OCT 28

best week ever. okay maybe not ever.... but it was really great.

hey i got a hair cut! sister pitcher and i went to go get them together. its mostly cute this time. all my blonde hair is gone! yep back to 100% natural my hair. it feels good and i have forgotten how dark my hair is. i like it. haha

well week 5 of the transfer this time around meant no more exchanges. we love exchanges so much but it was nice to see my companion other than just in passing.

with tommy still progressing toward baptism we decided to help him with his genealogy. tommy is greek and moved here to the states when he was 3. he essentially knows nothing about his family. not even his parents birth dates. so as a gift to him sister langi and i buckled down and started to do some research. we found so much neat stuff! all thanks for the family history center in lodi. he has really lost connection with a lot of his family over family drama etc, but we found a obituary of his sister. just one of the many things sister langi found that really touched him. now on to family records in greek from across the sea, this should be an adventure. by the way tommy is still preparing for baptism on his 79th birthday, nov 6. he has just been glowing recently. we had a neat lesson with him and bonnie about expressing love. i think we broke through barriers! it was one of those lessons we didn't plan at all but the spirit guided 100%. so neat. he is working on quitting the chewing tobacco this week!

its been fun here in lodi to eat at lots of darling local restaurants. the town is so small and has lots of neat small town attractions. i think we have hit up all but a few we have wanted to so far. time is a tickin...

pretty much we spent most of this week preparing for our wonderful baptism of gloria, jesse, and maria. typical satan throws his hardest threats right before the big day. don't worry, we were victorious :]

pics also attached from kathy's baptism last week. baptisms are just filled with so much joy you cant describe. i feel like i always just want to keep pinching myself and asking if this is truly "real life." it just feels like such a fairly tale.

This is late week of transfers! A little anxious to see where my last 6 weeks will be :/ Are you sure i have to come home? This is seriously the best. I'm learning to have have more fun everyday :] This isn't missionary work, its missionary FUN! also Lodi 1st ward is SERIOUSLY super great. love them all.

Love,

Sister Oliphant

Kathy's baptism

Sis. Langi & Oliphant by baptism font, through the mirror.

Baptism of  Gloria, Jesse, Maria

Victory dance following the baptism!  Haha

OCT 21

another week doing the best thing on the face of the earth.

this week we had MIRACLES.

here are a few:

gloria, jesse, and maria will be baptized on saturday! we had a powerful family home evening with them and another family, and they are just so ready. maria even bought a new dress for church this week. we have been teaching this family since the day we arrived in lodi and we are so grateful the lord is 

tommy pishos has offically decided to be baptized on his birthday, nov 6th! we are exstatic. the pishos' have become some of my closest friends here. just love them.

 

kathy cuena (deaf kathy from carmichael days) was baptized!!! and i got to return back to see it. it was so touching. it really happened :]

 

we had EIGHT investigators to church! yep eight. including sara and her beautiful family. we are so excited to be teaching them

 

exchanges are done! but i got to be with sisters kim, fleming, and jackson this week. they are all some of my favorite and most hard working sisters in the mission. all exceptional and i felt like i was learning more from them on our exchanges. is was sister kim's birthday too the day we were together so that was extra neat!

damien hasnt been baptized yet... we are still trying to get a hold of his parents to chat with them about it all.

the lord has been really blessing us. its been so neat to build up this area and give it everything we've got. and the fact that we are expecting so many baptisms right now it just amazing. the lord really does bless us when we move forward with faith and give all it our all. i have never been this exhausted or this happy or this at peace. the gospel is beautiful. and simple. and i know its true.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

pics to come

SISTA O

(sorry i keep slacking and these letters are real short but i had to spend a bunch of time finding classes for byu)

OCT 14

so there are only 7 days in a week right? okay well monday was pday. tuesday was exchange, so was wednesday, thursday was studies, district meeting, filling out transfer reports, a little bit of weekly planning, dinner and then another mini road trip switch for the next day. friday exchange. saturday exchange and somehow we snuck in there stake conference that was 100% about missionary work. sunday church: stake conference. yep so sister langi and i are complete strangers it feel like.

yeah this was crazy week: way too many laughs, tears, joys, and disappointments all in one week. you know the movie princess bride when the giant is dunking inigo mentoya head in hot water and than cold, repeatedly. yeah it feels like that. BUT I LOVE IT!

i am learning so much and being molded so much. and i only felt like breaking down once... and i had sister pitcher at district meeting when it happened to be my best friend. we always need those.

this week i traveled to ripon, manteca, elk grove, and galt. driving in the best therapy. im going to miss it. (feel free to donate to the organization: sister oliphant needs a car foundation)

we found this cute little man who is half blind, half deaf, and also not fully accountable. he was bringing in his garbage can one day as sister langi and sister spencer were biking past and offered to help him. they invited him to church of course and he came! well we started to teach him basics but he wasnt quite catching on to everything we tried to teach. but precious damien kept coming to church even after we decided there wasn't a need for him to be baptized. well after months of him steadily coming to church we decided to double check with the mission presidency what we can do to help this man. so we had an amazing interview yesterday with pres martinez and damien and we chatted and discussed much and why we have the gospel, why we are even baptized. why are we baptized? well 1. in obedience 2. for joy 3. for remission of sins. well damien expressed each of these things in his very childlike way. he is such an example to each me. we are happy to help him and hes excited to be a member of the church. he just loves church.

we also had a neat hurdle this week we jumped. the lord really blessed us. and we are excited to have the basconcillo family progressing toward baptism too. they are one of the greatest families and they are trying so hard to do what is right.

i have a bunch of things i needed to write home about... but i lost my planned in all the fun of this week and have no idea what those things are. i'm praying i find it. it serious is my life and i have now 3 weeks of blank memory of what i did already this transfer. (it was real cute too, sister jackson made a pretty cover for it.)

anyways fun in cali, like always.

Love,

Sister Oliphant

this is dave pierce. hes a precious 80 year old man i have fallen in love with. actually there are lots of old people i have fallen in love with here in lodi.

we matched one day!

 

 

 

 

hello loved ones!!!

hmm week:

today we went disk golfing with the zone for 3 hours. i got a little sun kissed :]

i got to go on exchanges to tracy this week. we now have english sisters in tracy cali, its the closest part of our mission to the bay area. actually its practically in the bay area. great little place. once again on bikes. i dont think i will ever get used to riding a bike in a skirt.

we added a family this week! we are maybe just as great of missionaries as the sisters shown on the district tv series. did you know we actually watch that to learn how to be better missionaries. haha its great that they have made that into a tv show. anyways they came to general conference and we see so much hope in them. we met sara by miracle and she was previously taught by elders, she says she wants to change and now. ready for the gospel full force. yay! the lord provides :]

general conference was amazing. so many inspired talks and so many goals i have. we had 6 investigators watch conference and most of them watched more than one session. we are especially excited for tommy!

Love you all!

sister oliphant

ps pic is siter jackson and i from a few weeks back at the temple :] love this sister. and shes doing asl work in stockton! im so jealous.