Sweet Summer Sweat - 01/27/14

I got to go to the temple this week. That's usually a sign of a good week. I spent an awfully long time in the Celestial Room. I've had a lot of static in my head lately. 

Wednesday we were on exchanges with the APs and I got to spend the whole day with my old companion from Murrieta. That was fun. And while I was on exchanges, I somehow ran into my best friend from MoVal.  It just so happened that we were both on exchanges on the same day, and his district leader was giving a baptismal interview to somebody the APs were teaching. So we got to catch up and it was pretty nice. 

On Thursday I held a puppy and saw a midget riding a bike. That made it an awesome day in and of itself. 

We're still working the ward list a lot, and now the ward council started pushing the ward mission process, which is a Very Good Thing(TM). Still not a whole lot of fruit from those efforts. BUT we had a fantastic lesson on Monday with a friend of a member in that member's home. She was sick for the next lesson but I'm hoping to teach her again soon. This is how missionary work is most effective! The members find them and provide support for them while we teach and handle the concerns that they may have with joining the church. It's like it's inspired by a prophet of God or something. 

The elders and sisters in my zone are doing really really well, even better than the months prior. We didn't baptize a whole lot in February, but the numbers all went up and are staying up after this past transfer, and that tells me that the new companionships are working hard and that the baptisms will come if they continue to put forth that new effort. I'm looking forward to training them again on Friday and meeting with the rest of the leadership on Thursday. Being a zone leader isn't all that bad, I don't think. 

I had the opportunity to give five priesthood blessings this week, yes FIVE. And while the first one was to a sister missionary for her headaches and didn't strike me as super special, the other three all hit me really, really hard. I gave a blessing to two Elders and one Sister in my zone that are struggling with the work in one way or another, and all of them I was amazed at the things that came out of my mouth. Then last night, we dropped by a member at 8:30pm (I was recovering from a really frustrating parking lot bible bash and just went with it instead of fighting it, thank goodness) and it was miraculous. "Oh hey, good timing, we just got done reading our scriptures and were thinking about a friend of ours that needs the gospel." We gave them some missionary tools and scriptures for the husband to use on his friend, and then gave a blessing to the wife that just blew me away. It was wonderful. How grateful I am for the opportunity to speak on the Lord's behalf while blessing his beloved children. And how humbling it is that these missionaries look up to me. 

Keep the faith, guys. The world will know one day that what we are teaching is true, and I want to be known as one of the valiant ones. 

Love you tons.

This Could be Heaven or This Could be Hell - 01/20/14

I apologize for the brevity of last week's message. A series of unfortunate events kept me from writing as much as I would like, and I only got through a couple of abbreviated sad stories before I was rushed off the computer. I promise there are plenty of good things going on in my life. 

Those good things do NOT include our key indicators for this week. Well, we taught a whole lot of lessons... but not very many to investigators. Mostly because we don't really have many investigators. In fact we really only have one at this point, and he didn't come to church. So I don't know what's going on, but people to teach and baptize are pretty scarce. My new companion and I are searching hard and trying to set stuff up with our potentials, part-member families, formers, etc. but so far it's been rough. 

Oh yeah, in my haste last week I did not mention that we got a brand new car. Yes, a 2014 Ford Fusion, with 17 miles on it and the new car smell and everything. I am the envy of our entire mission now. I even got the one that was steely gray instead of white, so it looks pretty darn sharp. We've already racked up 300 miles and a speeding ticket. IT WASN'T ME I SWEAR. Actually I feel pretty horrible about it, our fleet coordinator called and said I haven't taken the mission driving test, so I should do that next time I'm in Riverside, but my companion drive for now. So I handed over the keys to the car, and he got a speeding ticket in less than five miles from that point, going 72 in a 50. We were on our way to rescue the Spanish elders who had three baptismal interviews at the stake center but no baptismal forms... yeah I felt pretty bad about it. 

Wednesday I got to do another Hell Move, as I affectionately call them... when you show up for two hours of service, and they don't have the truck ready to go, and they haven't packed anything in their house and they expect you to do all the work. So we were there for about four hours, and still didn't get everything done with 16 elders there, and we were starving the whole time. Blessings in heaven, man. For every mattress and washing machine I've had to move up and down stairs, I expect another room to be added on to my shiny mansion for my wife and I to frolic in for the rest of eternity. Sounds like a fair deal to me. 

I met some pretty fantastic people this week. I felt like an awesome missionary when I showed up at a hospital to visit somebody I'd never heard of before and promptly made best friends with her and her daughter, who had all kinds of depressing stories to tell.  I was in a hospital which means I was nervous and on edge because I hate hospitals.  I still was super charming and spiritual and uplifting and left with a smile on my face and a return appointment. I looked into things a little further, and the daughter of the hospitalized lady isn't a member... so there may be a potential baptism there if things continue the way I'm going. That was the best accidental missionary work I've done in a long time. And it felt amazing. 

What also felt amazing: Stake Conference. The general session was actually a broadcast from Salt Lake, and we got to hear from Sister Burton, Elder Anderson, Elder Eyring, and some random 70, mostly about going to the rescue and sharing the gospel. All the missionaries were also invited to the adult session Saturday night, which was all about missionary work, too. The very first speaker was a recent convert... my parking lot miracle. Despite not showing up to church, and basically ignoring me all week, she showed up and gave a talk to the whole entire stake about her conversion, and made me so very proud. I'm not sure I could have been prouder if she was my daughter and she'd just won a gold medal. It moved me. Now I just gotta hope that she lets me back in her home this week so we can keep up that spiritual high and keep her penitent and involved in the church still so we don't lose her. Gosh I am so happy with how that worked out. 

God is awesome guys. Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week. 

PS random thought I had yesterday... I can usually tell how much I like a person by whether they comment on my tie being a USC Trojan tie, or if they ask if it's a Gryffindor tie. Tell Uncle Mike I need a UCLA-themed tie... and I'll keep wearing my Gryffindor tie a lot because I love it to pieces. 
 

On a Dark Desert Highway, Cool Wind in My Hair - 01/13/14

Big news everyone! I moved apartments, just down the road though. I still cover the Diamond Valley Ward in San Jacinto, I'm still the zone leader, and I still love my life. I had to say goodbye to my beloved companion, though. The new guy is someone who I happen to know from earlier in my mission. I was his district leader in Moreno Valley for a short while. But yeah, this is his first time being a zone leader but his third time serving in Hemet. Go figure. 

There were several small tragedies this week. One was catching my recent converts, the parking lot miracle couple, smoking a cigarette. That hurt. Everybody has setbacks, though, so not a huge deal. But then they didn't come to church, either. That made me sad. 

Dairy Queen is our hangout. The one close to us used to be owned by a member, and he pays for all the missionaries to eat there for free. Pretty dang cool. Well, we went there after a meeting on Tuesday, and it was closed. Apparently corporate got enough complaints about their crappy service to shut the place down until they can find somebody new to buy the franchise. So we don't get any more free chicken fingers and blizzards for a while. Sad day. 

The elders that live with us got their car broken into AGAIN and their GPS stolen again. That was sad. But the prayer I heard Elder "T" give that morning made me cry it was so sincere. 

I love you guys! I hope to hear from you soon.

Too Many Sunsets I Haven't Seen - 01/06/14

What a week! Happy New Year, everyone. 

Working on New Year's Eve wasn't super productive. We were late to our zone activity because we stopped to jump a guy's car battery and ended up doing two different cars and helping an old guy try to find his car in the same parking lot. I say we tried because we never actually found the car. Either he parked in an entirely different parking lot or his car got stolen. But yeah, eventually we got to the stake center and found everybody playing board games. I didn't participate in the two different Risk games, but I played a round of Munchkin with the people who were eliminated early. 

This is where things got interesting. Earlier that day, I got to interview a couple of investigators for baptism that one of my district leaders taught. This kid was very simple and very pure. It was pretty fun. After the interview, though, I heard about some of the problems that are going on in this district... the sisters' district. There are only two sets of sisters in the entire Hemet stake, and there have been issues with them, thankfully mostly amongst themselves and not out in the open. 

Well, at about 10:15 on New Year's Eve, I got a call from the APs that I needed to confiscate a phone from one of the sisters in my zone. So I got to drive across the zone to take care of that. On the way back we got some Martinelli's and ended up staying up almost to midnight talking with the guys in our apartment and wondering if our upstairs neighbors were going to fall through the roof and booty dance their way back upstairs. Later in the week, I got orders to confiscate the other sisters' phone. I spent a lot of time talking to the APs and President this week. 

I also spent a lot of time on planning for meetings this week. We had the APs attend our District Leader Council on Wednesday, exchanges on Thursday, Missionary Leadership Council on Friday, Zone Development Meeting on Saturday, and Stake Missionary Leadership Council on Sunday morning. President Smart came to that last meeting, which he normally doesn't, so that was a pleasant surprise. I got to share with him my unexpected news... 

... So, I got permission from President Smart to start applying for college, which is super depressing. Saturday night, I was starting to work on that, and I discovered that I was awarded an Associate Degree from Spartanburg Community College in November of 2011. I'm actually a college graduate already and I didn't know it. How fun is that!? Associate in Science - Secondary Electives 11/01/2011.  

Sunday, I got to confirm my Brown-Eyed Girl. She is such a joy to be around. I got hit super hard with the Spirit right after that. I had to clear my mind a little bit before the confirmation, because I was thinking about how I'm a pretty horrible student. But here's the thing: I can't even remember to read a textbook or attend a class, but I have been given God's power to perform saving ordinances for his precious children. I am far from perfect, but I have the seeds of divinity within me as God's son, and I carry His priesthood as long as I am worthy. I felt pretty darn special at that point. I may be frustrated at my shortcomings, and there are more than a few of them, but I have great worth to the most powerful being in the known universe. And most importantly, I have the potential to be with him and be like him. Infinite potential. That's a pretty special thing. 

You are loved, guys. Keep on keeping on. A song made me cry this week - Infinite Love by Afa Garrington. I'm so grateful that God loves me so much.

Too many things I haven't done yet - 12/30/13

It's been an awesome Christmas season! 

I have no clue what to say that I haven't said. 

The talent show on Christmas Eve was so much fun! 

Christmas Eve was great in Idyllwild. We all drove up to this cabin that the Idyllwild missionaries live in, and the road was super windy and hilly, but it was a really pretty spot. I'm kind of bummed that we didn't get to see it in the daylight, because it reminds me a little bit of the mountains back home. 

Christmas Day we spent hanging out with people in the ward. Also the Park Hill missionaries made us a big breakfast of crepes, whipped cream, berries, turkey bacon (whose idea was the TURKEY part?!), hash browns, breakfast casserole, and lots of different delectable beverages. We all opened our presents together in a group of 10 elders and ate breakfast around their very crowded table. It was fun. 

The "brown-eyed girl" got baptized 2 weeks and 1 day after we met her. I am still amazed that we managed to get all the lessons taught in that time frame. I don't really know her all that well but I'm so thrilled that she went through with the baptism. I call that a MIRACLE. But yeah, now that she's baptized, now I get the chance to know who she is actually. 

At the baptism, I had the chance to save a child's life. Elder "C" is allergic to peanuts. He ate a chocolate chip cookie but then spat it out when he thought he tasted peanut butter. Luckily he didn't have a lot of a reaction to it because he spat out the bite that he took. I ate the rest of the cookie. So really I didn't save him at all but I ate the cookie. 

I loved Skyping home. I do have a lot to be thankful for here on the mission, but I still love my family. Sometimes it's easier to love them from a distance, but I'm grateful that they are there. 

So yeah, sorry so short, hope you guys had an amazing holiday.

Love is Christmas - 12/23/13

Great news everybody! Our Savior was born in Bethlehem a couple thousand years ago, and I'm going to celebrate by drinking some candycane-flavored hot chocolate. 

The parking lot couple got baptized yesterday! I gave a talk that I didn't think about until about 3 minutes beforehand, but it was pretty great. And there was a lot of support from their families. And a bunch of missionaries showed up with their investigators. These people are just so great, and it's been such a blessing working with them. Now I've just got to keep them active until they get married and moved back in. 

The 9-year-old and 16-year-old daughters came to church again, and it was a great sacrament meeting with all the Christmas stuff going on. I think we'll be baptizing the 16-year-old in January, because she's moving out of her grandma's house in Colton and living here starting this week. She doesn't seem super thrilled about baptism right now, but she loves us missionaries and she likes coming to church, so I think once we start actually teaching her and leaving commitments, she'll be easy. The 9-year-old can only come over on weekends, so that would be a lot harder to make happen. But if there's one thing I've picked up on this week, it's that nothing is too hard for God. 

Last week at church, we noticed somebody we didn't recognize, and my super-observant companion introduced himself.  She's not a member.  We call her the "brown-eyed girl". But she showed up to church, went to the Christmas devotional fireside, and went caroling with the youth. So we called her up, taught her a couple lessons, and figured out that she's learned a lot about the church already from her friends, and that she's really prepared to commit. So we put her on date to be baptized at the end of the month. I was thinking we wouldn't have any baptisms this month, and now it looks like we'll have three. That's a miracle. 

Also in the miracles column: "K" and "A", the Undercover Mormons."K" is a self-described jack-mormon, and his wife is a truth seeker who hasn't had her questions answered by any religion so far. But she has LDS family, and she loved us enough to invite us over for dinner and have a very involved Lesson 1 afterwards. She asked so many good questions, and she still has more. Unfortunately "K" works at a car dealership all the time, so it's hard to get an appointment to teach them, but the one lesson we had went really well, and I'm looking forward to the next one. 

Oh yeah, this all happened on the same day as our multi-zone conference, wherein I felt really inspired and uplifted. And if you remember The Straggler, his mother-in-law was one of the ladies that fed us lunch at our multi-zone, and it was fun talking to her about how much her family has progressed. She bore testimony to everybody in that room about how us baptizing her son-in-law and getting that family active in church was a miracle for her and all she ever could have asked for. That felt good. That, and any time I get to spend with President Smart is a good time. 

The bad news is that a lot of the people in my zone that said they were going to baptize, now think that they won't, for one reason or another. I've got lots of opportunities to fix problems and inspire some missionaries today, to see if we can still salvage their baptisms for this weekend and make it possible for the mission to hit the yearly goal. There are enough baptisms up in the air in our zone alone to probably make it or break it, so... NO PRESSURE. 

But I'm trying not to worry about it. I've got my Brown-Eyed Girl to prepare for baptism, some Christmas gifts to wrap for my fellow missionaries, and lots of goofing off with members and missionaries tomorrow and Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone! And don't forget to be thankful to God for the gift of his son.

This is my December - 12/16/13

Last Christmas, I got pretty homesick. I had lots of time to sit around and think about what I missed at home. And I'm sure they meant well, but when all the members invited us over to their homes so we could watch them be happy with their families, it made it that much more apparent that I was not a part of their family. This year, we don't have any plans for Christmas day other than Skype. I think we're going to have a really big zone party and just hang out with the other missionaries. Hopefully the rowdiness of that many Elders in one spot will overcome any twinges of homesickness that may arise. I've got lots of baking supplies so I can make lots of cookies. Should be pretty fun.

This week has been pretty fun. Lots of non-traditional missionary stuff, again.

The Parking Lot Miracle couple took up a lot of our week. We went over on Tuesday and got the mobile home all set up for them. They separated that night, and haven't slept together since. Wednesday morning, we had to go fix the mobile home because it was leaking water onto the carpet. Luckily for me, my companion is way more handy than I am, and with him and the member that owns it, we were able to get the water pump replaced and the mobile home 100% operational again. So that's all set.

Smoking is still hard for them. They've had a couple of hiccups. But I'm confident that they will keep off the cigarettes, even though it's a bit worrisome that they aren't totally clean yet. 

This couple made me super proud when they told us about their testimony of the Law of Chastity and how separating has been the best decision. "It's really not that hard, when you think about it in terms of being separated for just a little while so that we can be together forever." SHE GETS IT. She totally gets it. I was so proud. 

Those two came to church again, and they brought their 16-year-old and a 9-year-old daughters with them. We taught both of them after church. They really enjoyed it, even though it was high council Sunday and all three of the speakers were pretty dull. Thank goodness for the Holy Ghost! If the spirit wasn't there I'm sure they would have thought our church was horribly dull. The classes were really great, so that helped, too. 

Other than that family, well, things haven't moved forward a whole lot. Our ward mission leader had this genius idea that we should imitate the Jehovah's Witnesses and put literature on every single door in our ward boundaries. Well, we handed out 1500 door hangers with the Articles of Faith and our phone numbers on them on Saturday morning, and so far no leads.

Well, at least I can be super proud of my zone. Our ward is planning on having 4 baptisms on Sunday the 22nd! One of them is super flaky and may not happen, but there will be at least our couple and one other solid dude from the other elders that work in our ward. My zone will probably have 10 baptisms this month, possibly more. If every zone got as many baptisms as ours, we would double our goal. So I have a lot to be happy for, if I'm in the same mindset as Alma 29:14-17.

Love you tons. Have a great week.