Hello, hello, family!!
This has been a pretty eventful week, so here are just a few highlights:
Every year, on the month of our birthday, we get to visit the Los Angeles temple! So this week, we had the chance to go to the big city! Woohoo!! It was such a fun day, and quite the adventure. We left at about 6:00, so we could get there in time for an early session, and walked the temple grounds for a while in the morning. It really is BEAUTIFUL. It's weird to see palm trees at the temple...definitely different than home. But it was such a fun experience, and a pretty great birthday present. :) Afterward, we got the chance to walk Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica (which is the closest we'll get to the beach on our whole mission), and stopped for lunch in Malibu. We drove the Pacific Highway home, and the drive was so pretty! It's neat to see the beach houses, and mansions on the coast, but I'm glad I can call Utah home. California's a good place to vacation...but I'll be excited to see my mountains again. :)
Along with that, we had Pete's baptismal interview this week! President Castro came down from Ventura, which is always exciting...we adore him so much. Pete was pretty nervous to be interviewed by the Mission President, but the first thing he said when he came out of the interview was, "I LOVE PRESDIENT CASTRO!" He's hard not to love. :) But the interview went WONDERFULLY. Afterward, President Castro came up to us and said, "After 3 years of baptismal interviews, I've never seen someone to prepared and ready as Pete." WOW. That just goes to show what an amazing guy Pete is, and how fully he has embraced the gospel. I'll be sure to send you pictures of them next week. But all is well, and Pete has set his baptismal date for May 31st!!
Of course, transfers were this week...so there was the question of whether or not I'd be able to stay to see Pete get baptized. Well, there's good news!! Sister Cox and I will BOTH be staying in the 6th ward! But, there's a twist...we're both getting new companions!! They decided because there's been so much work going on in our ward, we're going to get a second set of missionaries! We'll be splitting our ward in half tomorrow when I pick up my new companion, Sister Proctor. Sister Proctor is on wait right now for her visa to go to Brazil, so in the meantime, we'll be learning Portuguese together! It'll definitely be an interesting transfer, but we're so excited!
It's been such a wonderful week, and so many good things are happening in Camarillo. I love you all so much, and I'm sending sunshine home. I'll see you soon!
Love,
♥Sister Shay Shay
