STAND NEXT TO DAVID A BEDNAR!!! we took a panaramic picture and it went so slow, it took like 10 minutes to take the picture and my face started twitching from smiling so hard (I really didn't even know that was possible) after that we all met in the chapel and had 3 hours with Elder Bednar. It  was basically like a big discussion, we could ask him any question and he would answer it. You could feel the spirit so strongly and everything he said was so amazing I really wish I could write everything he said down. Something that really stood out to me that Elder Bednar said was, "Not one person who is FEASTING upon the words of The Book Of Mormon EVERYDAY will fall away from the church" It is so important to be reading the book of mormon everyday and to really be feasting upon the words. He also talked about the scripture Ether 12:6 and there will be no witness until after the trial of your faith. He explained that often times we think of "trial of our faith" to be some huge trial like cancer or a death, but trials of our faith happen every single day...like are we going to pray today? are we going to read our scriptures today? It is the simple obvious things we know we should do that are the trials of our faith. It was such an amazing meeting and I learned so much. It was such a great oppertunity to be sitting 15 feet away from an apostle of the Lord. When he bore his testimony you knew he was called of God. That he is an apostle, seer, and revalator called in these latter days. The whole meeting really strengthened my testimony. And at the end I GOT TO SHAKE ELDER BEDNAR's HAND! ahh it was so awesome. 

On Saturday night we went out to Denny's with Molly and Diana and it was so much fun. I love molly and diana they are so crazy, but we love going over there and teaching them more and more about the gospel:)

I am so happy I decided to serve a mission. It is definitely one of the best decisions I have made in my life. This week was so amazing. 

Love,
Sister Sobotka 
Letter Dated 3-16-15

"The Colonel" Sister Sobotka and Sister Lavea

Moving Apartments

On Tuesday Sister Lavea got a flat tire on her bike (seriously bikes are a pain lol) and so we had to walk back to our apartment like 8 miles away, so that was a little rough but we had some good laughs about it!

Soooo the AP's accidentally sold the lease or whatever on our apartment so we have to move apartments tomorrow to a 3rd floor apartment so that means we will have to carry our bikes up 3 flights of stairs every day!!! hahaha so like for real I am going to be so buff when i get home.

On Thursday we went out to eat with a member in the ward and she took us to a pizza place and there was a tv and ESPN happened to be on and they were showing a spring training MLB game Angels VS Rockies and i just started to tear up hahahah like it just reminded me of my family, but then I remembered a frequently used quote at our house, "There is no crying in baseball" and i just laughed at myself. Sometimes there are times when I really miss my family, but I know this is where I am supposed to be and I don't  think I have ever been happier.

We have been meeting with a less active member in our ward who had a stroke at the age of 23 and 1/2 of her body is paralized, but she has such an amazing attitude. She is so amazing to be around and she always reminds us of how there is so much to be grateful for.

We also met with dreamer this week (the snake lady) we helped her paint her kitchen hahah she likes to do "crafts" but they are really just pine cones with glitter and glue all over them...hahahahah she's seriously the craziest lady but we love going over there. Guess what she gave us for helping her paint her kitchen?...you probably guessed it...Snake skin sheddings!! How kind!!! hahahhahah she said she loves us so much she gave us her very best snake skin shedding off of her own pet snakes!

Well thats about all of the crazy things that have happened this week, but something that really stuck out to me while i was reading in the Book of Mormon this week is how many times it says, "inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land" the gospel is so simple if we just keep the commandments. Well I hope all of you have a great week and CTR:)

--
Love,
Sister Sobotka
Letter Dated 3-9-15

One Month Down

1 month down!!!

This week has been so great! There is nothing like getting on the bike with the wind blowing through your helmet!

This week we found out that Elder Bednar will be coming to speak to our mission on March 13!!!  HOW AWESOME IS THAT??  We are all super pumped!  My companion Sister Lavea is such an amazing singer and got asked to sing a duet with another sister for Elder Bednar!   She has had practices this week! They will be singing, "I know that my redeemer lives" this has always been one of my favorite hymns. I love listening to that song even if it is on repeat in our car 24-7.

On Friday, we went over to this less active members house, she prefers to go by "Dreamer" hahaha don't ask me why. Anyway she claims to be an animal whisperer. She has 4 snakes, and she lets them just roam around her house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't that the scariest thing you have ever heard? she lives in a small apartment and there are just snakes on the floor. When the snakes shed, she keeps their skin and hangs it on the wall! LIKE WHAT? and she has 5 giant 65 gallon fish tanks all around her house loaded with fish! It was the craziest house i have ever been in! And she had a box of live mice that she would use to feed the snakes! Ahhh it was the weirdest thing, but she is such a nice lady! She even pulled out her tap shoes and did a 30 minute tap dance for us! hahaha so interesting hahaha but we had KFC and taught her a lesson:)

On Saturday we ran out of miles for our car and so we had to bike everywhere!  My back wheel on my bike got stolen:(  right out of the Mcdonalds Parking lot:(  How sad is that?  There are a ton of homeless people who hang at McDonalds so hopefully whoever has it now puts it to good use. I was kinda happy when I saw that my wheel had been stolen because I thought that we would get to be in the car full time, but nope, Heavenly Father definitely wants me on a bike because there happened to be a spare bike at the mission office! dang.

We have been teaching these less active people this past week. Molly, Will, and Diana. They have all been baptized and haven't been to church in over 7 years! Molly told us she hates when the missionaries come over, but she absolutely loves Sister Lavea and me!  Guess what Molly’s favorite food is??  PIZZA ROLLS!  She always feeds us pizza rolls over at her apartment:)  and guess what...THEY CAME TO CHURCH! and it was even 9am church! I was so happy to see them! We have been working really hard on them and going over any time we could and we have become really close with them. Since it was fast and testimony meeting I decided to bear my testimony and of course I started to cry, but it was so amazing to look out in the congregation and see people who are struggling and to know that I was being used as an instrument in the Lords hands to help people change.  Ah it was such a good feeling and such a great Sunday!

Well that's about all the crazy stuff that has happened this week! I hope you all have a great week and Choose The Right!

Love,
Sister Sobotka