Elder Field Loves Conference! (And Crepes) :)

Hey guys!! Hope all of you had a wonderful week! My week was full of Indian Food, finding people to teach, watching conference and taking notes, and cleaning....... so much cleaning.......

Tuesday we had zone conference! For those who don’t know! It’s when all the missionaries in the Zone come together for a large meeting, to discuss how the work is going in each of our areas, how we can improve and become better teachers, and also they presented the zone vision! Which I found pretty cool! the zone vision was #BoMsAway, or BookofMormonsAway, but that doesn’t sound as cool as BoMsAway! ;) so they told us that instead of just giving out pass along cards with our number and stuff on it, they want us to give out Book of Mormons with our number in it. Which makes a lot of sense actually! Pass along cards are really easy to just throw away, but people are less likely to throw away a book. So we are just trying to flood the San Rafael Zone with Book of Mormons! and it’s actually working!! And the reason its working is because it’s become a competition between districts...... Whoever can give out the most book of Mormons by the end of the transfer gets a district party. Thrown by the Zone leaders and the Sister Training Leaders! As soon as everyone heard that there was a prize everyone was all in. It’s become an all-out war hahahah!!! Here is the cool part though. Just 3 days after they present the zone vison, we as a San Rafael zone have given away 56 book of Mormons. IN JUST 3 DAYS!!! That’s so sick!!!! And way cool. My companion and I have passed out 10 just between us hahah! Oh and our district is winning....... not that I want to brag or anything *cough cough*...... But it’s really cool to see the work starting to pick up haha. In just flooding the area with Book of Mormons I see the lord blessing the area. There are more people who are willing to talk to us, we have gotten more random phone calls and referrals! It’s just another testimony of working hard. If you work hard and try your best, the lord will bless you with people to teach. So cool!!! But yeah Tuesday we just had zone conference then tried to teach an old man who really doesn’t really want to be taught. Then! we went over to a recent converts house for dinner and a lesson. His name is Tarun! This guy is way cool! He is the one who works at the Maserati Dealership. So he is Indian, not native American but he is actually from India. He had us over and him and his wife (who isn’t a member..... yet ;) ) cooked us Indian food. I was worried at first but man oh man was it the best thing ever..... so unhealthy though but so freaking good!!!! They fed us like this Garbanzo bean soup stuff that was way good, then this cheese, stuff...... I don’t know what any of it is called but it was way good! I will send a picture of what it looked like. (And yes mom I ate it all and it was so stinking good) They wouldn’t stop bringing us food though hahaha me and my companion had to eat until we wanted to burst!! hahah it was so stinking insane!! Finally I had to insist on us being full. Then they brought us this fried cheese ball in like a really sugary syrup........ I actually had a really hard time eating that, not because it tasted gross but because it was sooooooo sugary that I swear my body was rejecting it as I put it in my mouth..... I gaged once.... BUT played it off as a hiccup!!!! So woot woot!!!!! and it really did taste good it was just soooooooooooooooooooooooooo unhealthy hahahahah!!!! And that was pretty much it for Tuesday!

Wed was pretty chill, did the food bank thing again which was cool, after wards we just went and taught a lesson to an investigator, who messed up his back really bad, he can walk and stuff but like bending over and lifting stuff hurts him really bad. He is like mid 50's or something.... idk but that’s the reason he said he doesn’t come to church or will get baptized, he doesn’t think he can get passed the pain...... with the Lord he can!! haha. We went in had an introduction conversation then just kind talked about where he was with everything. He says he wants to come to church. So I began asking him questions about his desires. He said he wants to come to church and wants to get baptized but doesn’t think he can do it. When he said this I had an experience shared with me pop into my head. So my zone leader told us of a time when he was teaching a less active member with a lot of medical problems. He couldn’t walk very well and had to use a cane. But he said he wanted to go to general conference with everyone at the church (this was like 6 months ago) My zone leader asked him if he thought God could help him. He said yes. After more questions and what not they decided to give him a blessing. That as long as he did his part and got up and actually went to the church, that he would be able to watch all the sessions of conference without any trouble. He then showed up at the church building with his cane. Paused for a moment. Looked at the church looked at his cane, looked at the missionaries, looked at the sky, this repeated for about 2 or 3 times. He then picked up his cane and just walked into the church building like he had no problems at all. Crazy huh!!! So while he was answering my questions I felt like I should offer to give him a blessing. He said he would be down for getting one, I explained to him that if we give him a blessing that it will ONLY work if he does his part. that means praying for strength and actually getting up and going to the church building. He kinda hesitated. I noticed that so I told him how about we give it a week. I want you to really pray about this, study the scriptures and pray to see if this is what heavenly father wants you to do. He really liked that answer and said he would. So we will see where his next lesson goes! haha :D

Thursday was full of just finding...... we walked on the street for 3 hours, we tried knocking doors, we talked to people in the park nothing big or exciting happened. We just gave out some Book of Mormons and it was just a super exhausting day hahah. OH!! we did experience something cool. Well I think it’s cool. So we were walking down the street and this group of people, who looked a little rough, were in front of us. I saw them and they saw us. We both just felt like we should walk by, not going to talk to them just to walk by. Well as we walked by one of the guys looked at his buddy and his girlfriend, and said "Oh look someone is here to talk to you" They all bust up laughing as we walked by. "Oh look they just walked on by!!!" Another round of laughter "Hey! Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Satan" Another round of laughter. My companion was kinda worried but i just had the biggest smile on my face!!! Elder Magee looked at my confused and didn’t say anything. I had a smile on my face because persecution!!! hahaha I know weird thing to be smiling about but it’s just like all the other missionary’s stories, and it finally happened to me hahahah. plus, people just trying to get under my skin make me laugh. No one will be able to undermine my faith. I know what I believe and that’s not going to change. I know what is true! and that I’m doing the lords work! Anyway! just a strange little experience I would throw in there.

Friday we just planned for the week. I GOT TO GO TO THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE!!! Apparently the bridge is in our mission haha!!! So every Friday I guess we do a bridge walk. We go down to the Golden Gate bridge and walk it for about 2 hours to see if we can stop bridge jumpers. Just to try and stop something from doing something stupid ya know? We didn’t see anyone this week. but hopefully we can talk to someone who needs someone to talk to next week! But the bridge is way stinking cool I will send some pictures of it!

Saturday was General conference!! Which was awesome!! Heard some way good talks! spent the entire day over at a member’s house. They fed us every meal....... hahah!!! EVERY stinking meal with snacks! They are awesome. They told us that we are their replacement kids because theirs are all grown up haha. but yeah! heard some awesome talks took some sick notes.

Sunday was the same thing. The Schroders (the member family who invited us over on Saturday) Invited us over again. And fed us 2 more meals hahaha breakfast and lunch.... gosh they are the best! Heard some other way good talks and that was pretty much Sunday. Didn’t really do much after that!

This morning was crazy. I woke up early to clean the kitchen. Let me tell you why I needed to clean the kitchen. Since day 1 it was the most disgustingly messy place I have ever seen. I don’t think a single set of missionaries cleaned it, I was going to do it last week but didn’t have time to do it. And this week while going through the week. I saw what I thought looked like rice on the floor. I got a little angry and started thinking to myself "Who spilled rice and didn’t clean it up" When all of a sudden the rice STARTED MOVING!!!!!!!! YEP THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS IT WASN’T RICE IT WAS MAGGOTS....... EVERYWHERE!!!!! I about threw up and started sweeping them up and throwing them away in a sack and immediately took that sack and threw it in the garbage dumpster. Yeah I wanted to throw up but that was the last straw.......  no one in my apartment was going to clean it up. So I manned up and did it. Got up, wiped down the counters, appliances, walls, moped the floor, and just purged that kitchen found where the maggots were coming from.... a rotting piece of meat underneath the fridge.... yeah..... beautiful........ threw that away and made that place shine. And here is the thing...... did it all by myself. I couldn’t get any help from my companion or the other set of Elders in the apartment........ *Sigh* I honestly feel like their mom...... I even do their dishes.... because they won’t do them themselves........ so usually it builds up to the point I feel gross about it and have to buckle down and do it...... I’m so sick of it...... it’s so gross....... I’m going to have a conversation with all of them sometime tonight to tell them this has to stop...... please pray for me....... it’s going to be a rough conversation...... But anyway, next week I’m cleaning the carpets in the apartment because they are disgusting. Wish me luck!

Any who! that’s all from me this week! I love you all and hope you will all have a wonderful week!! Go re-read some of those conference talks they were way good!

Love you all!!
-Elder Riley Field

My new life motto on a sign -