Sept 26 2011 Email

Monday- it was Pday so I did all the normal things. Laundry, went to the store, wrote home, we got to go a member’s house and practice on their very out of tune piano and wrote letters and all. We ate dinner at a member’s house and they gave us steaks that were really awesome. After dinner we went to a recent convert’s house and taught her and her husband and three little girls about FHE. We had a little lesson and a game and they all loved it and we are going back again tonight! After that we went to see one of our investigators who was having surgery on her eye the next day and talked to her for a bit and told her about blessings and she said she wanted one. So we gave her one and she seemed to like it. She is an awesome investigator and we are getting really close to baptism with her.

Tuesday- We had a district meeting which went pretty good my district is pretty awesome. After that and lunch we went to see a recent convert who has really been struggling badly. He is getting back into bad habits from before he was baptized and he is to the point where he said he doesn’t even want to think about God or church or anything because he feels too guilty. He said being good is just too hard and he wants to take an easy path. We tried to tell him that eventually his easy path is going to end and it will be even harder than just staying on the good path. He is a good kid though and he always loves to see us and he comes over to talk to us. I just wish we could do more but it’s really all up to him at this point. We had another member dinner after that. And after dinner we went to another recent convert’s house and talked to him more about serving a mission and about the Holy Ghost and did a little studying out of Preach my Gospel. After that we had to head home early and get ready for exchanges!

Wednesday- we had exchanges and I went with the district leader to his area which is just above ours. It was a pretty great day even though we didn’t get a whole lot done. I learned a lot from him and since that I’ve been doing a lot better on my tracting. We tried to go see a lot of less actives but all of them were gone except one who Elder M said he hadn’t been able to get a hold of in the 5 months he’s been here. She was sitting on her front porch and she talked to us about how she’s not really doing too well. She has a problem with her legs and she can’t really walk and the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her and she is having some marriage problems. Elder M asked if there was anything we could do for her and she asked for a blessing. Elder M gave it and it was really good. She was tearing up pretty good afterwards and she said she loved that feeling. After visiting with her we left and had no success anywhere else so we went back to the apartment and a member brought dinner to the four of us staying there. It was just Burger King but it was still pretty good. We exchanged back after a little while and went to bed.

Thursday- went to the Bishop’s Storehouse and did service again and Thursday was pretty slow but it was okay still. We ended up tracting for most of the day because plans fell through but we ended up with 11 contacts and the daily goal is 10 so we did alright at that! But yeah really it was just kind of a disappointing day. We had a recent convert lessons which we ended up not really teaching a ton but answered a lot of questions that she had still. She is way awesome. She is the one who got baptized on the 10th. When we got home it was awesome because I had a package!!! It was the first one I’ve got in Cali! It was from Brian and had some goodies and a tie and a few other things. I’m actually wearing the tie right now! Yeah it was a good surprise.

Friday- Friday was probably more disappointing than Thursday haha. We knocked on probably 40 doors and only had about 5 contacts. It was pretty awful. We got to go do a little BofM study thing with a single mom and her two kids. The mom just went through the temple for the first time a week and a half ago and it went pretty well. She’s a really funny lady. When dinner time finally rolled around we went to this Asian couple’s house and they gave us salmon which tasted pretty good. And the husband kept telling us over and over about how the doctors he works with have an obsession with this nurses shoes and he talked about shoes the ENTIRE dinner. It was really funny but kind of odd. After dinner we had an appointment with that single dad who was "Golden" and he wasn’t home. It was extra disappointing because we had a member there to teach with us. So we went to plan B and went to see the Jacobs family who is a really cool family. Almost all the kids are baptized but they don’t go to church and the only reason the mom doesn’t go is because they don’t have a car so we have been trying to set up rides for her but she always has an excuse. We went there and it turns out that her husband who we haven’t met yet and the member we were with are good friends so they talked for most of the time and then we just talked a little about scripture reading and how much it does for us. It went pretty well.

Saturday- Saturday was quite the adventure. We went to pep boys to get our brakes replaced and we were there for 2 1/2 hours but before they can do repairs they have to get a hold of our vehicle coordinator and it was her Pday. so they know what’s wrong now but they couldn’t fix it yet so they put it back together and we get to go in this week and wait for another 2 1/2 hours. yayy... after we finally left though we went to the house of the two people I talked about that are planning on getting married and can’t get baptized until they do get married. We taught a good lesson about Joseph Smith and the boyfriend said that he really does want to get baptized so we set the date for both of them to get baptized on October 22nd. Now if that sticks that’d be awesome but I’m not sure if it will. We then went to pick up dinner because the person signed up to do it called and canceled. After dinner we went to see a referral we got but hadn’t been able to get a hold of and they were home! But she said it was a bad time so we just talked for a little bit she was really nice and we asked if there was any kind of service we could do and she said she will need help taking things to the DI sometime soon and would love it if we could help! So yeah it was pretty good!

Sunday- Sundays are really fun days to tract I found out. Everyone is in a spiritual mood and pretty happy it was fun and we got to talk to quite a few people. One lady waved us over to her and when we got there she told us about how her granddaughter stole her wallet with all the money in it and drivers license and asked if we could keep her in her prayers. We agreed and talked for a couple minutes and then she confessed and said "I thought you were the police who were supposed to be coming over here and after I waved you over my husband said no that’s the Mormons. But I said oh well they can help to pray for me" haha it was really funny. We were pretty tired though because it was fast Sunday so we decided to go visit the senior villas and we went to see some members who haven’t been capable of making it to church for a while. We just got to talk with them and we could tell they loved the company. One of the ladies said she hardly ever gets visitors even though her kids live pretty close. She isn’t even that old just can’t walk and is in kinda bad shape. She talked to us for a good hour and half about her life and all and it was nice just to see that she was glad we were there. After that we finally got to go eat dinner at a member’s house. It was a really good dinner and the members were pretty nice and somewhat talkative. After dinner we went and followed up on our second counselor’s family to see if they gave out the pass-along card we gave them. It turns out that their 4 year old and 7 year old have been showing it to their friends! haha what awesome kids right? We gave them another one because the 7 year old wanted to give it to a friend. We ended up with brownies and had a good little scripture thought. After we left we went to contact some less actives but didn’t get a hold of anybody so we came home.

All in all it was a pretty good week and went by pretty fast. This next week I’m hoping is pretty good too. Thanks for all you do and your support! I love you all tons!

Sept 19th Email

Well this week went alright. Last Monday night we went out to dinner with the first counselor and his family and it was really good. They are a funny family! They have a 17 year old son and a 19 or 20 year old daughter. Their son M and I had a lot of the same interests so we talked for a little while while Elder T talked to Brother B. After dinner we were on our way to see a recent convert that was kind of going downhill but we got a call from Sister J (whose home we live in) and she asked if we could go to the Loma Linda hospital and give a blessing to an older lady that had recently been sent there. We turned around and went over to Loma Linda which is actually not part of our mission but part of the Redlands mission. It was a really good experience. I didn’t give the blessing but Elder T said I have to give the next one. After that it was time to head back to the house so we went and planned for the next day.

Tuesday was kinda extremely boring. We had new missionary orientation from 9-4 and it was terribbleee. It was pretty much everything I’d already learned on my own while being out here. Anyways after that we went back to our area and decided to go see the recent convert that’s been struggling since we hadn’t been able to the day before. We got there and he wasn’t home but most of the rest of his family was. We talked to his mom who is less active for about an hour and a half and tried to show her the importance of going to church and she said she didn’t want to make her son think she was just going to try to make him go. We told her that that shouldn’t stop her from getting the blessings of going to church and that if she just told him that it’s his choice if he wants to go but that she is going with or without him that it wouldn’t be a problem. She said she did want to go to church so she said she would go on Sunday... she didn’t, but her son came! It was really good. We hadn’t really had a chance to meet him yet and it was a little nerve racking because I guess with the other missionaries he hasn’t been too friendly or nice to them but he was way nice to me and every time he saw me he would come over and shake my hand and say hi so I guess either the other elders were crazy or what. After our visit with his mom we went to dinner at a member’s house (the members here are awesome about feeding us. We have had 2 days that no one fed us dinner and the calendar for the rest of the month and most of October is full.) They were a really cute family. They had a four year old girl and an 18 month old girl and they were just way cute! They were both showing off for us and just being really funny. The dad was extremely quiet and the mom was really chatty and nice. We had a good conversation and left with a scripture thought about being an example to those who aren’t our religion. We left and decided to try to contact a kid who we tried every day for the first week to get a hold of and we finally caught him at home. He is a recent convert and is super awesome. Apparently he had been out of town at his dads and had been going to the ward over there. We talked to him about possibly serving a mission and he said its definitely been on his mind but he is trying to decide between that and going into the military. We just told him all the greatness that comes from serving a mission and that he should pray about it. That’s all we really had time for that day.

Wednesday we got to go serve at the Bishop storehouse. I’m not sure if I told you that we did that last week? But yeah they have the big warehouse here so we went and did service there. It was mostly getting food into orders that people wanted so that they could ship it out to them. We do that every Wednesday from about 9 - 1 and the next two weeks we will be going Wednesday and Thursdays because the people in charge are going to be gone. After bishop storehouse we had an appointment with 9 year old S who is getting ready to be baptized. We just talked about different commandments. Her mom is a less active member and the rest of the family is non members. Now today was definitely interesting after this point. We decided to go OYMing (open your mouth) at a bus stop. We talked to a few people and one lady seemed extremely interested. We started out by giving her a pass along card and then she kept being interested so we gave her a restoration pamphlet and she KEPT being interested and we ended up actually giving her a Book of Mormon! She was really appreciative and said she would start reading it with her husband and if she had any questions she would call us. We haven’t gotten a call yet... but we keep hoping that she will sometime. Her bus came and she got on and left and these two black guys got off the bus and came over and one of them was like "PRAISE JESUS! How ya doin’ brothers? Did ya’ll know that there’s more than one Jesus?" We looked at each other and I said "nope that’s news to me." So he whips out this tiny bible and shows some scripture that if you twisted it ALOT it might make sense. But really it was pretty ridiculous. We talked to these guys for 45 minutes and every time they thought something about our church was wrong we found somewhere in the scriptures that showed we weren’t wrong but they weren’t listening much they basically just said "all you have to do is rely on the Bible and on Jesus. No other books or prophets or nothin." We had to leave though so we thanked him for the talk and told him had to go and he was pretty chill about it. Oh also the two guys were high as can be. hahaha It was really funny. We then went back to the house where a member brought us some food. We ate it and just relaxed for a while then decided to go to a less active family. They were home and listened to our message about why church is important and said they had been thinking about going to church this week. (Which they didn’t) They just have struggles. Their son died a few years ago and the father had a stroke sometime in the past and is partly paralyzed including speech so all he can say is yes, no and sheesh. It went pretty well but like I said they ended up not coming to church. After we decided to go to a bus stop again and this is where the night gets pretty interesting. We park and walk through the parking lot when we see this guy taking a picture of this lady at her old beat up van so as we pass we look in to see what he’s taking a picture of and what do you know. There’s a donkey in the back of the van! We talked to the lady for about 10 minutes and found out for the last 11 years she has been "saving donkeys" or "beasts of burden as the scriptures call them" and how she has saved 15 in the last 11 years. From where I’m not so sure.... I don’t tend to see donkeys just wandering down the streets anywhere. But anyways of course being missionaries we start talking about Jesus and she says "yeah me and Jesus are on a good note with each other. I’ve only done one thing bad in my life anyways." and I’m thinking wow! Only one thing!? She’s doing awesome! Way better than me at least! And she says after a pause. "Yeah I killed a guy." unexpected? Yes very much so. She continued. "Yeah like 6 weeks ago... I think he was trying to rob me and so I hit him and he fell and his head went sllleeechhtt" so yeah... if you see an old van with a donkey in the back and a crazy looking lady driving watch out she’s a killer! hahah It was quite the unexpected story!

 Thursday was pretty boring especially after the day before. The only thing really awesome that happened was that while we were tracting we knocked on a door and a lady answered, looked at us, and said "shoot you found me." She let us in and we found out she used to be a member but since she moved into her house ten years ago she hasn’t been to church at all. She struggles with smoking so she feels guilty and all when she does go to church but we had a really good visit with her. She gave us cake and water and we asked if she had anybody that she knew that might be interested in what we have to teach and she said that her friend might! We are now going to go back to her house this Friday to teach her friend and she said if we can get her friend to go to church she will 100% for sure go back with her friend! So hopefully all goes well. I know we didn’t end up there by accident. That’s really all that happened on Thursday worth mentioning.

Friday we got to teach a guy we tracted into a couple weeks earlier. He is a single dad with two kids. An 11 year old boy and an 8 year old girl and they mean the world to him. You can tell how much he loves his kids when you’re around them. We taught him about how the gospel blesses families and gave personal experiences about the blessings we have gotten from the gospel. He said he is really looking around for a church that can teach his kids how to grow up and be good people and he loves how the Mormons are all so nice and like a big family. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray to know if the BofM is true and if what we taught is true... Next time we teach him we asked if it would be alright if the kids joined us so they could learn to and he was all for the idea! He seems golden and I hope that we can help him to understand why it’s so important to be a member of the church and come closer to Christ.

Saturday morning we had an appointment at 9 with a couple that the girlfriend has already said she wants to be baptized but the boyfriend wasn’t sure. He doubted his faith. But we went and had a good lesson on faith and he said he has had a lot of trials in the last week and he has seen that his faith has grown. I asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said YES! He just said he wants to pray about it first to know if it really is the right thing to do. the only problem is that they aren’t really financially stable and they need to get married before they can get baptized for some reason but they can’t get the $75 they need to get married so once that gets worked out everything should fall into place. The rest of Saturday was really pretty disappointing and I was a little bit down but I made it through the rest of the day.


Well now it’s Pday and hopefully it goes pretty good. We are going to go to a member’s house in the ward later to practice piano and write our letters. Well I love you all lots! Also I’m not sure if you heard about the story with Travis but it’s really cool! If you haven’t heard ask grandma! And only Devon lives in my mission.. Everyone else is in the Redlands mission. And about BYU getting beat.. yeah we were at the house and the J’s were watching it  so we could hear what was going on... it was brutal.

Sept 12 2011

So this is going to be my big email this week. Well this week has been good a little and bad a little. Tuesday and Wednesday pretty much every single appointment we had fell through and it was really frustrating so we tracted a little but really came up empty handed. There are loads of Catholics here! Almost every door we knock on is a catholic family.

But yeah Thursday and Friday were a lot better! Thursday we still had a few appointments fall through which was disappointing but that night we went to see a recent convert family and the dad was having a really tough time with this concept. Why is it that the guy on one side of town has the dream house, the nice car, the good job, and good life when he has no faith and doesn’t want anything to do with God? Then there’s a guy on the other side of town with lots of faith and he struggles to pay the bills, his crappy car keeps breaking down, and he lives in a small apartment. So we really tried to help him see that he will be blessed and things won’t happen right away but as long as you keep the commandments and continue to have great faith and put your trust in the Lord that his bills will continue to get paid and things will get better. He really stopped and thought and then said. "You know I guess you’re right and it’s always good to come home and when I get home and see my little girls and my wife I feel like the richest man." It was pretty cute and I hope that we were able to help him. Friday was also pretty good. We met with an investigator and he is basically ready for baptism but he won’t keep his commitments to come to church. We found out Friday that he is probably moving up to Barstow for a better life because there is a lot of stuff going on in his life that he doesn’t really want to be around.

That night for dinner we went to a member’s house and a few of the family ate with us but as soon as they were done they all left except the mom and she was really neat. She told us her conversion story and we had a good little scripture study with her. After that we just went over to T's house (the girl getting ready for baptism) and filled out the baptism form and made sure she didn’t have any last minute questions. She didn’t so then we just came home. Saturday was her baptism and it was really neat. It was an amazing baptism and after she was baptized she bore her testimony and it was good... like really good. The Spirit was way strong and I know she will remember that day the rest of her life. Then after the baptism we had an appointment with the 10 year old girl we have been teaching and we found out that she and her grandma finally got permission from her parents for her to get baptized so we set a date for October 30th along with the 9 year old girl we have been teaching. It’s going to be really cool! We then had a ward party which was great! It was the perfect weather outside. For a couple of days now it’s starting to warm up again but hopefully not too hot.

Oh and I hit my one month mark on Saturday! haha yayyy! Hah. So the last thing I have to talk about is about last night. We went to dinner with an older couple and after we ate and shared a scripture thought with them Brother W asked if we would go with him to his home teaching. (he home teaches a less active member) so we agreed and we had a good visit about conference and Brother W asked him if we could do anything for him.  He said no so we just talked a little more and he stopped and said "actually there is one thing you can do for me.. will you give me a blessing?" So I got to participate in the first blessing on my mission! It was a very powerful blessing and the man said he really does want to become more active again he just doesn’t know how to do it with his non-member wife and girls but I know the Lord will help him and he will find a way. It was a great experience. Well today we are just cleaning and going bowling with the zone in a couple of hours. I love you all super much thanks for the support!

Sept 6 2011

My local address is:  (until at least Nov 22)

(Due to security issues, if you would like Kevin's local address please contact me by email at p_g_523@hotmail.com)

Well this week has been going pretty great! It’s still really hot here though and semi humid. We have a baptism on Saturday but we didn’t do anything in getting her to where she is so it’s exciting but not as exciting as it would be if we had taught her the lessons. She’s in her 20's and she is married to a less-active guy but hopefully after she gets baptized they will both be going to church. There are about 5 other people who are getting really close to baptism and either just need to set a date or go to church a couple more times.  Its really good though. We have 4 appointments tonight and 2 of them are first lessons so it’s pretty exciting.

I have Hailey’s hello pony picture hanging up in my room along with a lot of other pictures. I’ll take a picture of our set up and send it. So we are living at a member’s house and they are really nice people and help with whatever they can. We have our own bedroom and bathroom (which has a little ant problem) and when we first got there it was disgusting! There was thick dust over almost everything and the bathroom didn’t look like it had been cleaned for a couple months! We did a big clean up on Pday yesterday though. I’ll give you the address to the house but there’s a good chance I’ll be leaving it on November 22nd because that’s the next transfer that I could get moved.

We went to church on Sunday and met the ward and it looks like it’s going to be a great ward. The calendar for dinners for the next month is completely full which is awesome! There’s not really a whole lot of spiritual experiences from this last week because we got white washed in so we are trying to meet everyone and figure out where they are in the lessons.

Okay I’m just going to answer some questions really quick because I didn’t answer them in the big one to mom. I’m in the Realto area.  My comp is from Harriman Utah up by Salt Lake and is a good missionary and has been teaching me lots! He has been out for 13 months. We cover Colton and Grand Terrace and it’s a really nice area for the most part but there’s a semi trashy area, but we have only been there a couple of times. If you look for it on a map my area borders the Riverside mission. Yes I’m getting lots more sleep now that I’m not in the MTC. The bike has yet to be tried out. We have a car and probably will for a lot of the mission. There are only a couple of areas that are biking. I’m sure I’ll be in one sometime or other.

Haha Michelle what have I told you about letting FAT girls roll on you? (Mom’s note: This has to do with an incidence in last week’s soccer game!!)  Don’t let it happen. Ever. Or your neck gets messed up. Way to learn that the hard way instead of just listening to your brother.

There was this one lady whose house we knocked at and she was a tiinnny Asian old lady and we knocked and she opened the door, squinted up at us, and with the flick of her wrist shut the door without moving anything else. It was the funniest sight we had seen all week!

Give all my friends at school hugs and tell them to write me or else they will probably fall to their doom off a random cliff.

He makes it to Cali!!

On Tuesday, August 30, Kevin flew to the Ontario, CA airport.  This picture is him with his mission president and wife, the Godwins.  We have heard that they are WONDERFUL mission presidents and we are so excited for Kevin's opportunity to serve with them!