Staying hungry

We ate good out here in Corona, but we are still hungry! We were able to teach Alicia (woman who had been to church a few times, but hadn't been taught yet). She told us how God has placed a few different people in her life that have shared with her the gospel, but she never wanted to meet with missionaries until now. She really didn't know anything about the Restoration or Joseph Smith, so we had a really good lesson with her. Elder Royce focused on teaching her 2 granddaughters while I taught Alicia. One of them is 10 years old and is super quiet, but the 7 year old was wild haha. Anyways, Alicia has a baptismal date for the 22nd of December and is really set on becoming a member of the church.

Monday night was a miracle night as well. We got in with 2 part member families: the Licona family and the Robles family. With the Liconas, we taught 3 of the kids. 2 of them were baptized when they were younger, but there is 1 who wasn't. They are all making plans to come back to church and study the gospel daily. In the Robles family, the dad is not a member, but the mom is. They have a 7 year old daughter who wants to get baptized next year, so we want the dad to get baptized and be able to baptize his daughter. They are super hard to find at home and we weren't planning on passing by them, but the Lord put us in their path that night to help the family take a step closer to being an eternal family. Diego, the dad, is on date for the 22nd of December.

We spent a lot of time this week just praying and looking to find people who can be taught by the other companionships in our zone. It worked out really well and we were able to send off 3 new investigators to 3 different companionships! My favorite one was this guy named David who really just wants to find himself a wife, so I whipped out a Mid Single Adult ward flyer, taught him the plan of salvation, put him on baptismal date for the 22nd of December, and he was pretty pumped on making some big changes to turn his life around. 

Thanksgiving day was a lot different out in the field this year compared to the MTC last year haha honestly the food was so much better because we had an awesome family feed us. Right after that, we went to go pick up some tamales that another family had made for us, then we had a little zone activity. 

Just this morning, we talked to about 100 high school seminary students and invited them to all share the Book of Mormon with their friends. All of them took 1, some were really feeling and took 2+, so we are looking to see a lot of miracles with this challenge! 

My favorite lesson from the scriptures this week was reading 3 Nephi 17 and learning from how Jesus took the time and prayed for every single child and then, angels were able to minister to them. 

I'm really grateful that God has been answering our prayers out here and helping us be instruments in His hands!

Love you all!

Elder Moon

 

 Trying to find people at the trailer park!

 With Elder Royce at a Thanksgiving Dinner

 We did a Book of Mormon challenge with the seminary students. They will be trying to hand out as many copies as they can before Christmas break!

 Turkey bowl (Jurupa and Corona zones)

 Our Zone

 Last pic with Elder Moloney

 

Father and Son reunite

So we just had transfers and I'll be staying in Corona and unfortunately, they are moving Elder Moloney out of here because he has been here too long. But, Elder Royce will be coming here to be my new companion!  Elder Royce trained me in my first 12 weeks in the mission back in Hemet and now we will work here in Corona together!

This last week ended pretty solid!

 

We are going to start teaching a woman named Alicia and her grandchildren this week. Alicia has been to church a few times and the sisters were planning on teaching her, but they realized that she lives in our area.  Alicia has a friend who is a member in Anaheim and the member has told us that Alicia is pretty interested in getting baptized, so that's music to our ears!! 

We also taught a few young families. There is a lot of potential with them, but we are trying to help them free up their Sunday schedule, so they can all go to church!

Jesse went to the temple this week, but unfortunately Elder Moloney and I weren't able to go because of some of the rules. We weren't able to get Jesse to take any of his own family names in time, so we are still working on that, so that we can all go together the next time!

We started teaching a man named Jorge who has a friend out in Orange county who told missionaries to go by like 8 months ago. Missionaries went by once or twice, but then stopped. Jorge has a lot of potential as well and he has a son who we were able to teach Sunday night as well. 

Then there is a really awesome guy named Vicente who is trying to get back on track and come closer to God. He has 6 kids and a wife at home who we will try to teach on Tuesday. 

If you want a good talk to read, then read "Like a flame unquenchable" by Elder M. Russell Ballard from April 1999

He said:

"Sometimes we are tempted to let our lives be governed more by convenience than by covenant. It is not always convenient to live gospel standards and stand up for truth and testify of the Restoration. It usually is not convenient to share the gospel with others. It isn’t always convenient to respond to a calling in the Church, especially one that stretches our abilities. Opportunities to serve others in meaningful ways, as we have covenanted to do, rarely come at convenient times. But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants...

'Now is the time for labor,' he said. “Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable."

Can't wait to get working again this week!

Also, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Moon

 

Getting the Zone picture organized, after district meetings

Zone Picture

Office elders (my old zone leaders)

This is the Jaldin family that we taught (they just moved to Virginia)

This the Millan family (recent converts in the ward)

 This is the Hunt family (elder Moloney's extended family)

 

 

Youth Batallion

The week ended with a bang because we had a stake youth fireside. We had our mission president and stake president do a "Face to Face" with the youth where they answered a bunch of questions about missionary work. We had some awesome musical numbers and then all the missionaries got to talk with the youth. It was super successful and we were able to see 2 of our recent converts here in the area come and participate. Jesse is now ready to do some more missionary work with his friends and family! 

We should be going to the temple on Thursday, because Jesse will be going with the Priest Quorum and we are going to do some family history work with him so he can take some names!!

We did exchanges with circle city and I went on bike with Elder Casper in his area. We had a woman stop us on the street as we were riding our bikes and she asked who we were. She didn't speak much English, so I started talking with her and she told me that she just visited her family in Guatemala. Her family there told her to find missionaries from our church when she came back to California. It was a sweet miracle, so now she will start getting taught by the sister missionaries in our ward since it's their area!!

We taught a family in their area. The grandpa is a member and he has 11 grandchildren who are all non members, so we were able to teach 3 of them who were at home and now they are on date for baptism!

We had our multi zone conference this week as well and it was really spiritual. We had some awesome missionaries that are going home, so they left us with some good training and testimonies. Our training focused on:  Talk to Everyone, How to Begin Teaching, and adjusting teaching to meet people's needs. Overall, a really great day and I got to see my trainer, Elder Royce!

We had the Jaldin family at church on Sunday. They will be moving on November 18th :( they will be going to Virginia.  The mom pretty much told us that she knows it's a miracle that she has found our church and that she has relatives in Virginia who are a part of our church. They will most likely be baptized out there in Virginia. We tried working as fast as we could to get them baptized here, but God has an awesome plan for their family in Virginia.

I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. God has a perfect plan for us and it's so important that everyone can have a knowledge of it. I found this awesome quote from one of the early Prophets of our church, Brigham Young...

There is no spirit but what was pure and holy when it came here from the celestial world. … He is the Father of our spirits; and if we could know, understand, and do His will, every soul would be prepared to return back into His presence. And when they get there, they would see that they had formerly lived there for ages, that they had previously been acquainted with every nook and corner, with the palaces, walks, and gardens; and they would embrace their Father, and He would embrace them and say, ‘My son, my daughter, I have you again;’ and the child would say, ‘O my Father, my Father, I am here again.’”

Also, I've been out on my mission for over a year now. Good times!

Elder Moon 

Geared up for bicycle work in circle city area

Exchanges with Elder Casper

Below I'm at my cousin Leslie's brother and sister in law's house or home of ward mission leader, if that makes more sense...

Viva Bolivia!

It was pretty awesome to see the Jaldin family come to church this Sunday. They are from Bolivia and they have 3 kids and we have been working with them for the last 3 weeks! We had lost contact this last week and we were about to stop teaching them, but we gave it one more try and they came through! We have a lesson with them tonight and we are hoping that they will be able to be baptized pretty soon!

Another highlight from the week was that one of the people I taught in Riverside was baptized on Sunday! Her name is Guadalupe and she is a sweet, older lady who I found with Elder McLaughlin. She accepted a baptismal date on one of our last weeks there and she made it! Unfortunately, they scheduled the baptism for 8 am Sunday morning, so I wasn't able to make it. More importantly, she was able to be confirmed that same day in sacrament meeting and is now a member of the church!

Jesse passed the sacrament to us on Sunday and that was awesome to see! We have been reading with him a lot in the Book of Mormon and he is going to seminary as well, so that he will be ready for a mission in a few years!

We had exchanges with the Auburndale elders again and I went with Elder Contreras. I took him to my area and he got to speak his native language and I was able to learn a lot from him!

Not much else going on, but just wanted to leave with this scripture:

D&C 6:33

Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.

It's the time to harvest!

Elder Moon

 On exchanges

Here is a pic from a few weeks ago. Hermano Ganuza from riverside came and took us to in n out and he was also the guy that took me to Pedro's baptism.