Email Feb 11 2013

Guess what I ate this week! OCTOPUS! Little baby ones! We went to an investigator’s house and he offered them to us and I thought what the heck why not?! So I ate one! Eyes, brain, tenticles and everything haha it was awesome! We had a pretty slow week until Sunday which I will talk about in a little bit. Earlier in the week though we met with our investigator C who just needed to stop smoking and she talked about her meeting she had with Bishop D and she said that was it, she was done smoking and she WOULD be baptized on Feb 16. So instead of teaching the lesson we had planned we started getting her baptism ready! Took us a little by surprise we didn’t think we were going to have any baptisms together this transfer but what do you know! The Lord blesses you if you work hard. So Sunday was a really awesome day! We met with a new investigator that the Spanish missionaries handed off to us and it went really well we taught the plan of salvation and focused it mostly on the guy that the Spanish missionaries said "wasn’t interested or very friendly" he accepted it all and said "It just makes sense." We are going back to teach both of them next Sunday again! After that we had an appointment with a less active guy that we have been trying to get in with since I got here. His wife is recently active in the church again and the husband just needs to get things turned around. He wants to but just is struggling. So we went in and his wife was asleep but he said we could talk to him so we sat down and we taught him the restoration and the spirit was super strong. When we were talking about how the gospel blesses families I felt like we needed to talk about being sealed and I asked him if that’s something he wants to do. He said yes and I told him "then there are a lot of things you need to change in your life." I don’t usually tell people that straight up but it got his attention and we then told him we wanted to help him and the member we had with him wanted to help him. We went through the story of Joseph smith and we asked how long it had been since he read and prayed to know if the church was true. It had been a few years so we told him to do it again and we all bore our testimonies of the church and it was so crazy how much the Spirit was there. Afterwards he told us that "that was exactly what I needed to hear right now." It was really neat. A couple of other neat things this week...

 

Elder B and I were reading in PMG and read that we should strive to find families and realized we haven’t been really STRIVING. So we began praying not just to find people to teach but to find families. So on Monday night we got a referral from a guy kind of weird one and it was just a postcard type thing that had a house and said SOLD across it. He told us someone new moved in and might want the gospel. So the next day on exchanges we decided we were going to contact it and then tract the street and I just kept telling myself that the family was on THAT street. The house we tried wasn’t home and people mostly didn’t want to talk to us... I must also mention really quick that I had been praying that when I met the family I would know exactly what to say and that the Spirit would guide my words. Well my contacts were all just going normal. Not bad but definitely not the best. Well we got to one door and a lady answered it and this is how it went.

 

         "Hello, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We are going around sharing a message about Jesus Christ and his role in the plan that our Heavenly Father has for us. Do you believe in God?"

        "Yes"

        "Do you believe that he loves you?"

        "Yes"

        "How do you know that he does?"

        "You know I’ve never really thought about that. I guess I just feel it when I pray."

        "Definitely... And he has given us so much to show us his love. This beautiful earth and even our families even though sometimes it’s kind of rough to raise a family isn’t it?"

        "Oh yes. haha"

        "Well God has done something through all time and that is call prophets to help guide us in the things we do and help us raise our families with values that will help us to always stay close. Do you know what a prophet is?"

         "Someone like Moses or Noah? They talk to God right?"

         "Right! So what if you heard that Moses was in LA? What would you do?"

(From the other room)

         "False Prophet!!"

         "Honey! Be nice! Actually come over here this is interesting!"

         "I can hear from here."

         "No come here!"

(He gets up and comes over with a kind of okay let’s get this over with.)

     So we talked about prophets and how you would want to know if he was true or not. Then we told him that there IS a prophet today and he guides the church and helps us know how to return to live with Heavenly father. But we don’t go and just tell people this and tell them to believe us but we teach them HOW they can know for themselves and how much it will bless their lives.

   By the end the husband had tears in his eyes and they told us we could come back! We are going back this next week and I know that’s the family I prayed for! Even if nothing turns out with them right now. I was supposed to meet them. After that contact we didn’t have another amazing contact like that again. It was awesome! Anyways those are my miracles for the week! Love you tons! Have a great Valentine’s Day!

Email Feb 3 2013

 To Michelle:  So since I haven’t emailed you in a couple weeks I thought I would send the "big" email to you! Sooo this week hasn’t been the most exciting but things are going well for now!

Today we had an awesome zone activity! We had a flour fight! We filled socks with flour and played capture the flag and then dodge ball out in the parking lot. It was super fun but after that we played a game called chair soccer where you set up a chair and that is your goal and you have to hit everyone else’s chair to win! haha its super fun but then the flour got like plastered to my face and was super nasty!  But it was really fun! We also had a zone conference this last week and had some awesome trainings by the AP's and the president. Nothing really new just a lot of reminders for me of things I need to do. There are so many little things you have to do as a missionary it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Also Thursday we went on exchanges and I was with an Elder C in the Tongan ward! It was super fun! We went to contact people at dairy queen while getting ice cream, we contacted people at thrift stores and looked for cool ties, we taught a few of their members who were really friendly and awesome, and we bought some valentines and wrote MORMON.ORG on them and were going to try to hand them out but would always get to nervous haha it was super fun! And we were out working all day which was awesome!

That’s pretty much all! Love you tons! Have a great week!

To Dad:  I loved my towel and all of my presents! They were really great and I use them a lot! 

It was funny in mom’s email about how she liked that I was in Cali because of places other people are going... Cali is crazy. That’s all I have to say haha It’s been a crazy experience but it makes for good stories to tell eventually!  I love you tons! Have a good week and anniversary!

Email Jan 21 2013

WEELLLLLL I’m in O! yayy!!! If you pull out a map of the areas I’ve been in I’ve really seen the whole mission. It’s pretty crazy! My companions name is Elder B. He is from Canada!! I’ve officially now had a companion from not Utah or Idaho! haha He is really awesome and we get along really well! I’m still confused at our area but figuring it out as fast as I can. We have a total of 8 companionships in the zone including us which equals 17 missionaries because there is a sister companionship of 3. Yes we have 5 sisters in our zone.... that’s a lot haha. We have a lot of really good missionaries in the zone. I miss being in a singles ward. But don’t mind it here. Good things are starting to happen in the zone already though so we are excited. There are a lot of Spanish people here. There are even a lot of posters, stores, billboards, etc. that are all in Spanish only. We don’t have a TON of investigators but we have a few and we have 3 baptismal dates. We set one after I got here and it was a really awesome and powerful lesson but afterwards that Sunday she didn’t come to church so I’m not sure what to do with her. We have been really praying and fasting. Hopefully things will work out. We are planning on getting at least 3 new investigators this next week! And setting at least 2 more dates. Most of the people in the ward are young couples going into medical areas because there is a medical school close by in P. Met a lot of really nice people yesterday but it’s just still weird not being in a singles ward anymore. Our other 2 investigators M and C are both pretty awesome. Christina came to church on Sunday and liked it. Manuel had to work Sunday which was rough. So we have dates for M, C, and M. That’s like 3 weeks in a row! That would be soooo awesome! Oh yeah so we live with members again which is kind of awesome. We live in their upstairs which isn’t very big. But is pretty nice. The members are also Tongans! Cool huh? They are super awesome! Well that’s pretty much all for this week! Hopefully I’ll have lots to write about in the next letter! Love you tons! 

Email Jan 7 2013

I really like the picture! So I’m not going to write much again this week mostly because once again I have a really bad migraine but I want to write about R’s baptism. The baptism was yesterday and it was amazing! Stressful but amazing. So we forgot to find some keys to the building and we went to go fill up the font at 4:45 and realized we didn’t have keys so we were calling around and nobody was answering. FINALLY we got someone to come over and started filling the font about 5:30. We had waited in our truck in the pouring rain haha. Luckily it was filled in time but sadly it wasn’t warm haha. R’s best friend M baptized him which was really neat. He was so happy and so ready and there were a ton of young single adults there as support it was super super awesome and soooo spiritual. There was a girl in the ward that did a special musical number in it and it was awesome! He was talking before and was like "How do you guys know so much? I want to know as much as you and like teach a class." haha it is amazing to hear the person you helped get baptized say that. He was really really prepared and it was really really amazing to see him change is life yesterday and get baptized. Earlier today we went on a hike to an awesome little mountain called Mormon rocks and it was really fun but really windy and cold. We got some cool pictures. After that we went bowling and Elder C and I paid for a couple Spanish missionaries because they found 8 new investigators this last week and we were really proud of them. I REALLY love the missionaries in our zone they are soo awesome. After that I went and slept and tried to get my migraine to not hit me full on but oh well. So I will email a little more about our week and some interesting things in a couple of days but I need to email president about a couple problems we need taken care of. I love you tons! Have an awesome week!

 

Email Jan 2 2013

Well the libraries were closed on Monday so I’m sending you a quick email today. It was so good to see you guys! I’m sorry I wasn’t too talkative and everything it had been a really hard, stressful week. Hopefully things will be getting better soon. Starting with the baptism of R that is on Sunday! We have sooo much to do to prepare and its really neat because he told us about how his mom was really against it but he told her that it made him happy and it was his life and he said that he just always imagines himself getting married in the temple and that’s where he really wants to be. SUCH a neat guy! I’m so happy for him. I will let you know how that baptism goes when I email on Monday. Other than that things are good.  Satan is just trying to get in the way of our missionary work. We work hard but nothing seems to happen. It all just depends on the attitude we have. I love being a zone leader because I have learned so much and there is still more things I need to learn. W is still planning on getting baptized on the 19th which is really exciting and then that will be pretty much all of our investigators so we are trying to help our members do better missionary work and get them more pumped up. We had a really good lesson with a family about how to gain a desire to do missionary work because none of them really had it. They are working on organizing a breakfast where they will invite a lot of non-members and we are going to have a lesson with them. Things are going well and I’m just happy to start of this year with a baptism. My goal by the end of my mission is to have 26 baptisms total. I’m a little over halfway there. That means I get to work really hard but it should be a little easier the farther along I get because I know more of what I need to do to help people progress and how to REALLY do missionary work. Well that’s about it for the week. I have more to tell you but it will have to wait till Monday. I love you tons!

 

Email Dec 10 2012

Well my new companion is.............. Elder C! He was my roommate last year when I was companions with Elder H. It was crazy that we got put together and we are going to get a lot accomplished. At church yesterday we got a list from bishop that has the names of people who are single and between the ages of 18-30 and there are 900 names!! Some of them are on missions and some of them really are married but still that is going to be one heck of a list to try and contact! Our goal is to double sacrament meeting attendance! It shouldn’t be extremely hard since we average about 40 people. So we need like 40 names out of 900. Not bad at all. Our zone is still really awesome. We got some new greenies who seem like they are going to be really good workers. Not really too much happened this last week. We were trying to get things ready for the upcoming weeks and we helped in a Nativity that our stake put on and we had a booth with missionary stuff, mormon.org playing, and a table with a big sheet of paper across it that said "what does Christmas mean to you?" and people could write on it. That had the most success of anything we had but it was really really fun to be there and our investigator C came and we sat with him and had a good time. So we also taught R again and invited him to be baptized he said he doesn’t feel 100% ready yet but he had his friends there with him and they bore their testimonies and it was really powerful.  I talked to his friend M on Sunday and he said that R said he does want to get baptized but he wants to really know it’s true when he does so that "When people ask why he got baptized he would know what to say." He is really solid and we are planning on having a really good lesson with him this week. We found out W is going to be staying here over the break! Her family all got sick so she’s not going down to see them yet which gives us more time to teach her.   Her Boyfriend actually took her to church the week she was with him out at a Marine Ball which I thought was a cool thing for him to do.  She is super super awesome and I can totally see her being an awesome member of the church. Not really too much else right now. Just holding down the fort here in S B. Glad to hear you had such a good time in Disney world! Love you tons!

Email Dec 3 2012

Good to know that all the college stuff is taken care of. Well first off I guess I will write about transfers... I’m staying! But sadly Elder H is leaving. It wasn’t really unexpected though because he has been in this ward for 9 months. I’m very anxious to find out who my companion is. Usually there is just a small variety of choices for zone leaders but for some reason every zone leader companionship is changing except for 1 that means that I have 7 people who could possibly be my companion. Some are exciting and others not so much. Kind of anxious because I don’t like getting new companions (I can’t wait to get married and have the last companion forever ;) haha )

 We had a pretty good week. I went on exchanges with Elder M on Tuesday and we taught 3 lessons and got 1 new investigator who is super super solid! I’ve talked a little about him and this was the first time we got to teach him. On Sunday our investigator’s grabbed me and said. "Elder He's ready. Talk about it with him on Tuesday." So we are going to have a baptism in this ward before the year is done! The only one so far! He has already been coming to church for about 9 weeks so church is no problem we just have to teach him now and baptize him! Also on Tuesday we taught W and she said she had been thinking a lot about baptism and wants to get baptized when she gets back from winter break. I was a little worried about that but for the last week of her winter break she will be at her boyfriend’s home with his family and they are all members so she will have a lot of support from that! Things are rolling forward and hopefully will go faster and faster!

 We also got to have a cool experience this morning and go help our ward clean the temple! They do such a thorough job at it! It was really funny because the temple is locked and so we rang the bell for a worker to let us in and the man who let us in was Brother Garcia from Chaffey ward! That is where we had Thanksgiving dinner last year! I also saw Brother Nielsen, our ward mission leader in Big Bear! It was super cool to see them all and we got some good pictures outside the temple.