Having Faith in Christ

Hey guys:)

This week was pretty slow...we are still just trying to find more people to teach!  I'll just talk about some interesting things that happened this week.
 
Tuesday we were supposed to have dinner at members house, she just bought us pizza and told us to go pick it up at Dominos so Sister Lavea and i biked over to Dominos, we seriously ate a whole extra large pizza all by ourselves in under 10 minutes...you get so hungry while you are biking! I have been eating so much more than I usually do, haha!
 
Wednesday Sister Lavea had to record singing for a CD they are doing for the mission and then we did some service.

Thursday we had our last District Meeting with our District Leader, Elder Milner, he goes home next week:( that was pretty sad! It was a great meeting and i am really going to miss having him as a district leader! On Thursday night we got the recording of sister lavea's singing and just jammed out to in the car! haha she is really such an amazing singer!

Saturday we participated in Mormon Helping Hands! It was like big Stake service project and we helped clean up a local park! All the other missionaries in our Zone were there as well, another sister came (sis Lavea's last companion) from South Sacramento and we asked her why she was here and she explained that she was going home early! just because the Mission was too hard. She said her companion and herself didn't get along too well so she is going home! So we were both pretty stunned and sad. Sister Lavea started crying and tried to tell her to stay but she already had her plane ticket and made up her mind. I realized that I’m probably going to have a companion that I don't like at some point in my mission but it is so important to just keep trying!

On Saturday night we had a lesson with a recent convert who was baptized in December! We talked about having faith in Christ! I think it was the best lesson I have taught so far, because I really taught with the spirit! I read from Matthew 14 about Peter walking on water. I really love this scripture because it says that right when Peter saw the wind blowing, he was afraid. He was already walking on the water, but when something bad started happening he was afraid and started to sink. I think that so many times in my life I am doing pretty good and then once something bad happens I start to get scared and sink, but right when Peter started to sink he cries out saying, "Lord save me." and IMMEDIATELY Jesus stretched forth his hand. I am so grateful for the knowledge of this gospel and that when you are afraid, Christ will be there reaching out for us and we shouldn't doubt him.

On Sunday we had a baptismal interview with Lola! Lola is 10 and we have been teaching her every Sunday since I arrived in this area, she is good to go!! She should be getting baptized within the next 2 weeks! We are super excited for her:)


Thank you so much for all the support I hope everyone has a great week!!!

Love,
Sister Sobotka

Mormon Helping Hands Service Project

First Baptism!

So this week was pretty crazy but great:)

On Tuesday we went to our dinner appointment with a Tongan lady in our ward, she picked us up at our apartment and then told us we would be going out to eat! We started driving and then the next thing we knew we were just out of our mission boundaries!!! haha Sister Lavea and I didn't know what to do, so we just went to the restaurant which was a buffet... we walked in and there were Elders there from the Roseville Mission! haha, we were kinda embarrassed, but it turned out to be okay.

On Thursday we had Zone Conference which was amazing! President Jardine told us we would be getting iPads on May 26 and the whole mission is so so excited! We will have so many helpful apps and videos to help spread the gospel. We also got these things installed in our cars called "tiwi's" and its basically this little box that yells at you every time you make a mistake while driving! it is so scary...haha and if you don't fix the problem it reports it to the Mission President and you can get your car taken away! So I try and drive so carefully because I hate the bike haha!

Thursday night was our first baptism!!! We were so excited! Chris has progressed so much and is doing awesome. It was my first convert baptism I've been to in my life and it was a really special experience! Chris's parents were there and they are getting baptized next Saturday by Chris! It was really cool to hear Chris's testimony, you could see how happy he was and how happy people are when they have the knowledge of the Gospel.

We have a new AP this week, we now have 3 for some reason. He is from American Fork and his name is Elder Witt, he went to Lone Peak High School, so I didn't know him, but he is really nice!

We are still trying to find people to teach here in Carmichael, I am so happy I decided to serve a mission. It is really cool meeting all different kinds of people and helping anyone in anyway! I am so blessed to have the Gospel in my life.

--
Love,
Sister Sobotka 

Sister Lavea, Chris and Sister Sobotka

Confidence in the Lord

Hi Everyone!

This week was really long, considering my companion got 4 flat tires!! I am really learning how to have patience with bikes:) The Zone Leaders came by and showed us how to properly patch a tire but apparently we aren't too good at that. It is so frustrating!

Sister Lavea and I basically LIVE on otter pops, we honestly have like 9 a day. They just remind me of my childhood summers. Sister Lavea had never had one before and now she is addicted! Today we played kick ball at zone sports and Sister Lavea and I were in charge, so we brought a box of 100 otter pops and they were gone within 20 minutes!! Those things are some tender mercies from the Lord;)

This week Sister Lavea and I have been working on being exactly obedient and we have definitely seen the blessings that come from being obedient! We added 2 new investigators this week, unfortunately we already had to drop one:( but we are going to teach the other one tonight so hopefully that goes well!

This Friday at District meeting our District Leader, Elder Milner announced our mission is getting IPADS!!!! we are so excited! our planners, area books, everything will be on the iPads! We will be getting them within the next 2 months, so the whole mission is really excited.

On Saturday night we had dinner with the Bishop and his family! His daughter got home from her mission last week. She was serving in the Tokyo Japan Mission and she had iPads on her mission so she filled us in! It sounds like they will be really effective and so much easier.

I am learning to put my trust in Heavenly Father more than I ever have before! The past few district meetings I have been playing the piano and I get so nervous. Then my District Leader talked to me and said that I should just pray and put my trust in the Lord and so I did and I didn't even mess up on any of the hymns that day! haha I know this is a small example of putting trust in the Lord, but I took that experience and used it through out the week and my teaching has gotten so much better! I realized that being confident in myself is also being confident in the Lord!

We are having our first baptism this week!!!! Well, The AP's have been teaching this guy, Chris in the YSA Ward..but he just got custody of his baby so he moved back in our ward and he is getting baptized on Thursday:) We have only taught him one time because the APs taught him everything else, but yeah we are super excited for him!!

Thank you for all of the kind emails and letters:) I am really blessed with the best family and friends in the world. I hope you all have a great week:)

--
Love,
Sister Sobotka 

Sister Sobotka with some kids

Sister Lavea and Sister Sobotka with some neighborhood kids

General Conference

Ok wasn't General Conference so great??

I have a new appreciation for General Conference while being a missionary, its really cool to be with other missionaries going through the same things and watch conference together. I think one of my favorite talks was Elder Nielson, talking about just loving those who have fallen away! I think sometimes we try and push people too far, but it's so important to just love everyone and invite them to things and support them in anyway that you can!

Yeah all of the talks were so great and I am grateful for General Conference!!
Anyway, this week we had Zone training and aparently we are getting some little black box thing installed in all the mission cars to record us!!! hahha so we should get those installed soon. Not much happened this week...Im starting to realize that I’m in a really hard area, haha no one told me before because I am new and they didn't want to scare me! But it's really hard to find people to teach, and when we do find people all they want is money from the Church or they don't keep commitments :( but this week we are really going to focus on finding people!

My ward is super different from any Utah ward...hahah its basically a bunch of older people. There is 1 young woman and 3 young men! Our Ward is basically all apartments.

But over all it was a pretty good week:) I hope you all enjoyed Conference and if you didn't watch it, well it's still online so go check it out:) Love you all! Have a great week!!!

--
Love,
Sister Sobotka 

Sister Sobotka and Sister Lavea