Great Week (Lame Letter)

This week was a great week. Transfers are today.  The big news of the week is I will be staying in the area. Elder Goold got transferred to the Lakes Zone. I have been disappointed the last two transfers because I have not been able to get a baptism in this area. I have high goals and high expectations for these upcoming transfers. My new companion is Elder Rivera, he is from Maui, Hawaii. He's a super awesome elder and has been out for about 10 months. I look forward to serving with him and seeing a lot of miracles with him.  We will have a lot of fun together. My district is 100 percent different than last transfer.  I don't have much to say this week. I will write an update of the investigators next week.

Good Times

3/12 Monday
Today was a good time. We went to a restaurant where I have wanted to go my whole mission! It was super good and could feed me for three meals! Tonight was pretty interesting! We were biking and it was pretty late, like 8:15 or so. There’s a guy that called to us and asked if we were Mormons. We said yes and he said come have a study. We went over there and started talking to him.  He was quite beat up and he was in his front yard getting drunk. We asked him what happened and on Friday he got in a motorcycle accident where he T-bones a car, smashed his face on his handlebars and then flew over the car. He completely destroyed his chin and knocked out all of his teeth. It was quite disgusting. We taught him a little bit and then bounced.

3/13 Tuesday
Today we had a lesson with one of our investigators named Dave. We tracted into Dave last Friday. We took the ward mission leader with us and had a great lesson. Dave grew up in the back of a Baptist church down in the letter streets of Las Vegas. Dave cracks me up because as he talks his dentures keep falling out and then he gets frustrated with them, so he just takes them out in front of us and just talks with no teeth, so he is super hard to understand. It is pretty funny!

3/15 Thursday
Tonight we went tracting with a member friend of ours and had some decent success. One of his neighbors thought we were his kids haha and came in for a big hug, haha, we then had to break the news that we weren’t his boys haha. She was super nice! We also did some service for one of our investigators and pulled his weeds in his front yard because he has leukemia.

3/16 Friday
Today was super great! We had a full day of teaching and set a man named Robert with a baptismal date! We also got to teach Alex and Anna. Alex is a new investigator we found a week or so ago. He let us in and we taught them about the restoration. Anna said wow that is amazing but it will be so hard to convert them because they are extremely catholic but hey the spirit can touch their hearts! Tonight we started an exchange with the zone leaders.

3/17 Saturday
This morning we got a phone call and they told us that our apartment was flooded. Haha we had to go and clean it up and get all of our stuff out of our rooms. The cleaning guy came and took care of the carpet and then we had a lesson with our next door neighbor in our apartment complex! She is super cool but has a lot of struggles and is very lost!

3/18 Sunday
Today was Stake Conference and it was really good! Elder Kim B Clark of the Seventy spoke!

I am doing well!

The Flow

3/5 Monday
“Only dead fish go with the flow.” Today,

the elders I live with and another set were begging to go hit up this crusty, dusty, Asian buffet. They wanted to go eat the sushi. I was a little hesitant and was trying to convince them otherwise but decided to “go with the flow.” The place was nasty and I felt sick walking in there haha. I tried sushi for the first time and a mussel. There are some pictures attached. We tried convincing one of the elders the wasabi was guacamole. He didn’t believe it, but we still got him to eat a bunch of it with his sushi haha. Elder Goold complained all day of an upset stomach and I am not surprised haha. We have felt the last few days, we needed to go and see a lady we met a long time ago and had given a Book of Mormon to. We knocked with no answer, but as we were leaving the dad of the family pulled up in the driveway because he had just gotten off work. We started talking to him and he asked “What is the difference between Catholics and Mormons?” It was all over from there.  We started teaching and testifying of many gospel principles and he loved it so, hopefully, we will be able to start teaching them!

3/6 Tuesday
Tonight we had two lessons that went decently well! We taught the referral, Roxanna, as well as, JC and Niki. It was hard to teach Roxanna, because she was trying to eat, as well as, take care of her 6-month baby, while listening, so it was a little rough haha.

3/7 Wednesday
Today we had Zone Conference. It was pretty good.  We talked about the importance and the power of the Book of Mormon. We had another lesson with Nada. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to pray about it! She said that the Book of Mormon that had been given to her was taken by her dad, so he could read it haha! So we gave her another one! She is super awesome!

3/8 Thursday
Today was absolutely crazy. We did our weekly planning session, went and did some finding without too much that happened. After dinner, we saw a guy that we street contacted the other day and so we started to talk to him again. His car was broken down and so we helped him start it, after the car got started the man started to hit on me... he was like would you like me to give you a kiss to say thank you? And I just had to say “I ain’t about that.” Ha ha. He then wanted us to go for a ride with him in his car. We denied and bounced. Later that evening we were riding through this park and this girl started screaming for help. It was dark and late, probably 8:15 at least and so we rode over there and she was like “call the cops, call the cops.” We did and she was there with her boyfriend who just hurt her and stole her stuff. The boyfriend bounced and jumped a wall and took off and then she took off. We tried following them but they ended up jumping onto a car and taking off. We talked with the officers for a little while and then we went home!  Crazy night.

3/9 Friday
It was the big 20th birthday today and nothing too crazy happened! We had a good lesson with the Gotchy’s and asked them the interview questions and they are all set except they won’t come to church.

3/10 Saturday
Today was a wreck. Actually two wrecks. Today started off with a lesson with Lomax. We finished teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We had the lesson at the Bishop’s house. Bishop’s dog came out to say hello to everyone and Lomax was like, “What in the world! I saw this dog in my dream last night.” It’s kind of weird, but hopefully, it was a sign to her. We taught her about the necessity of Priesthood Authority and she definitely did struggle with that a little bit, but she is going to pray about the restored authority.
In the afternoon we were riding and Elder Goold went to ride up on a curb and his tires slide out and he went down on the concrete! Later tonight, after dinner, Elder Goold was riding and a truck caught his eye and his handle bars went into the fence and it threw him over the handle bars and bent and ruined his front tire. It was a rough day for Elder Goold!

3/11 Sunday
We got two new investigators tonight. It was a really, really, GOOD NIGHT. We met a man named William. He let us take a seat on his front porch and we started to teach him. He had many questions about the gospel and about Mormons. After we had talked for a little bit he said, “something I did not tell you guys at the beginning was me and my wife are heavily involved in a Pentecostal Church.  My wife is the Pastor’s Assistant.” He then asked the question, “We both believe in God, and we both believe in Jesus Christ, what should motivate me, and my wife, to convert to Mormonism?” We then were able to testify of eternal families and of the Plan of Salvation. We have a return appointment with him on Friday and he told us that he wants to read the Book of Mormon. He is sooo awesome. We also taught a staunch Catholic and that went pretty well too!

Pretty Crazy

2/26 Monday 

Today was a good p-day. I wasn’t feeling super good, so I didn’t play any basketball. I just talked to some of the other missionaries in the zone. We got a referral today for a lady that has taken the first three discussions already and that had just moved into the area! We were stoked! We went and contacted her and she seems very solid. We will be teaching her early next week. We had a couple member visits and that was about it for the day! 

2/27 Tuesday 

Tonight was pretty solid. We were able to get in and teach Robert. He is the guy from Salt Lake. We taught him the Plan of Salvation. He was a little distracted, because he has this Rottweiler that is just massive and wants to eat us, so that was a little intimidating. We invited him to church and to the Zion’s Youth Concert. Hopefully, he will go to both of them! We also had a lesson with a lady named Karla. Karla was taught and baptized by Elder Jensen and Elder Bird! She was struggling a little bit, but the Spirit was there as we testified of the Atonement! 

2/28 Wednesday 

Today was pretty crazy. The ward mission leader came with us to the lesson of one of our investigators that has many health issues. When we knocked on the door she answered and she was shaking really bad and said she was having a low sugar attack and she couldn’t get her sugar to rise. We jumped into action and went to a neighbor, who is a member, and got her some juice. We tried some other things and it was not working. We gave her a blessing and immediately her blood sugar rose and she stabled out. She then was feeling better and gave us her life story... it was quite long, but all was well! 

3/1 Thursday 

We had a couple lessons tonight and invited our investigator Dave and his anti-girlfriend to Zion's Youth, so hopefully, they will come! 

3/2 Friday 

Today we had a lesson with Lomax.... it was a rough lesson. It started an hour late and the member we had there kept interrupting her and kept saying things that caused a bunch of questions. I wasn’t super happy to say the least! 

3/4 Sunday 

Today, Lomax came to church! She almost got up to bare her testimony, but she said she got too nervous. Tonight was Zion’s Youth and all those that we invited showed up, so that was a blessing! The Spirit was strong and everything was great! 

It is crazy to think I am not going to be a teenager anymore! (Happy Birthday Ben, on March 9th.)

I think about Grandma Call often and love and miss her. There is a family that I work with that lost their grandmother a year ago and still cannot get over it. They haven’t worked since her death and it has filled my heart with gratitude for the gospel and the knowledge I have that my loved ones are in a better place!  (Grandma Dianne Call passed away March 7, 2012, and is on our minds and in our hearts, especially this week.)