**Facebook Post** Feb 27, 2025

 Lower Desert Zone conferences with Yucaipa, Yucca and Palm Desert.

Tres Fiestas!! (Week 20)

 Hey everyone!! I hope you all had a great week and that everything is going well!! This week...was a week. So much happened.

Last pday we had lunch with Rosamaria. She's a member of about a year from my last zone! It was kind of crazy to see her, but it was so nice because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye before we had transfers, so it was definitely a blessing! 

On Thursday we were knocking on doors and a man open the door and just invited us in...no hesitation, nothing. So we went in and talked with him and his wife for a bit and it turns out the had met with missionaries, like 15 years ago. They were very nice, but they also had us sing for them which was interesting...they sang for us too though. That was probably the craziest door contact I've had of my mission!

On Friday we went to a wedding/baby shower...well we tried to! The son of one of the members in our branch was getting married and we were invited and they said to come and have dinner there with them. It was supposed to start at 6, by 7 they decided to eat before the ceremony. By 8 they were finally ready to start the wedding, but we couldn't stay because we had an appointment to get to. It was a very eventful night!

On Saturday we were public contacting in the laundromat - basically just talking to people while the wait for their clothes, and we ran into Gilbert! He's a member from the Agua Caliente Branch (the congregation in my last area) and it was crazy to see him there because he lives quite a ways away (about 30 minutes) but it was so fun to see him and it was a miracle because Saturday was kind of a hard day.

And yesterday we went to 2 birthday parties! One of them was for a little girl turning 3, and it was a pretty fancy party, I don't have any pictures because we were pretty busy helping her set up, but it was fun! And then we went to another birthday party (which was technically our dinner) which was so fun! It was so hard figuring out how everyone was related though, because pretty much everyone there was related but in weird ways  it was fun!

Also, we bought a car seat so one of our friends could come to church so that was interesting. He didn't end up coming unfortunately, but now we have a car seat! 

So those are the highlights of my week! If you got time I'd love to hear how you're doing! 

Love y'all  

Pictures:

1. Gilbert

2. Our Car set

3. Lunch with Rosa Maria

Transfers!!! (Week 19)

 Happy Monday everyone! I hope you've all had a great week, if you got the time let me know how you're doing! Here was my week:

Monday: 

Pday! The last pday of the transfer! The whole zone went to the church and had breakfast together and we also brought signing journals for everyone to sign, it was pretty fun! 

Tuesday: 

Sister Ward (one of the sisters who lived in our apartment) went home! It was sad to see her go, but it meant that I got to be in a trio for a couple of days which was...chaotic. We had to balance everything the english missionaries needed to do with everything we needed to do, which was crazy! 

Wednesday:

We got transfer news! Both Hna. Gray and I were being transferred so we had to start packing everything up (on top of everything else we needed to do...for both areas) It was a busy day. Also, they closed our area! There are no more hermanas in Yucca Valley which is kind of sad.

Thursday:

It was pouring rain basically all day today. Yay. We had to pack up our car and drive to Redlands (about an hour away) for transfers. I ended up going to Palm Desert and I'm with Hermana Simko and it's been a lot of fun so far! 

Friday:

We had zone council, and there are a LOT more missionaries in this zone than in my last one, which is kind of fun! 

Saturday and Sunday:

Just a lot of getting to know the area a little bit more and all the people here, so yeah it's been quite the week!! Also, on Sunday we had a special devotional with Hank Smith, who's a religious education teacher at BYU and it was so good!

What I liked the most from the devotional was how he talked about how there are lots of things in the gospel that seem like they oppose each other. For example, how can God know what's going to happen in our lives, but we still have the ability and power to choose for ourselves. Or justice and mercy. Looking at these things separately, it doesn't seem like they can both be true, they're opposites in a way. But kind of like how a clock works. All of the gears fit together and work together to make the clock work. But when you take a gear out, none of it makes sense anymore. That's how the gospel works, when you look at the big picture, it all works together. Justice AND mercy exist. We can choose for ourselves AND God can know what's going to happen in our lives because He knows us. I really liked that because it's something I had been thinking about lately and it was really cool and helpful to hear that analogy. 

Love you all!! 

1. In a Trio!

2. We got flowers on Valentine's Day! It was so sweet because it was from a random lady that we door knocked, and it made my day!

3. Tracting in the rain!

4. In a trio with a beautiful sunrise

How in the world do you eat a Tostada?!?! (Week 18)

 As you can see from the title, I'm asking the important questions this week. But, seriously, how? I feel like every time I do I make a fool of myself, so if you have suggestions, let me know! And now for the week...

Monday:

Pday - we played wall-ball for the pday activity, it was alright. But after Hna. Gray and I made homemade tortillas and they actually turned out pretty good! Then we had some lessons (almost all of them went through) and it was a pretty good day!

Tuesday:

A pretty normal day! I had my end of training meeting and it's kinda crazy that I'm almost out of training - I feel like these past 2 transfers have flown by! And we had papusas for dinner which were so good! I highly recommend. We had some lessons with quite a few people who seem very interested (yay!) One of the, a lady named Darling, gave us a huge box of pastries to take with us. It was kinda crazy...

Wednesday:

We had some lessons! A couple of them fell through, so not ideal, but a pretty good day. Also, we went tracting and we found two people who seemed really interested! Come to find out they're inactive members  it was kinda funny

Thursday:

Our last zone council! We did a zone wide exchange (everyone in the zone swapped companions) and the STLs (sister training leaders) decided to pull a prank on one of the new Elders by telling him that he had an STL exchange with them...he was like, 70% convinced it was real...

I ended up going to Yucca with sister Tanner which was cold, but fun

Friday:

Today was our deep cleaning day since we have transfers this Thursday (which is kind of crazy) this transfer has flown by! And we had a lesson with Alma, who is so sweet! She is so interested in learning more and I'm so excited to keep teaching her (if I don't get transferred)

Saturday:

We basically just tracked today, not a lot else happened. 

Sunday:

Victoria got baptized!! It was crazy. She's the daughter of an inactive family and she's been on date to be baptized since September (which is kind of insane). Things just kept coming up for her family and they had ir push it back so many times. And Sunday was not without its challenges  The Elders said that they could baptize and confirm her, but then we got a call from them Sunday morning...saying they can't be there for the baptism... That was stressful. But we have a great ward and they were so willing to step up at the last minute! But then...the member we asked to baptize Victoria is fairly new to the church (he's been a member for about a year) and we though he had baptized someone before, but he hadn't. So we were trying to explain everything to him (and her), and it was pretty painful... All this to say, it was quite the miracle that everything worked out! God is real and God is good!

Which leads me to my spiritual thought! A couple weeks ago, I kind of talked about why I believe and how I'd been thinking about that recently. And now I have an answer! I believe in God because I have seen to many miracles in my life to deny His existence. There's a quote that says "I knew it, and I knew God knew it, and I could not deny it" and I feel like that sums it up pretty perfectly for me. I know God is there because I feel it in my soul. And for a while, I thought there needed to be more to it than that, but now I've come to the conclusion that it's enough. I know I have a loving Heavenly Father and that He is a God of miracles. I can promise each and every one of you, that as you look for the miracles and the hand of God in your life, you will find it. Because he is there. It might not be anything big or grand, often it's the small things, but He is there.

I love you all!

 Hna. Erickson 

1. Bringing Victoria her Baptism outfit

2. Cute Comp Pic

3. Victoria's Baptism!!

4. End of training meeting

5. Box of pastries from Darling

6. Not included in email - but I want to know more (love, mom)

Happy February

 Hi everyone! I hope your all doing well and that you've had a great week! Here was mine:

Monday:

Pday! Except all we did was pack and clean since we had to move out of our apartment...so not too exciting. But we did have a lesson with someone who had been taught in the past, and we invited him to be baptized and he said yes! We also met this really cute couple when we were out tracting who invited us to dinner on Wednesday, which was pretty cool!

Tuesday:

Moving day! It took all morning (and part of the afternoon). We just moved in with the sister missionaries who live in the same apartment complex, so it was nice that we didn't have to go far, but we still had to move EVERYTHING out of our apartment. Thankfully some of the elders had to come down to palm springs to take their car in to get fixed and they were able to come help us for a little bit! 

Wednesday:

We got to go to the temple!! It was so good and I didn't realize how much I missed going until we got there. It was just so nice! But it did make us late for basically the rest of our day (which was packed). We had dinner with the couple from Monday and they're so sweet! Then we had a lesson with our friend Manuela (who has been taught by missionaries in the past) and we invited her to be baptized and it turns out she was baptized 7 years ago!?! How did we not know this  other missionaries had even invited her to be baptized... 

Thursday:

A pretty normal day, not a ton out of the ordinary happened. We taught English class and everyone showed up at different times which made it a little hard to teach  we ended up having, like, 4 different lessons going on at the same time (there were 4 missionaries there so it all worked out)

Friday:

Not a lot out of the ordinary happened today. It was pretty busy, but not really exciting 

Saturday:

Same deal as Friday - busy, but not really interesting 

Sunday:

We had stake conference today! So all the congregations in our zone had a church meeting together instead of individually. It was pretty cool! We had a lady that we cold called (just called them out of nowhere basically) and we invited her to come and she came!! It was pretty amazing. Then we had lunch at one of our members houses, which was so fun! One of the elders there ended up eating a dog treat...it was pretty funny to watch and then he got teased endlessly by our branch President  (yes - he ate it on purpose - fully knowing what it was) and then the rest of the day was pretty normal! 

So that was my week! If you have time, write and let me know how you are!

Love you all 

Kallie and Hermana Grey found a tortilla press when they cleaned out their apartment to move into the other apartment. They bought Masa flour and attempted to make home made tortillas at the church - and they did a great job! According to Kallie there's 'room for improvement'