Elder Field Remembers The Fallen....Happy Memorial Day!

First off, I want to give a shout out to both my little sisters. It was Alivia’s birthday a while ago, but I kept forgetting to write about it. Sorry Alivia! I love you lots! 

Also shout out to Danika! Who turns 18 on Wed!! AND SHE GRADUATED HIGHSCHOOL! Happy birthday Dani!! I love you lots and wish you the best in whatever you’re going to do with your life!

Also, one last thing, Happy Memorial Day today. Let us all take time to remember and honor the fallen heroes that gave their life fighting for our country throughout the ages. I thank of them for their service and let them know that I will never forget them and their service. I want to send a very special thanks to their families. God bless. 

I guess we will move into my week now.. *clears throat*

 *trumpet thing they do in movies when they announce things*

HEAR YE HEAR YE! LET IT BE KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE LAND THAT THE TRANSFER DOCUMENTS HAVE ARRIVED! 

*the trumpet sounds again*

Alright enough if that haha! Yeah so, I will end up staying a tech elder in the Rincon Valley ward which you know what that means! I have spent 1/4 of my mission in Rincon Valley! Hahaha it's awesome! Elder Jones will be leaving me which I am incredibly sad about that.... 1 transfer wasn't enough with him. Oh well, he lives in Bountiful so I should be able to chill with him more after the mission. But I will be getting a new companion named Elder Reese. I have no clue who he is. I have been told he is great so I'm excited to meet him. Boy he doesn't know what's going to hit him tomorrow. Haha it's like "Hi! Welcome to Rincon Valley! Congrats on being a tech elder. Here are these things let's get to work" because (I actually didn't know this but) the tech elders run transfers..... We make sure everyone gets their new companion, gets luggage moved around. We have to get everyone here at 9:30 and out be 10:30 hahaha should be fun. I get a megaphone ;) 

Anyway, this we had a busier week with getting everything planned out for the upcoming MLC which is on Thursday and I still don't know if we are teaching at it or not....... So hopefully President will let us know. But we actually found three really good promising contacts this week that we have return appointments! Their names are Arthur, Laurie (and her son Roman), and Mark. We met them all while going through the area book and finding names that had been tracted into but never returned. All of them are super kind and would make amazing Mormons haha ;) I will let you know next week how our visits with all of them go:) 

So, this week we had lessons with Gabriel, brother Rowland, and Gianna this week. We are going to have a lesson with Jazlyn today at 7 which I'm excited about. 

The lesson with Gabriel was alright. We read from Alma 36 and talked about repentance and baptism. He says baptism is in his plan he just for some reason won't commit to being baptized. They guy is ready for it. There is something that's holding him up. Not sure what it is but I intend to find out. Our lesson with brother Rowland was a good one. We had dinner with their family and then after had a quick 20 min lesson. We asked him to read and pray about the book of Mormon. He didn't do it unfortunately, he said he was busy and forgot. We then bore testimony of how the only way he is going to know if this church is true is if he prays about the Book of Mormon. We also talked about the importance of prayer and how we can find the answers to life's mysteries through prayer and scripture study. He seemed receptive but I'm not sure.... I just hope he actually prays. And don't worry we talked about real intent as well ;) 

We had a family history lesson with Gianna on Saturday which went really well. We actually found the immigration records of her grandparents and her father when he was 6. She was so excited when we found it. The immigrated from Italy in '49 which was super cool. She got super pumped to continue to do family history and she can't wait to find out more about her ancestors. She already has a bunch of cool stories that she had heard about her family. We encouraged her to write them down so she can upload them to family search. She said she would. We are really hoping that the spirit of Elijah will start to pull her to the temple. That's where we are hoping this all ends at. 

This week was busy with tech stuff. A program we use called "area book" (which we use to organize our schedule, people we teach, what we have taught them, so on and so forth) has been acting up. To be honest area book is a shotty program at best anyway. But whatever the recent update they did..... Screwed up a bunch of things. So, we have been getting calls about it. Sadly, the only solution is to wait until they release a new update...... Along with that we just have been busy in the office running around fixing printers, tablets, phones, laptops. I don't think fix is the right word. We like the phrase "playing with them till they work" haha 

Other than that, our time was spent finding and preparing for transfers. Not any cool or funny stories this week...... I will work on that this week. I'm also going to be working on taking more photos.... Elder Jones and I have been horrible at that this transfer..... I will fix that. 1 for my mom’s sake and 2 I want something to look back on haha. Anyway, I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love you! 

-Elder Riley Field

The picture is the trees that are behind our apartment..... Am I the only one who sees a lion...? I named him Simba....  

Elder Field Is Finished With Zo...*Sneezes*...Ugh Allergies!

Hey fam! Hope everything is going well with all of you! I have had a couple of cool revelatory experiences but the cool missionary stories are lacking this week. We were traveling all over the mission this week going around making sure the tech was all working correctly, we also taught a section so that's cool. Let’s jump into the week shall we.

So, Monday night is when we left to go to the Napa zone conference, we stayed over in a missionary apartment which isn't being occupied. So, the AP's and ourselves stayed there. In fact, we did everything with the AP's. It was a lot of fun. they are really cool elders. Anyway, after an awesome zone conference we picked up and moved to the next one.

Typically, my role in the zone conference was to get there early with Elder Jones and set up the projector, make sure all the power points are working, set up microphones if needed, and just set up for the zone conference. Once the zone conference starts we just kinda read the scriptures or listen to what is being taught, but after 3 times of the same presentation it gets pretty rough to sit and try and listen. So, I tried to read my scriptures as much as possible. We did get to teach a section at each zone conference which was cool. We taught about how we can use Facebook as a better missionary tool. we related it to the parable of the talents. And we said that our mission was the mission with 5 talents. We have been given a lot of responsibly but also a ton of blessings and tools we get to use in our missionary efforts. And we believe that Facebook isn't being used to its full potential yet. I haven't been using Facebook to its full potential. So, we Complied a bunch of ideas on how to use Facebook and gave them to everyone. And we challenged everyone to use 1 of the 5 aspects of Facebook and report to us. We have gotten a ton of missionaries who have reported to us and have seen success through Facebook which was pretty cool :D Anyway that was our section. It was well received... I think.... hahaha I could be wrong ;)

That's how our week went until Saturday actually. We didn't get back into Santa Rosa till Thursday late at night, (and by late at night I mean missionary late at night which was like 9:30 pm) So there wasn't any time to teach any missionary lessons D: we actually had to cancel on brother Rowland which was sad. But we will get him this week, right? :D

So, after we finished the last zone conference we then had MLC (mission leadership council) the next morning. So, the Friday zone conference got done at 5. We took an hour for dinner. And then started planning for our section on Act Vs. Acted upon. (I will explain the principle at the end of the email) We took up the rest of the night planning for that, but it was so worth it because our section was so good!!!!! Everyone was so attentive and participated in the discussion. Everyone liked the principle to so that was cool. 

Sunday was our one day to kinda breath.... we taught a lesson with Jazlin!!! She came to church and we had a good lesson with her during second hour. We talked all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked a TON on baptism. She said she wants to get baptized!!! We challenged her to pray about a date to be baptized. She seemed super excited and said she would. Oh, that is so cool!!! I'm so happy for her. I still have a few concerns with her..... but I think we will be able to work through those. So please pray for Jazlin!!! We are hoping we she picks a date before her big trip to Africa. She leaves the 20th of next month and will be gone for 7 weeks, but ultimately it is up to her. And whatever date she picks will be the perfect day haha.

Anyway, after church and the lesson we did a bunch of office work that had piled up while we were gone. Sent the instructions to set up Facebook to the missionaries who would be getting it this transfer, uploaded pictures to Facebook, saved he photos from the camera, made a document for president and the AP's and a couple of other things..... haha I know my life is so exciting isn't it ;)

That was our week, but I had a really freaking cool revelation his week. We were talking with some members about our assignment as tech Elder and how we oversee how Facebook is being used in the mission and all the other "tech bits" they were surprised to hear about all the tech we had in the mission and they were saying, "Wow almost the entirety of the gospel is on the Internet. That's so cool" RIGHT AS THEY SAID THIS THE PHRASE "The gospel shall be proclaimed in every nation kindred tongue and people" CAME INTO MY MIND. I started to connect the dots. I always thought that phrase meant that there would be missionaries knocking on doors and preaching in the streets. But I realized that if a country has access to the Internet. They have access to the gospel. They can chat with missionaries online, they can order the book of Mormon and all these other things....... Guys...... The gospel is already in every nation kindred tongue and people..........yeah....... heavy stuff........  so stinking cool.......If that's not motivation to get going on the lord’s work Idk what is!

Anyway, I said I would explain the Act Vs Acted upon principle to yall. So, in 2 Nephi 2: 13, 14,16, 26, 27. There is a common phrase. It is Act and Acted upon. God Made 2 types of things. He made things that act. And things to be acted upon. We as humans were made to act. Hence the reason we have agency. We are meant to act upon things that are meant to be acted upon. if that makes sense. So, we explained that discouragement and a bad attitude towards missionary work, stems from being acted upon. We aren't happy when we are acted upon. But being acted upon is the easier choice. But in every situation, there is always something we can do to act in verse 26 in 2 Nephi 2 it says that "...To act for themselves and not to be acted upon, spec it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given." That says that in every situation there is something we can do. EXCEPT when it comes to judgment day. So, we taught that when we act bad attitudes go away and discouragement goes away. Now there isn't anything we can do to completely prevent discouragement, but we can act and get rid of that feeling. If we don't act it gets worse. It's kind of like when people play the victim. That is a prime example of people being acted upon. They won't do anything to better their situation. Hopefully that explains the principle. Elder Jones taught me this, and it has changed my whole outlook in life hahaha I know evaluate everything I do into those two categories. I always see if there is something I can do to act. :D Pretty cool.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a wonderful week! I love you all!! I also want you all to know that I have a testimony of this work. The book of Mormon is the word of God. I invite all of you to read it. Just read and pray. God is waiting for you to do it ;) Love you guys!!

-Elder Riley Field

Elder Field Gets To Talk To Mama Field! (And Family)

Happy Mother’s Day everybody!! I hope you all spent some quality time with your mom's if you could go and see them. Hopefully you all did something for your moms ;) 

Anyway, this week has been a good week! Very busy though. We have started zone conferences. First, we had the Eureka Zone conference and then Ukaiah second. We have taken a short break but we start up tomorrow with the Napa zone conference. And those last all the way till Friday and then we have MLC on Saturday haha, so let’s just say i will be driving a lot in the next few days! woohoo. I actually enjoy teaching at zone conference. We are presenting ideas on how we can use Facebook as more of a missionary tool. And also gathering input on how missionaries have seen success on Facebook! It’s going really well! 

So, like I said we had Zone conferences Tuesday and Wed so my week really doesn't start till Thursday

So! we tried to have lessons with Jazlin and Gianna but both of those fell through which was sad. But we did have lessons with Brother Rowland Thursday night. We did our usual reading of the book of Mormon, it went well. We challenged him to continue to read but we asked him to pray about it this time. He said he would! so hopefully we see something exciting this next week. 

We did have A lesson with Gabriel, still hasn't made any progress but he said he would like to start reading the book of Mormon with us so hopefully we can help him start reading it on his own! Let's see how it goes shall we?

Well unfortunately that's all the lessons we had this week. We did have some pretty awesome contacts this week! We met a guy named Anthony Lim who is such a cool dude, we were reading on a park bench when we approached him and started talking to him. He became really interested and started asking us all sorts of questions. We stayed and talked to him for a full hour!! It was so cool!! We basically taught him the message of the restoration, First vision account and all!!! Oh it was so cool!! We gave him a Book of Mormon and shared some scriptures out of it and he loved them. He said he would read and give us a call :D Hopefully we actually hear back. The second was a referral we had gotten from a member, a woman and her daughter just moved into an apartment next to theirs so we knocked on the door and met Julia. She was super nice and said that we should drop by Sunday at 4. Well we did drop by but unfortunately, she wasn’t home but her daughter was, her name was Daniella and we talked with her for a bit. She seemed kind of interested and invited us back next Saturday evening :D so we will be dropping back by this week! hopefully we can get in with them. it would be so cool!!!

Sunday was awesome because it was Mother’s Day and I got to talk to my family!!!!! LOVE YOU FAMILY!! it was cool to see them all. :D The crappy thing about Sunday was that no one showed up to church..... Sad D: But the phone call home made Sunday better!

Anyway, fun story of the week. Elder Jones and myself have challenged ourselves to not say the word "I" or reference ourselves at all. (I’m cheating a little bit because i get to email but outside of email we are back on) It’s been interesting, we both want to be more focused on others instead of ourselves and one of the ways he has discovered that helps is if we just use other words. So, we use the word "We" and "Us" a lot because we are a companionship, it seems to be working actually I find myself focusing on others and their needs :D Woot. We will keep trying this :D

Another fun story of the week. We were contacting another referral that we got from Salt Lake City about a woman who needed a blessing. So, we went and as we were walking up to their house a man was in the garage sharping a knife (I know sounds sketchy) I went to approach him when this MASSIVE Pitbull came running toward me. (Not angrily but it wasn’t thrilled I was there ya know?) So, while he was running at me, i stood up a little taller, when it got to me it sniffed my leg and let out a little growl, and i don’t know what came over me but i decided to bend over and pet the dog........... Yeah, the really big scary dog that wasn’t thrilled to see me.......... So, in classic dog petting fashion i exclaimed "Oh wow, you’re a big fella aren’t you, my name is Elder Field what’s yours" The dog looked up and me and actually licked my hand. So just like that we were best friends. But the best part of the story is when the man saw this his jaw dropped. He walked out and grabbed his dog (knife still in hand by the way) and put it in side and then looked at us and said, "whoa man you got to be careful of dogs man" So what i gathered from that is that hasn’t happened before and that dog probably should have eaten me. fun stuff. Anyway, we met the woman and she asked us to come back next week so hopefully i have another 'Friendly' Run in with the dog. I think i will name him spike. He looked like a spike. ;) My companion told me after the experience that he was getting ready to fight off the dog. He thought it was going to eat me too.

Anyway, good week this week. This coming week is going to be even more busy so we will see how it goes! wish me luck. Love you all! i hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day! LOVE ALL Of YOU!!!! 

-Elder Riley Field

The van is the van I get to drive to Zone conference!! So cool.  It’s like driving a freaking tank!

Da ocean

Last P-Day we went to the beach. Elder Jones has lime green hat and I had found the one I was wearing in the apartment!

 Look it’s the two missionaries I trained!! Elder Siebach and Elder Magee. Good missionaries. 

Elder Field Continues To Learn More And More!

Hey Friends and Family!

Before I start this email, guys I have a little rant I need to go on. GUYS DID YOU KNOW THAT SETTING GOALS AND THEN PRAYING FOR THEM THEY WILL ALWAYS WORK OUT (if you put the needed work into them)??? Guys if there has been anything I have learned these past two weeks (Besides the experience I will tell you all about later in the email) Is that goals are a thing!! As missionaries, it is drilled into us that we need to set goals and set out to accomplish them. So, I haven't had a companion who has set goals with me. and I really didn’t think goals were that important. So, I would set halfhearted goals and just would try to reach them if we had extra time in the day. Well Elder Jones has changed that in me. We set meaningful goals each morning, then right before we leave we pray for them. AND NO KIDDING EVERYTIME WE DO IT, WE MANAGE TO HIT OUR GOALS. There was one time we wanted to contact 10 people hand out 2 book of Mormons and serve someone. Well that day was coming to an end and we had contacted 4 people (we were in the office for a good portion of the day) and only handed out 1 Book of Mormon. And we hadn't been a service to anyone. So, we were walking down the street and guess what?  Six people just so happened to walk past us. So, we stopped them and talked to them for a bit. none of them were interested but they were very kind. BOOM 10 contacts. It was starting to get late, so we were heading home. when we saw a car that looked like it had stalled in the middle of the street. We stopped pushed them out of the street and got everything all safe and talked to them for a bit. We gave them a book of Mormon and left. I didn't realize what we had done until I was lying in bed that night and was like "HOLY CRAP ELDER JONES WE HIT ALL OUR GOALS TODAY" Elder Jones being the smooth dude he is said "Yeah man did you just barely notice this??" I have like 8 more experiences that prove the principle of prayerfully setting goals. It's awesome. Anyway...... Rant over *steps off soap box*

Today's email is going to be a little different than how I have been doing the in recent past. Don't worry those who still read my emails I will go back to the way I have been doing them. This week I just felt like doing something a little different. And if you guys like this way better I will keep it this way ;) just let me know! Shall we dive in?

Anyway, this week was a good week. Pretty busy again. We had lessons with Jazlin, The Wilsons, And Robert Rowland. The lesson with Jazlin went.... less than desirable. She said she wanted to go on a hike and have a lesson at the park. So we thought, "SURE! why not! if it will get her to continue to listen to the lessons I think we could pull it off" well, we managed to pull it off. but the lesson was just kind of...... Disconnected. Between people at the park, the Geese that are always hanging out there and just kind of the poor place for a spiritual lesson, we still taught the plan of salvation and she understood it, she just didn't feel it like the first lesson. Heck, we didn't feel it like the first lesson. But it's okay though! we will push past that. She was supposed to come to church this week but unfortunately didn't show up this week. She said she was feeling sick and that we will still have our lesson during the week. It's nice that we are meeting with Jazlin 2 times a week. Makes life easier. :D but yeah hopefully we are going to have another bomb lesson with Jazlin this week!

We also had a lesson with Robert Rowland this week. It was so good. No massive spiritual revelations, but the subtle presence of the spirit was definitely there. So, because brother Rowland has had a lot of contact about the church and knows a lot about it (Considering his wife has been a lifelong member) we asked him if he had ever read the Book of Mormon, He hasn’t. We are changing that ;) So we set his wife up with a reading schedule we want them to follow. That way when we visit Wed evening we can read the harder chapters together and discuss about them. So, no missionary lessons yet! BUT! we are working our way up to that. We read 1 Nephi 4 with them this week. We found out they read on the beach as a family!!!! I was so freaking pumped about that. They have 3 boys. Robert Jr., they call him Boo. He is a senior in high school, then there is David who just turned 8 and was baptized my first transfer here. I got to stand in the circle while brother Beck (our ward mission leader) confirmed him. That's so freaking cool can I just say that!? And then there is JD who just turned 7 like last week. Super cool family, love them lots. I'm praying really hard that we can start the lessons with brother Rowland. and get him to church..... He has never been to church either. again, we are working on that ;)

The lesson with the Wilsons was super good!! Connor (the 8-year-old) was super attentive and loved the plan of salvation lesson. We made little laminated cut outs of each stage of the plan of salvation. They are super cool. Brother Wilson was attentive and helped teach as well. Sister Wilson wasn’t in attendance which made me quite sad but it's okay. Hopefully she attends future lessons I want her to be a big part of this ordeal with Connor. Baptism and church is always better with family. They actually came to church this Sunday!!! Connor and Brother Wilson that is! AND they met with the bishop which was super cool. Sister Wilsons didn't though.... She stayed home.... D: makes me sad. But Connor and Steve stayed. Only for half of sacrament meeting but they came none the less. Didn't See or hear why they left early they just dipped....... weird...... But yeah! hopefully we have a good lesson with them this week!

Anyway, those are all the big major events that happened this week. We dealt with some tech problems and missionary tablet issues...... 1 missionary this week will have to buy a whole new tablet because he destroyed it..... I don't know how he did it but he did. And then Sister Morrison. (I don't know if yall remember her but she was in the MTC with me.) Her tablets data banks became corrupted....... so, we have the blitz the thing and hope for the best. I had no idea what that meant so I Google it. (We have permission to do this don't worry) and found out that there really isn't an exact cause for it. Sometimes It just happens.... you wake up one morning and oops data has been corrupted. There are some things that cause it but usually it's hardware defects. Anyway, I know you guys don't care hahah but I thought it was interesting. I'm learning lots. 

So, one thing I wanted to mention was a spiritual revelation I had. So, my entire mission, every missionary just seems to be super in tune with the spirit. and that's something I have struggles with. I have no clue what the spirit guiding me or directing me feels like. I can count 2 maybe 3 times in my life where I know the spirit directed me to do something. One of the goals of my mission is to find out what that feels like, or just to overall recognize the spirit more. I just don't know. Well me and Elder Jones were reading in the Doctrine and Covenants a couple of days ago. We were reading in section 6, when half way into the section I decided just to start putting my name into the versus. I have heard that this is a good way for you to read the scriptures it makes it feel like it's talking to you directly. So, I started doing this around verse 6. At first I didn't make any sense but then while I was reading we came across this. Everything in () is what I inserted while reading this.

"13 (Riley) If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation.

14 Verily, verily, I say unto thee (Riley), blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.

(Insert Elder Field crying right about here)

15 Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth;

16 Yea, I tell thee, that thou mayest know that there is none else save God that knowest thy thoughts and the intents of thy heart.

17 I tell thee these things as a witness unto thee—that the words or the work which thou hast been writing (Preaching) are true.

18 Therefore be diligent; stand by my servant Joseph (Elder Jones), faithfully, in whatsoever difficult circumstances he may be for the word’s sake."

Yeah...... so God absolutely answers prayers. Even though I still feel like I'm not 100% in tune as other people are. I know at least whenever I have asked to be guided or just had a question and asked. He has ALWAYS given me something to help me along. And of course, right after those verses in verse 36 it says, "Look unto me in every thought, doubt not Fear not" so yeah. God knows me. And loves me. Such a cool feeling :D Right after reading this I was reading a past blessing I had received a while ago when I was in San Rafael. In the blessing, Elder Siebach gave me. He said "The Lord knows that you have difficulty feeling the spirit. But he wants to rest assure that He is there and gives you enough to sustain you day to day" And to be honest I didn't even realize be had said that or that I had wrote it down right after the blessing. Until that day I read D+C 6. It was just a good day. God really is there for each and every one of us. Just turn to him. And he will guide you. That promise in D+C 6 13-18 is universal. Read it and ask God to show you where he has guided you. And he will show you. To prove to you, that you have NEVER been alone. God is cool. Can I get an amen? ;)

I love you guys lots! hope your week was as good as mine. I now have to go prepare for Zone conferences. I get to teach about how we can better use Facebook as a missionary tool....... WOOOOO!! Hopefully I receive some inspiration here. because I have 2 weeks to come up with a 20-min presentation for 8 zone conferences around the mission...... let's see what happens!! LOVE YOU GUYS!!

-Elder Riley Field