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