Elder Mason 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