California, Finally

Hey everyone!

It's been the best week ever out here in beautiful Bakersfield. It is actually really pretty right now, the weather has been really nice and everything is (kinda) green. I guess it'll be back to brown when I leave, but I'm enjoying it for now. This is what I thought California would be like! It finally feels like it, twenty months in, haha. I'm enjoying it a lot.

Monica is a cool area. I'm finally back in the city, and there are so many people here! It's a really busy part of town. We cover the English work out in Arvin and Lamont, too, so part of the area has more of a small town vibe. It's cool.

We've got a lot of awesome investigators and recent converts here, it's awesome. It's been a crazy week, lots of us running around meeting everyone and trying to squeeze lessons in where we could. One of the really awesome investigators we have has been meeting with missionaries for a while now and is really ready to get baptized, her boyfriend just needs to marry her already! Another one was introduced to the church by his girlfriend, but she goes to the Spanish branch and he doesn't speak Spanish, so we're teaching him. The work here is going so well, it's incredible.

We got to spend a little time meeting all the missionaries in the district and zone, too. I hardly know anyone anymore, haha. I was out in the middle of nowhere for so long, I never met anyone new! It's cool though. Our district has the missionaries in the YSA ward here in Bakersfield and the sisters in Tehachapi, so we're all doing missionary work in different ways because our areas are so incredibly different. That's okay though, it's all the same work at the end of the day, and we all get to see such incredible blessings from it.

At some point in the last year I stopped worrying about being a bad missionary. Not sure when that was. It's not like I'm not trying, I really am. But I just don't worry and think that I'm not cut out for this anymore or that I can't do it. I think I just do my best to follow the Spirit and trust that God will put me where I need to be to help Him in His work. It's really nice, having that trust in Him. It takes a huge load off of me. It didn't happen fast either! It happened so slowly that the change had already happened before I noticed. I'm really glad it did though. When we're really trying, God does His work and we get to be a part of it and it's so so cool.

Thanks for all your support, everyone!
Elder Adams.

Pic 3: Adios, Cal City!
Pic 2: The south side of the mission does not have a monopoly on crazy sunsets.
Pic 1: The awesome ramen from last week. 10/10 would eat again.
Pic 4: Excuse my squinty eyes. The sun was very bright. The background was too good to pass up though. That's what it looks like (on days where you can see the mountains.)