Going English Speaking

We made some more progress this week with Rigoberto. He accepted a baptismal date for this next weekend, he came to church, and is down to get interviewed for baptism on Tuesday. He has a lot of opposition from his family, so it's a tough situation, and we are praying he can be an example for his family and be baptized.

We worked hard this week and we started teaching a guy named Jose. He was taught a while back by missionaries and when the missionaries invited him to be baptized, he wasn't sure. He wanted to ask his mom first, and his mom didn't want him to break the tradition of his family, so he wasn't baptized. You might think that Jose is a young kid based on that, but no, he is actually in his 40s. Anyways, we go over with a member and we teach the Plan of Salvation and when we talk about the Spirit world, he mentions to us that his mom died a few months ago. The lesson went pretty well and he is committed to learning again and trying to find more peace in Gospel.

Here is a quote from Elder Richard G. Scott back from that great year of 1998:

"Be grateful that your righteous life molds you so that you don’t fit where you don’t belong. This is a temporary period of personal testing and growth. It will be replaced in time with true friends and greater happiness.

The world needs light. Be that light. Your righteousness gives others a confirmation of the goodness of life anchored in eternal truth."

Just be an example for those around you and they'll either follow your light or they won't. But God expects you to be righteous and to be bold, so that His children can find that eternal truth in the Resotred gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of you might be wondering about the subject of the email...so here's what happened.

Last week, I ordered extra name tags, but I didn't tell the people in the Mission office if I wanted Spanish or English, so they gave me some English tags!! That doesn't mean my assignment is changed haha I'll be staying in Spanishland for now!!

Elder Moon 

Go Cougs!

We are at the halfway point of this transfer right now and we have been able to keep on finding new people to teach, which has been awesome!

Last Monday, we went by a man we had briefly contacted the week before and he didn't seem super promising. We stopped by anyways and he let us in, but started getting pretty angry with us and it seemed like he wanted to bash. I was getting a pretty weird feeling about it becuase we had to ask him a few times if we could start by saying a prayer. He kept on putting off the question, but finally he said that it would be ok. So we prayed and just like that, he started opening up to us and we were able to share the Plan of Salvation with him. 


On Tuesday, we had our district meeting, and then right after, we went to the Institute building to have a lesson with a less active member who just had her records moved over to our ward. She is going to school at UCR, so we wanted her to get to meet the director of the Institute program there. We invited the sister missionaries in our ward to come help us teach a lesson to her, but honestly I didn't have any idea what we would share, so I prayed the night before. Fast forward to 6:30 the next morning: the alarm clock goes off, and immediately a thought comes to my head, Patriarchal Blessings. For anyone who is unfamiliar with what a Patriarchal Blessings are blessings given to worthy Church members by ordained patriarchs. A patriarchal blessing contains the Lord’s counsel for the person receiving the blessing and declares that person’s lineage in the house of Israel. They give us guidance, comfort and protection as we live worthy of those blessings. 
So we shared this message with her and she loved it! She felt the Spirit strong and has a strong desire to come back to church and to be able to receive her patriarchal blessing sometime in the future!


We spent more time this week helping out some less actives and I know that they were feeling the Spirit, so now it's just their decision to act on it!
We taught Rigoberto this week and his answer to everything (especially when it comes to an invitation we are extending him) is "Yo les aviso" (translated...I'll let you know).  I'm really not a fan of that haha because we are trying to get a clear yes or no to see if he is going to come to church, read, pray, be baptized, but he just wants to let us know later. We were street contacting in the area by his house one night, and his family was having a party, but Rigoberto was wearing a pretty awesome t shirt, so I had to get a pic with him.


Juan came to church and he is still doing well. All the recent converts will be going to the temple next month to do baptisms, so we are just trying to add to the number of people who will be on that trip!! We taught 2 brothers this week as well. We had planned to go by a guy named Adrian on Friday, but his brother Alfredo was the only one there, so we taught him and he is pretty interested in reading the Book of Mormon. We stopped by on Sunday to teach Alfredo again, but we talked to Adrian instead and were able to teach him and his son. Adrian opened up a lot because his mother passed away 2 years ago, and his mother taught him a lot from the Bible. He was hesitant these last 2 years to go to church and read the scriptures because it made him miss his mom, but we were able to turn a corner and he felt a lot of peace and comfort in his heart. We were able to testify of how thin the veil is that separates us and how he can live with his mom once again, but he needs to put his life in God's hands. Really powerful lesson to end the week! It was also my comps 20th bday this last Sunday, so the members have been treating us extra nice!  We heard Saturday night that BYU beat #6 Wisconsin, so I wore my BYU tie on Sunday!! 


It was a good way to end the week, and now we are looking to start this week strong!

Elder Moon

Saints

So this last week, our church has came out with a 46 chapter book all about the history of the church of Jesus Christ in the latter days and it's a really interesting book. There are a lot of stories of ordinary people who made huge sacrifices to follow Jesus Christ and to be a part of His church. I love when it mentions the missionary experiences of some of the first missionaries from the Church. They taught so simply (as they were all brand new converts to the church), but they had so much success.  Apparently this book has been 6 years in the making and it really is inspired, so I invite everyone to read it!

As for our week, we found a couple new people to teach. We are still trying to get more people at church, so we are bringing more members to lessons to be their friends. Our ward is focusing a lot more on missionary work now, so hopefully that'll inspire more people to help us out as we try to find friends for the people we are teaching. 

One of my favorite things about being in each different area is finding out who the members are that have stopped going to church. There are always different reasons for why people stop going to church, and the best thing I have found to do, is to listen. No one wants to be called out in a rude way by some 20 year old kid they don't know, so instead, we just "re-spark" their fire. We taught 2 different families this week that have stopped going to church, but we were able to invite them to come back with 2 different messages. 

With the first family, we read through the introduction of the Book of Mormon and then we read 3 Nephi 11. The dad of the family was really impressed with how much he felt his mind being opened to the doctrine taught, so we committed him to read the Book of Mormon every day, and we have a dinner with his fam tomorrow. 

With the second family, it was a couple from Guatemala. They were baptized in a different part of California about 20 years ago, but haven't been to church for the last 4 years since they have moved to Riverside. No one knew them or tried to reach out, so we stopped by last week, set up a time for dinner and a message, and they were excited to have us over. We shared with them a few parts of the Restoration of the Church, including the first vision, which helped them remember a lot of stuff that they have forgotten. It was just a simple message and then they treated us with some Pollo Loco. When we were talking at Pollo Loco, the hermano told me that he has the Melchizedek priesthood, but forgot a lot about what that means, so now we already know what we are teaching this Thursday when we bring one of the member's of the Elders Quorum.

Pray for miracles!

Elder Moon

 Dinner with a member family

 We were picking up trash for a service project and I was able to get a pic with the Mason street sign

 Elder McLaughlin, Staley, and I

The activity with our zone was a Mt Rubidoux hike, which is the popular hike here in Riverside

Sunday will come

It's pretty awesome being able to see people find and strengthen their testimony. This week we had 2 specific people that we were able to teach and seeing them both at church this Sunday was the highlight of the week. We first had been going by one of our investigators named Rigoberto for the last 3 weeks. This week, we were able to teach him 2 more times, and both were powerful lessons. During the second lesson with him, he was worried that he wouldn't be able to see his family follow him IF he were to start going to church and be baptized, etc. His family is pretty grounded in another faith and they have been a little passive aggressive towards us, but Rigoberto has been accepting almost everything we have been teaching him, except, going to church on Sunday. So after we taught him the Sabbath Day, I told him in the most loving way I could, "Rigoberto, you can't say that your family won't follow you, if they have no where to follow you to and you aren't going to church, and you are not being the example." He came to church this Sunday for the first time after being taught by missionaries on and off for the past year. He met a lot of new friends at church and even saw some familiar faces, so the future is looking a little brighter. His daughters are good friends with a member in the ward, so we are going to try to get him to bring them to some activities and church in the future.

The other person we were able to help this week was a "Less Active" member. We didn't have a dinner scheduled for Saturday night, but a woman from a ward said we could come over and she would feed us. She is a really active member in our ward, but her husband hasn't really been coming to church for a while. In the past, every single time we talked to her husband, he would ruin our spiritual thoughts by telling jokes and being disruptive, but this time, I started to give the spiritual thought and we shared a quick message about the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Out of nowhere, the husband starts to bear his testimony to us on how important it is to share the gospel with the whole world. For the next 15 or so minutes, the Spirit was really strong and we could see how he had a mighty change of heart. He then told us how he wants his friend, Julio (guy who lives with them), to be baptized and how he was going to help us teach him. It was in God's plans that we would help this member rekindle his spark in the Gospel. The very next day, he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting in front of the whole church, stayed all 3 hours and was participating in classes once again.

I cannot say that the rest of the week was super because it wasn't. On Friday, I had meetings at the mission office for most of the day. On Saturday, I did an exchange with Elder Hite and it was a good change of pace. And then Sunday came! Sunday is by far the best day of the week. The sister missionaries brought this really cool investigator straight out of Guatemala. 19 year old named Pedro who was rocking a full on suit jacket, slacks, some nice polished shoes on his first Sunday at church. We became really good friends by the end of our 3rd hour class, had him added on Facebook, and we are going to play some soccer or bball with him sometime soon. 


It's fun being a missionary and seeing all the successes around you. Whether it's our companionship or the other missionaries around us that are bringing people to church, I'm excited! 


I love serving all of God's children here in Riverside, and I hope that all of you can find ways to serve someone this week!

Happy Labor Day!

Elder Moon

Pics:

Some little friends after church &  Exchange with Elder Hite