Letter 54

Hey Everyone! 

 

I don't have a ton of time today so I will be brief! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! We had a normal day but we had to come in at 7:00 and wow, the fireworks are way cooler here than in St. George! 

 

We also got to meet our new president yesterday! President and sister Wells are super awesome and it was a great meeting. We didn't actually go to them all so we had to wait until Friday to meet him, but we did have meetings all day that day so we got to see him a lot.

 

That was pretty much all for this week! Tonight is transfer calls so I will probably let you know what happens next Monday. I think we will both stay here but we will see. Hope you all have a great week!

Pictures: Goodbye President Villanueva, pictures of old companions at zone conferences.

 

Letter 53

Hey Everyone!

This week was shorter because we aren't having P day Monday but it was still a great one. We finally got a chance to meet with Susan! She has accepted a baptismal date and said she would be baptized when she finds out the church is true and the Book of Mormon is true which is awesome! We are super excited for her and all that is in store.

Other than that, we have been really trying to focus on improving our dinner messages and focus them on the message of the restoration. This week we have seen the blessings of doing this as many members have told us of their experiences of giving out copies of the Book of Mormon to their friends.

One member shared it with a friend of hers and her daughter was actually investigating in Utah. Well, the daughter was really debating on whether to be baptized or not and she saw the Book that was for her mom and opened it and read the written testimony.   Last weekend, the daughter chose to be baptized because of the power of that testimony.

I testify that we can be the answers to others prayers and as we share our experiences with others, we may be helping more people than we realize. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth and this is the way we can find true happiness. I hope you all can find the same joy as you study the Book of Mormon. I hope you all have a great week!

Pics: Our last zone Conference with President and Sister Villanueva. He left yesterday and our new president is President Wells. I am so grateful for the Villanueva's and for all they have done and I am
excited to see what happens with President Wells!

 

Letter 52 Goodbye to President Villanueva

Well, I can't say a whole ton happened this week because we had meetings all week. It was President Villanueva's last zone Conference, so that was kinda sad, but we also got to say goodbye 5 times in a row since we went to all of the zone conferences. It was really fun to be around them all week and to see all the missionaries in the mission though! Unfortunately, those meetings took up all the time so we didn't get to do much proselyting in our own area but no worries. We hope to make up for it this week! I am excited for President Wells to come! He will join us this weekend. I hope you all have a great week!

    

 

 

Letter 51 Plan of Salvation

It was a pretty good week this week but short because I just had p day Monday. We are having it Saturday due to the upcoming zone conferences so I will write about those next week. Things are going well here, we have gotten a few referrals that seem pretty solid so we are excited to work with them! I haven't gotten in contact with everybody yet but we hope to this week! 

I went on my first real exchange this week where I actually left my area completely so that was pretty fun. It was a Spanish area so I wasn't quite sure what was going on but I did have to bike in that area for the first time on my mission. That was fun for the first little bit but I hope I never have to do that again. It is a real blessing to have a car. I know some missionaries who would just be wishing they had a bike so I have definitely lucked out in where I have served so far!

That is pretty much all for this week, but I just want to testify of the truthfulness of the plan of salvation. I have always struggled in teaching this because I felt it was complicated and confusing, but now I see that it is the only possible plan that God could use to save his children and he knows that and now I know that. I am so grateful for the potential to become something better in this life and for the plan that God has laid out. Because of the gospel pattern of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end that was restored to the earth; we can become so much better and have a role in Gods plan. 

I am so grateful that I chose to go on a mission. I think I knew these things before, but now because I know them, I am going to do something about it. I hope you all choose to do the same and have a great week!

 

Letter 50

This week was pretty great! We went on a hike as a zone for our P-Day today and it was a lot of fun!

We had a couple of meetings this week as well and I really enjoyed the MLC although it was a struggle. If you know me, you know I am not good at all with technology and we had a lot of problems during the meeting but we got through it so it was ok. I wish I was talented with technology but I guess that is what I need to learn.

We also have a couple of good prospects who could become some solid investigators! Things are definitely going well! Our ward is awesome! It is a little bit small for a ward, but the members are really solid and are doing a lot of great work. The recent converts are now receiving callings and so things are really looking up! We also got a referral from our mission president a few days ago and have been in contact with the referrals cousin and her brother to teach her. They originally referred her and it sounds like she has a lot of potential. They say she is really interested in learning more and we set up a lesson with her on Wednesday! We are really excited!

Also quick update from my last area, I don't know if you remember, but me and my companions were teaching an Armenian man named Henrik and unfortunately while I was with Elder Sanders we had to drop him because he wasn't progressing. Well, after attending his own church and then ours multiple times, he decided to be baptized while Elder Sanders and Elder Meppen were there!

He is very strong in the church now and his mother wasn't too happy with his decision at all actually,
but he chose to do what he knew was right, even when it meant displeasing his mother. I truly have come to find out that no effort is wasted and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to work with Henrik!

Letter 49

Hey Everyone!

This week was pretty great! I have a new companion now and it is Elder Peterson who was my zone leader when I was leaving Glendale! I am super pumped to have him as a companion because I already know we will get along great. He is also very ready to work in this new area and light it up and I am too, so it will be a fun transfer for sure.

Other than that things have been pretty busy. Since it was transfer week, we were at the office all day Monday and Tuesday taking old missionaries home and bringing new missionaries in. We did have some problems with the missionaries we took home but it all worked out. Elder Peterson and I took the international missionaries to the airport.

The Elder going home to South Korea and the Elder going home to the Philippines had some problems with their flights being delayed and messing up the connectors and so we were on the phone a lot with church travel. That was definitely really stressful but we were able to get it figured out, they just had to stay in the mission one more day. So far working in the office has been pretty fun though and I enjoy working in the fast pace environment, especially on transfer week.

We did have one cool miracle occur as well this week. We went to visit a less active part member family but when we arrived  complex we realized we didn't have their apt number. Then our phone started ringing and we didn't recognize the number. When we answered we found out that it was non member wife of the family we were trying to reach right then.

She said her family was going through a lot and she really needed to come back to church and get them involved as well. She even expressed to us that she wants to be baptized again. She was a member of the church originally but her records were removed when she was younger but now she wants to be a part of it again. We had a great lesson yesterday about repentance with her and her husband and we are excited to help them progress in the gospel. They are awesome and would be a wonderful blessing to have in the ward.

That's about all for this week! I hope you all have a wonderful week as well!

(Pictured -- office elders with the departing missionaries)

Letter 48

Hey Everyone!

Transfer calls are tonight but since we are going to be pretty busy all transfer week our p day is today. However, Elder Baguley received a call from the Assistants a little bit early to tell him that he will be training next transfer. He is really excited because this is the first time he will train. So, this means I will be getting a new companion! I don't know who it will be yet but I am excited to find out tonight! 

Other than that it was a pretty short week so there isn't much to report. We have been teaching a lot more lessons which is good and we hope to keep it up. We also had a really fun zone activity where we played a bunch of games for p day last week. There are a couple pictures below and it was a lot of fun. Hope you all have a great week!

(Later: My new companion is Elder (Cameron) Peterson and he is from Nampa Idaho! He was my Zone Leader back in Glendale and is really awesome, so I am excited to work with him!)

 

 

Letter 47: Meeting Mayra

May 22, 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been pretty good! We found a couple people who really seem like they could have some potential and so we hope we can keep teaching them! We also had Kaoussar and the twins Bshara and Zein at church yesterday so that was really good! 

While the twins went to primary we were able to teach Kaoussar and really set good expectations. We pretty much wrote down everything that needed to happen before baptism and what will happen after baptism and what it means to be a part of the church. We went over each person in the family individually and it went really well.

It's too bad Emile wasn't there but I think Kaoussar got a lot out of it and she is really excited to help her family make this step! Normally she leaves before sacrament meeting because she can't control the twins, but this time Elder Baguley and I each sat next to one of the twins and helped keep them quiet during sacrament meeting.

It reminded me of when I was little at church and played all those games like hangman. It went really well! The twins also got to go to fathers and sons yesterday with their dad so I bet that helped them get a lot of fellowship. They are super awesome and I'm so grateful to be working with them! Please pray for them! That's about all this week. Sorry I keep forgetting to take pictures and I also can't find anything cool to take pictures of. Have a great week!

Partial Journal entries:

May 16: Man, today was crazy but awesome! We taught this family the restoration. They would be such a blessing to have in the ward, but they are kinda hung up on some of the deeper doctrines, which is too bad because they are so nice and act like Mormons. They would be such good Mormons too, but that's ok, it was still a good lesson. We then had dinner with James Finlay's family, which was awesome.

May 17: Today was quite the day because it was mostly tracting and calling people. We pretty much called everyone in our area book and tracted for most of the day.  Unfortunately still nobody was found but we did have a small doctrinal discussion with a guy from Christ Church of the Valley so that was cool.  I definitely need to go visit some other churches after my mission because I have a lot of questions about how they all work.

May 18: Today was great! We had district meeting with a good lesson...  We also studied about hope as a companionship and decided that we both need to make a greater effort to have hope and that made the finding day a lot more optimistic. Not only that, but the very last person we talked to before we went to go teach Eric said we could come back Saturday. Her name is Mayra and I think she was a miracle, even if nothing else goes through.

We then taught Eric a lesson. He is a recent convert and we were pretty bold with him but he is really humble and patient and so he committed to stay at church for the whole three hours. Overall pretty good day!

May 19th: It was our district's turn to clean the mission office and so we did that after personal study and then came back and did comp study and weekly planning. We then did some finding and then had a wonderful dinner at the Sandovals. Then it was just more visiting people and then language study and so yeah, it was pretty much just another regular day in Duarte, not too shabby!

May 22: Today was a good P-day because we got to play ball for a bit and we also had a zone activity where we played a bunch of games so that was lots of fun! I wish we had more people to teach, but I am grateful for the Ibraihims. If we could teach them often if would feel like the area was on fire. No worries though. Things will turn up I'm sure.