Saturday, February 6, 2021

Sister Goss---W76: ASL galore, viral IG reel, BoMs left and right (Feb 1, 2021)

HOLY MOLEY hey everyone!! :D How's it going?? Life is absolutely phenomenal right now for me!!! This week has been amazing!!

We've been totally packed with doubling in two areas, working on the social media team, and learning a new language haha!! :)) Our week was full of lessons, home visits with members, meetings, studies, service, and more. 

Language: ASL my friends! It's coming along!! I'm still very new, but I'm understanding (usually) more than I think I would've. On Tuesday we had about 5 straight hours of ASL, including district council, ASL class, an ASL Zoom social, and my first ASL lesson! Later on this week we had another ASL lesson with Ricardo that went for an entire hour and get this: I understood!! And communicated with him for an hour!! *yeeeeessss* I'm making it a priority each day to watch some sort of ASL video to understand comprehension better, and Sister Noall and I have a goal to use sim com (simultaneous communication: you speak and sign at the same time) from 8:30am-9pm unless we're 1) driving, 2) in a different room, or 3) planning an English lesson. It's NOT easy but I'm going to be so much better by the end of this haha. Huzzah for ASL!

Service: we went to my favorite service place EVER this week, and it may sound a little familiar... Remember Soles 4 Souls?? Yes!! We unloaded this massive semi-truck for several hours and it was so much fun!! I have about 10 bruises on my arms still, but 100% worth it. No biggie. :) We also served at Salvation Army, Billion Graves, etc. Sadly Valencia and Feeding America are closed for service because of covid, but maybe I'll see if I can visit. :)

Meetings: I gave my last trainer/trainee training on Tuesday! It was bittersweet. :) I tag-teamed the training with some other wonderful sisters so they can do it in the future. I have loved having the privilege of consistently sharing my testimony of the power of this work, especially through social media, to new missionaries and their trainers. I have felt so much power doing so. :)) <3 We also had zone accountability, social media council, and 5 straight hours of Zoom church on Sunday morning (that's what happens when you cover both a ward and a branch). But relatively less meetings than usual for me haha! More language study time ;)

Fun: some big time fun things this week included a birthday party for Elder Wolfert (the missionaries in our complex went to a central picnic table and ate cake together), working on ASL translations for songs on the ASL page with our district, making an Instagram reel that hit 5k people in about 0.2 seconds (go check it out!!! @findjesus.inlandempire), and enjoying some bee-au-tiful weather ;)) Woooowooo!!

People: We're actually teaching several people and I've already come to love them so much! Gabriel Roa is a father who has wanted to be baptized for a couple years now and is waiting for his wife. We met them yesterday and their whole family is so cute. :)) Ricardo is our ASL friend we have lessons with and he's so funny! And patient with me haha... Brooke is a sweet 11 year old who was recently baptized and she wants to introduce her other friend to the church! Let's gooooo Brooke!! <3 And there are several others too. Keep praying people's hearts will be open and they will be led to the church! There are so many miracles left and right - God really is involved in the details. :) We gave out four copies of the Book of Mormon and a Bible this week! Already!!

Miracles: 1) Albert, our apartment maintenance friend, fixed our heating and said as he was leaving, "can I have one of those books?" pointing to our bookshelf with the Book of Mormon copies! He said he wanted to read it with his daughter. 2) We were leaving a certain service that "happened" to cancel and ran into a man outside who waved us down named Romero. He said, "what's your tag mean?" After some discussion, he said "do you have a Spanish copy of the Book of Mormon I can read?" We just "happened" to have a Spanish copy in our trunk and swapped numbers. 3) Every person we tried to contact last night answered or allowed us to share more and introduce the Book of Mormon to them. This is AMAZING!! Oh and 4) our reel went crazy for a second!! Hooray for Instagram!!

Okay I know this email is super long already. Thanks for reading :)) and supporting :)) y'all are so so so awesome!! Keep shining Christ's light and be willing to ask the hard questions. Ask them and find answers through His Spirit; life is so much better that way! Have a FANTASTIC week!!!

Love, Sister Goss

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