Elder Field (Obviously had no clever title this week)

Hey Friends and family! Not too many exciting things happened this week! But we did have MLC which is always wonderful so maybe I will share some insights from that. Who knows! I really haven't thought this email out..... so I’m just going to start typing and see where it goes!

Well this week was a good one. We had exchanges with the Eureka 1st elders which was super awesome! I went with a newer missionary named Elder Runnells, He is super cool. We got along really well. We did a ton of tracting and found 3 potential investigators, we will see how they turn out. No return appointments though. It's all good though, I'm glad I got to spend time with Elder Runnells he was having a hard time with his companion, so it was nice to be able to help him out a little bit. :D 

We drove down to MLC on Friday and had a full day of MLC. Guys I love MLC. For those who don't know it's Mission Leadership Council. It's basically like a zone conference, but the difference is everyone actually wants to be there. :D Sister Wright (mission president’s wife) taught about the Spirit of Prophecy and Revelation. I don't really know how to explain it because I'm still trying to digest the spiritual knowledge I have received so I'm not going to be able to explain it really well, but just know that Elder Field really liked it and he will probably share it at a later date :D 

Had an awesome lesson with Diana! Which speaking of Diana, she hopefully will be getting baptized this Saturday!!!!!!! I have a feeling she will, but she is just trying to figure out a way to tell her parents who aren't too happy with the idea. So, pray for Diana. She is super awesome and wants baptism so bad. But we will let you know by next week if she got baptized or not! haha but anyway we had an awesome lesson with her about temples and family history!!!! SHE IS SO PUMPED about family history!!! When we told her she could do baptisms for the dead for past ancestors and be able to learn about them she was so excited! She told us she wants to start as soon as possible. So, we are working on a time to go see the Family history center people. She also mentioned how she wants to go to the temple as fast as possible. She is so solid. Diana is awesome!!

Anyway, I think that's about it. we found a new investigator. Her name is Megan. She is cool. Hopefully she will start to progress. :D Daniel flaked out on us again. but to be honest when he answered the door he did NOT look well. So, we gave him a pass on the lesson for that week and scheduled a new day. So hopefully we will meet with him this week! 

That's all for now folks. Sorry it's a lame one. Love you all!!!

Cheers!
-Elder Riley Field

Elder Field Gets Waterlogged

Hey friends and family! We had a pretty solid and incredibly rainy and wet week this week. We had some great finding (in the rain) we had some awesome lessons (in the rain) and knocked a whole ton of doors (and you guessed it, in the rain) haha let's go into my week :) 

This week was good with the finding, we did a ton of door knocking, for the most part everyone we knocked into was pretty nice, EXECPT for this one girl.... Man, she was grumpy. We were knocking doors at about 11 am. And we knocked the entire apartment complex and we were on the last door. We knocked and this Girl about my age with a massive nose piercing came to the door, all we did was wave and say hi when she gave the THE BIGGEST eye roll I have ever seen in my life and then slammed the door haha. It was freaking crazy haha. When the door shut, we both couldn't help ourselves so we started laughing and then yelled through the door that we wished her a wonderful day and laughed all the way out of the complex. She heard us I know it. It was pretty funny. Wrote that one in the journal :) but the coolest part about our finding efforts this week is we found 4 new investigators and 2 really solid ones. Or at least we think they are.  They committed to take all the lessons. The one I'm super excited about is Emily Rainwalker. She seems super cool, we are teaching her tonight actually.  She came to the door and she looked excited to see us, even if we did just wake her up. We taught her on the door step about the restoration. :) She liked it and then said she would like to learn more so we are pumped about her. 

The other one I'm excited about is named Andrew. So, we were originally going to go teach his roommate Zurain who is a super cool guy, used to be Muslim but isn't anymore and considers himself and an agnostic. But we went over to share the message and Andrew asked if he could join. So, we taught them both and they were both were super chill, after we established we weren't going to be those guys who were going to hound them about everything and that this was their choice to have us over, they lightened up, we laughed a lot, joked a bit and then shared a message. They invited us back over to share another message about the afterlife. So hopefully that goes well :) 

So just some of my thoughts about President Nelson. I fully sustain him and can't wait to see what the Lord will do with him. Enough said :) oh we also found out we are having a member of the 12 come to our mission. We didn't know who was coming, because no one told us which one, but due to my new found skills of a detective, our branch president, who somehow knew who was coming spilled the beans. ;) I’m going to meet Elder Holland. But! That might change due to scheduling changes with the new presidency. So, we will see but I have my fingers crossed ;) 

Anywho, we had an  awesome lesson with Diana! Taught her the rest of the final lesson and just visited with her about how she is going to tell her family she is being baptized! Pray for her! She is going to do awesome, but she is pretty scared. 

I had some awesome studies this week as well.  So, I was getting frustrated with my weaknesses again. As Elder Field usually does, so after lamenting about them to Heavenly Father I took it to my studies. So I remembered what my past companion Elder Rick's taught me about the enabling power of the atonement. So I studied.  He told me to study when I had the question of "I thought I was supposed to get heavenly help for overcoming weaknesses, where is that?" and I was having that question so I read in Lorenzo Snow’s teaching of the prophets booklet in chapter 14 about "With God nothing is impossible" so It talked about how we need to really want this aid before we receive it. So that just brought up another question about what the heck that meant. So, while pondering it a little longer I thought of the book of The Infinite Atonement. So, pulled that out and started reading about the blessings of grace. When I first was reading The Infinite Atonement, I thought it was weird that in this section it talked about spiritual gifts. And then it clicked! Why the heck does God give these gifts?? They are to help is overcome weakness. I don't know why it hadn't clicked before. If you’re an angry person, pray for the gift of charity, because charity suffereth long and is patient, so on and so forth. But it was a cool realization. So, I'm now trying to figure out which spiritual gift correlates to each of my weaknesses and am going to work on those and pray for them! :) good stuff. 

Anyway, love ya tons! Hope you all have an awesome week! God is good! And the Book of Mormon is true, go read it and pray about it! Later, 

Cheers!
-Elder Riley Field

Elder Field Finds Peace!

Strange and cryptic subject line I know, but I will explain a little bit later. Anyway, this was a great week! I figured a lot of things out this week. Idk how else to explain it haha. It was just a solid week of finding and figuring out some internal battles I was having. But anywho let's dive into the week, shall we?? 

So, this week was full of finding with very little teaching appointments. We did however find 1 new investigator and 4 other potential investigators who seem pretty promising. We just need to set up appointment with him for them to be considered new investigators.  The new investigator’s name is Connie.  She's super cool.  We found her while knocking doors in our area.  She said she was busy and said she'd be able to meet with us next week, but she seemed pretty interested.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and bore testimony of the Savior's earthly ministry in America. Hopefully she will start to progress. There were 2 really solid potentials we are going to focus on. We found them while doing a bunch more door knocking. They were outside their apartment and they kept taking photos of each other outside holding the keys. I looked at Elder Serassio and he said, "Bet you they’re new move ins." I promptly responded back, "Well what made you think that?" We chuckled and went and talked to them. Their names were Nancy and Kayla. Super nice girls.  We talked a little bit about their relationship with God and if they had belonged to any particular religion. Like most people they said they grew up Catholic but really don't practice. We talked a little about Jesus Christ to gauge what they knew about him. They said they believed that he was the son of God. So, we quickly went in and talked about his ministry in the America's. Caught their attention and said we could come back. We didn't set an exact time, but we are in communication with them over texting. So, we will see where that goes. 

We had a lesson with Daniel! (the one who was drinking while we were sharing the message) He let us back in! He was playing Madden 2k18 (football video game).  We talked briefly about it and then we asked if we could share another message about how we can increase our relationship with God. He got all excited and shut off the Xbox and grabbed his scriptures. So, we shared AN AWESOME lesson about Alma 32 and things we can do to increase our faith in Heavenly Father. There wasn't any booze around to hinder the spirit and boy was It on abundance. He loved it and said he would be interested in coming to church this next week. We invited him to read and pray every day to see if he notices a difference in his week. He said he would and then asked for places to start in the Book of Mormon. Of course, we gave him a ton and then had him say the ending prayer. It was a super solid lesson. 

We weren't able to meet with Michael this week (science and religion guy) He didn't answer the door.  We aren't gonna give up though! 

Diana is still rocking it. Still on track for the 3rd of February. We had a lesson with her. Our final one over video chat. (Quick pause here while I express my gratitude for technology as a missionary. Being able to have the constant communication with her AND be able to have video chat lessons with her was such a freaking blessing you have no idea) Before she showed back up to her apartment we decorated her door welcoming her back and gave her some welcome home candy on porch step. It's good to have her back. :) 

Funny stories of the week before I dive into what I mean in my subject line. We did exchanges with Crescent City this week (love that place) on the way back there is a place called The Trees of Mystery with a giant Paul Bunyan outside and of course a Babe the Blue Ox as well. We stopped and took photos..... The bull however....... Was very...... Correct in anatomy if you catch my drift..... Yes.... I took a photo with the testicles of a giant blue bull...... I will make sure to attach the photos. Second funny story of the week. After we got done with decorating Diana’s door we passed by an apartment with a box full of Dr. Peppers outside. We looked at a sign it had attached, and it said, "take some, leave it, I don't care. It's free s***. Do what you wish" after laughing hard I then commandeered all of the Dr. Peppers. I haven't had soda in probably 5 months..... But man was it good to be reunited. Haha I know it's terribly unhealthy, but you all know me and my family. :3 I'm trying to be better, but when there is a box of free doctor peppers I can't pass up the opportunity :) 

Anyway, let's get to the subject line. So, I had the opportunity to see the devotional last night for Young Adults. (We are YSA missionaries and we had brought an investigator, so we were totally allowed to go.) President Uchtdorf and his wife talked all about our adventures in mortality. And it was awesome!! It taught me so much about what God cares about and what he doesn't care about. It made me realize that it's the little things that matters. As long as we are faithful. In the Doctrine and Covenants chapter 62 there is a line that president Uchtdorf said that kinda blew my mind and helped me get over myself a little bit. It says "5 And then you may return to bear record, yea, even altogether, or two by two, as seemeth you good, it mattereth not unto me; only be faithful, and declare glad tidings unto the inhabitants of the earth, or among the congregations of the wicked".  Sometimes the decisions we make in life don't matter to the lord (and if they do he will make it known). We should just be "anxiously engaged in a good cause"(DC 58:27)  and "be faithful" as it said previously. Now to kinda tie it in to why it struck me. When we went to the temple. I had 2 questions (realizing now they probably weren’t the best questions but they were questions I felt like I needed answering.) Many of you know that my sister is getting married on June 16th. I'm so happy for her, but we ran into a problem my release date previously the 12th of June was changed to the 19th of June due to transfer scheduling. So, I needed to know should I go home a bit early or do I stay out. Second question, what the freak am I going to do with my life after the mission?  I figured this would be good questions to ask the lord since this was my last temple trip. So, I had a few options in mind and all I was asking the lord was to pick from the 3 options I had. Well, to make a long story short while in the celestial room praying my guts out, I did in fact receive an answer. It came into my mind in the form of a scripture I had previously liked.... D&C 58:26  "For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward" and like that my temple revelation ceased..... I WAS SO MAD, I was so upset! So frustrated, the entire ride back home I felt like it was such a waste of a temple trip. Was this God telling me he really didn't care? I was in such a bad mood for 2 weeks because of it. So, after thinking it was a waste, I made a decision on my sister's wedding (I will be coming home the 15th of June) and I still have no clue what to do for my career. (I still have ideas but I'm not thinking about it anymore.) It wasn't until last night it made sense and I truly understood, what really matters to God.

This wasn't him telling me he didn't care, this was a loving Heavenly Father letting me spread my wings and make a decision, I mean, that is why we came down to this earth right? All he cares about is the eternal progress of his children. All he cares about is us coming home to him. All he cares about it making sure that along the way home we help others join on the path. Everything else doesn't truly matter in the long run. He will make use of us with whatever we decide to do in this life. President Uchtdorf mentioned (and I'm paraphrasing) "sometimes we wish we had a planned out itinerary for our life, but would we really want that? Someone telling us where we need to go and how we need to act? No of course not. Mortality is the greatest choose your own adventure book ever!" It really made me take a step back and list what's important to God and what's important to me. And make sure that they matched. Although it's important I make good choices and work towards a good career and stuff, God will always help me out and guide me. A quote president Uchtdorf used was by Steve Jobs (again paraphrasing..... Sorry) "You can't see how the dots connect ahead of you, only backwards is when you see them connect" (I butchered it I know) it's true. Ahead is foggy and unclear, it's only after the fact, that you see how God guided you throughout your mortal journey. So even though I'm still incredibly nervous about the future, I know as long as I do the little things perfect, big things will come. And I know this to be true, because the spirit of God told me. And I have seen it already. I know this church is true and I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who deeply loves us and cares about us and our salvation, not necessarily what we have for breakfast or in what order we need to study in. He cares about us his children. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. And it IS in fact another testament of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw. And I know it. Temples are the house of the Lord and I leave this with you in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, our brother and savior, Amen. 

Love you all! Have an awesome week! 

#LightTheWorld

Cheers!
-Elder Riley Field

Elder Field Loves The Mission!

Honestly, I'm not sure what else I should write for my subject line. I really love the mission haha. Anyway, because I wrote you last Wednesday when we went to the temple, I don't have too much to report. I will just kinda let you know what happened the past few days haha.

Anyway, since I last talked with yall we did a bunch of finding and we actually found 2 new investigators. One of them we have high hopes for and the other one could potentially progress,s but not sure how coherent he was for he was drinking quite the amount of beer while we taught him. Haha he said he wants to develop a stronger relationship with God. His grandma is actually a member so that's fun! We are really hoping to continue to work with him. The lesson went well though, taught him the restoration and asked him to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon, so we will see if he does that :) 

The other investigator is named Michael. We haven't been able to meet with him yet, but he said he would be interested in how science and religion correlate, so we will see if we can pull that off. 

Anyway, we just did some more finding and some more preparing for the students who are starting to come back in the area. And we are pumped for it. Lots of door knocking and inviting people to activities! 

Anyway, I just want to tell yall I love you lots and I'm excited to continue to serve the lord. I’m trying to figure out a lot of things still, but I'm excited to continue to learn the doctrines and really get them engraved on my heart. I love the lord, and I know that Joseph saw what he said he saw. I love you all have an awesome week! 

#LightTheWorld

Cheers!
-Elder Riley Field

Elder Field And Elder Serassio Become The Mission's Greatest Detectives!

First off, I just found out that President Monson passed away yesterday. That man was and is a prophet of God. He will he missed. The plan of salvation is so cool isn't it :) we know where he is right now and I'm so grateful for that knowledge
.

Guys!! I have such a cool story for later in the email ;) But my week was super good! Sorry for the late email, our p-day got switched to today because WE ARE GOING TO THE TEMPLE! Which temple you might ask??? The Medford Oregon temple!!! That's right Homies Elder Field is leaving the mission for a little bit ;) it literally is the closest one to us, and it's a 3 1/2-hour drive away. So I'm super pumped to go to the temple and see what this one is like :D Guys temples are so freaking cool. I love it.

Anyway, let's talk about the week!

So, we are slowly starting to see an increase in population in Arcata haha. The students are coming back! so we have been able to contact some good people. There are still a ton of people at home which has forced us to switch up our finding tactics but for the most part it's been pretty good. I have learned a lot which is always a blessing. I love learning. Like a lot. It's weird I know. I'm a weird human. But anyway, off that strange tangent. We weren't able to find anyone new last week :( But we were able to have some amazing lessons with Diana this week! We talked about the law of chastity along with the word of wisdom and the law of tithing. Haha all in separate lessons don't worry, but they went so well! she accepted all of it and is super pumped to learn more and is still looking forward to her baptismal date on February 3rd. (we had to move it back slightly but it's okay, we found out we will be having MLC on the 27th so we wouldn’t be there. We gave her the option of still getting baptized that day, but she said she wanted us to be there. How nice! Anyway, she is just so freaking cool. Love her lots. Anywho that's really the only person we worked with this week. Everyone is still MIA from New years and Christmas. Which BTW HAPPY FREAKING NEW YEAR!!!  I can't believe it's 2018 already. It's so nuts. 2017 was a pretty good year. It was the full year I spent on my mission. I will forever be grateful for 2017. Let's see what this new year brings.

So, because the work was crazy slow in the YSA Last week, we somehow we're able to remain busy. But like doing a lot of different things. One of the elders in zone had to go to the hospital to get surgery. It was an emergency, he is okay now so don't worry. But we had to stay overnight at the hospital with him. #HosptialSleepIsTheWorstSleep I got maybe 20 mins sleep put together. But don't worry we got permission to take an hour nap. It was really nice. And that was all we needed to keep going. The Lord sustains.

COOL Story Of The WEEK! We became freaking detectives. Let me explain. So, the Arcata elders went to the hospital to pick up the companion of the elder who was in the hospital. While they were there, their phone got stolen. So that was a bummer. Mind you these are the brand new smart phones we have, so we were really sad. So we called the AP's to let them know what happened. They were super bummed and we basically gave up on the phone. Well I got an  idea.  I was pretty sure we could track where the phone was (thank you parents for tracking me all my high-school days on my smart phone to know that it was possible) So while the tech elders looked into it we just went to work knocking doors which is 90% of what we have been doing the past week. Anyway, we got a call an hour later and they said they knew where the phone was. It was over by the WinCo and was on the move. "So...... What the freak do we do?" So, we decided we would call the police and let them know.  We called them and they sent a police officer to meet up with us. His name was Ryan. Nice guy. Helped us out lots. So, we met with him and drove and approached the phone’s location and so we made noises on the phone from the computer and low and behold some homeless guy had it. We got it back and then the police officer looked at us and said, "Well what do you want to do? You want to press charges?" I looked at the officer and said, "Honestly we just wanted the phone back." So we let him go, the police officer chastised him for a little bit and then we were on our way. Such a weird day...... I took some videos, I will share them with my parents, if yall want to see what they were like talk to my mom, she will figure out how to get them to you. Haha fun stuff. Anyway, that was the day we became detectives. The other missionaries still don't believe us ;)

Anyway, sorry this email was really scatter brained and quick. I’m writing this really quick the night before we leave for the temple :D Because I know I won't have time tomorrow (don't worry I got permission) . 

I love you all! God is good! I will talk to you more on Monday!!! BYE!!!

#LightTheWorld

Cheers!
-Elder Riley Field

Bumper sticker on a parked car weirded me out. So I put a pass along card. Jesus is always there. Sometimes peaking around a license plate 

And look! I drew our investigator that we were teaching during companion ship study. We did a teaching practice and we needed someone to teach. So, meet Jake. He would fit in rather well here in Humboldt.