Elder Field Turns 20!! And Freaking Christmas Calls!!

Hey friends!!! 

This week was loooooong just because this week was busy and I feel like I didn’t stop moving.

So as you may know this week was my birthday! I turned 20! Freaking weird right?? Elder Field no longer has the word teen in his name! Woot Woot hahaha. I had a wonderful birthday! The district threw me a little surprise party that I totally caught on to when someone said they wanted to go eat in a particular room of the church hahaha. They threw me a little surprise lunch and bought me a bunch of little gag gifts from ghetto dollar store hahaha I loved them all!!! My district is so awesome. We are like a little family out here hahah it's awesome. A really big and dysfunctional family!.......pretty much like my family back home ;) I'm kidding!!! I’m kidding!!! I love my family!!! 

Speaking of which I totally got to call home this week!!! Best Christmas present ever!! I got to see all my family and my aunt Annie and Grandma!!! I even got a see my lovely friend Dani who is on a mission!! Woot!! Shout out to her for just being plain awesome! It was an awesome time. I can't believe how big my siblings have gotten. I have only been out for 6 and a half months and Parker is way taller than my mom, and his voice is so freaking deep Carson is getting tall, Alivia is getting tall hahaha and my little sister Danika...... well she is about the same height ;) Love ya Danika. But she has a boyfriend..... don’t even get me started on that.

Anyway Christmas was awesome this year. We had a member who showed us a movie called "The Nativity" (yes we got permission from our mission president hahaha) which was really good. And had a wonderful dinner with the Johnsons where we played some games and ate really freaking good street tacos..... Oh man it was so good hahaha!!! They even gave us and the sister a present hahah. They gave us each a nerf gun hahaha!!! We are planning on having a war today :) I'm pumped hahaha but this Christmas was a special one. I mean away from the family, didn't have any super big parties to go to. And I was kind of down in the dumps. So I really had to focus on the Savior this year. It was really nice :) he really gave me the strength to keep going through this Christmas season :) the spirit of Christ is strong this time of year. I love it :) so good!! 

We had a missionary Christmas party which was awesome. Me and Hermana Foster sang in it though hahaha. We sang Who Would Send a Baby. I have video of it, but it's too big to send over email. But the song went really well :) Hermana Foster carried the song though haha.  But anyway the party was a lot of fun. We got to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas hahah that was awesome!! I forgot how much I love that movie. But yeah it was just so lot of fun

Unfortunately, with this week being Christmas and what not it was hard to go see people/investigators we tried our hardest to go see people, find people and just really didn't have much success :( but we worked as hard as we could for the Christmas season. We did however get 2 referrals from a member!!! So we are going to go contact those on Tuesday :) I got a good feeling about them!

Thank you all again for your birthday wishes and Merry Christmases!! Have an awesome week!! I love you all!!!! Merry CHRISTmas!!! 

-Elder Riley Field

Pictures!

 Happy Birthday to me!

Hermana Foster Hermana soba, Elder Meyers and I :)

Another gross photo of me ;)

Elder Field Wishes You All A Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas guys!! I can't believe it’s almost Christmas already!! Holy cow! This month just flew by, but at the same time it felt like forever hahah weeeiiirrrddd. Got to love that good missionary life, am I right?

Anyway! This week was quite eventful actually. As yall may know I am training this transfer! The name of my new companion is Elder Siebach! He is from Dover, Delaware! And let me tell you I have a feeling this is going to be an awesome transfer!! He is Hecka cool! We get along really well!!! It was a well needed change from last transfer :D Elder Siebach is 18 years old, he came straight out of high school, and he is the 10th of 12 children...... yeah freaking 11 siblings..... I thought 4 was a lot hahaha!!! He actually did choir as well!! So of course once sister Wright found out (Mission president’s wife) she assigned us a song in the Christmas party we are having this Saturday. I’m also singing a duet with Hermana Foster. Not sure what song we will be singing but who knows!! Hopefully I can learn it by the end of the next couple of days hahah.

This week started off normally I guess. Just went around on Monday saying goodbye to people elder Magee wanted to go say goodbye to. Nothing that fancy. That night I didn’t sleep too well hahah...... because the next day is when I would be officially District Leader and I will be getting my greenie. I was quite stressed and kinda freaking out hahaha.

The next day was quite a long and busy one. First we went up to Santa Rosa and I dropped off Elder Magee with his new companion. He took off pretty quickly. I got to see Elder Taylor my last companion while there. That was fun hahah. Same with Elder Knowlton! My MTC comp. We talked for a bit. Freaked out with each other because we hit out 6-month mark haha. It was nice seeing everyone from the MTC district. hahah. I also got to see Elder Brooks. I don’t know if I talked about him much but I served with him in Vallejo and we got along really well. Hahah we sat and talked for a little bit which was nice. After all the festivities that tend to come with transfers, I went to a meeting. We had a short little meeting then I was to go with 2 other elders and work in Santa Rosa for about 3 hours, after that was done we would go and get trained on how to be a good trainer..... boy talk about the longest meeting on the planet, but it was really helpful :D After about a 2 hour meeting we got to meet our new companions. They brought all the Greenies into the room where all the trainers were and to be honest as soon as I saw Elder Siebach I knew he was my new companion hahah. We took photos, we talked and got to know each other, then we had dinner with President and his wife which was nice. Then we drove down from Santa Rosa to San Rafael, about an hour drive. My poor greenie was out cold for the entire ride haha. I took him to the church and introduced him to all the other members of the district and then we took him home to sleep haha.

Wednesday was chill, but extremely busy at the same time. Nothing too exciting happened. I took Elder Siebach to get some groceries, filled him in on the area, and then we went to food bank :D it was fun :D Had a lesson with Celeste that night. We had to push her baptism back. She hasn’t come to church yet..... so we pushed the baptism back to January 14th. I’m extremely sad but also happy about it. Hopefully everything goes well in the future. She didn’t come to church this week either.... so we will be going over and having a talk with her hahaha.

Thursday, we had some cool experiences. We started off the day with some more training. We got all of his technology stuff taken care of. (set up his area email, area book, just general items about technology) then we had lunch with a member and her nonmember friend. The lesson...... went..... okay...... I guess hahaha, the spirit was there so I guess it went well. It was a really scatter brained lesson. She asked a lot of questions and expressed a lot of concerns she had about the church. After all the question answering, we asked her if she had read the Book of Mormon, she said yes. Something told me I should pry a little deeper.  I asked where she left off in the book and she said somewhere towards the beginning because it was so unbelievable. Again the same feeling came.  I asked her what story was happening just to see if I could clear up and confusion she had with a story, maybe that was her problem. She said she couldn’t remember the story. This time I got a different feeling. It was a feeling confirming to me that she had not read the Book of Mormon. Got to love that good spirit of discernment am I right? :D Of course she wasn’t understanding any of it. She hadn’t read the thing we base all of our beliefs off of hahaha! So we pretty much ended the lesson right there and challenged her to read the book cover to cover. And she said she would. So hopefully that goes somewhere haha. Later that night we went to go see a man by the name of Richard we met at the food bank a couple of weeks ago. Knocked on his door and he was extremely drunk hahahah. So after having a very strange conversation with him, we set a return appointment earlier in the afternoon haha hopefully he won’t be drunk this time. While we were leaving there was a lady and her kids who were moving into an apartment. So we stopped and helped her move stuff in. She thanked us we gave her our card and walked away. When we got in the car Elder Siebach looked at me and said, "We need to go back and talk to her again." I shrugged and said, "Alright whatever the spirit of God wants right?" We started to walk up and she was in her car going to drive away. Elder Siebach looked so defeated but I wasn't going to let my greenie be too defeated, so I sprinted up to the car and knocked on the window (I know this seems a little drastic but the spirit gave my companion a prompting, it had a be for something) she rolled the window down and we asked if we could visit with her sometime and she said in 10 mins we could! So we went and sat in a car for the 10 mins preparing a lesson. We had a wonderful lesson with them about the Book of Mormon. Her name was Keisha and she has 4 kids who had a lot of questions about religion. We gave them books and asked if we could come back they said we could :) So cool! Elder Siebach was pretty pumped.

Friday was just weekly planning and I had a meeting in Santa Rosa about how I be a good district leader haha. Woot.

Saturday we had zone meeting pretty much all day. We filmed our Mormon message. For the Christmas party we as a zone were asked to film asked Mormon message, we made ours funny, we did ours like the children bible videos haha, we all pretended to a 4 and explain different Christmas traditions, so fun.

Sunday was busy!! Had an awesome time at church, I had a teach Elder Quorum which was fun. I was informed the night before haha swag. We had another meeting in Petaluma. Sooooooooo many meetings hahaha..

Anyway! This week was good! I'm excited for this transfer and am looking forward for the new adventures as DLT :) Anyway I love you all and miss you! MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Remember what Christmas is really about. 

I love you all!!

Elder Riley Field 

Pictures-

Paper boats that we made and the aftermath (it's been raining so freaking hard here hahaha)

 A picture I drew haha

 And Elder Siebach!! What a stud! Ignore my nasty hair cut!  hahaha

Elder Field And The Start Of A New Transfer

Hey guys! So this week was transfer doc week! which means Elder Field now knows what will be happening for the next six weeks! So! I’m staying San Rafael. No surprise there I was fairly certain of that. But here is the kicker....... I will now be District Leader...... That’s not all...... I’m also going to be training a new missionary, straight out of the MTC..... That is the part I’m terrified of...... hahaha holy crap guys!! I’m freaking out!! TRAIN?!?!? AND DL?!?!?!?!? I hit my 6-month mark and I guess they decided I needed some responsibility in my mission life..... gosh.... this next transfer is going to be an adventure and I’m looking forward to it. This also means that my companion Elder Magee will no longer be in San Rafael. He will be transferred to Vacaville...... *cough* yay *cough*....... I’m kidding ;) we actually started to get along better towards the end of the transfer.... he is on to bigger and better things. and I’m happy for him.

Anyway this week was a long week only because of the transfer docs... we were so stressed out for them it was ridiculous. But it was a busy week none the less :D

Monday was a pretty chill day. We went down to Sausalito! Love that place haha. Its super touristy but they have some cool stuff. We went shopping for family gifts and things like that :D it was just a super chill day. After the p-day festivities, we had a lesson with Celeste (an investigator with a baptismal date.... kinda, I will explain later) We went in and had a great lesson with her. We went over the baptismal interview questions with her to get her ready to ACTUALLY be interviewed. It was a very spirit driven lesson which was nice :D We then set up 3 lessons a week with her. All the way until her baptismal date. Just so we can really get her ready to be baptized.

Tuesday, was a busy day. We had an AWESOME zone meeting. The lessons and discussions were awesome and I learned a lot about how to better my mission experience and also about faith. The faith section was really cool. I have a lot to work on haha. But since when have I not had a lot to work on haha. After zone meeting we had a good zone lunch and played some games. After which me and my companion basically went tracting for 2 hours hahahah......... man oh man..... we actually got 2 return appointments with people so that’s awesome!! Tracting does work sometimes!! haha :D Later that evening we have been planning a Book of Mormon Jeopardy for our Book of Mormon class that has been falling apart.... the numbers are dwindling.... SO we are revamping it and to start it off we planned a Book of Mormon Jeopardy that was actually really fun!! we only had 4 members show up but they had a lot of fun and totally talked up the BoM class to other members. We are hoping for a bigger turn out this week!! We are pumped!

Wednesday we tracted for the first hour and a half of the day, got some peoples contact info, and another return appointment for later that week Yay! After trafcting we had lunch then it was off to food bank! Ahhhh good ol' food bank. Now Erik (one of the guys who works there, I have talked about him before) walked up to us and said he wanted to hang out with us on Saturday. Now Saturday was the ward Christmas party so we invited him out to that he said he wouldn’t be able to do anything in the evening so he asked what about noonish. Well we were doing a service at the golden gate bridge that time. We told him about it not thinking anything of it. But he said he wanted to come hahaha!!! So we told him sure!! He is such a cool guy!!! After food bank we were supposed to have a lesson with Celeste.... but she cancelled........... LAMEE....... so instead we went and did some less active finding and had a nice lesson with a less active coupled named the Bogels. They are super nice :D We shared the Light the world video and they loved it!! 

Thursday was Elder Magee's Birthday! So after careful planning I secretly put together a surprise birthday party for him. I got all the missionaries involved, and a couple of members came as well! So in the morning I made sure studies went a little longer than usual so that the other missionaries could go set up. So I stalled studies.... which didn’t make elder Magee to happy actually...... he was getting pretty angry....... I was just praying he would forgive me after I got him to the church hahaha. So after all was said and done I got the confirmation text from the sisters and we were off to the church so that I could "pick up my coat I left at the church" we went and I told him to check the relief society room. As soon as he opened the door everyone jumped out. It was such a good time. He really enjoyed it and thanked and forgave me for stalling hahaha. So we had a small party, played some games, ate some cake, made him open his gifts, and then we were off to go visit some people haha After a lot of no's and door slams it was time for dinner. We went to dinner at Tarun's house! (The Recent convert who is Indian) We went over with the district hahaha His wife invited all the missionaries to come over for dinner. IT WAS SOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!! There was so much food but it was all just so tasty! They found out it was elder Magee’s birthday and brought him a cake and gave him gifts too! That was awesome. It was an overall good day. I really hope elder Magee had a good day too. :D

Friday was weekly planning day! We started off the day with our missionary council, ward list, meeting, thing..... I still don’t have a name for it yet hahah. After which we as a district baked cookies and went and caroled at an old folk’s home :D The prompt for Light the world was Jesus visited the lonely and so can you. So we were fulfilling the prompt. :D so we went and did some service then planned the rest of the day. After planning though we had another lesson with Celeste. SUCH A GOOD LESSON. The spirit was there!! She understood it! She asked questions!!! She just has that desire to be baptized! We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she just ate it up. We invited her to come to the ward Christmas party which was on Saturday and to attend church this Sunday. (Now her attending church this Sunday was a must SHE NEEDED to come to church so she could be baptized the following week!)

Saturday was a long and stressful day we went to the Golden gate bridge to do service in the morning.... IT WAS RAINING SOOOO HARD.... hahahah we got there and the heavens opened up and it just dumped. They called us right as we drove up and asked us if we were still coming. We told them we were here and they said if you guys still want to come serve we have rain gear for you to wear. We told them sure! Why not! The district all put on the rain gear and did some service in the rain hahah! It was so much fun!! Even though the rain gear really didn’t help we still had a ton of fun!! Erik even came and served in the rain!!! I’m still trying to figure out a way to start teaching him man. I think I’m just going to ask him straight up if he wants to learn more. it sucks he doesn’t live in our area though..... I need to get into contact with the missionaries over where he lives..... ANYWAY after the service we went to In and Out Burger because Hermana Soba (who is from Uruguay) had never been. After lunch we helped out some more members and went less active finding..... no success unfortunately but we aren’t going to give up hahah. The Christmas party was at 5 :D it was so much fun. The food was awesome. The primary program nativity thing was just adorable. hahaha  One of the kids who wasn’t quite old enough to be in primary ran up while they were singing the last song. The microphone was on the ground so he ran up and picked it up and just started playing with it. OF course the parents ran over and told him to put it down. So he did just that. He dropped the mic onto the stage and ran off. THE BEST PART THOUGH. The last song had just ended and that’s when he dropped the mic. Haha it was so funny. Our nativity scene ended with a mic drop hahaha ;) so funny. We got transfer docs right after the Christmas party...... yikes.... still scared hahaha..

Sunday wasn’t too eventful. Just Church and the rest of the day was going around to members and letting Magee say good bye aha.

Anyway! that’s my week!! I hope you all had a wonderful week as well!! Know that I love you and I miss you all....... Please pray for my greenie.... he is going to needed it hahahaha

Until next week!

-Elder Riley Field

Birthday boy

 Service in the rain

Light the world, Chalk the block ;)

Feed The Hungry

*Taken from Elder Matthew Pederson's Facebook post:

Meet Daisy Herrera. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The others in this photo are Elder Collin Magee, Elder Riley Field, and Elder Ian Myers with me behind the camera.
Us missionaries have a name tag saying that we're disciples of Christ, but did you know that Daisy is one too?
Each week, all the full-time missionaries from the San Rafael area come to the Marin County Food Bank to feed the hungry. Today is "Jesus Fed the Hungry and So Can You" for #25Days25Ways.
We can literally feed the hungry by serving at food banks, but we can also feed others through our faith in Christ, much like Daisy!

We would love to see you there as well as hear your favorite scripture in the comments!

#MembersofSanRaf #Lighttheworld

Elder Field Is Dreaming of a White Christmas, Emphasis on "Dreaming"

Friends, Family, Countrymen, lend me your emails, and let me spin a tale about this week and the craziness there of.

Hey guys! So this week was a week of service :D Holy cow we did a lot of service...... or what we thought was a lot of service. We did a total of 12.5 hours of service. Now that does sound like a lot of service but back in Vallejo we did 15+ hours of service haha. It was awesome! But here in San Rafael it’s hard to find some good service opportunities. But we did some good stuff none the less :D

Last P-Day we went to Kirby Cove which is a beach right next to the golden gate bridge which was pretty stinking awesome :D I have some pictures of that. After all the p-day festivities and just hanging out with the district we had an awesome lesson/dinner with a recent convert and his non-member family :D IT WAS SO GOOD. 1. It was such a fancy dinner that I felt too poor to even look at the meal, or even be in their house for that matter. 2. It was so awkward at first because they were all so hesitant on how we would like interact with them hahah. Finally, after we started eating and the conversation got going, it was interesting to watch them all relax. 3. Broccoli was one of the sides...... I had to take it...... Now for those who know me you know I do NOT like Broccoli. And it’s not because I haven’t had it before. Just for some reason I have never liked it. Not in soup, not raw, no steamed, not cooked into things, I just don’t like it hahaha. So here I was sitting staring at this small heap of broccoli on my plate, either I leave it on the plate and possibly offend this non-member family we could potentially teach or just suck it up and eat it. So after a lot of internal prayer, I ate it. IT’S A FREAKING CHRISTMAS MIRACLE GUYS BECAUSE GUESS WHAT??????? ELDER FIELD LIKE BROCCOLI NOW?!?!?! I don’t know what happened but as soon as I tasted it apparently I really liked it. My companion was looking at me like I was an alien hahah he knows I don’t like it but I ate 2 helpings of it hahaha. I have noticed me liking different foods on the mission haha. Asparagus for example. Holy cow I freaking love that stuff hahaha. Anyway that’s enough of that hahaha The dinner was awesome and we were able to leave them with the message of #LightTheWorld and they really liked it :D and invited us over again sometime in the near future :D

Tuesday was cool :D, we went and had an awesome district meeting after which we went and Chalked 4th street for #LightTheWorld. We had people who were passing by write in chalk what they would do to serve someone this Christmas season. This one lady wrote something extremely profound.  I’m going to send a picture of it because it’s really good hahah. It was awesome. We had 1 guy harass us but that’s normal haha. We talked to a lot of people and were able to get a bunch of people to actually stop and chalk something :D pretty cool hahah :D

Wednesday was a pretty normal day. Got to go to good ol' Food bank and stuffs which is always a delight. We unfortunately weren’t able to teach anyone that day..... all of our appointments fell through...... It’s starting to happen again hahaha appointments are dropping like flies haha. But there is always that good tracting we can do. Speaking of tracting, we have approximately 11 hours of it planned for next week. Spread out through the week of course but it’s still a llllooooottt of tracting haha. Hopefully we can find some lessons to replace some of it ;)

Thursday was the *Announcer voice* THE WOOORRRLD WIIIDDDEE DAY OF SERVICE SERVice SErvice Service servi... ser.... That was an echo if you couldn’t tell ;) So the companion and I went and helped out a member in the morning which was fun. Then the district we all went to another day of food bank in the neighboring city. The same people run it so when we showed up they were ecstatic haha. I love the food bank people so nice. There is this one we are super tight with. His name is Eric. I think I have mentioned him before. We bonded over the fact we both liked the Wombats (a band) We have a very similar taste in music. But the more and more I talk with him I just get a good vibe. He needs to be taught ya know? hahah We have had awesome talks about religion in the past I just don’t know how to present the idea of setting up a time and teaching him more about our church. I think I just need to man up and ask him straight up. I might have to do it after transfers because this is a topic of contention between me and the companion unfortunately. He is worried we might screw up our relationship with Eric if we bring it up and teach him. He wants to just have it casually come up instead of just asking him. Idk. I’m open to ideas. Maybe this will work? I’m down to try anything. All I care about is that he gets to hear the good news of the gospel. :D I think he would really like it. After food bank we didn’t have a dinner that night so I lit a candle and had a nice box of mac 'n' cheese hahaha :D After dinner they ward needed help with stuffing letters for the Ward Christmas Letter. I was so down to help because this will actually help us with our ward list efforts me and Magee and the sisters are trying to do. We are sending out these letters to gauge who still actually lives in the area. We requested return service if they don’t live there. So hopefully we get some good information :D 

Friday was an...... eventful day...... It was just like any other normal Friday. We did our weekly planning, we worked on the ward list some more. Then we had a dinner. One family wanted to feed the ENTIRE district. Now mind you that’s 10 missionaries. So we all went. 

We are about to enter a Mom heart attack area of the email. Don’t worry mother I’m okay. Don’t worry. Just read on. This is just a fair warning. 

We all got there and we were looking for parking, we found a nice parking spot so I got out of the car like a good missionary to help my companion reverse. Well he pulled into a drive way and was going to back up. There was a car coming, so I motioned for him not to go back. He started to go back. So I hit the car telling him to stop. So my companion decided he was going to be funny and let his foot of the brake. Now I was behind the car. NO I DIDN'T GET RUN OVER....... just my foot. The car came off the drive way now because the car is just low enough it scraps the back end when on inclines and stuff. Underneath the car on the back bumper has a bar for us to connect a bike rack to. Well that’s made of metal. So that came down on my foot. Luckily it bounced off my foot and went up enough for me to pull my foot out. BOY, OH BOY DID THAT HURT. hahaha So I really didn’t think much of it so we went to dinner. We took my shoe off to make sure everything was alright. It started to swell and it was hurting pretty bad. DON’T WORRY MOM I’M OKAY. After dinner we went back to the apartment and called the mission president’s wife. She told us to ice it until she could come down and see it the next day. She came the next morning and looked at it. It was swollen. I could put weight on it. I could still walk. I just had a minor limp. She was a nurse so after looking at it she said it was probably just a really bad bump. But if its still hurting in a week I should go into the doctor to get it checked out. But she is pretty positive that it’s just soft tissue damage. Whatever that means.... hahah. Nothing bad she says just like a really bad bruise/bump/goose egg haha :D It hasn’t stopped me from doing missionary work so all is well :D 

Just to make sure my mother knows and everyone who might be worried. I’M OKAY. I JUST HAVE A SORE FOOT. THAT’S ALL. Love you! ;)

Saturday we had a lesson with a less active member which went really well. After which we just went less active hunting hahah. Knocked on doors inviting members to the Christmas party next week. We showed the #LightTheWorld video to a bunch of people and just did that good finding. There was a baptism that night!!!! Do you guys remember Yvonne I talked about 3 weeks ago. She is the old polish women I got to teach in the zone leaders area while on exchanges? She got baptized on Saturday!!! It was so cool to see!!! I was so happy for her!! But yeah. That’s Saturday.

Sunday was a wonderful fast and testimony meeting. Heard some awesome testimonies and had some really awesome topics in Sunday school and what not :D It was just a super awesome day. AND THE CHRISTMAS DEVOTIONAL WAS FREAKING AWESOME!! If you guys didn’t get a chance to see it. Go watch it right now. The talks were amazing and the music was even more amazing. Just go watch it right now hahahaha. :D President Eyring is the last speaker. and his talk was just fantastic. The one topic that caught my attention through the entire devotional was that without Easter, Christmas would be nothing. Easter, Christ died and was risen on the third day. Without that sacrifice, Jesus just would have been another baby born. But because of the blood atoning sacrifice made Christmas has such an amazing meaning. I didn’t word it as amazing as some of the speakers did so all of you should just go watch or listen to the devotional :D

But yeah that was my week. Full of awesome happenings. Other than the foot haha :D Guys I really love it out here. Like a lot. Even though it’s one of the toughest things I have ever done. I love it. Every minute is a new adventure. I find myself looking at people and thinking. "I wonder what their story is" The gospel can help anyone and everyone. People just need to slow down and listen. As we enter this Christmas season. It is my Christmas wish for everyone just to take a second to just study/think/ponder/read/sing of Christ. Let us all slow down and remember why Christmas is so important. Why we really celebrate it. It is the birth of our lord and savior. In the most of humble circumstances did he come into the world. And yet he did what no man could. He made it possible to return to our father in heaven who is so desperately wanting us to succeed. The spirit of Christmas can do a lot. Every time I think about the spirit of Christmas I think of an instance where the spirit of Christmas stopped a war for a single day in 1914, in Flanders Field Belgium. It was dubbed the Christmas Truce. I don’t want to tell you guys about it because if i did it would make this email way too long hahah it already is long enough. so if you get the chance go look it up. 

Anyway I love you all so much! I hope all of you have amazing weeks! It’s so good to hear from all of you!!! 

Until next week!!

-Elder Riley Field

p.s. I HIT MY 6 MONTH MARK THIS WEEK!!! Weird...... hahah;)

Elder Field Wishes You All a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Why I do my subject lines in third person? I’m not sure, but I’m going to keep going with it :D
This week was good. Busy, but really good :D I went on exchanges with Elder Pederson (district leader) on Tuesday and Thanksgiving on Thursday which was really freaking fun hahaha :D
Any who Monday we didn’t do much except email home and just hang out as a district all day. I have noticed how tight of a family we have become as a district :D Everyone is super fun and super chill but are all really hard working. But when we get together we know how to have fun :D I love my district!!

Tuesday was exchanges with Elder Pederson. So I was in the Spanish area..... Man I hate/love exchanges with Spanish missionaries. I love them because I get to go and meet polite Spanish people instead of angry white ones ;) I also love them because I really don’t have to prepare much. I just go and sit in the lesson and distract the children if necessary. I hate them because I have no freaking clue what is going on 90% of the time. I don’t understand Spanish very well which is sad.... I should have paid better attention in my 2 years of Spanish in High school haha or should i say JAJAJA........ I’m sorry...... that was a lame joke......... I couldn't resist though....... But other than not understanding what was being said (and I’m pretty sure at one point my companion and them were talking about me because they kept looking at me and laughing....... awkward....) I still had a grand old time kickin' it in the Spanish Area :D I did make a new best friend though. At dinner this little girl who I think is maybe 2 or 3 years old who I played catch with after dinner. She is probably the most adorable little girl I have ever met hahahah. She would inform me if I was doing something wrong and laugh if I did it wrong again..... I had a little too much fun haha

Wednesday was just the good ol' food bank service we do every week! Except this one was different because Thanksgiving was the next day. so we gave them a box with ingredients to make a good thanksgiving meal. It wasn't anything special or fancy just enough for a 1-person thanksgiving meal. But it was cool. I got to put my Warehouse experience to the test because I was the one restocking the boxes as they ran out. I also was the one moving pallets hahah. Made me feel like home :D it was fun. Had a lovely Pizza dinner with the Schroeders, shared a message and then headed out to do that good missionary work. Knocked some doors, nothing, made some calls, nothing, went over to an investigators house for an appointment, she wasn't home. Kind of a rough night but we stayed strong and continued to hunt for the people God has prepared..... They are out there I know it..... somewhere hahahah We decided to go visit one more less active and we knocked on the door and she let us in. Turns out her husband is a non-member too!! Now whether he is interested or not that is yet to be determined. We got to know them and found out that Dan (the husband) works for a special effects company that works for Lucas films. So he does the special effects for Star Wars and other movies like that. So that’s pretty stinking awesome! Me, Dan, and Bethanne (the wife who is a less active member) Nerded/geeked out for a bit while elder Magee sat and just stared at us like we were speaking a different language hahaha. We shared a short gospel message with them and asked if we could come over again and share more of a lesson with them. They said sure and we scheduled a time for early December. (they were going out of town for thanksgiving otherwise they would have met earlier) I’m pretty pumped about going and seeing them again :D

Thursday was Thanksgiving!!! It was awesome. I had a lot of time to reflect all the things I was thankful for. So here is the list I came up with -

Music

The Scriptures

Christ

The Priesthood

My Patriarchal Blessing

Family

Concerts with My Aunt Annie

Video Games with my Dad

Dorky things I do with my Sister Danika

Afternoon Ellen Episodes with my Mom

Being the Oldest in my family, that way I can see the little ones grow up

The atonement

All my extended family both blood and not (i.e. Smiths, Walkers, etc.)

My Friends 

The chance to serve a mission

The Gospel

My Theatre and Choir classes and Teachers. 

Technology (Even though I really hate smartphones now... Ask me about it)

Life

Light

Hard trials Even though they REALLY suck

Comfy pants

TREES 

Beaches 

Pretty much all of Nature

That’s just a short version of the list I came up with earlier. Thanksgiving was awesome. Even though it was tough being away from the family, I know I’m in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. We had a really nice family The Schroeders (I mention them a lot ;) ) had us over for dinner. They had some of their family over and we just were adopted right in. It was nice. That night we set up for Christmas hahahah hopefully the Pictures will send this week....... they didn't last week.... LAME

Friday we had a really cool experience. After the usual weekly planning we went to go see an investigator who has a baptismal date. (we did not extend this baptismal date. Let me explain. Whilst I was sick that one week, the sisters got a referral about some lady that they needed to go see IMMEDIATELY, so being the diligent missionaries they are they didn't think twice and went and saw her. After talking for a little bit this lady was expressing deep desires to get baptized. She they extended a baptismal date for December 17th she accepted and there was joy and happiness. Well this lady then proceeded to tell them that she meets with another set of missionaries. The sisters realize that they extended a baptismal invite to one our investigators hahaha. It’s all good. Celeste wanted to talk to missionaries so she just referred herself again. So the referral just went to the sisters instead of us. She had our phone number but lost it hahaha. Oh well. She has a baptismal date now! hahaha hopefully she can start keeping commitments...... I’m praying she will so now she has become a combined investigator between us so it’s fun) We got to her house and she was asleep her son told us to come back tomorrow. So with an hour left in the night before going home. We decided to go to down town San Rafael. They were having a carnival of some sorts, so we all thought it was a good idea to go contacting. We went and as soon as we parked we all got a pretty good feeling about being there. So we were walking and this guy just looked at us for a bit smiled and walked up to us and started talking to us. We talked about what we were doing as missionaries, what that entails, we got to know him a little bit, he is just the nicest dude ever. His name is Will.  We talked to him about the Christmas initiative :D:D:D:D:D (Which if you guys don't know what that is go look up #LightTheWorld right now!)  He loved it! we even gave him a Book of Mormon. He mentions he loves reading and will definitely take a look at it! We gave him our phone number so hopefully he will call us. Don't know if he will but there is still a chance. The reason he stopped to talk to us was because, and I quote "You guys just seem different, y’all were putting off good vibes so I had to come talk to you. I’m glad I did though! You guys are super nice! And I loved talking to you!" After that you can imagine we were feeling awesome! So we went and tried to talk to some more people.......... no success what so ever...... I was kind of feeling a little discouraged but afterwards we were discussing how the night was. Even though we only talked to 1 person that night. We all thought the night was a huge success. That just goes to show that we are just out here to find those individuals. Not groups of people. But individuals who would benefit from the gospel. Just thought that was really cool :D

The rest of the weekend wasn't filled with anything exciting so I will spare you the details but I don't know about you guys, but I’m so freaking excited for Christmas!!! The tree is set up and we are only getting more and more decorations hahaha!

Oh I guess there is one other thing. On Saturday I got something in the mail. It was a small envelope addressed to me from Dorcus Woodward. (My Friend Ian's mom) I opened it up and about freaking cried. In this envelop was a paper Christmas tree. With small photos of all my friends on their missions, and their favorite scriptures on the photo as ornaments. With a really amazing quote. I will send a photo (I added the photo of Jesus at the top of the tree. Hopefully you can zoom in on it and read quote) So I guess this is a shout out to all of my friends who are on missions right now, thank you all so much for the example you have put forth to me. And thank you for sticking with me through high school. I can’t wait to hear what miracles you all performed while on your missions. I love you all!! And thank you sister Woodward so much for this gift. It really means a lot to me. Thank you!

Anyway! I love you all and miss you like crazy! hopefully you all had a good week!

Until next week!
-Elder Riley Field

Christmas photos!!!!!!

The brought snow to down town San Rafael for the carnival!!! hahah!

The Christmas tree with all my friends on it.

Me and Pederson putting up the Christmas tree

Elder Field Was Taken By The Plague....

Well this week wasn't too eventful unfortunately. As you all can tell by the subject line twas not a good week for our apartment health wise haha!
Also! Apparently my weekly email didn't send last week..... I totally sent one.... don't know why it decided to die and not send..... well last week wasn't too exciting anyway hahah.

Monday. WE WENT TO THE BEACH!!

It was so cool!! The entire day we chilled on the beach. So freaking relaxing! :D took some really cool photos and just hung out with the other missionaries. I don't have ALL the pics we took but I will retrieve them and send them with next week’s email haha. But I do have a few and they are pretty stinking awesome! After dinner we went and helped the sisters out with a lesson. It was with their investigator named Jim. Such a cool lesson!!!! So he was pretty concerned with not knowing everything. He had a break through last night. He was starting to get overwhelmed a little bit in the middle of the lesson. So we let him sit and think for a bit and he suddenly looked at us and said. "It’s ok. I guess I don’t need to know EVERYTHING. I just know that it’s true." WHHHAAAATT?!?!?! MAN I WISH JIM WAS OUR INVESTIGATOR HE IS SUCH A COOL DUDE!! He is like this 60-year-old man who is just the coolest dude I know hahahah. The spirit was so strong when he said that. So stinking cool.

Tuesday was district meeting. After which we got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders! So I left my area to go and serve with Elder Kenworthy for the day up in Novato California. Super fun. As soon as we got to Novato. It was straight to work. We went less active finding, Tracting, went to a couple of set appointments/lessons just a way cool day. But the most amazing part didn't happen until that night. So earlier that day we went and tried to stop by a scheduled appointment with a woman named Yvon. unfortunately, she wasn't home when they had scheduled.  So we went and did some more less active finding. Found a very promising potential investigator who said she would love the missionaries to come back over and share a message with her. So that’s exciting. After a pretty long day.  Before we were about to go home we thought we should stop by Yvons house again. So we went by knocked on the door and she answered. Told us to come in. We sat and talked with her a little bit. Got to know her. (Now a little back round on her. The Zone leaders had just met her the day before and this was the first visit with her) She is in her early 60's and is originally from Poland. She told us about how she just wants to make a change in her life. And how all she sees in the world is evil. And Hatred. She was starting to wonder what her purpose in life was. She was religious and has a very deep belief in Jesus Christ. She practically explained the Pre-Earth life to us and how she believed that she lived with God beforehand. While talking to her I had a scripture I felt like I should share with her. So I shared 2 Nephi 2:25 and explained to her that God wants us to be happy. And how our whole purpose in life is to experience tough times, gain a body, and to be joyful. SHE LOVED IT. Kenworthy swooped in with the follow up and it was just such a spiritual moment. Now at this moment. So ahead is a conversation I had with myself while Kenworthy was teachin' and preachin'  In my head I’m thinking "Holy crap we need to invite her to be baptized"
"No it’s not my investigator I will have to let Kenworthy do it"
"But what if he doesn't???"
"I will just keep sending him good vibes and hopefully he will pick up what I’m putting down"
After he was done preaching he looked at me and I kinda nodded. I’m not sure how through a nod of the head we suddenly knew what we both were thinking but however it worked it worked. He looked at her and asked her to be baptized on December 3rd! She broke down into tears and said yes!!!!! We talked to her about what it means to be baptized and how she will have to prepare for it. She said she is willing and ready and is really looking forward to church. I don't know if she actually went but hopefully she did. I haven’t seen her since then. So in the meantime I will continually pray until I see a baptismal invite from the zone leaders hahah :D Any way after leaving the apartment me and Elder Kenworthy lost it and starting dancing and freaking out. We sat in the car driving back to the apartment and he looked at me and said "You know, I have seen a lot of miracles happen on exchanges, but this one takes the cake." So much fun. Tuesday was such an awesome day :D
Wednesday we exchanged back went to food bank. Did some service. After food bank Charles Smith canceled on us again....... SAD........ but he has a good reason. His wife has cancer and they are going through Chemo.... so I can’t be mad.... he said he really does want to meet with us it’s just been pretty crazy lately. So instead of visiting Charles we did some less active finding. and had dinner. After dinner just did more less active finding.... wasn’t very successful but just another day in the life of a missionary right?

GROSS WARNING AHEAD!!

Wednesday night......... right before bed Elder Pederson was complaining about not feeling to well. He expressed that his stomach was hurting. We didn’t think much of it until suddenly he sprinted to the bathroom and threw up........................... after which he said he felt so much better and he thought that he was ok. We went to bed and I was awoken at about 1 am by him violently throwing up again....... He was not in good shape. We called the missionary nurse and she said it was probably food poisoning. So we just let him do his thing. I stayed up with him, along with Elder Meyers to take care of him. at about 2 am I thought about things that helped me when I was sick and I thought we should go get some Gatorade. So we went to Safeway just down the street and got some Gatorade for him. He sipped on it and he said it made him feel better, so we went back to sleep. Didn’t get much sleep that night....

Thursday, Elder Pederson was better by morning. but man was I exhausted. Elder Magee was up and ready to go and drug me along through the day.... I was so tired. I was told by the missionary nurse to plan in an hour nap for myself. I WAS SO HAPPY FOR THAT NAP. Elder Magee wasn’t though. He thought we could continue on but I had to tell him I was taking the nap we argued for a little but ultimately I won :D During lunch I made some chicken noodle soup that actually turned out pretty dang good :D I was proud of it hahaha. We went to the bridge on Thursday this week. We haven’t gone in like 3 weeks because of scheduling conflicts. So we went Thursday and walked the bridge. After which we went to dinner and that was our day hahah. Our lesson fell through after dinner so we did some less active hunting and after which we went to bed.


Friday, was weekly planning day. Just planned. MADE A MASSIVE PIZOOKIE! that I was extremely proud about hahaha. We had the entire district together so I thought I would do something fun hahah. We all ate it and it was so stinking good. After we finished planning we went to dinner then did some more less active finding. then back to the apartment.

ANOTHER GROSS WARNING

When we got back to the apartment, Elder Meyers wasn’t feeling so good. He asked for a blessing. We gave him one then we all went to bed. I was then awoken at about 12:30am to him sprinting to the bathroom..... He vomited.........The plague had struck the apartment........ SO Because Elder Pederson was still recovering and he needed all the sleep he could get. I took care of him all night. fetched him whatever he needed. My companion slept through it all. and when I tried to go wake him he got mad at me and fell back to sleep. So I stayed up with him till about 4 am. Slept for about an hour and a half. Woke up at 5:30 not feeling so good, so I sat there not feeling good until 6:30.

Saturday, the alarm goes off everyone gets up. Elder Meyers is feeling better. Elder Pederson is feeling great and recovered. Elder Magee finally walks up to me as I’m sitting on the floor next to the trash can, truly contemplating life. He asked me why I wasn’t getting ready. As soon as he said that I began to vomit. ELDER FIELD HAD BEEN STRUCK BY THE PLAUGE. So Elder Magee and Elder Pederson went out for the day to cover both areas I stayed at the apartment with elder Meyers to sleep and rest all day....... so I laid on the floor next to the bathroom while trying to sleep. And when I couldn’t sleep I would watch church videos. Like the movie about the restoration........ It was a rough day...... I was finally starting to feel better at about 10 pm. So I went to bed and that was that....

Sunday I woke up feeling much better. I was still tired and weak and kind of out of it, but I went to church had a wonderful day at church. I am now a part of the church choir....... I’m the only tenor hahaah!  WOOHOOOOO!  We went and visited all the people we usually visit and take the sacrament to on Sundays. Had a wonderful dinner with an awesome family named the Burgons in the ward. I was educated by a little girl named Lizzie about her favorite show Simmer and Shine. She explained all the characters to me and her favorite episode. hahaahha
Twas quite fun. After which we went and saw a less active member for a bit. Got to know her and had a really awesome conversation. Shared a message about the parable of the pickle. ;) if yall were at my farewell you know what that is :D and then went to bed.

But yeah so that was my week. Wasn’t to exciting, I’m feeling much better now that I have rested for a couple of days. I’m still kind of out of it but then again when am I not? ;) Any who! I love you all!!!

-Elder Riley Field

Beach and bunker photos :D really cool

                                                                    Selfie fail

And the squad chillin at the beach (minus the Spanish elders)

Elder Field and the Case of the Missing Tablet

Hey everyone! This week I learned a lot..... like a ton. Hahaha both in a social aspect, and a spiritual aspect.

JUST SO MY MOM DOESN’T FREAK OUT!!! THE MISSING TABLET IN THE SUBJECT LINE IS NOT MINE!

So Monday was Halloween!!!! And the last day of the transfer. We hung out with the zone that day. Signed journals, said goodbyes, and just kinda hung out for a while it was super fun :) Now because it was Halloween we had to be in by 5pm which is lame but we found out that if you were with a member then you could stay out until our usual 9pm. And the Schroeders invited us over so we went and hung out with them. So it was us the sisters and the Spanish elders who all came and chilled with them. Oh man it was so much fun. We ate candy and played heads up haha :) I can't tell you how much I love that came. It was so funny!!!! Anyway I had a wonderful Halloween! Unfortunately, no opportunity arose for me to carve a pumpkin....... so I will have to wait until next year haha.

Tuesday was the start of the new transfer...... and was also the longest freaking day of the week hahaha. We had nothing planned for the morning because we were both pretty certain that either Elder Magee or myself would be transferring out. But nope. We both are here....... SO! this left a large gap in our schedule that we didn't plan for. So I said "well we are getting a new Elder in the apartment, I'm going to clean up the place and make it look nice for him", so I cleaned the carpets hahaha finally I cleaned the carpets. The apartment looks like a whole new place!! The carpets are actually quite fuzzy and soft when they aren't pushed down by dirt and gunk hahaha. While I cleaned the carpets Elder Magee took a nap............. anyway......... I got the place looking spiffy so I was happy. We then met the two new sisters that will be serving with us and they are awesome!!!!!! Holy crap I feel so happy!! One of them is a theatre major her name is Sister Jeffery! So we had a long discussion about favorite plays and musical and Shakespeare plays it was so fun. The other sister is way cool a super nice she is into musicals as well so we all get along pretty well haha. And that was pretty much it for Tuesday.


Wednesday we did our usual food bank thing had dinner and pretty much ended the day. Lame huh haha but something happened during food bank that I wasn't expecting. I got a call mid food bank from Elder Taylor. (My last companion) and told me he had good news and bad news. I asked him what the good news was. You guys remember Miriam and Sangato? The Samoan family I was teaching in Vallejo! Well they got baptized!!!! Yay!!! I was so happy for them. The bad news was pretty rough to take actually............ there was a less active lady we used to work with. Her name was Shirley McLain. I talked about her a lot in previous emails. She is super cool and we got along really well. We used to go over every week and visit her and talk with her. She is this super grumpy grandma hahaha She wanted to go to the temple for her first time. I think she is in her late 70's but she is way awesome....... Shirley passed away 2 weeks ago......... this was rough to hear....... just keep her family in your prayers guys. Her grandson John especially. He is pretty busted up about it. She was his only anchor in this life. Just pray for him. Please.

Thursday was a super long day........ We were supposed to have a lesson with Elise that morning but she never answered....... so that fell through sadly. So we went and tracted again hahaha.  It was so long because everything we planned just didn’t work. Either the lessons we planned fell through or the times we were just going to go see people fell through as well....... so we tried our best to occupy our time well and effectively. Pretty long day.. We had a lesson with Ken that night. We felt like we should watch Meet the Mormons which was strange but we did. We watched the first half with him and challenged him to watch the second half.

Friday we had our first district meeting with all the new people in the district. It was super fun and everyone who is in the district is like super chill and fun to talk to. After the meeting we all ate lunch together. One of the Hermanas is huge into musicals as well!! So we sat and talked about theatre and musicals for a while. her name is Hermana Foster. She is super funny and we clicked pretty well. Overall the morning was super fun and chill. We then did some awesome weekly planning and then had a pretty lengthy meeting with the sisters. We talked about all the ways to help the ward and to bring the ward closer together. IT WAS SUCH AN AWESOME MEETING!!! We now have a direction to direct our efforts. We have a lot of good ideas about utilize the youth and the YSA aged people. We are going to do a bunch of missionary sponsored activities so hopefully all that goes well. I’m praying that we will see some progress with the ward :D Woot That night we set up for the fall harvest festival which was super fun we got a bunch of hay bales from a pumpkin patch hahaha the lady who said we could take them didn't unlock the gate so we had to jump the gate then lift soggy damp hay bales over the fence and into the bed of a truck..... holy cow those things were so stinking heavy. Emphasis on "stinking" but that’s what they wanted hahaha so we got them in. and made it look all........ "Harvesty" I guess hahaah!

Saturday was the fall harvest festival! it was super fun got some awesome pictures...... which I don’t have this week because missionaries have yet to give them to me.......... rage..... oh well though.....but it was a lot of fun! but another strange thing happened. At the end of the party. we were cleaning up and Elder Magee noticed that his tablet was missing. Thinking that he misplaced it we searched the Church looking for it and couldn't find it. We didn't think much about it because we were pretty sure it was in the building. So we left to dump the hay bales that we retrieved the previous night. After we dumped the bales we came back to the church and did some more planning with the sisters for some cool things we are going to be doing the future and we noticed we still couldn't find his tablet. We did another full sweep of the church building and couldn’t find it again. We had to get to a lesson so we left and taught an awesome lesson to Elise

I’m going to move away from the subject of the tablet for a little bit to tell you about the lesson with Elise.

The lesson was awesome!!! but at first it wasn't. She was 45 mins late...... yikes.... hahaha when she finally showed she had her and her sons chase and Corbin. Chase is 15-16 years old. Loves basketball and is just a super cool kid. Corbin is 4 years old and is the rowdiest/insane kid you will ever meet. Whenever Corbin is involved the lesson will always go super long. It’s hard to teach when Corbin is just bouncing off the walls. Luckily we were at a park so he could run around and stuff. We gave a sort little recap on the plan of salvation for Chase and Elise. They both really like it a lot. Then we got to teach them the restoration. We taught about Christ's earthy ministry and was about to get to Joseph Smith when Corbin starting acting all rowdy again. So at this time I had the idea to tell it like a story. So I sat on the ground and had Corbin sit in front of me. With Elise and Chase still sitting and listening. And I told the story of Joseph Smith and the First vision. It was super cool and I felt the spirit pretty strongly. After that we taught about how the Book of Mormon came about and how Joseph Smith was a prophet. They seemed super receptive about it. We gave them both a Book of Mormon and asked them to read and pray if what we were saying was true and that if the Book of Mormon was true. They said they would. Afterwards I felt like I should ask them about baptism, not to commit them to a date, but to get the thought in their minds. We asked them that "If they were to come to a knowledge that all of this was true, the plan of salvation, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Would you be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority?" Elise immediately answered yes that if it was all true she would love to be. Chase took a little time to answer because he is still so awkward around us but he eventually said yes he would be! IT was such a good lesson. Probably the best we have had with them. Now the lesson had already gone on for almost 2 hours now......... WAY TO LONG for a lesson. But for some reason I felt like we needed to stay longer and play some basketball with Chase. My inner rule following self was telling me it’s time to move on but me and Magee felt like we needed to shoot some hoops with chase. So we did. Played some ball and had a blast with Chase and his mom and little brother. He finally truly opened up to us. I think we finally broke the barrier of "Missionary" Yes we are missionaries but we are people too. Who like to have fun. He started joking with us and we invited him out to basketball every Saturday morning at the church. He said he would love to!!! So in total I think we spent like 3.5 hours with them.... which is way too long but it was totally needed.... so I don’t feel bad hahaha.
Anyway back to the tablet. After the lesson we went to dinner and then back to the church to do some more looking. I had the idea to log onto his email over the computer. And in your email settings you can see what devices you have logged your email onto. So we checked and it was there. It said it synced his email and things 2 hours after the Festival. Which means it had Wi-Fi. The only places he gets Wi-Fi is at the church or at the Schroeder’s. SO!!! IT HAS TO BE AT THE CHURCH!! But we can’t find it!!!! I'ts freaking gone!!! We have no clue where it is. And we still don’t know where it is. It’s still missing...... which is sad....... so I will be praying extra hard for that.......

Sunday was good. Just a usual busy Sunday. Saw a couple of people then we went to a zone meet 'n' greet which was way fun!!! Got to know the new zone and it was super chill and fun. So I have high hopes for the transfer...... I’m still with Elder Magee and things are getting better. I think I have finally figured out how to talk and work with him. I have to get on his level. And it bugs the crap out of me BUT this is the best way so I will just continue to work with him. so hopefully all goes well.
I hope that all of you wonderful people have an amazing week!! Know that I love you and all!!

Until next week!!
-Elder Riley Field


p.s. sorry my email is so stinking long again...... I need to cool it hahahah

Elder Field Is On A Roller Coaster?! (Of Emotions)

Happy Halloween everybody!!! I hope all of you have fun plans! Go watch a scary movie for me!! Or better yet someone go scare my sister Danika and send me the video ;) that would make my Halloween ;) Love you Danika.... if you even read these ;)

 This week has been craaaaaazzzzy first off we got transfer documents!!! The result!?!?

I will be staying in San Rafael...... with my........."lovely" ...... companion Elder Magee. Don't worry I have high hopes for this transfer, we have changed the way we are doing stuff as a companionship and hopefully this will clear up and frustrations with each other....... I hope...... ;)
Any who this week was full of up and downs haha. Like usual I guess. Monday was pretty normal. Got a haircut....... I think I have officially gone full Cali. You can’t get a haircut in Cali without it looking slightly hipster...That was pretty much it though.

Tuesday was pretty chill as well. Had a zone meeting. Last one of the transfer. I’m going to miss this zone. A couple of people are being transferred in and out so it will be very different in the upcoming transfer. Anyway the meeting was fun. We finished the competition of who could hand out the most book of Mormons. Out of 3 districts we took 2nd....... I know that makes us the first of the losers...... BUT we had a huge handicap it was ridiculous. So we had 10 people in our district when everyone else had 6. So we did by percentages.... well, the only reason we had to do percentages was because technically the Zone leaders and the Sister Training leaders are in our district....  I think between them both they handed out maybe 15 book of Mormons throughout the transfer. Now I don't blame them they are busy and have other responsibilities but we lost because of it haahha. In totally the entire zone handed out 354 BoMs. Which is insane!!! that’s 8 full boxes of BoMs. Our district alone handed out 174 of them hahaha. The winning district handed out like 113 or something like that.... but because of percentages we lost...... sad huh hahaha.

Wednesday we did our usually food bank service. I have stated to become super good friends with some of the people who run it hahah. They are super nice people :D Anyway after food bank we went and visited a potential investigator named Monica. We caught her right before she left taking her dog out on a walk. Talked to her for a bit. She used to work for BYU believe it or not hahaha. She said they are very active in their church. We asked them if we could come over just to get to know them a bit and to chat and possibly share a spiritual message. She was all for that. So that was neat. Unfortunately, when we went to visit her again she wasn't home....... dang..... but she texted us and said she wanted to reschedule and that she was sorry that she had forgotten!! YES! hahaha. we haven't come up with an official time yet but we are hoping she texts back soon haha.

Thursday we decided we would go do food bank in Novato. They wanted us to come again so that they could say final goodbyes to the missionaries who might leave. So we went had a wonderful time. After that we went to Starbucks of all places to teach a lesson to a less active member. Tori is super nice has 3 kids. She is going to school and doing an internship. She has got a lot on her plate but wants us to keep visiting with her. She wants to go to the temple but has problems with the word of wisdom. So we have been answering her questions and just have been helping her set goals to make it to the temple. Afterward we went door knocking..... with no success but we met some nice people and some really nasty people hahahah all part of the job right??:D

So Friday was an interesting day. I tried to help Elder Perez out with his tablet.... You know the one that gotten run over by a car. Now miraculously the tablet still worked. The insides were actually still functioning. The screen however was trashed. I will send another photo of what it looked like hahahah. So he took it into Apple to see if they could pull the pictures and the notes off of it. Apple just laughed at him and said no can do. So he came to me in a state of distress and despair and asked if there was anything I could do to save anything off his device. So after a morning of thinking what to do. I asked if there was a computer he used to connect his tablet up to. He said there was one in the Rohnapark chapel. Which is 45 mins away BUT still in our zone so we went for it :D when we got there. (just a clarifier we got permission to tinker with his iPad for a little bit so don’t think elder field was being a bad missionary ;) all of this was Okayed haha) I hooked it up to the computer and BINGO! The computer was trusted on the IPad. So we could access iTunes through it. Not all though unfortunately, because of the restrictions put in place by the church on the iPad. We could only save his photos. So I got all the photos off of it and created a backup on the computer of the tablet (i know most of you probs don’t understand any of this. This is mainly for my father and my other nerd friends, So just a short brief message to them!.... SEEEE I CAN BE SMART TOO!!!) Elder Perez was extremely grateful. I told him if he wants the notes off the tablet they are all stored on the computer they are just encrypted with a password Church Headquarters set. So when he gets off his mission he can find out that password and come retrieve them if he still wants them hahaha.

After the tablet fiasco we planned for the week and taught a lesson to Ken Koch. Lesson went super good. We brought our ward mission leader and he is awesome. He made that lesson. We taught about faith. And how sometimes God asks us to show our faith. He has already said no to baptism because he says until his back gets better he can’t do it. So we invited him to church..... well after and awesome lesson!!!! He still said no....... But we did commit him to come in 3 weeks. That way he can prepare himself physically and mentally for the task of coming to church. Hopefully he keeps that commitment. Then we went to the bridge which is always so much fun :D I had developed a great love for the Golden Gate Bridge. So stinking cool man so stinking cool hahaha.

Saturday was transfer doc day. Now because it was transfer doc day we FILLED our day with stuff to do. We were going to teach and investigator or 2, going to see some less actives. Had some service to do....the day started out good. Had breakfast with a member. Taught a good lesson them all of a sudden at about 12:46 All heck broke loose and everything fell through...... idk what is in the air lately but everything keeps falling through which is sad. So we just tried to go door knocking and hand out BoMs.we handed out 4 so that was good. But was unable to get some return appointments but all is well.  After the long day of tracting and trying to find Less active members to visit. We got to go to the adult session of Stake Conference. Which was way awesome. Heard some good speakers and i took a lot of good notes :D We got transfer docs after which. There was excitement there was despair there was fear there was sadness there was laughter........ all of which were from me. Everyone else seemed pretty chill with it hahahaha.

Sunday was fun. Had a wonderful stake conference. IN FACT!!! ELISE ONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS CAME!!!!!!!!!!!! YYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY Hahahaha I was so stinking excited to see her walk through that door. We sat her down talked to her explained why this particular meeting was different. She loved it. She really enjoyed it. The talks were wonderful for her to hear. She asked us a bunch of good questions about doctrine and the plan of salvation afterward. She seems super interested and believed 90% of it. She is progressing really well. She told us about some of the similarities of Our church services and Jehovah Witnesses services and i learned a lot also. She likes ours better. She said this was the first church meeting that she has ever sat through the entire thing and actually enjoyed it. She said that she has been to quite a few churches and couldn't sit through all of them. AND THEY WERE SHORTER THAN THE 2 AND HALF HOURS OF STAKE CONFERENCE. man if that doesn't scream the spirit i don’t know what does. Anyway. We had an impromptu lesson with Elise right on the spot about the rest of the plan of salvation. After the lesson the Spanish elders left us at the church hahah. We had no way of driving back. So we walked the 4 or so miles back to our apartment. which kind of sucked but it was a nice day for the first 3/4 of the walk. Then it started raining hahaha. We jogged the rest of the way in my suit and got home without getting too wet. We changed by that time it was time for dinner so we went to dinner. Had fun and then we went to Taruns house.

Now Tarun is Indian. he is our recent convert of about 4 months. His family aren’t members but They invited us over to celebrate Diwali or festival of lights. It was super cool actually. They did some religious ceremony that we got to observe and then they busted out the fireworks hahaha. Sparklers and ground blooms and all sorts of fountains. we had a couple of mishaps with the fireworks hahaha. I had a few shoot my way which was fun hahhaa. but anyway it was super nice of them to invite us over. And it was way cool to see the different culture. It’s quite fascinating to me actually. After the fireworks they fed us a wonderful meal. Indian food is so stinking good hahaha.

Anyway I think that’s it for this week guys. Gosh my emails are starting to get too long hahah I need to make them shorter. But there is just so much that goes on hahaha.


Hope you guys have a wonderful Halloween! Stay safe and have fun! I love you all!!!

Bye!!!
-Elder Riley Field