Elder Mason Moon: The Good Life

We have been really enjoying this area and were able to have a baptism this weekend! Definitely the highlight of the week was seeing our friend Juan Vargas all pumped up to get baptized!! We were able to teach him everything after we were tripled in to this area, get him to know some members, and most importantly watch his desire to do God's will and be healed by the Savior's Atonement. Earlier this week, we were in a lesson with Juan and we could feel that he needed a blessing of comfort, so we were able to leave him with a blessing to overcome the struggles that will come his way as he starts this new phase of his life. At the baptism, it was very easy to tell that Juan was feeling the Spirit and the peace that this new beginning is bringing into his life.

Another miracle we saw this week was being able to teach a family of 4 who are some neighbors to a member in our ward. They gave us the referral last week, so we set the appointment for this last Saturday and we had like 15 people in this small little living room for the lesson. The member family had a lot of little kids as well as their friends, so we were teaching a pretty big crowd. The mom of the family of 4 is named Candy and she has 3 kids that live at home who are 10,13, and 15. The mom was able to feel the Spirit pretty strong despite all the little kids being rowdy and is definitely looking in the right direction. We want to get the kids involved with Primary and Young Women's activities, but the mom should be a good push for the kids as well. It also sure does help that they are becoming really good friends with their member neighbors!!

One of the most interesting things of the week was a new investigator that we "inherited" from the sister missionaries in our ward. The guy's name is Jose Luis and he is from Honduras. Really outgoing guy who has already been to church 5 times. The reason the sisters passed him over though is because he started flirting pretty hard with one of the sisters, so we took over the teaching. So he comes to church this Sunday and we talk to him a little, but he has a lot of doubts that have came by looking up anti material. We invited him to the baptism and he really enjoyed it, but we walk out the parking lot afterwards and he is ranting to some members, so the members call us over and he starts asking more questions about church history and what not. He hasn't read a page of the Book of Mormon, but now he has 3 muchachos who will be making sure he puts in the work to gain a testimony! Hopefully we will be seeing him again at his own baptism soon.

4th of July was a good time! Played some soccer with members and other missionaries, then we had our BBQ and pretty much were dead by the end of the day with how much sports we played.

I did an exchange with Elder Castro in his area on Friday, which happened to be the hottest day of the week (got up to 118). We did our studies, service, and headed out there on bike to get some work done. I had set a goal with both companionships to find 2 investigators while we were on exchanges. We were praying to find a family to teach, but we only had about 2 hours to work. We stopped by a few people who ended up not being at home, but then we went tracting at a nearby apartment complex. A young family let us in and we taught the 2 parents! It always feels good ending an exchange strong like that and being able to find success in other missionaries areas.

We did a blitz on Saturday morning where we went to the English sisters area in Orangecrest. It is one of the more challenging areas in the mission, but we were able to follow the Spirit and talk to some elect people and help the sisters area out there!!

This week has helped me see how much fun missions are supposed to be!! Even though its been scorching hot, the Lord is pouring down his blessings upon us to show us that this is what we need to be doing, that this is His work, and that this is what the good life is all about!

Elder Moon