Hemet Family

The highlight of the week was returning to Hemet to see Rosa get baptized. It was pretty awesome to see Rosa, Raquel and her son, Oscar after such a long time. Rosa and Raquel were the first people I taught on my mission and we were able to see Raquel get baptized in February of 2018. Rosa has really gained a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ after passing through a lot of trials and everything fell into place, so that she could get baptized now in April of 2019. It was a little bittersweet when she told us that she invited her family, but none of them came (besides Raquel and Oscar), but we were able to help her see that all the missionaries and members were there as part of her family. There were a few other baptisms going on that day in Hemet, so it really was probably one of the biggest baptismal services that I have been to on my mission, and we were just cycling people in and out of the font, which was really cool to see. Now, Rosa and Raquel want to start working together on their next steps to go to the temple!

Outside of that experience, we had a really busy week. We did exchanges on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and then we had stake conference Saturday and Sunday.

On Wednesday, I was with Elder Heilbut and we spent most of the day teaching in lessons. We taught the Martinez-Mendoza family and we were able to follow up with Briana and her baptismal experience. She is going strong and we were able to invite her older sister, Natalie, to be baptized on May 11th. It was good to get some of the concerns out that we didn't really know about because we were able to address them with a member there as well. Now it should be easier to plan out our next few lessons as we help the whole family progress towards the temple. We also taught a YSA named Edgar and it was one of the most powerful Restoration lessons from my mission. The Spirit did all the work and Edgar has some really good potential if he decides to seek out truth from the Holy Ghost as he reads and prays about the Book of Mormon. We ended the night by teaching a woman named Maria who had answered the door as we were looking for someone else. Even though it was super late, she told us how grateful she was that we came because she was looking for truth. She unknowingly quoted Amos 8:11-12 to us, so we shared the Restoration with her and she was really excited to come to church with us.

On Thursday, I was with Elder Van Orman in his area. Elder Van Orman is a really awesome missionary who will be finishing up his first 6 weeks here in the mission. He has been waiting for his visa to go to Portugal and the very same day I was with him, he got news that he received his visa and will be leaving in a week to go to Portugal. We were able to see some pretty good success in their area and set up a good amount of lessons.

On Friday, I was with Elder Porrazzo in his area. His English area and our Spanish area don't overlap, but we were talking to a lot of Hispanics, so I was able to send over a few referrals to the Spanish sisters. We also taught a YSA that we found while street contacting. We were going to give him the Introduction to the Book of Mormon to read as some homework before we come back on Wednesday, but he was just ready to read it then, so we started reading together and he had some pretty good interest.

Stake Conference flew by. Elder Dundon and I helped out during the Saturday leadership session and we did a training on how we can improve our Missionary Correlation Meetings throughout the stake. The rest of it just flew by and now we are here! It'll be the last week of the transfer, so we will see this Saturday if there are any changes.

I read a quote this week from Gordon B Hinckley that reminded me of something that Elder Klebingat had told us this recently.

Gordon B Hinckley said

"Our individual testimonies of these truths are the basis of our faith. We must nurture them. We must cultivate them. We can never forsake them. We can never lay them aside. Without them we have nothing. With them we have everything."

To paraphrase what Elder Klebingat said, he had told us that without having consistent and sincere prayers and scripture study, then we are putting ourselves at risk for falling away very quickly from the church. He said that he has never met someone who has fallen away, that actually was sincerely praying and reading the scriptures. 

With a testimony of the gospel, we really do have everything. Without a testimony of the restored gospel, then "they have joy in their works for a season," but the end will come and they will have nothing.

Elder Moon

Teaching the Law of Chastity to a General Authority

Elder Klebingat, a General Authority Seventy and part of our area presidency, came and visited our mission on Friday and he trained us on 10 different leadership principles. One of the best things that I learned was that the Lord wants us to receive "real time revelation," which requires us to constantly be dependent on the Lord in whatever task we have at hand, no matter how many times we have done it. 

On Saturday, he focused a majority of his instruction on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and I know for a fact that my testimony/conversion has deepened as I listened to him testify and use hundreds of scriptures as he invited us to individually come closer to Christ and help others do the same. Throughout the day, he had some missionaries come up role play teaching scenarios ranging from the Book of Mormon to the Law of Chastity. As a precursor, Elder Klebingat is a very bold, straightforward, and tells it how it is kind of General Authority, so it would have been a little nerve-wracking going up and teaching him Gospel principles. Anyways, my companion and I were called up to take two minutes to teach the Law of Chastity.  We taught, testified, and invited him to obey the law, and then he told us to sit down.  He then joked with us that he wished we would've messed up somewhere, so that he could give us some more feedback, but he was complimentary and we were able to move on!  He taught us that "we don't need to wait until a future day to know that we are acceptable before the Lord." Through genuine repentance, the Lord forgives us, but we must not short-change the Atonement of Jesus Christ by not accepting this forgiveness.  He taught us that we are on missions in order to fulfill a pre-mortal covenant that we have made to gather Israel. He explained many doctrines of the pre-mortal existence, which helped me understand better why I was sent to this Earth at this time.

He told us that "everything that happened in the New Testament, happens in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today, but we just don't cast it out to the world...yet." He has been with the Apostles of Jesus Christ when miracles have happened and "the roof has come off."

He gave us a blessing under the keys that were delegated to him by the Quorum of the Twelve. In this blessing, he told us that if we accept the many invitations that he gave us, then we would be able to better know the Savior and His Atonement and we will know that when we are repenting and the Spirit can work through us, then that's a sign that we have been forgiven. He blessed us that we would be able to listen to the voice of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and be able to ignore the adversary in order to get us through the darkest times of our lives.

It was the most spiritual meeting of my mission and then we capped off the day with the baptism of Briana. It was short and sweet, but the Spirit definitely was present and helped the family see the importance of making and keeping covenants. 

Some of the best news I got this week was that Rosa, (Raquel's sister) from my first area Hemet, will be getting baptized. Through all of the Lord's miracles, I was able to baptize Raquel February 2018 and now over a year later, I will be going back on Saturday to baptize Rosa. They are some of the best friends I have made on the mission, so it will be a great reunion.

It has been awesome applying what we learned from Elder Klebingat's trainings. The Spirit has been stronger and it was great to be rejuvenated going into the last 6 months of my mission. The Lord is so kind and aware of what we need and when we need it. There isn't a more perfect plan than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Making and keeping covenants with God is what will exalt us. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can overcome sin and death. There is nothing worse than being spiritually separated from God AND there is nothing better than knowing that you are worthy and acceptable before Him. The Atonement of Jesus Christ can change everything about us, every day of our lives.

Elder Moon

Brianna's baptism 

Easter Day

el tiempo vuela

I think this goes down as one of the fastest weeks of all time. We started off the week with a baptismal interview and Briana passed, so she will be getting baptized this Saturday. We are making plans to go to the temple soon with her and her mom, so that the rest of the family will get to see the bigger picture and more than anything feel the Spirit and all get baptized.

We taught the Ambriz family again and they are doing pretty good. We are working on getting them more familiar with the members and the church in general, so that they feel comfortable setting a baptismal date all together and getting baptized sometime in the next transfer.

We had a few exchanges and on one of the exchanges, the fire alarm went off at 1:30 in the morning, so we had to evacuate all because one person had a sprinkler go off in their apartment. 

We taught all the recent converts on Thursday and are just helping them get ready for the temple. Elder Bednar's talk is pretty spot on and that has been a big focus for us whenever we talk to members who are on the verge of being ready for the temple and all of its blessings.

We will be having Elder Klebingat visit our mission on Friday and Saturday, so we will have MLC in Menifee on Friday and then our zone conference on Saturday in Riverside. There isn't a Raising Canes in MoVal, but somehow Menifee has one, so Friday dinner is already set haha. Elder Klebingat is part of the area presidency, so it'll be fun to hear what he trains us on and how we can help this part of the Lord's vineyard grow.

Now is the perfect time to dive deep into our studies of what the leaders of the church shared with us last week. This week, I read a quote from the October 2000 conference. Elder Neuenschwander told us that "...to have living prophets, seers, and revelators among us and not listen to them is no better than not having them at all. The prophet Jacob hoped that the words written with so much difficulty on the plates by righteous men would be received by their children with thankful hearts and that they might learn from them “with joy and not with sorrow.” May we be wise enough to do likewise with the words of the living prophets, seers, and revelators of our time."

Reading one talk a day takes anywhere between 10-20 minutes and it will help us stay true to the restored truths of the gospel in these last days.

Elder Moon

Pictures of Exchanges and service

I just took a picture because there were some skinny palms back there 

The best 10 hours

It is pretty awesome to be blessed with 10 hours of talks from the leaders of the Church every once in a while. The highlight of the week was watching General Conference with the Ambriz family on Sunday afternoon. The Ambriz family consist of the mom and dad, Maria and Genaro, and then their two kids, Eric and Daniella. We were able to see Maria, Eric, and Daniella last Sunday at church, then we also taught them a few days ago and we laid out the path for them to be an eternal family as we taught the first lesson. We watched almost all of conference at the stake center, but we hadn't seen the Ambriz family all weekend, so we just sent it and took the 25 minute drive to their house before the last session. They were all in the backyard just hanging out, so we asked them if they wanted to watch conference with us, then hooked it all up to watch it with them in their living room. They all really enjoyed it, so they are on a roll right now. 

The Martinez Mendoza family were pretty busy the whole weekend, but we had recorded all the sessions for them, so they watched a session all together on Sunday night. Tonight we will be having the baptismal interviews for Briana and Natalie. If all goes well, they will be getting baptized on Easter weekend!

One sad thing that happened this week is that we found out Margarita will be moving to San Bernardino. We had a good last lesson with her and promised her a lot of blessings if she is baptized and stays on the covenant path. She was on date to be baptized Easter weekend as well, but will be moving to go live with her daughter. We talked to the missionaries out there and they are already planning on picking up where we left off. We talked to Margarita's sister who is a member in Newport and she said that Margarita has a ton of family that she is moving in with that aren't members either, so there will be a lot of good work for the sister missionaries to do out there!

This last Priesthood session and the one from 2018 have been some of the most spiritual moments on my mission. It'll be a little sad having to wait another year before the next priesthood session, but something I learned from President Nelson's talk to us was that Satan knew how vaillant we were premortally and he knows us now. He also knows the work that must be done before the Savior's second coming, so we must repent daily, be selfless, receive revelation, keep covenants, be chaste and worthy, serve and bless others. We must be more willing and urgent to perform this work because time is running out.

Elder Moon

2nd Hour Miracle

After sacrament meeting this Sunday in the Spanish ward, I was sitting there with the Martinez family when a member told me that there was a family walking around the church outside and they weren't sure if they were dressed properly, so they were a little timid to come in. I walked out there with him and recognized that it was the Ambriz family, a family that Elder Dundon and I taught almost 2 weeks ago on their porch. We hadn't had much contact with them and the only lesson we taught them was pretty short, but we just focused on church and the Spirit was definitely strong. We were pretty sad when they didn't come to church last Sunday, but fast forward to this Sunday and they walked into the church with me for second hour. The primary president met the kids and they went to primary and Maria came with us to Sunday school. After church, there was a despedida for a girl from the ward who is about to leave for her mission, so they stuck around for that and met about half of the ward members. They are pretty pumped for general conference and to come back the week after that for the whole thing.

On Tuesday, Elder Parata went to the temple with a recent convert, so we took Elder Larsen with us to a lesson with Margarita. The only two times we have taught her have been with Elder Larsen in a trio with us, so he is pretty much good luck for us. We had a great lesson with her and put her on date for 4-20. She was busy this weekend visiting her kids who live pretty far away, so she wasn't able to make it. She seems a lot more willing to meet with us frequently though, which will help her progress faster. 

We were in a trio on Friday and Saturday with Elder Larsen, so we had a good time teaching in both our area and the bike area. On Sunday, we ate with the Tenorio's who are famous for their food challenges with the missionaries. It is pretty much a Man vs. Food type of thing and this time it was 9 full scoops of ice cream with a ton of whip cream, cookies, and candy in there. I was just an honorary spectator, but I'll include a picture of the bowl of ice cream. After that, we set up a lot of appointments for the next week, so we are looking forward to a busy week.

This weekend will be fun with general conference. Hope everyone can watch it and learn something from the Spirit!

“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings" (Bible Dictionary). 

Elder Moon

We went to a luncheon for a NPO that our Just serve coordinator told us to go to in order to represent the church

Food challenge