Pollo Loco

It's the start of a new transfer in our mission and I'll be staying in the same area, so I'm excited to take care of some unfinished business!! We have found so many awesome people recently and it's taking some of them a little bit more work to progress, but I really feel that we are going to have a lot of success this transfer!

The highlight of the week was teaching the Gutierrez family again and having them all accept a baptismal date for the 29th of September! They had already planned a vacation for this past Sunday, so they weren't able to make it to church, but we are going to do everything we can to help them come to church as a family this week.  During the lesson this week, the mom and dad of this family were feeling the Spirit really strong and felt the need to change and do more, so that they can have an eternal family. Now it's just a matter of how quickly they want to show their faith and do something about it!

Unfortunately, Pedro has been MIA and cancelled on us 3 times in a row when we tried to have his baptismal interview finalized. We'll see what happens!!

With that, I learned something yesterday that is going to help me a lot as a missionary. I was reading a general conference talk from 1998 from Elder Lynn G. Robbins and he said "Understanding the connection between agency and anger is the first step in eliminating it from our lives. We can choose not to become angry. And we can make that choice today, right now: 'I will never become angry again.' Ponder this resolution."

Our mission has started a Book of Mormon challenge and we are doing an in depth study for the next 4 months. As I've been reading so far, Nephi has been the best example of someone who is optimistic, positive, incredibly slow to anger, patient, etc. Because of this, he had so much power given to him from God and saw miracles. 

As we stop being angry, we can develop all the good habits/attributes that we are trying to achieve. Even an ounce of anger will slow us down on our journey back home to live with our Heavenly Father!

As for our weekly meal intake....people love feeding us Pollo Loco here.  We had 3 nights this past week where members bought us the family pack of fried chicken, so we will definitely need to work out hard this transfer!!!

Elder Moon 

Pics: whole zone with 2 of the elders going home. They were pied in the face by all of us...dont really know why!

Finishing Strong - this transfer

Some of the highlights of this week:

We were able to move into a new apartment. Apparently our old one had missionaries in it for 6 or 7 years, so it's a nice upgrade!

We had a multi zone conference on Wednesday. We had some really spiritual trainings from our mission leaders and I've been able to apply a lot of the stuff I learned as we have been teaching this week. 

One of the things that stuck with me the most was from a training from a counselor in the Mission Presidency, President Hansen. He taught us how we can testify more strongly of the Book of Mormon. One interesting way to explain the Book of Mormon to friends can be done by explaining the importance of 2 prophets in the BoM, Nephi and Mormon. We can explain that Nephi is one of the first prophets in the Book of Mormon and that he taught us to "liken all scriptures unto ourselves" (1 Nephi 19:23).   We can then explain that Mormon was the prophet and historian who put all the records together in the Book of Mormon. The Lord showed Mormon our day and he knew how evil the world would be in these latter days. He knew how confused we would feel with the many different paths we could take (Mormon 8:34-36). For that reason, the Book of Mormon is a sacred book that is meant for us. We just need to liken the scriptures unto ourselves like the prophet Nephi counseled us and read with real faith!   He also stressed the importance of not having to have experienced everything in order to be able to testify. Quite often, people are going through challenges that we just can't relate to, but that doesn't mean that it's not important to testify and let the Spirit teach and comfort them. 

Up until Sunday, we weren't able to teach any new investigators. We were going to have Pedro's baptismal interview that day as well. We really wanted to start working with some new people and have Pedro enter the waters of baptism before the end of the month, so we decided to fast.  Pedro came to church, had his interview, and we gave him a blessing of comfort after it all. He has been so busy lately and Satan has been working hard on him, but after we gave him the blessing, he felt a lot more at peace and it'll just be God's timing now.

After church, we did some studies, went to dinner, and then we were able to get some proselyting in. We stopped by Sonia's house first. She is a single mom who has 2 sons and is from Guatemala. Her younger son wasn't really interested the first time we came by, but this time, we talked to her older son, Elmer. He already had a random member from Corona give him a Book of Mormon and we were able to read a little bit with him and he is pretty set on coming to church this next week. 

We then passed by the Gutierrez family, a family that has been taught by missionaries before. It's a family of 4, but their dad wasn't home this time, so we taught the mom and her 2 kids to finish the night off! 

Rosa (Raquel's younger sister) could be getting baptized this weekend in Hemet, so hopefully I can make another trip back there for it! We feel confident about Pedro being baptized this weekend as well, so hopefully I'll have some good updates next week. This is the last week of the transfer, so we are going all in!

Elder Moon

 Was able to see Elder Dundon at Multi Zones

Riverside skyline

The Refiner's Fire

This last Monday, things started heating up. 

First, there was a fire that started up a little ways away from us in the mountains. We were just going about our P day when we started to see all the smoke in the sky, but little did we know that it was going to last all week! It's far away from us, so we are doing well here! 

Second, we received a text from a member in our ward that said that we should go to their house that night at 6 or 7 to go pass by a potential investigator. I texted him back and told him that we had a dinner appointment from 6-7 and then a meeting from 7-9. He responds to me "I don't believe it Elders. This guy is ready to be baptized." After that, I gave the member a call and we were able to stop by just before dinner and teach Sergio. The cool thing about Sergio is that he lives with a family full of members. He is really good friends with Rodrigo (the member who called us) because they live and work together. As well, he has another friend from work, Josué, who just got back from his mission in San Diego. He already has a lot of fellowship, has been to church a few times, and even has walked the temple grounds once in Washington when he lived there. We taught him the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with his friend Josué, and Sergio is pretty ready to go for baptism. We need to teach him a few more times, but I have a lot of faith that Sergio will be able to be baptized within the month!

After Monday, the week fluctuated a little bit with a good amount of success and some trials.
We were able to stop by another member referral when I was on exchanges with Elder Castro. This member who gave us the referral is from Upland, but works in Riverside. The woman who he referred us to is named Sonia. She is from Guatemala and has been taught before by missionaries. She was so welcoming and even agreed working towards a baptismal date for September 9th. We had a return appointment set for this last Saturday and a member was ready to come with us, but Sonia didn't want us to come by that day and said she would call us when we could meet next...


We had a really awesome miracle teaching Miriam last week, but after scheduling a few return appointments, she has been busy and a little apathetic about the whole situation. The thing is that Miriam and Sonia were both humbled enough to let us in the first time, but not everyone is ready face their problems and learn how to overcome them through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so we just have to be patient until the Lord soften their hearts again.

There are some people that are learning and thriving right now. Juan is so positive and willing to learn. He came to the Book of Mormon study that the ward does on Wednesday nights and he really enjoyed it. We were able to meet with him on Saturday and have a good pump up talk about having opportunities to use the Aaronic Priesthood. He came to church on Sunday and had a good interview with the bishop about the temple and he is really aiming on receiving all the blessings the temple has to offer. At this point, nothing scares him and he is just moving along and soaking everything up.

Pedro is also ready for baptism. We wrapped up teaching him everything for baptism and I asked him "now what do you think might get in your way of being baptized?"   He said as clear as anyone could say the word "NADA." 
We will be getting his interview this week and we are praying that everything will go well, so that he can be baptized this Sunday. 

On Saturday, we went down to our southern most area which is a place called Mead Valley. We stopped by a less active family there, but only their son was there. His name is Julio and he actually lives out in Hemet and is not a member. We could tell he was going through a hard time and he really just wants the best for his family, so we shared a little bit about the opportunity to have an eternal family as he works towards being baptized and going to the temple. He was really glad he stopped by his parents house that day so that he could meet us and he said he would start talking to missionaries and going to church in Hemet. 

Last night, we were able to see some miracles as we found a family of 3 that we taught. They are pretty solid and the teenagers really enjoyed the lesson on the Restoration, but the mom will have to give up going to swap meets on Sunday mornings to come to church in the long run. We also taught another man named Rigoberto who used to be taught by missionaries about a year ago. He is pretty set on coming to church this next Sunday and maybe even bringing his daughters.

At the end of every week on my mission, I have felt that I have gone through experiences that have helped me become more refined as a human being. I know for a fact that it's the reason why I was sent to this earth and for this time in my life, the California Riverisde Mission; to gain this experience and to come out stronger. It's absolutely necessary to be tested and to push our limits so that we can progress to become like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. There is no way that we would feel comfortable living in Their presence if we didn't go through the Refiner's fire. I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His patience and willingness to heal me.

It's hard sometimes when we lose the momentum we had going. That's what happened with a few people this week, but a scripture that gave me a lot of comfort is D&C 29:7, "And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts."   As long as I know I'm working hard out here, developing my talents, and following the Spirit, there is no reason to get frustrated when people don't hear us out. All I am trying to do, is give everyone a fair chance.

Other than that, this week will be pretty busy because we will be moving apartments today and tomorrow, having a multi zone conference on Wednesday, and exchanges again on Friday.

We went on a hike early, Saturday morning with the zone. It was my first time going up Mt. Rubidoux and it was really chill. Our P day activity today had me missing all the good times out on the NUF ('North University Fields --BYU lacrosse fields) because we were out there playing some sports, but the field was absolutely filled with the little black turf pellets. For anyone that has been out to the NUF, you know what I'm talking about. After you leave the field, you have turf  pellets covered on the bottom of your shoe and it all somehow got inside the shoe as well haha but all in all, it was a fun time with the zone!!

Praying for another awesome week for everyone!

Elder Moon

Pics of the week:

Smoky skies from last Monday 

 Mt. Rubidoux hike

With Elders Staley and Lee after the p day activity

Short Week

With the temple trip this last Wednesday, it has been a quick 5 days! We were able to find some more success with Pedro as he has come to church 3 weeks in a row and is preparing to be baptized on the 19th of this month. 

I think our miracle of the week was when we were able to start teaching this woman named Miriam. So I'll give a little background info on the story...

Now that all the missionaries have smart phones in our mission, we are able to have our area book in there with all the people we are currently teaching and have taught in the past. So there was a process when all the paper teaching records were transferred over to be put in the phone, but little did I know, that all the paper records hadn't been transferred over yet. When I started to whitewash the area 8 weeks ago, we weren't told that there were more records that hadn't been put in the phone, so we decided to start stopping by and seeing if these people still lived at the addresses we had. 

One of the records I pulled out was for a young couple who had been last taught by missionaries in 2013. When we stopped by, we were able to meet Miriam, but she told us that she has recently separated from her husband and that she was raising her 3 kids now (a 7, 4, and 2-year-old). We were able to share the Book of Mormon with her during this contact and we set up a return appointment and told her we would bring a member from our church to the next lesson. 

We had planned to go back on a Friday night, and we had a home visit that same night with an hermana and her 2 kids. We have brought this hermana to lessons with us because she knows her stuff, but better yet, she would be a perfect match for Miriam. So after we had a hyped up home visit, we took her over to this lesson with Miriam and they were hitting it off super well. The member we took also went through a divorce and has 4 kids herself, so she was able to testify of how much the Gospel has blessed her family's life. Miriam's 2 year old was crying for the first little bit, but once everything settled down, Miriam was able to tell us how she really appreciated us going by in the past and that she is still looking for Christ's true church. We were able to share the message of the Restoration and we invited her to be baptized on the 26th of this month and she accepted. 

Unfortunately, she had already planned to be out of town this last weekend, but we will just have to work extra hard to have her be baptized this month.

Our mission set a goal of 103 baptisms for this month, which is doubling up on our July goal, but everyone around the mission has a lot of faith right now and there is some good energy going around!

Other than that, I went on exchanges with Elder Aland on Saturday. I got to do a little bit of office elder work with him and it was a pretty successful exchange.

The temple on Wednesday was a special experience! We were able to get some cafe rio as well to top off our mini pday and then we went and taught Juan Vargas. Juan is doing well and we are getting him more prepared to do family history work/temple work!

Its still hot here, but the more we teach, the more we get to be out of the heat!

Elder Moon

 A member took this picture of the companionship shopping on P-day and texted it to Keli

When i was on exchanges on saturday, we ate at members home and he made rib tips, carrots and potatoes. it was good stuff and in the spiritual thought, one of the other elders shared the FB challenge where you post one word about the BoM. So i decided to do that on Sunday, but i think the challenge is over now.

Clarity. That's what the Book of Mormon gives me as I learn how to keep God's commandments!!#oneWORDtheWORD

Temple Wednesday - Members have been great!

Our P day was changed to today, but it's all good. We will be going to the temple today in Redlands! We don't get to go as often on a mission, so I'm hyped up.

This last week has been pretty interesting. There were 2 big highlights of the week...
Juan received the Aaronic Priesthood!!
Pedro came to church after us not being able to teach him for almost 2 weeks, and now is back working towards a baptismal date which will be in the next few weeks! Juan and Pedro are also some of each other's best friends at church already, so maybe we will see Juan in the baptismal font baptizing Pedro???

Something I've enjoyed with the new changes is that instead of 7 elders at dinner, it is only 4 of us now. It's definitely a lot easier for the members to feed 4 elders at a time, and I feel like I've just been able to talk to the members the whole time and develop good friendships with them. In every area I've been in, the members have been awesome. The members in this ward have been involved in missionary work for a good while, so I feel like a part of me being in this area is learning how to use members to further the work. For this reason, we have been doing a lot more home visits and then of course every dinner, we can be in their house and share a quick little thought. A few examples from this week...


We ate at our Ward Secretary's house, Hermano Fenn. We had a great dinner and I just took the opportunity to talk about Family History and temple work with the Fenn's, so they could help us make a plan to help Juan seek out his ancestors and be able to do their work in the temple. 


Another example is just a young family in our ward, the Cardenas family. They gave us an awesome referral (some of their neighbors) a few weeks ago, we had one lesson with the family they referred us to, and weren't able to get back in with them after setting some return appointments. Eventually we find out that they have pretty much been on vacation since then, but we still want to do pretty frequent Family Home Evenings with the Cardenas fam, so we did one this week. During the FHE, they came up with the idea to do some sort of missionary activity at the park right next to their apartment complex some day and they were more than willing to keep on looking for people to refer to us/come out to lessons with us. 


All in all, I've really enjoyed getting to make new friends on my mission with these members. The main key for everyone in this Church or not in this Church, is to read the Book of Mormon and to develop a testimony of its truthfulness. From there, our foundation will be solid in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our search will be over for Christ's true church. 

One last story...

We were waiting for someone to open a gate for us at an apartment complex, when we saw a guy outside with his son on the other side of the street. He had just started drinking a bottle of beer and he started to talk to us about how hard life is. I first got him pumped up enough to dump out the rest of the beer in his bottle, so he could be a good example for his son, and so that he could start making changes in his life that moment. Then we read a little bit from the Book of Mormon and gave him the last English copy we had left. He had told us that earlier that day, he was thinking about taking his own life that night, but by God's divine design we were sent there to save him from physical and spiritual danger. 

That's how God loves and takes care of His children. 

Elder Moon

Someone needs to tell me if Dez Bryant still plays for the cowboys or this picture wouldn't make sense anymore

Cafe Rio after the temple

New Companion from CO - July 23rd

It has been a decent week out here in Riverside with the new comp, Elder McLaughlin. He is a hard working missionary from Colorado. That is all I can ask for in a comp and we are going to find a lot of success together.  

Week 1 of the new transfer is in the books! We have done a good chunk of contacting/finding this week. After sacrament meeting this Sunday, we took Juan to the bishop's office to get him an interview. We have taught him a bit about what he needs to do next since he has been baptized, so the bishop wants him to receive the Aaronic Priesthood this Sunday. Juan is such a genuine guy and he has definitely been the greatest miracle I have seen since my time in this area.

One of the other really awesome things that I have heard is that my old comp, Elder Lawlor is working in Hemet now and he had a good experience where he was able to visit my recent convert Raquel and her sister Rosa. I might even be able to jump into a lesson soon over Skype, so that made me really happy!

Other than that, we had some good lessons with people we have already been teaching. We started teaching a bunch of young men who all live in the same apartment complex, and they have shown some good interest, so we are going to try to get them at a Youth activity and church this week. We didn't have the best of luck finding Pedro this week. He is a pretty busy guy just painting houses all over Southern California, so he didn't come to church this week either, but we still have the hope he will get baptized this transfer!

Another fun thing from this week was seeing a lot of good friends at the DL training meeting. Almost all the missionaries from the ward last transfer are gone now, including the Spanish elders who lived in our apartment complex. They were replaced by sister missionaries, so we just go everywhere by ourselves now and we have 4 elders at dinner instead of 7, which is good for the members! I love the members here and they are helping us out big time and have a lot of respect for us, so that is definitely a plus of being in this ward at this time. 

On a week like this, we talked to a lot of people who aren't ready to be happier in their lives or just aren't willing, but we are getting a lot of practice and building up some toughness, so here's to a week of finding the elect!

Elder Moon

Focused - July 16th

Sunday was an incredible day for the work! I was able to perform the confirmation for Juan Vargas during our sacrament meeting. Definitely a special moment that I won't forget from serving a mission. 


One of the coolest things I have seen on my mission though was my boy Juan Vargas already doing missionary work in our 3rd hour class. He was making friends with one of our investigators we brought to church, Pedro. Juan sat next to Pedro before class started and we were talking sports for a good bit of time. I had to show them some pictures of what lacrosse is because Mexicans usually have no idea, but they thought it was a cool sport haha. They seemed like bros already and I can already imagine how cool it will be to bring Juan to a lesson to teach Pedro. Pedro had such a good attitude about church. He kept on telling us he could only stay a little bit longer so we woud tell him that he could leave whenever he needed to. But he liked it all so much that he made it the full 3 hours. Hopefully we will be able to baptize Pedro in the next few weeks!!


The other awesome part of Sunday was going to see one of my investigators from Hemet, Carmelo Ferrer, get baptized! I was able to find him with Elder Bailey in my last transfer in Hemet and was so prepared from the start. Watching him go into the waters of baptism was such a relief for me, I know I could see a weight being taken off of Carmelo, and I know God loves seeing His children feel that peace of mind. I was able to see a lot of my favorite members from Hemet as well as parts of the old area, so it made for a great end of the week/transfer!!

With that, I'll be staying in my area here in Riverside. Elder Dundon and Elder Ngatuvai will both be leaving me though to go serve in Moreno Valley and Perris. Elder McLaughlin will be coming here to Riverside to be my companion. He actually was trained in this area, went to Hemet for one transfer and is coming back to the area now. He has been out for 3 transfers, so I'm looking forward to him bringing some good energy to the area as we work hard to find some more people to baptize!

There have been a lot of changes in the mission and after this transfer weekend, it is going to feel good to focus in on what we want to accomplish. There are some people we were teaching that just weren't ready to keep some commitments, but it makes it easier on us to use that time now to find new individuals and families. Jose Luis was one of those people that didn't want to continue learning after we made it clear that he would need to read and pray about the Book of Mormon to know if this Church is true. 

I love reading the Book of Mormon and getting something new out of it each time. It's a blessing to have the built in time each day to study the scriptures and the words of the Prophets. I know it's possible for everyone to turn to the scriptures and receive inspiration for their life, make the necessary changes to follow Christ and feel of His infinite love.

I'll have some good updates this next week!!

Carmelo and me at his baptism

  Pics with all the missionaries in our ward

 Last comp pic. Won't be in a trio for now!!