Another Beautiful Week!

Ello Erybody!!!! <-- That is a reference to something. Hopefully someone gets that. ANYWHO!! It’s been another long and tiring week in the always sunny Vallejo California. This week was full of Finding. Lots and lots and lots of less active finding. But we also had some cool stuff happen this week.

Well, like I said previously we went and tried to visit as many less active members as possible. So we got a list of people that are less active from the bishop. Made changes to area book (which took quite a while actually, to get it fully updated it took us probably 4+ hours. Spread throughout the week of course) After we finished we went and just started knocking door on less actives and also some doors that we just felt like we should. Talking to people on the street, all that classic missionary jazz ya know? haha Anyway. We met some really cool people actually. We met an older couple named the Stringfellows. Who apparently love having the missionaries over. Like a lot. To the point when we first showed up, they offered to feed us, they gave us Goose Jerky. (Which apparently is really good. At least i enjoyed it) They offered to feed us the next day. They told us we could come by anytime. Which was pretty cool actually hahaah. They used to have them over all the time but for some reason they just stopped coming over. (still trying to figure out why) They said that if we ever have a dinner appointment fall through that they were always there. And that if we did ever come over for dinner to BE HUNGRY. Hahaah they said that they will cook a massive meal of whatever we choose. They were super nice and we will most likely go and see them a couple times more. Not sure why they are less active. But hopefully we will find out soon and show them that they can be so much happier coming to church.

Well also met a family named the Lindelmans. At least I think that’s how you spell their name. Not sure. First the son answered the door, and told us "oh hey what’s up elders" we chatted for a bit and asked if his parents were home. He said they weren’t and to try back another time. Well we went over the next day and the father was home. I kid you not the more and more we talked to this guy I was pretty sure he was my Uncle Jeff. Hahaha Not in looks but just in personality. So we started talking and stuff like that and I asked him what he likes to do and sure enough he does motocross. HMMMMM Sound familiar family? ;) He did it professionally for a little while. Not sure what he does now because after that short conversation he had to run. So we will be stopping by again some time.

Cool story this week. We were at church yesterday, we had just gotten out of ward council. Saying hi to the members as they walked in. Joking with them and just kinda having fun. When all of a sudden sister Brondum. (The ward missionary dinner calendar..... person.... job.... idk what her title is) runs up to us and tells us some random lady just walked in the other doors and said she would like to know more about our church. I looked at Elder Taylor and told said "we can work with that" Immediately gathered our things and "Casually" walked to her. Her name is Mirium. Or at least that is the shorter version of her name. She just moved from American Samoa, she brought her niece who is 10 years old Tali I think her name is. I asked her what kinda drew her to our church. She then told me how she just recently moved from Samoa and was looking for a church to go to. So she just googled Christian churches near her and ours came up first. (THANK YOU GOOGLE.) We took her to sacrament. I tried to explain what was going on. It’s such a cool experience sitting in sacrament meeting and trying to explain everything that is going on. She said she liked sacrament meeting and said she wanted to stay for the rest of the 2 hours. We took her to gospel principles.......Which usually there are more people there (like 8-10) people but for some awkward reason, it was me and elder Taylor, Mirium, Brandon Leech(Teaches gospel principles) and Brother Houge (ward mission leader) I was kinda worried, not going to lie. When it was time to start she turned to me and asked if this was all that was going to show. I told her I wasn’t sure, but usually there are more people than this. But no one else showed up so we just kinda went about the lesson. Which the lesson was about the sacrament. So that was nice. But it turned into a really cool teaching experience. Brother Leech, taught it very simply, and gave kind of a back round on the church. Which was awesome. Brother leech is such a cool dude. After that class we asked her about the book of Mormon. Apparently she has relatives who are LDS. Which helped in her decision to come to our church. She said her cousin asked her if she wanted to read it, but she was hesitant, we told her more about the book of Mormon. and she said "Well I guess if I’m hearing about it twice, god wants me to take a look at it." What faith! just straight up just put her life into Heavenly Fathers hands and he sure is just a guiding her. Before taking her to relief society, we asked if there would be at time we could come over and teach and talk to her more. She said absolutely and asked if it would be ok if the rest of her family was there. YES, IT IS ABSOLUETLY OK THAT YOUR FAMILY IS THERE!!!!  hahaha so we will see where that goes! I’m so excited haha. Anyway after RS she left. well we went and talked to the RS Prez. She told us that when she was talking to Mirium, she was extremely excited to have us over. Hahaha

I’m not going to lie having Mirium just walk into the church building, was an answer to a prayer. I was starting to feel really discouraged after trying to find less actives, potential investigators, and just trying to contact, for hours at a time and not really seeing any success. I started to wonder if it was because we weren’t working hard enough. Elder Taylor though we were working really hard (but that’s because he didn’t work hard in any of his other areas, he can be a little lazy at times. It’s hard to get him to focus and get going.) but I just kept getting the feeling that we needed to work harder. But I wasn’t sure how we could...... so I sat and wracked my brain on how we could work harder, but with the resources we had, there wasn’t much we could do. So it was rough. just feeling like I could do so much better, but really couldn’t do anything about it....... it made me sick hahah not going to lie. But that Sunday, after everything was said and done (this may sound weird) but I felt like Heavenly Father gave me a thumbs up and told me to stop worrying. That he had everything taken care of, just keep doing what you’re doing. The image of God giving me a thumbs up makes me laugh but that’s what it felt like hahaha. Now i still feel like I could be working harder but i know I’m doing good. And I’m not a crappy missionary. Hopefully I can find a way to work harder anyway ;) I think it’s still that Greenie Fire that’s burning inside me. hahaha. Who knows!

Anyway that’s pretty much all this week. I’m going to send some pics. The one of me and the dog is my favorite. When we went over to Shirley’s house. (I think I have talked about her before) We had talked to her on the side of her house and this dog named Tyson walked up and just plopped right in front of me. She kinda looked at it strange. I asked her what’s up and she said "usually he hates new people, he won’t bite or anything but he usually needs like 2 weeks of someone constantly coming over for him to warm up like that." Cool! I made a new best friend. Elder Taylor is jealous because Tyson is his first name and he thought he was the one with the connection to the dog hahaha.

The car is just a beautiful care we saw.

Sunset with Elder Field.

The pamphlet war takes a turn, this was in a frosty they bought me (Which we have been eating a ton of frosties lately. They are freaking 50 cents man!!!!! hahaa)

There was another picture of some graffiti that I saw. I forgot to take a pic but next time I pass by it I will take on. It said "Faith is like taking a step on the first stair even though you don’t see the full staircase" or something along those lines haha. Anyway!! I love you all lots!!!! Have a wonderful week and I will talk to you all Next time.


Love

-Elder Riley Field

Temple Trip and the Small Time In Between

So! not much to talk about since the last email I sent out was on Thursday hahaha. I guess I will just kind of talk about the small things that went on in-between now and then.

Well temple was amazing! apparently my pictures that I tried to send didn’t send...... Which is lame. I will try to send them again and see if yall get them. The temple was so cool. Apparently the Visitors center is just as cool but I didn’t get time to go walk through it!!! It’s on my list to do the next time we go:D

We didn’t really meet with any of our investigators in the 5-day period of time. ha-ha we usually meet with most of them during Tues or Wed. Debbie didn’t come to church this week because she wasn’t feeling good. :/ which is sad. But she said she is excited to come next week with her granddaughter!! which is even cooler ha-ha! I’m so excited for them hahah:D

uhmmm what else........ There has been an ongoing war between us and the Zone leaders and the Vallejo First elders haha. So way back when I first entered into the mission (so about a transfer ago ;) ) apparently between the First ward elders and The zone leaders, they would place Chasity Pamphlets in random places in their apartments haha. Just as a joke. We think the Chasity Pamphlets are funny because of the really awkward photos in them. And I mean it’s an awkward subject anyway hahaha. So this has been going on for a while and it has evolved quite rapidly haha. So WE got roped into this war when we came home one night from a lesson to a chastity pamphlet on our door matt.... ok that was weird well, we opened the door and low and behold there was an arrow (made from the pamphlets) pointing to a 2 liter of Root Beer we had already discussed with them that we didn’t want hahaha. ANNNNDD they put a cake in the fridge which they made and didn’t want anymore. Well neither did we. The pamphlets where everywhere. In the shower, in the fridge, in my dressers, on my desk, EVERYWHERE. You name it they were there. I think we found a total of about 67 pamphlets in the apartment. And will most likely find more hahaha. So we teamed up with the Zone leaders and decided that it was time for some revenge. So When the other elders when to go shopping this morning, (YES this happened today) We got the zone leaders to help us open the door and do the same thing to them....... but like 10x worse hahaha We taped them to the windows, on the ceiling fan, in their beds, in the blender, in their food items hahaha, Cereal boxes, Under pillows, in dressers, in Desks, in the washer and dryer, in their microwave, IN THEIR SHOES, hahahaha It was the greatest thing ever I have photos of what they did to us Versus what we did to them hahaha. Oh man it was awesome I will try to send them. Hey we got to have fun where we can haha. Blow off some steam and what not. It’s all in good fun anyway.

Any who that’s the most exciting story i have to tell. I hope yall have a wonderful week! I miss and love you all!!!

Until next week!!!
-Elder Riley Field

p.s. The first three photos are our apartment

The rest of them is their apartment hahaha

Temple, New Companion, Leading Out The Area

Well well well, another week down hahaha. I shouldn’t say that I’m loving the mission. Even the hard times hahaha. I'm emailing today because we went to the temple this morning which was AWESOME! The Oakland temple is so freaking beautiful, I will send pictures with this email of the temple and the fun pictures we took.

Anyway, this week was interesting. I got a new companion! Elder Taylor is my new companion!! hahah He is awesome! We have been companions for about a week and a half now and it felt like I just picked him up from Santa Rosa yesterday hahaha idk if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. His sense of humor closely resembles mine so it’s pretty much a party anywhere we go haha. I haven’t heard him teach much though. He is still trying to get used to Vallejo hahaha. Vallejo does take some time to get used to hahaha. When we drove into Vallejo its self his first words were "Elder Field I don’t want to sound racist, but the 3 people I have seen walking down the street were black. I don’t think I have ever seen this many black people in one area." I just bust up laughing and told him he is going to see a lot more hahaha. Fun story we were teaching Tess (recent convert) at her house and while we were outside teaching (it was about 8:30pm) we heard about 15 gun shots go off about 2 miles down the road. Followed by sirens and the squealing of tires. He looked at me and me and Tess just cracked up laughing and we both said at the same time "Welcome to Vallejo kid" Ahhhhhh Vallejo. Got to love it hahahah

So nothing super exciting happened this week. It was just a lot of getting Elder Taylor used to the area, introducing him to key persons in the ward, introducing him to investigators and stuff like that, so nothing too exciting, it was actually quite boring hahah. So I don’t think I need to say anything about last week hahaha. I really can’t think of much sooooooo ON TO THIS WEEK!


This week we have had some cool things happen :D We met with an investigator named Seanery. She is a 17-year-old who has been investigating for a little bit now. We didn’t see her all last transfer because (as she explained to us) She really didn’t like the missionaries in the past, but since me and Elder Taylor were both kind of new she said she would meet with us as a "get to know you" kind of deal. Coolio!!! I kind of feel bad for her though, her aunts (who are members) are really pushing her to be baptized, which is never a fun situation to deal with. We talked for a bit and she kept telling us she doesn’t feel like she would be a good Mormon. I then had to ask her "What was a good Mormon?" because I don’t think I know the definition, she explained that it was someone who went to church every week and who did all the right things all the time and knows a lot about the church. I then retaliated with the statement of "Oh boy if that’s a 'Good Mormon' I most certainly am not one" I laughed she kind of looked puzzled, I told her we all struggle with things in the church, even when we get baptized and become members it’s not like all the struggles "Go away" and we become 100% converted to the church. It was a fun conversation. She said she doesn’t think she believes she will ever get baptized. But I feel that if we continue to go over and visit her and build that relationship with her, she will come around eventually. It will just take some time. Hahah.

We had a lesson with Debbie this week :D not only did we talk to Debbie, we talked to her oldest Granddaughter, and Her husband. Her granddaughter seemed very interested in our message and said that she will be coming to church with Debbie and Will be sitting in with lessons. We talked a little bit to Debbie’s husband and he is a super cool guy. He thanked us for bringing  so much happiness to his wife’s life. He said he might sit in on a lesson one of these times. So exciting things are happening there! Yay!

Uhmmmmm. I think that’s pretty much it with the exciting things hahaha. It was a dull week this week. We got to go to the temple today though so that was awesome. Drove up with Brother Heath. Now this guy is the coolest. I think he is in his late 80's? hahah he was super cool. He tells us stories how when he was on a submarine for a lot of time. Some of these stories are funny as all get out hahaha. He is super sarcastic and I love it. He is awesome.

The temple was wonderful. I will send pictures of the temple. I saw sister Morrison at the temple. She was in my MTC district. I asked where she was at. She told me that she was in Fairfield. I told her I was in Vallejo. She looked shocked and asked me if it was sketchy. I told her about the 15 gun shots and she looked pretty sure that it is hahah.

Anyway! I think that’s all for this week :D its been fun and real! I will talk to all yall Monday!!


Love ya!!
-Elder Riley Field

Exciting Stuff

Well, its transfers this week. That’s right, this is actually my last day with Elder Evans. At about 2:00 pm Elder Evans is going home off his mission. I sure will miss him. He is a great missionary and a great trainer, even if he is awful at giving directions ;) He is excited. I’m excited for him. And I’m even more excited because this means I get a new companion! I found out who on Saturday....... His name is Elder Taylor. I have no clue who he is hhaaha!! but I will be staying in Vallejo (woot woot) but the scary thing is, I will be leading out the area. Which is terrifying...... I’m still technically being trained actually. After the 2nd trainer is when I’m no longer a "Greenie"(but people stopped calling me greenie about 2 weeks in haha) So farewell to Elder Evans but hello to Elder Taylor!! whoever he is haha I hear he is a pretty fun guy. He is from Idaho I guess, so I don’t know how fun Idaho people are ;) (just kidding, I love Idaho people..... sometimes ;) ) ANYWHO!! So we will see how he really is. STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EMAIL TO FIND OUT!!!

Anyway! On to the events of this week!!

The week started out pretty ok. We did a butt ton of service again this week! I’m still so exhausted hahah. But hey! I shouldn’t complain, its good exercise right? So this week’s service included, helping a non-member move with the Sister Missionaries, digging a 6 foot hole (we were trying to find a pipe, we found it, pictures included in the email) Finished De-stumping a Fig Tree!!! (praise the lord) Helped build a retaining wall, helped another member move in to a storage unit, last but certainly not least, helped plant a tree. Let’s just say I'm in a constant state of being sore hahahah

So updates on some investigators!
 
DEBBIE JACKSON CAME TO CHURCH!!!!! YAY!! hahah She said she would, but usually a lot of people say they will "come to church" but Debbie actually came! It’s so awesome! I was so happy, this week of course was fast and testimony meeting, so I had to explain why this particular meeting was different from the rest. But all is well haha. We walked in and sat down and she immediately started firing off questions. And by the good grace of God I was able to answer most of them pretty simply. There were a couple of questions like the "What does it mean to sustain these people and also what’s going on with these people, why do they need to be sustained?" That were a little harder to answer but I did my best and I think she kind of understood. It was a really good meeting. One Brother got up and started talking about the blessings of temples, she asked where is this temple. I explained that there is one in Oakland and Sacramento but we actually have them all over the world. She seemed really impressed by that. I pulled up a picture of the Oakland temple and the Salt Lake City temple, and showed them to her. She said they were beautiful. That topic kind of died down when about 10 mins later she just leans over and says "I would love to go visit a temple one day" So that was pretty cool. Overall she said she really liked sacrament meeting and said she would come back next week. As long as I was there to sit by her. It told her I would be and then she left. So that was pretty exciting.

We met with James Shaw again this week, while we were planning on what we should teach him, we were trying to find where the disconnect is with Brother Shaw. For some reason I was actually studying in Helaman Chapter 5 that morning and thought about maybe talking about Testimony and Conversion. For those who remember this was my farewell topic so I was pretty prepared hahah. We both agreed and went and had a WONDERFUL lesson with him. It was an active discussion, he expressed what he believed, we talked about scripture references, he asked a question or 2, and by the end of the lesson I looked over at Elder Evans, and realized...... he said 2 sentences the entire time, I did 90% of the talking. I was mortified...... When we got in the car I told him I was so sorry for dominating the discussion, he turned to me and said "oh I had plenty of opportunities to speak, I just wanted to see where you would take the lesson, I didn’t talk on purpose." he smiles then starts to laugh. What a butt........ it was a good thing though. I learned that I can actually teach someone, that I can lead the conversation but also be able to lead out the area...... I’m still terrified to do so but, I think I can do it. With Heavenly Fathers help of course hahaha.

So we have been meeting with a family. Kathy and Todd and their two little girls Ariana, and Violet. Ariana is 12 she is actually the only member in the family. She got baptized when she was 10. Violet is 6 I think? I’m not sure but she is the most energetic little girl I have ever met. No personal bubble at all. hahah she has no problem jumping on me or hugging my leg. When I talk to her she gets like right up in my face hahah it scares me a little bit. This family has been having the missionaries over for over 3 years now. Which is insane...... but they love us. We are trying to figure out why they keep having us over. They don’t come to church; Todd is the only one like who seems a tiny bit interested. Kathy I guess could be interested but, I’m just not sure. Violet is too young to really care at this point, but Ariana is baptized but..... is considered less active. Kathy and Todd fully support Ariana and will take her to church or young women’s, if she wants to go. So we have been going over to talk to Ariana but also to try and convert the parents to put it bluntly. They haven’t been making progress, which is lame..... my companion actually wanted to stop going over but, I really don’t want to lose the little girl ya know? So I said let’s just keep going over and direct our spiritual thoughts and message towards Ariana. Hopefully one of them will kind of touch Todd or Kathy and then we will get the ball rolling. Well we have been going over about once a week every week since the beginning of the transfer. I have become really good friends with this family. They are so dang funny. Todd and Kathy are both army actually. So that’s really cool. We were over there one night sharing a thought and roasting marshmallows when Kathy pulled me aside and asked me a kind of puzzle question....... "So we have seen many different missionaries and can usually can tell why they came out, whether they were forced to or they have been trained their entire life to prepare for one, or just cuz they felt like they had to because all their friends were going, or they just wanted to travel, but you...... me and Todd had a very long conversation trying to figure why you came out. You just different from other missionaries, we haven’t been able to peg you. You aren’t afraid to joke and have fun, but yet you follow your mission rules pretty exactly, you talk like you’re a human and we ourselves aren’t afraid to joke around with you. It’s kind of refreshing actually. And you’re not afraid to drink soda like all the other missionaries are (I laughed pretty hard at this) it’s quite refreshing. So I guess to wrap this up, why did you come out on a mission" I was actually speechless at this question, so I tried to explain the best way possible about why I came out on a mission. I told them about high school and graduation, I talked to them about working, I talked to them about how I went inactive "ish" for a couple of years, I talked about how I saw such a difference in my life when I was going to church and being active in a church compared to when I wasn’t as active and what not. I told them how much happiness and joy it brings me. It brings me such comfort and peace knowing that I have a savior who died for me and knows exactly what I’m going through and what I desire and what I’m scared of. He knows exactly who I am. I told them how that since i had saw such a difference in my life I wanted to bring this happiness and joy and peace and comfort to other people. I told them how my parents would have loved and supported me even if I didn’t go on a mission. I explained how a mission was 100% my decision. And it took me a while to make it. I told them, that I’m out here teaching and preaching but also learning so much about what kind of person I want to be but also finding out what I don’t want to be. I told them that I have found more of my self serving others and preaching the word of God then I ever had before. I then bore my testimony to her and kind of summed up why I went out. She looked at me, and said "I have never heard that before. It’s very unique. Thank you Elder Field, go tell Todd I think he will enjoy your answer" I told Todd and he said the exact same thing of "Woah...... never heard that before. Your different, that’s a good thing, don’t worry".

It was a really cool visit. we then came up with a funny prank we are going to pull on Elder Brooks tonight. hahah Elder Brooks one of the missionaries in the zone that his companion is leaving also so we are temporary companions for only tonight so i was telling Todd and Kathy this and we came up with a beautiful prank. I’m going to tell Elder Brooks about them, about how this lesson is a Do or Die lesson. This lesson will determine if we are going to keep teaching them or if we are going to drop them as an investigator. I’m going to tell him how the husband doesn’t like us coming over but the wife is still interested, I’m going to tell how the wife is actually a wicken..... but she is interested in the church. They are going to decorate their house and Todd is going to answer the door with a shotgun HAAHAH this is going to be so good hahhaahh!!! I’m so excited hahaha. I will let y’all know how well it goes next week! ;)

This email is crazy long this week, but I hope all y’all enjoyed it. There weren’t many other good stories this week other than we met with Gerry Sanchez and his daughter again. His daughter (who is 7 years old) Tells her dad (who is an inactive member) How she wants him to go to church with her (He doesn’t go but sends his daughters) and how she wants him to bare his testimony to her and how she wants to hear him pray. It’s the most heart wrenching thing I have ever heard. But I think his daughter is the key to getting him back to church. We teach lessons to the daughter and ask the dad to explain certain principles to her. (easy ones don’t worry) but we want him to teach his daughter as much as he can because it will mean more coming from him than us. He said he might come to church so I’m hoping he will :) he didn’t come this week but we are shooting for 2 weeks from now (this week is Stake conference so after this week) but yeah. We are trying to make progress with him.

I love you all!!! I hope all of your weeks are fun and fantastic and wonderful!
I love you and miss you lots!!!
-Elder Riley Field


p.s. Explanation on the photos

This first one is of my Tongan family. They had us over for dinner as a good bye to all the missionaries who are going home. The two who are to the right of me is my Tongan Mom and Dad  hahaha the one who is getting a drink is somehow related to them. Pffffft I don’t know they are all related somehow haha.

 This is a picture is of a guy in the ward who looks like Abraham Lincoln haha.

This is the hole we dug and the rest of the pictures are pictures of the fig tree crater a tree we chopped down and were messing around with and us being dorks so hopefully you enjoy haha. And that's Elder Thom holding the tree and being as funny as he usually is hahah!

Service, Service, Service!

I am sore........ That's probably the best way to sum up my entire week. Along side with lessons and other "interesting experiences" there has been a lot of service this week.

Anyway!! The week started off pretty normal, had a lesson with Brother Shaw. He is an old navy guy who got baptized while in the Navy. He was active for quite a while. Had a bad experience with a ward out somewhere in the islands (I forget where) and went inactive..... for 40 years. He has been married 3 different times, his current wife is a little old Filipino woman. (let me tell you something. There are so many Filipinos out here hahah its insane. They say if we got all of our inactive Filipinos and reactivated them, they could have there own WARD) Who is insanely funny. She still kinda speaks broken English and she is a HARDCORE Catholic. She is still curious about our purpose coming over. We have done some service for her. She is an amazing gardener, her backyard is so green haha. Anyway back to Jim. We met him while going to visit less actives. He was on our list but when we pulled up he greeted us at the door. He was actually pretty excited to see us. He again told us "missionaries haven't been this way in a while! Its good to see you though! Come on in!" That's been a reoccurring phrase. Strange. Anyway, we have been meeting with him for 3 weeks now. Every Tuesday at 1 pm we go over. Talk for a bit. Ask him some gospel questions. Then leave. He enjoys having us over. Even though he went inactive 40 years ago. He still believes everything. He still reads the book of Mormon, he knows everything is true, he sorta wants to go back to church because he feels like he needs to haha. He is solid. So most of the time our visits are a nice conversation and then trying to convince him to just come once to church again. He said he might here soon, he just doesn't want to inspire contention between him and his wife. Which is understandable but after 30 somewhat years of marriage of being different religions, I think the contention is gone. But that's just me. He said is he is going to church he wants his wife to come with him. We told him she is always welcome. So we are hoping he shows up to church sometime.

We met with Debbie again. She said she will be coming to church this week! So that's awesome!! Her daughter came to visit while we were there. And thanked us for coming and visiting. We were kinda caught off guard. She pulled us aside while Debbie stepped aside for a quick smoke (Don't worry she said this is her last pack and we are holding her to it. She really does want to quit! and we haven't even gotten to the word of wisdom yet!) She told us that we bring a lot of joy into her life and a lot of peace and comfort every time we leave. She said she might sit in on a few lessons. So that would be awesome!!

Those were the only 2 big lessons we had before the first service project of the week. Well this non-member lady needed some help with her back yard last transfer (before I was out in the mission) so the missionaries went to her house to start cleaning up. Well little did they know her backyard was over grown with raspberry bushes, weeds of all sorts, and a fig tree that was massive. (the fig tree is what she needed cut down) So before I got there the missionaries got all of the raspberry bushes taken care of. But the fig tree........ oh the fig tree....... that blasted fig tree....... we got it cut down but when we went back to finish clearing up the mess. It was already starting to grow back. Well we couldn't let this little old lady have to deal with that again. So our brilliant minds tried throwing poison on it. Didn't work. We tried drilling into it. Didn't work. So the only foreseeable solution was to de-stump it........ With hand tools hahahaha. We have been going at it for 3 weeks now. Every Thursday from 1-4pm we have been going ham on this stump. (when I say stump, this "1" tree is actually 36 small fig trees that were separate out side the ground. But grew together under the ground.) we have taken out about 1/2 of it. We are almost done. We think about 1 more day of hard work with 6 elders going at it.(its turned into almost a full zone project.) It should be done. Its fun. Its a good work out. I'm really sore hahaha.

A few hours later we get a call from a lady named Gina. Gina is the lady we met last week at the dinner with a member named sister smith. She wanted us to come over and talk with her. We went over and just chatted with her. Asked her base beliefs about God and Religion in general. And just kinda listened for a bit. She doesn't know anything about God and religion. like nothing at all hahha. She said she knows there is a "Higher Power" but she cant describe it. So we talked a lot about what the base line of Christianity was, and of course explained why our religion is set apart from the others. Before we got into anything else I felt like I should say something that sounded strange but came out pretty normal haha. I said "Before we get into anything else, I just want you to know, we aren't here to convince you to join our church." She looked at me very puzzled.....as did my companion. I continued "We are here to give you the tools you need, and the base understanding, to find out for your self. To find what you think is true and what you think isn't true. We are just guides. Would we love to see you come to our church! Absolutely! But ultimately its your decision. So if you have any questions we will try to answer them the best we can. Its going to be from our churches stand point but we feel like you already knew that." She then looked very relaxed. I didn't notice it before, but she was extremely nervous about meeting with us. I think she was expecting us to just tell her to join our church, to believe and don't ask questions. But that's not what our religion is about. We are supposed to ask questions. Its healthy that way. The more questions you ask the more you learn, and the closer to God you get. So if you have a strange little question or just a small concern. Ask someone. Or even better ask God then study the scriptures. You will find the answer I promise :) Gina said she would love to have us back over. So we are just waiting to call her, and see what time works out the best.

Well the rest of the week was full of service. lots and lots of service. We helped 4 families move out. 3 move in. And helped a member dig a large hole. we dug it about 6 feet looking for a stinking pipe...... we cant find it hahaha. The member had people come out and look for it. They found it, but didn't tell us how deep it was. SOOOOOOO we are digging in the right place we just cant find the pipe hahahah. That's been fun hahah.

Anyway I think that's all for this week! I hope all of you had a wonderful and fun week! Know that I'm thinking about all of y'all. And know that I love and miss you all so freaking much! Keep going!! you are strong! God is with you! Even if you don't know it ;)  I'm so insanely sore.... I'm going to rest for today hahaha no more service until my lower back starts to feel less sore hahahah! Later guys!!

Love
-Elder Riley Field


P.S.  The story behind the Bear pick, is we were at a members house and before we knocked I looked down at this statue. He looks like he wants to cut you hahaha. I started laughing because when I saw him, I thought I was going to hear him say "Don't try and funny business. I will mess you up".

The rest of the photos are just pics of the zone :) I love them all.

(Zone Pictures - July 26, 2016)