Welcome to San Rafael!

Hey!

First week in San Rafael down! I feel like this area is bigger than my last three combined. Haha. It's crazy. It took me four nanoseconds to fall in love with this area. Also, my companion is a literal Disney Princess. She is probably the sweetest person I have ever met. Her name is Sister Gardner and she is from Twin Falls! My first Idaho
companion  #Idahomies

We share a ward with Elders. It's actually super fun. Nothing is ever awkward because there is always someone chatting. Dinners are the best. We have some great Elders too. They came out with Sister Gardner, so all three of them just hit their nine month mark! Party
for days.

We had a really cool experience on Saturday! We were walking down the road and this man gets out of his truck and he's walking funny and his eyes are a little glazed. Having just come from Fairfield, my first thought was, "Oop. He's drunk. Let's go." We we start walking a little faster. He calls out to us in Spanish and we kind of wave and tell him we don't speak Spanish. He started asking us more questions, and though I'm wary of this guy, I don't feel in danger. Suddenly he says, "Mormonas?" And we were like, "Si!" "Missionaras?" "Si!" We started talking to him in Spanglish because it turns out his English is pretty
good, just his comprehension is only about 70%. His name is Antonio and he told us he has been looking for a change in his life and his friend recently joined the Mormon church and moved his whole family to Utah. His friend told him that his life had been changed 100%. Antonio looked at us and said, "Is that true?" We promised him that this was the change he was looking for and that it was true. The Gospel will change your life. He knew the address of the church building. He actually told us the exact address and said he had always walked by and waved, but had never gone in. He wants to come next Sunday though. We gave him the Spanish Elders phone number on a Prince of Peace card and then showed him the video. When it got to the part where it showed the pictures of Christ and his titles, he would look at the screen, and then to the picture of Christ on the card in his hand, and then back to the screen. It was like we could see the wires in his mind connecting. It was so cool.

This week was mostly just getting to know the area. Super pumped to be here. I hope you guys have a great week!!

Sister Julander

Good Luck Elder Julander

Lovin' The Cali Weather

Hey Fam!

You've probably heard this from every missionary ever, but can we just talk about Conference? It was sooo good. I loved it. Every single talk. General Conference is definitely the Super Bowl weekend equivalent for missionaries (and members!) One thing I've grown an appreciation for while on my mission is the blessing we have of a living day prophet. Especially now that his health is declining and he can only speak for a few minutes. You know he chooses what he wants to say carefully, so it's important. I was touched that in those few minutes he chose to testify of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph
Smith's calling. I'm not going to let my head hit my pillow at night without making sure I have read out of the Book of Mormon.

I'm in love with California. The weather is beautiful! I walked out of my apartment this morning at 6:45 and it was light out and I didn't need a jacket. We've been in the 70s all week. Makes for perfect evenings and perfect mornings. I'll have to enjoy it now, because it won't last for long...

This week I went on exchanges with Hermana Derr! She came to my area and we had a blast! The weather was beautiful, so we walked through a neighborhood in our area called Green Valley. It's like the green country/vineyard part of our area. It's absolutely gorgeous and has been known to take the average visitor's breath away. Everyone was super friendly that night and we talked to some good people. We even found some people on our list including, a less-active we had been trying to track down for a few weeks. Here's a cool story!

Down in San Rafael, Sister Nelson and Sister Jeffery were working through the ward list to find out who was still in the area and who had moved. They came across Lisa's record, found she had moved, and had the record forwarded. Fast forward to me and Hermana Derr's exchange and we decide to stop in a new record we had received for Lisa. She let us right in and was super cool! She didn't feel at all awkward that the missionaries were there, and we learned a little of her story. I think if she has a friend, she would come to church!
That's our next project!

I told Sister Nelson who we found when we got back in our area, and she recognized the record! It was one she remembered sending just a few weeks ago before she came to Cordelia. After one year, Lisa has been found  it's like the Lord wants her back at church or
something. Haha, so cool.

We are still working with Deb. She is way into family history right now and spends her evenings looking up ancestors and seeing if their ordinances have been done. She wants to do their ordinances for them so bad, but she knows she needs to be baptized first. She is so close. Come one Deb, your ancestors are waiting! 

In other news, we have an exciting week ahead of us! We are going to go help the Military Relations couple tomorrow after district meeting! We are going to go on the Airforce base and make cotton candy for an event they are having! On Thursday we have interviews with President Wright, Friday we are going to Santa Rosa to get our new car 😏 and Saturday our bestest friend Sadie is getting baptized! She is the little seven year old in our we taught the lessons too  her parents wanted her to take the lessons before she got baptized and have a real experience and make the choice herself! Those were some of my favorite
lessons I've ever been apart of. Children are so wise. Sadie is super spunky and so cute. I would rather spend all day with Sadie instead of other adults. Hands down.

I hope you all had a great week! Remember what you learned in conference! Whether it was something the speakers said, or something the spirit taught you. The inspiration you received is your personal scripture! Record it. Ponder it. Treasure it.

Love you guys!!

Sister Julander

Tiny MTC

Hey guys!

This week was awesome! It went by so fast! We started the week in Vacaville to do exchanges with Sister Aiton and Sister Dean! We went with Sister Dean and stayed in Vacaville. She is so funny! I love working with Sister Dean. Sister Aiton is her follow-up trainer. I love greenies! They are the best. We had a lot of fun working in Vacaville. We taught a section in activity days. They had the coolest activity! There were like twelve to fifteen girls who came. They all got a big orange envelope with mission calls! A third of them got called to Rome, Italy, another third got called to the Belgium, Netherlands mission, and the remaining third got called to Paris, France. Their reactions to their mission calls were so genuine. It was
the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. I tried to catch a picture one of the girls, but I only got the end of her reaction. It doesn't do it justice, but it's still cute.

After they got their mission calls, they got dressed up in skirts and got name tags in their proselyting language. Then they learned different phrases in their respective languages. We sang a verse of Called to Serve. Me and Sister Dean were in the corner like crying, haha! She is all fresh from the MTC and I was feeling all sentimental after just hitting my year mark. The feels were so real. Then we
taught them what missionaries are and what we do. They asked us questions and it was sooooo funny! This  one little girl was like, "If I got called to India, I would not be very thankful! I hate vegetables! I only like corn and green beans and tomatoes!" And the leaders were sitting in the back just dying of laughter.

That was probably the highlight of my week 

On Saturday we went over to the bishops house for dinner and then his wife and daughters invited us to stay to watch the women's conference! It was awesome and the conference was great  then we had huge brownie ice cream sundaes and it was the best.

We are so excited for conference! It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries. Remember to bring a question! We are so blessed to live in this dispensation and to learn from a living prophet. Having a prophet is a sign of our Heavenly Fathers love for us. Even after we have continually rejected them over the centuries, we have been blessed over and over again with a prophet. This dispensation is the most unique because we have the promise that the Gospel will never be taken from the earth again until the Savior returns! That's not small thing. #countyourblessings

As you listen to the prophet and other leaders, treasure their words. I promise you'll find answers to your questions!! I sustain my prophet!

Love you guys! Have a great week!

Sister Julander

General Authorities

Hey guys!

We had an awesome week this week! We got to hear from a member of the Seventy this week! His name is Elder Schwitzer and he works in the missionary department! He is the head physician for missionaries. He and his wife are probably the coolest people ever. Since we are in leadership, me and Sister Nelson got to go to a meeting with them on Monday and then we got to see them again in Zone Conference. Before zone conference, Sister Schwitzer took all of the sisters into another room and we had a sisters-only meeting and talked about spiritual gifts. It was soooo good!

For my year mark on Tuesday, all the sisters went out for Coldstones  it was so good! That's my first time on the mission getting Coldstones. It's been a while. We had a lot of fun.

We have been trying to get Sister Nelson acquainted with the area since we know I'm leaving for sure in four weeks. So I'm trying to give her all of the knowledge I have in my brain  I'm trying to think of other cool things that happened this week, but my brain is fried. Do y remember that crazy lady I told you about? Sister Fox? We sometimes go to dinner with the elders at her house. We had dinner there again. Sister Nelsons first time. It's always fun breaking in a new missionary at her house 

Oh! Funny story!

We were in Vacaville for appointments and we were driving back to Fairfield the back way which takes you passed these huge green fields. We were cruising at a comfortable 55 mph and I see my companion zero in on this group of cows. Before I understand what's happening, the window is being rolled down, my companions seatbelt is being loosened, and she proceeds to stick her head out the window and starts screaming at the cows at the top of her lungs.

"HEY COW! HEEEY COW!! HEEEEYYYY COOWW!!!"

Now, my companion is not a very loud person, but boy, she put those military jets at the nearby Airforce base to shame when it comes to disturbing the air molecules with sound waves. She popped her head back in and readjusted her wind disheveled hair and glasses and looked at me. I was literally dying in my seat it was so funny. I could
hardly see anything through my laughter. She just blinked and asked, "Have you never played that game?"

Enlighten me.

She explained that the way you play 'Hey Cow' is you scream "Hey cow!" And you get a point for every cow that looks at you. But if you get a horse to look at you, that's bad news bear. You lose all of your points. So watch out for those horses.

Sister Nelson scored a 15 by the end of our car ride.

I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever witnessed and we called Vacaville to tell them and they were like, "What, you've never played that game before? You're from Idaho!?"

Come on Sister Julander, get with it.

So now you know what game I will be playing on future car rides to Vacaville. Coincidentally the word 'vaca' means 'cow' in Spanish. Cowville  oh! And Sister Nelson knows the Brainwaites! She loves them  she served in Vacaville for six months.

Spiritual thought of the week.

We are learning about the life of Christ in our gospel principles class and we were talking about the scene in John 21 when the resurrected Savior comes back to call His apostles to His work again.
He asks Peter three times if he loves Him. Peter responds three times that he does love Him. Our GP teacher said that he believes that the Savior of course knew Peter loved Him, but gave him a chance to tell the Savior three times. Just a little earlier, Peter had denied him three times. Don't you think that would stick with someone? Wouldn't you think about how it was prophesied that you would deny Him three times, and then to your deepest anguish it happens? It's another lesson in how loving our Savior is and how He is always willing to give us another chance. He gave Peter a chance to prove himself for Peters own sake. Beautiful.

Love you guys! Have a great week!

Your happy missionary

Sister Julander

Transfers

Hey peeps!

We made it through the last week of the transfer! It was so fun to be in a trio again. Sister James is so funny and we all had a blast.

We got to go to the temple this week! We get to go every six months, so temple trips are precious. There is a member in Cordelia 1st ward who has a big passenger van, so she took our trio, and two sets of elders. It was so fun! After the session, we had a picnic lunch that she had packed for us. It was so sweet. Oakland was clear and sunny and we could even see the Golden Gate Bridge from the temple grounds!
Usually there's lots of smog or fog from the ocean, so we went on a good day 

It was fun working with both wards! We had our last eight-hours-of-meetings Sunday yesterday. I'm going to miss some of the people I've met over there, but at the same time I'm excited to be back in my area full-time. We have a lot of work to do.

We got transfer information on Saturday! I'll be staying in the area and Sister Nelson is goi to come to be my companion! She is super cool and she is going to be in her second to last transfer  she is the fourth companion I've been with in their last two transfers, so I know the drill  it's going to be so good! Sister Aiton is getting transferred to Vacaville to follow up train Sister Dean! We are the STLs over Vacaville so I will get to see her at the Vacaville meetings and for exchanges! She can run, but she can't hide #CantGetRidOfMe

On Saturday we got a text from one of our members and said that there was a less active sister who's car broke down. She wanted us to go over and check to see that she everything she needed. So we drove over and she wasn't home. We got back in the car and were about to leave when I suddenly felt like we needed to tract out her street. She lives in a small court with eight or so houses and wouldn't take very long to knock all the doors. Half of them looked empty. So we jumped out and started at the first house. He was nice, but uninterested. The second house was empty, and the third house sent us away pretty quickly. The rest of the houses looked empty. I felt like we needed to knock the door of the very last house on the street. A man answered. To be honest he looked a little rough and completely uninterested. We started to talk to him and at first he seemed like he was going to brush us off, but the more we talked, the more he softened. His name is Matt, and he told us about how he had a rough past, and how he had been in a car accident ten years ago and shouldn't be alive. After the accident, he cleaned up his life and now he has a little boy and he and his fiancé are getting married at the end of the year. He doesn't know why he is still here. He believes that Christ saved him, but nothing more than that. It was interesting to see him warm up throughout the conversation. He asked for a pamphlet and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon with a Restoration pamphlet. He said the sisters could drop by later. It was so cool. Heavenly Father is so mindful of each one of His children. He knew Matt needed to talk to us and have a Book of Mormon. I'm so grateful for Heavenly Fathers perfect plan for each of us. You are never lost to Him.

I hope you all have a great week! Love you!

Your happy missionary,

Sister Julander