New year, new area

I'll be getting transferred to Moreno Valley and my new companion will be Elder Davis! The interesting thing is that the missionaries that were there will both be leaving, so we will be the new zone leaders there and will cover the Spanish ward and the YSA branch.

Corona was a blast! 12 weeks went by really fast, so I'll just include some of the highlights from this last week...

So we hadn't been in contact with Alicia for a while, but we had a great lesson with her on Friday! The Spirit was there the whole time as we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were just all on the same page, everyone's testimony of Jesus Christ grew, and Elder Royce and I have a really good feeling about her progress.

We had a few referrals from the Spanish sisters, but for some reason all the addresses were wrong. Anyways, we knocked on one of the houses and found a guy who is super prepared. His name is Felipe and he wants his whole family to hear more of our message this next week.

I went on a mini exchange with Elder Sato and we talked to a lot of cool people in their area. They haven't been able to work much because his companion has been sick. Elder Sato is such a good missionary and has a great love for the work. On Saturday, we had a blitz for the Citrus Hills ward and found some more people for them!

Talked to the family this week and had a great Christmas with the members and missionaries out here in Corona.

Highlight of being in Corona: being able to meet Jesse, baptize him, see him get the Priesthood, bless the sacrament for a few weeks, go to the temple, and help him prepare for his mission all in a few months! 

Spiritual thought comes from 2 Nephi 9:51: Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness.

Spend every day thinking about the Savior. It's something that I am trying to improve because it is easy to get caught up with the distractions of the world or other trivial matters, but as we always think of Christ, we will make better decisions daily.

Love you guys! Happy new year!

Elder Moon

 Saying bye to Jesse

 exchanges with Elder Sato

With Hermano Ganuza and Elder Royce

All across the mission

Coolest thing was that we were able to see a baptism this weekend! We just had to go out to Hemet to see it because it was a guy that both Elder Royce and I taught a year ago. His name is Antonio and it took a little while, but it was a really awesome baptism. A lot of missionaries put in work to help out him and his family.

The crazy thing was that we didn't find out about the baptism until 4:30 and the baptism was going to be at 6. So we called Hermano Ganuza who lives out in Jurupa and he was able to pick us up from Corona and take us. It was an hour drive to Hemet, but it was worth it! It is always fun going back to Hemet, especially for a baptism, so it will probably go down as one of my favorite nights in the mission!

Some of the other highlights of the week-

We were able to get a part member family to come to church for the first time in months. The dad isn't a member and his name is Diego. He will honestly get baptized if he just comes to church consistently.

We also taught Beatriz again this week and she has a baptismal date for January 20th. She will get home from her 3 week long trip to Mexico on the 10th of January.

I did a baptismal interview for some elders in our zone. They cover a family ward and a mid single adult ward, so the guy they baptized was going to the mid single adult ward for a while. He knew there was a light about the members in that ward and he desired to have it too. He was baptized and confirmed this last weekend, which was awesome!

We had a few exchanges to end the transfer and I was able to learn a lot from Elder Jackson and Contreras!

Merry Christmas!

Elder Moon

Antonio at his baptism

Exchanges with Elder Contreras

Zone had a snowball fight with flour and it was really interesting

Christmas day skype

Elders of Israel

We just wrapped up an awesome hike with all the Elders in the zone and it was probably one of the most fun pday activities on my mission! Before we went up the mountain, we had a little bonding activity where we all talked about why we are still on our missions. It was really awesome to hear everyone's testimony and then we went up the mountain and were able to get a good view of all of Corona!

The week went by pretty fast with a few different exchanges and a multi zone conference. We had our conference on Tuesday in Jurupa. There is only one missionary going home at the end of the transfer and that's Elder Rodriguez, so we snagged a pic.

We did exchanges with Temescal Valley on Wednesday, so I was with Elder Egbert in Spanish land. We taught Alicia and had a good lesson with her. She came to church again this past Sunday and is going to try to get her kids and grandkids there this next Sunday!

On Thursday, I was in Circle City with Elder Clifford and we had a lot of miracles and tender mercies. I was able to see Rosa (a woman I taught in Hemet) since she was at her family's house in Corona. We were also able to teach a lot of the people in their area and it was definitely God's timing on everything. Like we would be walking away after knocking on someone's door, then they would pull into their driveway, so we were really grateful for that.

We did some service Friday morning and were able to teach a few people before Sunday. Sunday, the primary gave us a ton of gifts. We scored like 10 boxes of cereal and plenty of mac and cheese and soup, etc.

One change that will be happening in our mission on 1/1/19 is that we will have dinner every week day on our own in our apartment from 4:00-5:00 and then we will go work the rest of the night. On the weekends, we will have dinner with members. The church leaders over our area just want the work to progress and for us to find more people, so we are just going to go do it! 

As I was reading the institute manual in my Book of Mormon study, I read this 1987 quote from Glenn Pace:

"To those of you who are inching your way closer and closer to that great and spacious building, let me make it completely clear that the people in that building have absolutely nothing to offer except instant, short-term gratification inescapably connected to long-term sorrow and suffering. The commandments you observe were not given by a dispassionate God to prevent you from having fun, but by a loving Father in Heaven who wants you to be happy while you are living on this earth as well as in the hereafter...Compare lifting people up to putting people down. Compare the ability to receive personal revelation and direction in your life to being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Compare holding the priesthood of God with anything you see going on in that great and spacious building.”

If you want to be truly happy in this life and the life to come, then read the Book of Mormon and do everything you can to gain a testimony of it!

Elder Moon

Christmas came early!  Thanks Primary!!! They sent these photos to our parents...

Morning P-day hike with the zone - behind us is all of Corona

 Exchanges with Circle City and Temescal Valley

Elder Rodriguez wrapping up his mission and going back to BYU

Fatburger to wrap up this P-day

"mira, that's the hand of God!"

The subject comes from our good friend Efrain who has a backyard filled with birds. It's pretty much a zoo just with all these different types of birds, so we had to check it out. He was showing us some of the baby birds and then he showed us a little bird house with a ton of little eggs in there. As he was showing it to us, he had the biggest smile on his face and he dropped the one liner of the week. He really loves his birds, so I had to throw in a picture of him at work!

The highlight of the week was having a ton of the people we are teaching and some other non-members come to our ward Christmas party. The ward did a play as well with some acting and some songs, which was really interesting. A lot of the people that signed up didn't show up, so I subbed in last minute and had my acting career debut... I was one of the 7 Nephites and the play was just centered on the birth of Jesus Christ as told from the Book of Mormon. Super interesting

We were blessed to be able to teach Rafaela and Juvencio this week and they were one of the families that came to the Christmas party. They have been taught for a while by other missionaries, but haven't came to church yet, so the party was a good introduction for them to the ward members.

We taught a woman named Beatriz twice this week. She was someone that we taught at a dinner with a member, since she is the friend and lives with one of the Hermana's in our ward. She really wants to get baptized, so we put her on date for next weekend (assuming she would be able to come to church this last weekend), but she is super big into the swap meet/yard sale game, so we will need her to come to church. She has already seen a lot of miracles as we have been teaching her. We have felt prompted to stop by her a few different times and every time we stop by, she is usually having a really hard time with something, so she knows that God is sending us by to help her change her life around. When we taught her about the gift of the Holy Ghost and the roles of the Holy Ghost, she had so much desire to be baptized. She will be leaving for Mexico next week, so we are a little sad about that, but know she will progress even more when she gets back in January.

We had a cool service opportunity this week. We helped clean up after this 5K run and we saw these professional BMX riders because they were at the event as well, so cool stuff!

We had MLC  (mission leader conference) this week and it was straight revelation. All the training's were on things that will help the mission a lot! 

 

Tomorrow is our multi zone conference/ Christmas devotional!

I was able to finish up the Book of Mormon challenge this week and it just keeps getting better!

I've always just shared Moroni 10:4-5 when I talk about the promise that the prophet Moroni gave to everyone who reads the Book of Mormon. I just felt like it covered the whole thing pretty well, until I read it again this time around. I found out that verse 3 has an important step to the process of receiving answers from God.. Moroni talks about how we need to "ponder in our hearts" the love and mercy that God has for all of us.  I took that as more than just a "one-time-event," because really I have found most of my answers as I continually ponder about all the spiritual things that I have learned. As we ponder about the doctrine we learn in the scriptures and from the Prophets and Apostles, God will send the Holy Ghost to comfort us and bring peace to our souls.

Elder Moon

 

 

 

Efrain, the man with 15K worth of birds in his backyard 

 Post 5K, Monster Energy BMX show (service project)

 Play (acting debut) at the ward party

 Primary

Hermano Ganuza

 

Light the World

Last Monday, I was able to skype into a lesson with the Jaldin family. They are living in Virginia now and seem to be doing well out there! Later that night, Elder Royce and I had an awesome lesson with a man named Efrain. He wants to get baptized, but has to work on some things to help him be ready, so we challenged him to fast that weekend. It wasn't something we had planned at all to invite him to do, but the Spirit told us to, so we did. Fast forward to Sunday, and Efrain had fasted and was able to take a few small steps in the right direction.

On Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Nielsen. He just came from Riverside YSA ward last transfer and now he is here in the Corona YSA ward, so he is turning things around in his area. We were in my area for Wednesday and we were able to light the fire for the rest of the week. We found a guy named Francisco who was mowing his lawn, but we went and talked to him after it took a good, solid 30 seconds to get his attention. We had a good talk with them and then finished the night strong teaching a recent convert family who had a nonmember friend over. 

 

Thursday: Elder Royce and I were back together for the day and we taught Alicia. We brought over the RS president and one of Alicia's friends who is a member in Anaheim. We talked a lot about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and Alicia will continue to read and is progressing at a decent rate. She came to church as well on Sunday and brought one of her granddaughters, but she'll bring the both of them next Sunday. Anyways, it was pouring that day, which honestly made the rest of the day a lot more fun as we worked.

 

Friday: I was on exchanges with Elder Pells in the Citrus Hills ward. The hills there are real and we had a decent amount of biking that day, which actually made me want to go back on bike! Elder Pells is a sign language missionary, so I learned a few cool signs, but already forgot about half of them now haha. We had a few lessons fall through, but it really did happen for a reason because we found them their next baptism in their area. We did a home visit with some of the members in their ward and their daughter had a friend over who has been to church a lot, but never been taught the missionary lessons.

 

Saturday: We went on exchanges with the Assistants. I was with Elder Loveridge for the day in my area and we had a packed day. We participated in the World-wide day of service and made a ton of fleece blankets for a hospice organization. We taught Amy and it was a great lesson and she really does have a desire to bring her whole family back to church. The cool thing is that she isn't even a member yet, but she was able to bring her younger sister to church yesterday, as well as her older brother and niece. We also found a family of 5 that night and shared a lesson about faith and miracles. We were able to show them the Light your faith video and the Book of Mormon. We had a few other lessons with people we are teaching and it was just cool to see everyone let us in that day. Missionary work is a lot more enjoyable that way!

Sunday is always the true highlight of every week. Most Sundays, I get to pass the sacrament with the young men, and this Sunday was sweet because Jesse blessed the sacrament and then Amy and her family came in just in time to be there. Jesse did an awesome job and I felt the Spirit comforting me as I was able to pass the sacrament to these sons and daughters of God. For Amy and her family, some of them are members, but they haven't gone in years. It was really awesome to see them feel the Spirit at church.  We ended the week teaching a family who Elder Loveridge and I helped put up their Christmas tree on Saturday. They invited us to come back the next day and we taught this family of 4. All of the kids are really pumped to learn more, so some pretty good potential!

The coolest thing I learned in my studies this week was from a devotional by Elder Maxwell. He said,

"True believers are humble. They are “meek and lowly of heart,” ready to be taught things they “never had supposed,” as was Moses, one of the most meek men upon the earth. They are not easily offended. They do not resist counsel. They don’t see themselves as being “above” the routine duties of Church membership and discipleship, and they don’t reject those duties on the basis of “I’ve done all that before.” How can we pretend to be true believers if we shun the chores of the kingdom?"

Elder Moon

 My sign

Elder Nielsen from the Corona YSA ward

Citrus Hills area

Elder Pells in the Citrus Hills ward

Exchanges with the APs

 Elder Loveridge