Elder Mason Moon: Milagros

Hola friends and fam!

This week has been really interesting with the work...We have been working in 2 different areas. We are doing this because Elder Baum has gotten to the point where he can't go out and work with his stomach sickness. So we have been either dropping Elder Baum off at a member's house and working in a trio. Or either me, Elder Castro, or Elder Royce will stay at home with Elder Baum while the other 2 work. These logistics have been a bit stressful.

But despite that, we have witnessed milagros (miracles). Raquel has grown so much in her testimony. Saturday afternoon, Elder Castro and I were teaching Raquel and it was one of the best lessons of my mission. We read President Russell M. Nelson's talk about the Book of Mormon, and Raquel was loving it. She was talking about how much she feels she has changed through her reading and how reading the Book of Mormon is teaching her so much more about the Plan of Salvation and how to be happy. It really is something to hear someone who is 86 years old ask.. "Where has this Book been all my life?" The coolest thing she told us though was that before we started teaching her, "She was sooo afraid of death, but now, that fear is gone because of her new found knowledge of the Plan that God has for her. Stay tuned next week for more info about her Baptism!!

Another fun thing this week was having Elder De Mare (ASL elder) come with us to a lesson and try to teach Raquel's son, Oscar, who is deaf and blind. Elder De Mare stayed with us for the rest of the day. We had 2 appointments set for 6:00, so me and him were able to teach another one of our investigators, Hermana Police. At the end of the lesson, I asked her to pray, and Elder De Mare chimed in, "Yeah, and pray for strength to go to church!" At the end of her prayer, she told us that she felt engulfed with something that made her feel good. She said she had never felt anything like that before. God wanted her to be at church that Sunday, and we told her that was his way of motivating her through sending his Spirit to testify to her. Well, she called us 2 days later saying she had joined a different church yesterday and she didn't want us to come by anymore. I felt like she just knocked us out with one of the meanest blind-sided hits of all time. Everyone has their agency.

Some fun happenings during the week were: Saturday morning. Elder Castro wanted to run, so I said let's run to the donut shop. We ran a few miles then picked up some donuts. Sounds a little ironic, but we handed out most of them to some homeless people on the way back. We picked up some cool stuff (vintage MLS soccer jerseys) from an estate sale while contacting people. Had a great lesson with Raquel. Prepared a dinner at the Valley Restart Center for the people there and then went and supported the ZL's as they baptized a family.

We have been receiving some divine support big time this week. We ended up getting another 4 new investigators to teach, one of which is the son of a recent convert. We were having dinner at a member's house and the son, Luis, felt like coming downstairs and having dinner with us. He just wants more guidance and he was digging our message of the Book of Mormon. We'll be teaching him more next week. Then the Spanish Hermanas in our ward found a family from our area, so we will be taking over with the teaching soon. Also a less active member brought his wife to church, and she's not a member, but they both have a desire be taught. Bishop talked to us and pretty much the wife (non-member) told him that she wants to be baptized, so we are excited to start teaching her as well! It's amazing how God works these miracles. He is softening the hearts of these people, so that we can step in and teach them and help them come unto Christ.

Disfruten su semana!

Elder Moon

The fog in the mountains reminds me of Utah!