Not Fake News

Another miracle week in Moreno Valley. We put 5 new people on date for baptism. 4 of them came from the Martinez-Mendoza family in the Spanish ward and then we also had one in the YSA branch.

Elder Dundon was able to meet the Martinez-Mendoza family on Monday and we just did a quick visit with them that night and set up a time for Friday. Throughout the week, we were praying to know what to teach them the next time since we pretty much have taught everything by this point. We decided to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to focus on the blessings on baptism and resolving their doubts on baptism. We just did a classic pros and cons list with them and it was really eye opening for them all. Definitely one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission which ended up with them accepting a baptismal date for March 9th. We left the white board behind with them and put their goal on it, so that they would always remember and pray about it haha.

The YSA we found and out on date is actually the roommate of a less active member in the Spanish ward. It was a miracle to actually have enough time to find, teach and invite him because we only had about 15 minutes before our dinner. Our dinner was with the Campos family that night and they made us some pozole verde which hit the spot. They are all non members but we are working on them.

Our amigito Nathan came to church with his grandma for the second time. He will get baptized on March 2nd and is pumped for it! 

Some other great news this week:

We now have more approved ways to communicate with our families on pday, so it was great to be able to talk on the phone today with the parents.

My companion, Elder Dundon (see pic below), was accepted to BYU so we celebrated that on Saturday!

My sister Mikenzie also was accepted to BYU, so we will be going to school together next year!

We get to go to the Redlands temple next week, so our pday will be next Wednesday!

Also we had a mile club going last transfer with all the missionaries running at least a mile each morning. This transfer, it has been going strong and I ran my first mile under 6 minutes. The food is too good in MoVal, so at least we have been blessed with a gym with 4 treadmills!

Have a great week!

Elder Moon

Me quedo

The transfer came to a somewhat sad end because I really thought that Elder Davis and I would be staying together in Moreno Valley for one more transfer, but we got split up. Elder Davis will be training and will most likely finish his mission in Menifee, while Elder Dundon will come up to Moreno Valley and be my next companion! I'll miss being with Elder Davis because we were killing it this transfer together, but the work goes on and I'll be serving with one of my favorite missionaries for the next 6 weeks.

One of the miracles we saw this week was working with our ward MCM. We have the Elders Quorum Presidency meet with the 6 missionaries in our ward every Wednesday night. Recently we have gotten a few referrals from them to pass by less active members, all of which have resulted in good visits and finding new people to teach. This week, they had us pass by the Mosqueda family and we found out that their son hasn't been baptized yet, along with his wife. We put him on date for baptism for next month and are just helping them all come back to church.

We are still working with Nathan and then the Martinez-Mendoza family and were able to visit them a few times this last week. We are also excited to keep on working with Julia's dad, Hubaldo, because he has showed a lot of desire about becoming a member. Plus, their whole family went to Arizona this last weekend to see a family member get baptized, so now they have seen 2 baptisms in the last few weeks. Hopefully the third will be coming up soon!

We did a church tour with the Baltazar family. It was just a mom and her daughter who we have taught a few times at their house, but they made it to the church building for a tour. They have a lot of trials in their life, but are taking some good steps towards baptism!

One new thing that started this week is that we need to shoot for 10 service hours per missionary. Our mission was one of 10 missions chosen to do a service experiment where all missionaries need to hit 10 hours of service each week. It's honestly a struggle to find enough projects for a zone of 18 missionaries, but we did a lot more service this week and found a cool family for the English elders to teach by doing it.

I was reading some talks from the priesthood sessions in the 80's and I found that they would occasionally invite non general authorities to speak.. One of the talks was from an Olympic athlete named Peter Vidmar and he spoke on "Pursuing Excellence" and how his hard work as an Olympic gymnast has transferred over to his spiritual side as well. He also talked about how all his athletic accomplishments can't compare to the joy the gospel brings. He says,
"I would like to emphasize keeping a proper perspective on our goals. Let us never lose sight of the gospel in pursuing our temporal ambitions. We didn’t come to this world to become Olympic champions, or great doctors, lawyers, or businessmen, or to become rich and famous. We came here to prove ourselves worthy of returning back to the presence of our Heavenly Father. We came here to set and reach the highest goal possible."

Love you all!

Elder Moon

Zone Picture

 District Picture

Last picture of this companionship - Eating well at Black Bear Diner

Painting Service project

Awesome Chicago style pizza

perfect street corner

Martinez-Mendoza kids

With Elders Davis and Quinton

Chicago Pasta House - love their pizza

MoVal Zone Conference 

Escapando el frío

The Lord always blesses us when California even gets somewhat cold and rainy weather. A lot of people and families were letting us in, so we were able to help a lot of people we are teaching come to church and progress towards baptism. The Martinez/Mendoza family came to church again and it's just incredible to see how much they love their kids. We are still trying to help Fernando (the dad) to come to church, but his wife and their 4 kids came to church and were able to meet the bishop for the first time. We also had our little friend Nathan come to church with his grandma. His grandma and mom want him to take the lessons before he gets baptized. He is going to turn 9 in a few weeks, so he is pretty much just going to get baptized the very beginning of March!

We also felt inspired to do some home visits with a lot more of the YSAs. We taught a few non members and then we were able to help some of the members stay consistent with coming to church.

Rams fans were not happy yesterday and we just so happened to be street contacting when they all came out to their cars after all the watch parties. I never would have thought that Tom Brady and the Patriots would have a negative impact on our missionary work haha. 

We had a multi zone conference on Wednesday in Riverside. Elder Davis and I trained on the importance of our Prime finding time from 5-8 PM. All the other trainings were helpful and it's always fun to see missionary friends and meet some of the new missionaries that came in! Also, our mission will be picking up 3 more stakes (Temecula, Murrieta and Chino). That will end up being a little over 60 new missionaries and all this will take place July 1, 2019.

On Thursday, I did an exchange with Elder Lawlor and this was the first day it started pouring and it continued the whole weekend. We taught a few new people in their area and escaped the cold for a bit at the Olive garden by our apartment for dinner. Always the best deal for unlimited soup and celestial breadsticks.

Friday we had MLC, so we were back in Riverside again. We dropped off our car to get the oil changed before the meeting started. Our mission  got a brand new Toyota Tundra for the office elders that same day, so they took us back to our car in the new tundra which was sweet.

The weekend ended strong with church and setting up some more appointments for this week! 

Having time built in the day to study the scriptures is one of the greatest blessings of a mission. I'm loving my Book of Mormon and New Testamant study. Along with that, Gospel Library is loaded up with conference talks and Institute manuals that are really useful. Anyways, here is a quote from a general conference talk by Elder Sabin that I enjoyed listening to:

"We might need to study more intently, pray more earnestly, or just let some things go so we can hang on to those things that really matter. We may need to let go of the world so we can hang on to eternity."

Elder Moon