Still small voice

We started this week on fire because we were able to put the Martinez family on date for the 9th of February. That night before bed, I was saying my prayer and felt that I needed to fast the next day so we could baptize on the weekend. We had an appointment with Julia the next day and she was the closest to being baptized, so we prayed and fasted for her. The day of the appointment, her mom told us that they were probably going to be busy and we might need to come by a different day. We knew that we still needed to go by, so we just went by later in the night. After we got in and said a prayer, we just testified of baptism and eternal families and how this is what their family needs. They wanted it, Julia felt ready, so we set the interview, she passed, and was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! Honestly this one baptism brought so much of their family together from all over southern California and it lets the Spirit work in their lives as well. Her dad isn't a member and a lot of her extended family are a little less active or aren't members, so it was awesome to see all them this weekend.

Some other things that happened this week:

We were outside street contacting when we had to call the deputy on a mom who hit her kid out in her driveway. 

We had exchanges with Elders Quinton and Jackson and we were able to put people on date for baptism in both areas.

Ran into a few different body builders/UFC fighters, so we got some good workout tips.

We were at the library working on our training for our multi zone conference this coming Wednesday when a Jamaican woman asked me to help her with her PowerPoint. She is going back to school to get a degree at Moreno Valley CC, so I helped her fill out her power point on the "Danger of Smoking." After every slide I helped her fill out, she was praising the Lord and thanking me in the middle of the library haha it was quite the experience.

We brought back a few less actives to the YSA branch. We have about 600 YSA members on the records, so we organized it so that other missionaries in the zone will help us out.

On Sunday night, we went by a family that has a mixture of non members and members. There is a kid named Nathan who is almost 9, but his mom hasn't been super interested in having him baptized yet. We had stopped by last time without much success, but this time, Nathan's mom was sick, so we were able to give her a blessing. Almost immediately after the blessing, she mentioned how she wants to go back to church and have Nathan baptized. We talked to them all for a little bit and set a baptismal goal with Nathan for March 2nd. It's crazy how fast the Spirit works!

Last highlight was seeing all of the Martinez family and Julia's family as well as a few other non members at church! We were surrounded by all these sons and daughters of God who are trying to find him and being able to help them along the way is the best feeling!

I found two quotes this week that taught me about the power of the Holy Ghost. The first is from Joy D. Jones:
"We may seldom, if ever, receive huge spiritual manifestations in our lives; but we can frequently savor the sweet whisperings of the Holy Ghost verifying the truth of our spiritual worth."

The second is from Elder Godoy
"Great events are not a guarantee that our testimony will be strong. Laman and Lemuel are good examples of this. They were visited by angels and even then, almost in the very next minute, they were questioning the will of the Lord. Some great leaders of these latter days can also teach us about this principle. They were taught from on high during the early days of the Restoration and still were not strong enough to endure to the end. These experiences show us that to receive the witness of the “still small voice” sometimes can have a stronger impact on our testimonies than the visit of an angel."

Treasure the small moments that build your testimony of Jesus Christ.

Elder Moon

Julia's baptism

Julia's whole family (we are working with getting the family all active)

Someone in YSA gave Elder Davis and me a polaroid

Exchanges with elder Quinton

Mas lluvia

This has been the first week that it has rained almost every single day since I've been here!
The work is still moving along. We had a new family come to church for the first time. Two weeks ago, we were talking to them on their front porch just begging them to come to church since they had nothing else going on. They didn't go that Sunday or the next, but came this last Sunday! 
The Martinez family is still doing really well, but they had some conflicts in their schedule this last weekend. We will most likely need to push their baptism out to the next month, but they are solid!
With Julia, we were able to meet with her one time last week and teach a lot more of the commandments. She has a really strong desire to get baptized, but sometimes the family is a little more inconsistent than we would like with being able to meet with us and coming to church. She pretty much just needs her interview and we will be praying that she can get baptized this weekend.

We had 3 exchanges in a row from Wednesday to Friday. Wednesday, Elder Rich came to my area and we found a part member family to start teaching. Elder Rich is only in his 4th transfer in the mission, but is really intelligent and is the Tech elder in the mission. Right after that exchange, I spent the night at their apartment because I was going to be with their roommate, Elder Evans, the next day in his area. I started my mission with Elder Evans in Hemet and I remember the first time we worked together, we talked to a few bashers and a lot of crazies. Fast forward over a year, and we run into a lot of the same. We did find a few new people to teach and I was able to learn a lot from Elder Evans.


That night, Elder Davis and I drove out to Eastvale to start exchanges with the Assistants. I spent the day in Eastvale/Mira Loma with Elder Moloney. Pretty much Mira Loma is their Spanish area, so we spent the first half of the day there just contacting people and setting up some return appointments. A few lessons fell through, but we made the most of our time up until our appointment at 7 with this awesome family. The dad started up a club hockey team in Ontario, so it was fun hearing him talk about it and it brought back all the memories of the MLK weekend hockey tournaments and all the politics that happen on youth travel teams haha. This man and his family have read the Book of Mormon before and used to go to church a lot, but never were baptized. We were able to share a short message and leave him behind with some good invitations. We drove back to Moreno Valley after that and ended the exchanges with Elder Davis and Loveridge.

One of my favorite things from the last few weeks has been working in the YSA branch here. There is just so much potential that is untapped right now and more than anything, we want to grow the branch. We had a few new people come to the branch this last week and it's awesome to see how much the leaders and members of the branch are including them in everything. We are praying for some YSA baptisms because it's what we need out here right now!
We have an area Seventy, Elder Miskin, who came to the YSA branch this last week and he gave us a ride home to our apartment after church. If only our church building was further away, then we would have been able to pick his brain more!

Last night, I read a talk by Elder Faust on missionary work. He said this at the end of his talk:
Do not feel that you must obtain a quota of baptisms to be successful. An old saying teaches that you can count the number of seeds in a single apple, but you can’t count the number of apples in a single seed. The harvest is the Lord’s. Your responsibility is to thrust in the sickle.

I like how simple he put it. It's our responsibility as members to magnify our callings and fulfill our assignments. If we do so, then we will be able to rejoice when the Lord harvests. 


Elder Moon

 Exchanges with Elder Rich

Exchanges with Elder Evans 

Exchanges with Assistants

The M

Honestly the best pday activities in this mission are the hikes. Moreno Valley has a "M mountain" (kind of like Y mountain) and we just got done with that. We had a member let us use the trail behind their house and their dog pretty much guided us up the whole way! It's getting cold here and will probably rain most of the week, so we are really hitting that California winter now.

This week was great for our area! There was an awesome family that had only been taught once before we got here, but we couldn't get in contact at all the first week of being new to the area. On Tuesday, we were able to teach them for the first time. Elder Davis went on splits with a member to go teach another family and pass by some YSA, while I went to go teach the Martinez family with a 17 year old from our ward. The mom was baptized in Provo 8 years ago, but the rest of her fam wasn't. So we were able to teach them the first lesson and now the dad and their 3 teenagers have a baptismal date for the 26th of January. We taught them again on Friday and brought the young women's president and her daughter. We taught the plan of salvation and it was another strong lesson. Their family came to church on Sunday and we will be meeting with them again tonight!

Another baptism we should have on the 26th is Julia. She is the girl who we thought we would baptize this last weekend, but a few lessons just fell through until this week. Her whole family came to church on Sunday as well.

We have been working hard trying to reactivate families in this ward and they are just letting us come in and teach them and their non member family members, so it's been great! 

We have a fun service opportunity that we do usually every other week and it is at the March Air Field Museum here in MoVal, so we were able to paint some old Military planes! Had to rep Americas team while I was there!

The Spanish ward and YSA branch leaders are excited with the work we have going on and they are supporting us really well. Last night, we were able to watch the YSA worldwide devotional with our branch President. Elder Renlund and his wife spoke and they talked about faith vs doubt. Sister Renlund quoted a scripture from the New Testament that really stuck out to me. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14 - But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

It is so easy for the world to poke fun at the things of God. The second you decide to put off the natural man and submit your will to God's will, then your eyes are opened to more spiritual things and real light comes into your life.

Elder Moon

 

 

MoVal

Crazy week out in Moreno Valley (MoVal). We met a lot of new people and the Spanish ward was packed on Sunday, but we have some work to do in order to get the YSA branch going. We set a baptismal date with a girl named Julia. Her mom is a member in the Spanish ward and they are all wanting her to get baptized, so we are hoping we can see her get baptized this weekend! There are also a handful of members who are working hard to have all their family members baptized, which makes our job fun!

We were able to get into a lesson with almost all the people the Elders before us were teaching, but we are still looking forward to meeting a few more!!

On Tuesday, we found out that our mission office was burglarized and some letters and packages were stolen. A few other buildings in the area were broken into as well, but they didn't find much there.

Thursday night was pretty crazy. We had a meeting with some of the leaders in the Stake and we learned that we will be starting an English class on Wednesday and it will continue for a few months. The Church has all the materials covered for us and we are just in charge of interacting with the students and providing a spiritual message at the end!

Saturday we did exchanges with Elders Saxton and Gregson. I went with Elder Gregson in his area and we invited a ton of people to church in both areas. It was a cold, rainy day, but it didn't matter to Elder Gregson because he's a tough Canadian. Funniest part of the day was having him refuse to give me directions in English, but rather in French Haha I missed a few turns but now I know what "turn right, turn left, go straight" all mean in French.

Saturdays and Sundays are now our only days to eat with members, so it was nice to have some really delicious food those days! It's an adjustment, but it will pay off in the long run.My companion, Elder Davis, is one of the funniest missionaries I know. It's been one of the more stressful weeks on my mission, getting up to speed in this new area, but all the hard work and laughs we've had made it worth it.

Quote of the week from Neal A Maxwell
"In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all!”

Elder Moon

 Cleaning the apartment candid pic

 Fun exchanges with Elder Gregson

 Pic of me and my companion Elder Davis