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