Back in White

The highlight of the week was going back to Riverside on Sunday to be able to see Pedro get baptized. Last time I saw him, he was on a roll and it was no surprise that he was ready to be baptized. I was able to get a ride up to Riverside last minute from a member from that ward. He came in clutch and was able to get me right after our church ended and we got to Riverside just in time. A lot of people were there for the baptism and I was able to see some old companions and all the members from the Mission ward. I was able to baptize Pedro and the service was really spiritual.

We confirmed Jesse and now he is ready for the Aaronic Priesthood. We did a few exchanges this week. We had interviews with President on Tuesday. We went with the APs on Wednesday and we had a lot of success teaching a few families. On Friday, we went on exchanges with El Cerrito and I was with Elder Mills in his area. Their area is a bike area and it is known for the steep hills, but I made it! We had a team up that night with a guy that is about to leave on his mission to Peru. We were able to teach a lesson and find a new investigator for them. On Saturday, we did a blitz in the Citrus Hills area and we found them 2 new investigators that day. At one point, we were about to get back in the car, but we saw an open garage way down the street we already walked down. We just walked back down and talked to the guy in there, taught him the Restoration, and he was super willing to let the missionaries come back. It was their first new investigators for the last few weeks, so it was a happy day for them. We had a half-day exchange with them and then went to our ward party. We had a good amount of non-members there that we talked to. 

Not much more than that. We have MLC tomorrow and we are hoping to get some more members in the lessons we have this week!

My favorite chapter from the Book of Mormon this week was Alma 43. Towards the end, the Nephites gain victory because of how they united in prayer. Pray with your families and there will be a huge difference every day.

Elder Moon

 Baptized Pedro this week! 

Exchanges in El Cerrito with Elder Mills

Miracle of Jesse

My first few days in Corona were really busy, but with very little success to show from our hard work. All the way up to that Sunday, we had only found 1 new investigator and we had to stop teaching a few people. After sacrament meeting, a member came up to us with their neighbor that they brought named Jesse. Jesse is a 16 year old and he was all dressed up in a suit and tie, so I was surprised to find out that he wasn't a member. He was a little shy at first, but we taught him during the second hour of church and he accepted a baptismal date for that next Sunday, the 21st. He got to know a lot of the other kids his age that day, but we still weren't 100% sure if he was going to be baptized as quick as that next Sunday. On Monday night, we stopped by and invited him to come to an activity on Tuesday night and he said he would try. On Tuesday night, we stopped by to see if he was ready to go/needed a ride to the activity, but his mom met us at the door and told us that Jesse was already walking to the church building! Everyone in the young men's and young women's program just welcomed him right in! That night, we taught him. The next night we taught him, and so on. We did a church tour with his family and is step sister is super interested now. His mom and dad are really active in their current church, but really respect us and gave us permission for Jesse to be baptized. Jesse passed his baptismal interview on Saturday and we had almost 100 people at his baptism on Sunday. When we planned the baptismal service, we made sure we had youth involved, so we had a member of the priest quorum baptize him, 2 others were the witnesses, one gave a talk, and all the prayers and music were covered by youth as well!! After the service, we had a meeting, but after that, we passed by Jesse's house and we had a few families from our ward over there and we all had a delicious dinner. We met Jesse on the 14th, he was baptized on the 21st and now we have our eyes set on him baptizing the rest of his family in November.

Jesse is so willing to live the commandments and be active in the church. He said that his parents give him $5 a month and he said he would give it all to tithing and fast offerings. If he can't get a ride on Sunday, he said he'll walk. Can't wait to see how he progresses and the people that he will bring into the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have a lot of Part Member families to work with and we are trying to reactivate the less active families who were sealed in the temple. The goal is to have another Spanish ward in Corona by the start of 2020. I have definitely seen a difference in setting goals that make us stretch. The field is white and ready to harvest.

My companion, Elder Moloney, is such a beast. He was getting his hair cut today and was teaching about eternal families as he was getting lined up. We left her with our info and a Restoration pamphlet. We aren't messing around out here!

Also one of the funniest missionaries I've ever met is being trained here in our zone and his name is Elder Emry.  He had so many good stories and is just full of fire for missionary work. One funny thing is that he said he was pulled over 29 times before his mission, but that he only received 2 tickets. Apparently he drove a sketchy car back home, so cops just liked to pull him over, but you can't beat that pulled over to ticket ratio!

We worked so hard when we were on exchanges on Friday in Spanishland. We invited the only non member in this family of 4 to be baptized during the dinner thought and he is now on date for the 4th of November.

The mission has seen some crazy miracles as we are just working on inviting everyone to act on their faith.

We are working with another cool family of 5, and they are planning on coming to church next Sunday. November is looking to be a great month!

The members are helping us out big time here because of the success that this ward has had in the last few months. They definitely aren't scared to go out there and minister, so I'm loving it here!

Elder Moon


Pics below include:  Jesse at his baptism, pumpkin carving with the zone, a recent convert named Michelle and her kittens, Me with my companion Elder Moloney - he is from Arlington, VA

 Tate Giles,the stud priest in the ward that baptized Jesse - he also plays football and lax

Jesse with his mom and sister

General Authority Visit

Elder Brent Nielson from the Quorum of the 70 came to the mission on Friday and it was awesome to learn a lot about what the Missionary Department is doing. Elder Nielson is the director in this department and shared with us a lot about how Light the World is going to be better this year and how the church is doing a new video campaign called 'Welcome" and "This is Church." 

He also trained the mission leaders on how important it is to be an agent to act instead of being an object who is acted upon. He used the scripture 2 Nephi 2:14 to explain how leaders need to be ready and anticipating problems to fix.  It was nice to see half the mission, but we were so tired by the end of it since it took almost 12 hours!

It was a long week of being patient with the area and then on Sunday, we saw some awesome miracles. The members are so hyped up about missionary work here and we had a family bring their 16 year old neighbor, Jesse, and we put him on date for baptism for next Sunday. All the leaders were already on it and they know who he is and are trying to send us people to come to lessons with him for this week.

We found 2 other families that day and had a good meeting with the Stake President about an upcoming youth fireside that will be centered on missionary work.

I was able to bear my testimony during sacrament meeting and this one less active talked to me after the meeting and said how he wants to go out with us on splits this week. We are going to see a lot of success here with helping out less actives and getting them to bring their friends to church. There is nothing better than doing missionary work, especially for those that are less active because it is going to help them be tools in God's hands.

Pday has been good, but honestly not much time left! it'll be nice to settle in more this week and to work with the new families we started teaching! Have a warm week for all those who are starting to freeze!

Elder Moon

The prison/rehab place that the song Hotel California is written about. It's right next to one of our church buildings

 Exchanges with Elder Lowry

Busy first week with Elder Moloney 

Corona

The storm passed through and we know all the changes for now! General Conference started out with a bomb and now we are going to have a great opportunity to teach more in the home. As a result of this, church will be changing to 2 hours! We are also going to see 12 new temples all around the world! 

As far as the transfer changes, I'll be heading out to Corona to be a zone leader with Elder Moloney. Elder McLaughlin is heading out as well, so there will be 2 new elders to replace us. We left the area with some good people to teach and set up a few appointments for them this week. 

We had a few people watch conference. One of them was Pedro and he was taking some good notes!! Hopefully I'll be seeing him pretty soon in all white baptismal clothing!

We also had an investigator go watch conference at a members house, so that was a big help!

I love the members from this ward and I feel that as we served and ministered to them, that the love grew even more. I'm already looking forward to coming back and visiting them someday!

One of my favorite things from general conference was the theme of "Taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ." There should never be a day where we do not think about Jesus Christ and our responsibilities in His church. President Nelson had an incredible talk on Sunday morning and I know that every member of the Church can receive more power as we follow the Prophet and his counsel. 

Another thing that was a common theme was being able to recognize the power of the Atonement daily and allow it to work as we forgive others and ourselves. Elder Holland talked about how we all need to be repaired spiritually by the Redeemer. The best way to do this is to love, seek, create, and cherish peace. 

We can all benefit so much by studying these talks for the next 6 months!

One cool thing that is happening on Friday is that we will have a Seventy, Elder Brent Nielsen, coming to talk to our mission. He works pretty high up in the missionary department as well, so we will be getting some awesome trainings! Can't wait to update next week on the new area and this special conference!

Elder Moon 

 Pedro and I after conference

One of the funniest members of all time, Hermano Ganuza

Our 4-man apartment in Riverside - enjoyed working with them

A storm is coming

We might be getting some rain here this week for the first time in a while!! Also, the other storm that is coming will be this weekend. We will have General conference on Saturday and Sunday and then we will also be having transfer calls this Saturday, so a lot of changes will be coming! 
2 miracles this week that I want to share.
First one came when we were weekly planning on Thursday. We decided to stop teaching Pedro because he was pretty much impossible to contact and stopped coming to church. He was really close to getting baptized last transfer, but Satan was working hard to get in the way. Pedro has been working on Sundays for a while now, so it wasn't worth keeping him in our teaching pool. But on Friday, we were driving by his house and saw him working outside, so we chatted for a second and gave him a good invite to church. If he didn't come, we weren't planning on stopping by again, but he did come! He said that his work schedule has been getting lighter and now we can actually meet with him on Thursday with our Elders Quorum President. 

Other miracle...
2 weeks ago, the elders working in Perris sent us a referral for a guy named Abraham who lives in our area. He is a 20 year old from Guatemala who is working out here and living with his boss. Even though this guy lives in our area, it's a pretty long drive from our apartment and we didn't have many miles to spend. We had tried calling him a few times to set something up, but we realized that it was a wrong number that we had. We tried by his house one time, but got rejected pretty hard by the family he lives with and they told us that Abraham wasn't home. This Sunday, our afternoon was pretty empty, so we went down there to Mead Valley to see if we can make contact and teach Abraham. He was there and was really willing to listen. We reviewed what he was taught by the other guys and shared Jacob 4:13 with him from the Book of Mormon and talked about how important Prophets are. He is down to come to General Conference with us this next weekend and listen to talks from Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ! He also accepted a baptismal date for October 20th, and is going to study hard to find that answer!!

Other than that, we had Multi zones this week and received some spiritual trainings. Ate some Cafe Rio after that to top it off.

We did some gardening and painting on Saturday for a non-member and then our ward had a fiesta de la Hispanidad. Our recent convert, Juan, brought a bowl of Mole (chicken with some Mexican choclately salsa) and it was a big hit. I think it was all gone in about 5 minutes, so that got him hyped up!!
There was a talent show as well, so we sang "I hope they call me on a mission" with 2 of the youngsters from our ward. Pretty fun time with the ward!!

To wrap this up, just wanted to share a little bit of what I'm reading in the Book of Mormon right now. I just wrapped up Mosiah and read through how Alma the younger and his buddies the Sons of Mosiah had a mighty change of heart and started their missions. I love reading about that change and the power of the Atonement, but none of that would have even been possible if Abindadi hadn't convinced even just one soul (Alma) to follow Christ. Alma then was able to teach hundreds and baptized them, but then they found themselves in captivity shortly after. The Lord was so mindful of them though, because they had made covenants and were keeping them. I studied the difference between how the Lord rescued Limhi and his people and then Alma and his people. If you compare Mosiah 21:15 with Mosiah 24:16, then you have your answer. It took Limhi and his people a good amount of time to find freedom because they were a little more lazy with applying the Gospel in their lives. But imagine the faith of Alma and his people... Alma and his people were rescued almost immediately and the Lord blessed them with freedom because of how they patiently walked on the covenant path and never stopped praying to God.
Every blessing we desire, especially with trying to find freedom from things that drag us down, will start with faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement. 

Please watch conference this weekend! lds.org has all the info 

Elder Moon

With Arthur at our ward party

With Elder Briggs at our multi zone conference. He will be going home next week, but was my ZL for 3 transfers in Hemet and then has been AP for the last 4 transfers