OKAY, BEFORE I START THIS EMAIL!!! DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT THE
HOLY GRAIL IS THE CHALICE THAT CHRIST BLESSED THE WINE IN DURING THE LAST
SUPPER??????? I THOUGHT THE HOLY GRAIL WAS JUST A FANCY CUP!!! EVERYTHING MAKES
SO MUCH MORE SENSE. THE CRUSADES MAKE SO MUCH MORE SENSE. Anyway, sorry about
that. That little factoid blew my mind. Haha then again.... A lot of simple
things blow my mind don't they ;)
Hey fam!! So, I'm trying a new technique to email writing.
I'm writing a little bit of the email at the end of each day telling about
events throughout the day. Tell me if yall like it or na...... This one is....
well.... is pretty long...... I will try my best to compress and shorten them
in the future. (If yall give up on reading this half way through I totally
understand) I just felt like there was so much to tell about this week :D
And I feel this is a good way to pay you guys back for not getting a good
weekly email in 2 weeks. Anyway, ready to dive into it?
Monday was a good P-Day we just chilled at the church and
played volleyball. We play a lot of volleyball here actually! It's super fun!
We had dinner with the Traviss Family. (Yes, I know there are 2 's' that's how
you spell their name) ;) They had their daughter in law over. Who actually is a
member but she was baptized when she was 12 and doesn't really remember
anything about the church. So, she went to the temple the other day with her
husband and his parents and had a pretty powerful experience I guess. So, they
called us up and asked if we would be willing to teach her the missionary
lessons. I was pretty pumped when we got this call. We went over and taught the
plan of salvation to her. SHE LOVED IT. The spirit was super strong and at the
end of the lesson she said she felt like all of it was true. Which is pretty
freaking awesome. We set up for another lesson on next Monday. We will be
teaching the Restoration. She was already pretty interested in the Book of
Mormon so we gave her one and asked to read the introduction page. She asked if
she could read more than that. OF COURSE YOU CAN!! No one we have ever given
the Book of Mormon to has asked if they could read more than what we give them.
We told her she could read as much as she wanted.
Tuesday, we had an awesome Zone meeting. It was about a
bunch of different things but one of them was just having a good attitude about
everything. When I heard this I thought "I think I have a pretty good
attitude about everything" But of course the spirit slapped me on the back
of the head and said "Do you though? You don't seem very happy when you
have to go find" ....... Yeah....... I'm working on it ;) Anyway we had a
lesson with Victoria!!! (For those who didn't get my weekly email last week.
She was a lady we met on the street, we started talking to her and asked her
the question "do you believe that God has a plan for you?" She lit up
and just went off and told us how she believed that her whole purpose in life
was to glorify God and to tell people about him. She then just started to throw
questions our way. Mainly about basic beliefs and what not. We talked a lot
about Jesus Christ and was impressed to find that we believed a lot of the
things she did. We set up a lesson with her this week.) The lesson went
alright, unfortunately it really wasn't a lesson. It was more or less a discussion
on the Godhead and if they are 1 being or 3 individual and distinct beings. She
was pretty convinced that they were one being and wouldn’t budge. She threw
some scriptures our way and we did the best to explain why we thought the way
we thought but she just wasn't having it. We explained that a little more and
told her that because of the book of Mormon and modern day prophets we know
that they are 3 distinct and individual beings. When we realized we weren't
going to get anywhere we decided to just invite her to read the Book of Mormon
and pray if it was true or not. That if the book is true, what we are saying is
truth. She said she would. We didn't plan any other visits with her, she didn't
want to plan anything in the future. But she said she would read and pray about
the Book of Mormon and if she got an answer she would call us. SO, we are
praying pretty hard she keeps to her promise! Other than that, it was a pretty
normal day. We had a very chaotic lesson with The Coon family in the ward.
(here is a little run down about them, Wife is a recent convert, husband has
been a member all his life, they have 2 kids between them, and 2 others split
between them. Zak is the oldest who is sister Coons son who lives with them, he
is 17 and isn't a member, don't worry we are working on that ;) and the other
two little ones are both of theirs, and she is pregnant with another. They are
super cool. We are giving her the new member lessons.) We talked about the plan
of salvation, or at least tried to. Lots of interruptions but we can't control
that :D kids are kids. They are a fun family. *sigh of relief* I love my job ;3
Wednesday was alright but pretty uneventful. The morning was
pretty normal until after studies Elder Ricks came down with a Migraine. He had
to go lay down until it subsided. He went to lay down at about 11 am. He wasn't
up and running till about 3:30 pm. Poor guy. But in the mean time I got to take
a nap and do some extra studying. :D I freaking love studies. After that we had
a dinner with the Olson family. So, they found out I have never had Crab or
Salmon before. They were shocked I hadn't and told me I wasn't allowed to leave
the area until I have had it. So they cooked us up some crab and salmon. I have
got to say. Salmon is pretty good. :D Crab on the other hand.... meh it's
alright.... but it was pretty freaking fun just breaking it open and learning
the crab’s anatomy. The Olson's said I looked like a mad scientist while
observing how a God put together a crab haha. After dinner, we went to the
Righetti family. The husband isn't a member but comes to church every week and
actually has a calling in the ward as the assistant scout master......... There
are 3 other people in the ward like brother Righetti. Don't worry.... We are
working on that ;)..... But anyway, we had a really awesome visit with him and
his family. They have 2 little boys Simon and Henry. Henry is a little ball of
energy who for some reason has taken a liking to me and just wants to beat me
up/play with me where as Simon who is the older one is an extremely intelligent
kid. I mean with a name like Simon you kind of have to be right? We showed them
the new restoration video Ask Of God : Joseph Smiths First Vision. Which is
really cool if yall haven't seen it. The spirit was very strong but at the end
when we asked him what he thought of the video and about Joseph Smith in
general, he said very nice things but informed us he isn't interested in
joining the church at this time in his life........ SAD....... But he likes us
coming over though and invited us back soon. Maybe that will change! Let's pray
it does!
(WHEW! Congrats if you have made it this far!! Take a
breather, grab a snack and a drink of water, and let's continue on shall we?)
Thursday, we had service right after studies for Ginger. I
think I have talked about her before. But we helped her move some stuff and now
we are helping her fix her front yard. I’m learning how to lay brick and
landscape. hahah very basic landscaping of course but hey, skills none the less
right?? Anyway we weren't able to get a gospel conversation in this time but we
are warming her up. We gave her a Book of Mormon, we forgot to ask if she read
it.......... I know..... I'm a terrible missionary...... ;) but we will make
sure to ask her next week. So, we had a surprise on Thursday. We got a text
from Gabriel!! If you guys don't remember him, he is the only investigator when
we got to the area and we had to drop shortly after getting here. Well we were
jogging to the church on Tuesday, (I know Elder Field jogging?!?! Don't worry I
hate it too, but I got to lose weight somehow right?) I had gotten the feeling
the night before we needed to drop by Gabriel's place and see how he was doing.
But I brushed it off. Well the feeling returned while we were jogging back to
our apartment. So, I stopped and told Elder Ricks "I feel like we need to
go see Gabriel" He then said he had felt like we should too. So that night
we went and dropped by. He wasn't home, so we left a note on the door saying we
were thinking about him and just wanted to see how he was doing. Well we got a
text on Thursday saying how appreciative he was of the note and he wanted to
meet with us that night. We set some time up with him and Brother Beck. Our WML
(Ward Mission leader) We got there and there was something different about him.
His countenance had changed. He was happier. He seemed excited to meet with us.
We just talked about how he was. He said he missed the church and was ready to
start coming back and keep preparing for baptism. Hopefully he will be ready
for the teaching we are going to teach him. Because if he wants to be baptized
we gots us some work to do :D
Friday, we had interviews with President which was cool.
Just a fun little chat with President. Said he could always count on me and it
made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. For the rest of the day we
weekly planned. Hurrah. Conference is next week! WOOT WOOT! We went to dinner
with the Spanish Hermanas We drove past a convention called Hempcon
Yupp...... A convention for weed....... Welcome to Cali
(no we didn't go into the convention just took a picture of the arch way 😃)
Saturday, we went with the Elders in the district and just
went mass contacting in the park for about 3 hours. In total, we contacted
about 67 people. With 1 that was kinda interested. We found out that based on
what we call "mission math" That every 40 people we contact there is
1 who is relatively interested. It's interesting because it's different in each
area. SO! We made it a goal to contact at least 40 people a day. So we can
build up our teaching pool. Wish us luck this week!
Sunday, we had a really good Sunday actually. In total, we
had about 4 nonmembers there and Michelle came!! But Gabriel did not. D: But he
did text us before church and told us he wasn't able to make it and apologized for
not being able to show. We still have high hopes for him. He is excited for conference.
We taught in 4 different primary classes about missionary work haha. This week
was all about the first missionaries in the church. So they all wanted us to
come in and talk about missions :D it was pretty cool talking to the kids. A
couple of them had pretty deep questions like about sister missionaries being
missionaries without holding the priesthood.
How does a 9-year-old come up with that question. I was impressed and
tried to answer it the best I could. About them being able to access the power
of the priesthood based on the calling they had received. So it was a pretty
cool discussion I had with a 9 year old who is way deeper than me...... I'm as about
as deep as a kiddie pool....... Swag..... But yeah that's all we did. The rest
of the day was filled with us trying to get numbers from the district and
seeing members and trying to find people in the rain which didn't go to
well...... Blessing for being in the rain right??? Woot.
If you have made it this far I commend you! You made it to
the end of this really long email.... I promise they will be shorter in the
future. I just felt like I needed to make up 2 weeks’ worth of emails in 1
really long weekly email. (even though I still only covered one week ;) ) Hope
you all have a good week!! Love you lots!! Talk to yall next week in a shorter
email :)
Pictures-
We had crab for the first time! It was alright.
The tree of life! It got cut down
Hempcon arch way.
