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