New Area: Lancaster California: English/ ASL, not Spanish!

Mama and Papa,
Have I told you lately how grateful I am that you write me every week? I really love it and appreciate it :) Please take lots of pictures from their reception! I can't believe that it's Thanksgiving already. I'm super close to my year mark, I can't even believe it. We've been invited to a couple members' houses for dinner on Thanksgiving and one of our investigators will be at at least one of them, so we'll be eating lots, I'm sure. It's been really rather nice to not be eating so so much. The members in our last branch started wanting to feed us lunch AND dinner, so we were eating probably 4x more than what we should. BUT my jeans still fit, so I'm not too torn up :)

So my new ward is great! It's super weird to be in English and an actual ward again. I got used to our little tiny branch where each person had about a million callings and branch activities only happened every 4 months. I was so so scared at first to talk to people in english, especially to go knocking, (and I'm still a little nervous about it) but knocking has gone so great and I'm loving American culture again.(Although I miss pupusas so much). One of my first days in the new area, we went to the library and there was this one man that I kept awkwardly making eye contact with, so I decided we should contact him. Bad choice. The second I finished saying "Hi my name is Sister Beauchamp" he went off on this 15 minute rant about government conspiracy theories, coincidental numbers, being in hiding,secret bank accounts, and homosexuals. He also told us he was the devil and that his knees go backward. I wish I could say that I learned my lesson and starting making better contacts after that, but I seem to have a knack for talking to the most awkward people....and in my "re-learning English" stage, I'm probably about as awkward as they are.

But I'm loving my new area.:) My companion is Sister Jensen, a missionary who came out with Hermana Prince just 2 transfers ago, so I'm a step mommy! She's super great and very patient with me. I always accidentally start speaking Spanish to her, so she'll just counter with ASL. I definitely have the better end of that deal because I understand the majority of what she signs. We're working with the ward a TON and it's been really neat to help them. I've never really taught members before, but it's helping me a lot to work with investigators. Heavenly Father has a plan for every thing!
    One of our primary investigators is a man from India named Raj. I've only gotten to meet him once, but I've heard so many great things about him. His wife is a latina member who is just amazing and I'm super excited to get to know them both better. Our deaf members are super cool and so sweet. Our relief society president started learning ASL not too long ago. She was in the temple and just felt like she really needed to learn it, so she enrolled in the community college. 2 weeks later she was called to be an interpreter for the deaf, even though all she knew was "mom" "dad" and the letters A-G She's really an amazing lady and I think you'd get along super well with her, mom. She's feisty :)

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm grateful for you!

Oh ALSO we knocked into this really cool guy and his family. He  was pretty standoffish at first but he started warming up to us little by little. He said "Oh I know you believe in God and Christ, we just believe in them a little differently." After talking for a little while, he said, "Well, you know, one of the issues that I have is that mormons don't believe in the Deity of Christ".  I thought a little and said "Actually, our beliefs might not be so different" I showed him on the title page of the book of mormon where it says that the book is a witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God. He stared at it for a moment and said,"I think I have some rereading to do." He had met with the missionaries a long time ago and still has about 3 copies of the Book of Mormon. He showed us inside and gave us a glimpse of his family's 55,000 books. Yep. 55,000. It was beautiful. the vast majority of those are on theology. He's a chaplain, LOVES genealogy, is super close with his family, believes in eternal progression, and is pretty cool. He's also going through some big life changes, so we're praying that he'll be more open to discussing the gospel.

Love you more than the supposed attempts on Mr. Crazy Library's life,
Hermana Manzana

Jared's Wedding Day

Hey Fam,
I so loved seeing you all. I felt so spiritually filled all day Friday and I've been trying to keep up that feeling. It was so wonderful to hold my babies, to hug each of you, and to have some good ol' spiritual chats. I just love your brains! They're amazing!

I really can't believe that I was afforded such a blessed day. I'm so grateful! I think it's helped me recharge spiritually, although I was pretty pooped this weekend from all the excitement!
I have some more exciting news....I am moving out of my area today.....to Lancaster ENGLISH AND ASL! Can you believe it? I sure as heck can't. I'm curious to know what President's logic was....or if it was just pure inspiration. Because I sure didn't see that one coming! I'm super excited though. Way bummed to leave Hermana Prince, but she's incredible and she and her new companion will make great things happen here in Palmdale. I'm only moving about 5 miles away, but it sure seems farther, considering that I'll be in 2 very different cultures. Cool.

AND I was told that we don't really teach anyone in ASL, just work with less active members, but it just so happens that one of our current investigators has a deaf son that she wants us to teach. AND one of the members we work with a lot here is taking an ASL class and has access to members of the deaf community. I'm hoping maybe we can contact and find through some of those sources. Man alive. I'm going to be able to talk to Bomee so much more now! I can't WAIT! I'm so excited to learn more ASL and have so many new experiences! I'm fairly certain that they're just a little short on English sisters, so I'm thinking I won't be there for too long, but you never know what Heavenly Father's got up His miraculous-surprises sleeve.

I love you more than all the sticky notes I've accumulated up to this point on my mission,
Hermana Beauchamp

Halloween Week 2011

This was a MUCH better week. We had a good Halloween. The missionaries in the Valley had to be at home by 6pm and weren't allowed to leave, but thankfully the desert is much more chill. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows with our elders' landlords, helped hand out candy, and visited our recent converts. Hermana Prince and I had exchanges with Hermana Erickson and her new companion, Hermana Blackburn. Hna Prince went down to be with Hna Erickson for the day and Hna Blackburn came up to experience Palmdale with me. Those sisters live in Sylmar, in San Fernando Valley, right next to uber-sketchy Pacoima, so Hna Prince had a very interesting time experiencing the Valley at its finest. She had been super bummed because there were quite a number of people who kept saying how she really needed to learn Spanish, but when she went to Sylmar, everyone complimented her on how well she speaks. She really is a rockstar at Spanish, I think there's just some people who, no matter how well you speak, will never believe you can actually speak their language if you look white. So her confidence got a major boost after that and I'm so so glad.
 1st MIRACLE OF THE WEEK: We had an AWESOME lesson with Zitlaly, her mother, and a young man named Christian who is renting a room from them. Her mom said she'd like to come to church and that she'd read the Book of Mormon when she was sad (kind of wierd, but we'll take it.)
2nd, 3rd, and 4th MIRACLES OF THE WEEK: Zitlaly came to church! She seemed to really enjoy it,a nd she really wants to come to mutual this week.  Her little brother came to church, too. Her mom and Christian didn't, but hey, they're still open to it. We're starting to teach this mother and son (Graciela and Bryan) but they have no phone and it's difficult to coordinate with them. They usually go to the Lancaster Baptist Church in the Church Bus on Sundays, but we left them a note saying that we would come by at 8:45 sunday morning to pick them up with a member. We stopped by at 8:45 to check if they would come (we were fairly sure they wouldn't)but Graciela's oldest son (very much a "too cool for anything in this dimension" teenager) told us they had already left. We didnt' have a way to contact our member to tell him not to pass by their house, so we just went to church. Magda (the one who read the whole Book of Mormon in a week) was waiting for us on the back row, then in walked Graciela, Bryan, Zitlaly, and her little brother. As it was fast sunday, we were a little nervous how things would go, seeing as members are sometimes a little unreliable on keeping their testimonies focused on the Savior, but all of our investigators seemed to really enjoy it. In fact, Bryan (who is 11) got up and spoke about how he wants to change his life and help his mom. Our branch welcomed them very warmly and they seemed to really like church. IT WAS SO GREAT!
Thank you thank you for all your prayers. They are helping me, us, our investigators, everybody so so much.

Also, we had lunch with a couple in our branch this week. The husband doesn't seem to recognize that any slightly scandalous or inappropriate comments or jokes should just be forgotten and the conversation should move on.  Somehow we got on the topic of the virgin of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fatima, etc. Unfortunately, my brain/mouth filter was malfunctioning and I asked "How many virgins are there?"
Bad move, Hermana.
But I am curious. How many Catholic holy virgins are there?
Anyway, love you more than however many there are,
Hermana B