Elder Field and the Case of the Missing Car

Elder Field thought maybe this week would be slower or maybe a little calmer than last week...... Oh friends and family I was wrong, this week was equally as crazy, if not more.....

Well the week started out pretty normal to be honest. The sisters were still out of a car so we had to drive them to all their appointments all while trying to make it to ours haha. It's been super fun though. The sisters are really cool and fun so we just had a blast every time we rode together.

We did our weekly planning on Tuesday this week because we didn't have a district meeting (which is awesome! I didn't have to teach, but really sad because we always have really good district meetings) the reason behind this is because we had Zone conference on Friday when we usually plan for week! So after a long day of planning our week out, we have been asked to do something really cool. So there is a little boy in the ward named Liam Huff, he has down syndrome, and his parents asked us if we would come over and teach him the missionary lessons to see if he wants to be baptized, I know what you are all thinking "doesn't Liam have a straight shot to the celestial kingdom?!" and the answer is of course he does! His parents just want us to teach him so he can make the decision himself to be baptized. So we had our first lesson with him (the sisters were there too ☺️) we taught him all about Jesus and Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon. He loved it haha he is the coolest kid haha he has a little sister who has down syndrome too and they are the cutest kids ever haha we have a lot of fun at those lessons. They just are so innocent in everything they do its amazing. They truly are God’s special gifts.

Wednesday is when the car troubles we took it in for just an oil change which took quite a while actually. We took it in at 9 and didn't get the car back till about 1 which was rough.... Didn't have the car for a while so we were stranded at the church studying, we also did a very long training session with Elder Siebach. Poor kid, it was so long he was about to die; don't worry we did something fun afterward. Our ward mission leader took us to lunch so he could decompress. Haha after that we did our usual food bank. We had another lesson with Liam that night. Taught him about the plan of salvation and how families are forever it was awesome :) we taught the Enstroms again and had an awesome lesson about the devotional "the blueprint of Christ’s church" such a good talk it went so good the spirit was so strong and they both opened up so much! She bore her testimony about modern day prophets it was so awesome.

Thursday wasn't too exciting we just did service for a member went and tried to find people from the ward then had a lesson with David Meyers that night. All with the sisters haha.

Friday was Zone conference! It was awesome! President and his wife came and taught us about all sorts of stuff. Stuff like how to be a better missionary, the doctrine if Christ, I performed a song with Hermana Foster again haha. We sang If You Could Hie to Kolob/Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It was awesome! I love the song. The version we sang was written for 3 girls so we had to adjust it slightly for 2 people and of course for me to be able to sing it. Hahaha it was an adventure. We pretty we're in that training meeting for the entire day.

That night the sisters got a call. The AP's were driving down to give them a temporary car. Yay they got a brand new Chevy Malibu for their temporary car! It's so freaking nice!! It was kinda sad I really like what we called the Quad Squad so we parted ways and that was the rest of the night.

Now Saturday is when it really started to get weird. The morning started off fine. Me and Elder Siebach went to another meeting in Santa Rosa for new missionaries which was fun. On the way home we stopped by the church for lunch, we met up with the district to all have lunch with each other. We'll a random black woman walked into the church who was quite high on that good kush. She said she was a member who was looking for a place to stay the night. So we made some phone calls and told her she couldn't wait in the church. So we asked her to wait off church property because we weren't sure if she was a member. So we guided her to a place to wait and told her the bishop would get ahold of her. It isn't a missionary’s responsibility to deal with this so we told the bishop and he said he would Handle it. We went and had dinner. Well while we were having dinner we got a flurry of texts and calls. After dinner we checked our phone and noticed that it was all from this lady. So one of the texts said that she made it back into the building. We panicked and drove over there quickly. Sure enough there was a youth activity going on and she was let in. When they finished she refused to leave. So we drove over really quickly and sure enough there she was yelling at the Spanish branches young men President. We quickly intervened and talked to her. She was furious started throwing out the race card and telling us how it was revolting that we were going to make her wait outside and all this stuff and how no one got into contact with her... It was just a big mess. We had the sisters stay in the car for safety while they tried to get ahold of Bishop and what not. While we waited for Bishop to arrive we stayed with her and read the book of Mormon and tried to make good small chat. This woman was insane..... So fun stuff haha... We didn't get the situation settled until about 9:15 so we were quite exhausted. We parked our car then crashed hard.

The next morning, we woke up and our car was missing. We had parked in a school parking lot. NOW BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING IT WAS LEGAL TO DO SO. There is an elementary school in front of our apartment. There is a small parking lot that you are allowed to park there on Saturdays and Sundays. Missionaries have been doing this for years and years, well we noticed that one of the signs had been duct taped over. Blocking the part of the sign that says you are allowed to. Our car had gotten towed.... Other cars that were parked there from last night and they didn't get towed. So it is Sunday and I'm calling around to see where the freak they took our car. We finally got ahold of the tow truck company and they explained the situation. It's going to be a $400 fine to get our freaking car back. We called the mission office and explained the situation and they even believe us!! They towed our car illegally. There are a lot of shady things that happened around this incident. So the signs were just barley duct taped (which I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean anything because those signs have the law and where to find it in the city law books on them and the law says that what we did was legal, I don't think duct tape as authority to change that) they towed our car somewhere between 9:30 and 10:15 which was stupid because that is literally right when we pulled in. And they towed us on a Saturday night. Which according to the law and the signs, it's completely legal to park there...... Elder Field is frustrated if you can't tell haha. So we had 2 cars for about a day and now we are back down to 1 until they figure out what to do about our car situation. We think we got targeted and they towed us specifically. Who knows.... Anyway I will keep all ya posted on the situation. We have been told just to wait because the mission office is going to try and handle it. Who knows what will happen. We took plenty of photos proving our innocence......

Other than that church was good and the rest of the day was good expect for me just freaking out about the car situation. I still am freaking out haha.

Anyway that’s it for my week hopefully your week was good too! I love you all! Hope you all have a good coming week! Love you guys!

-Elder Riley Field

Pictures!

The sketchy sign with duct tape on it