Tú eres una máquina

This has been one of the most exciting weeks of my mission. Once I got here to Hemet, we just went shopping real quick and starting working. It is pretty sweet being back in the Hemet Ramona ward because we are working some of the same area I used to work in and some new neighborhoods as well. We were able to set some pretty solid baptismal dates for a lot of the people who are progressing. We have Jose who is dating a girl in our ward and he is on date for July 20th and he actually went to go visit the San Diego temple with his girlfriend the other day. We taught him a few times over Facebook messenger throughout the week and he is really pumped to be baptized and came to church for the second week in a row. He wants to wait until all of his girlfriend's family is in town, so they can be there for his baptism. 

We also have Ana and Angelica on date for the 20th of July as well. They have been taught for a while and Angelica was really close to getting baptized, but just needs a little more time to prepare. Her sister, Ana, had never been invited to baptism, but she really wants to be a good example to her kids, so we set a goal for the 20th of July. Both Ana and Angelica's mom, Lupe, was baptized in April, so she is a good support for the both, but we are going to bring even more people over there and keep daily contact with them. Having daily contact with the people we teach is one of the toughest things to establish because we don't want to bug people, but it has been a game changer. The last person that we were able to set a solid date for was Domingo. His 13 year old son was recently baptized and they are living with members right now and they just came from Guatemala. Domingo works at a dairy farm and they are working during the day on Sundays for the next few weeks, but Domingo said his schedule would change soon and for now, he wants to read and pray with his son in order to get ready for his baptismal date on August 3rd. 


We also invited a few other families to be baptized, which has helped us see how willing they are to find out if the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored and how willing they would be to change certain things in their life to find out. There was one family, the Abila family, that we invited to be baptized on my first night here. There were 4 of them and it was the wife's first time hearing about the restored gospel and the Book of Mormon and she was just in awe. It almost seemed like she was the only one that really felt the spirit telling her that this was true and her prayer at the end was incredible, so we will see how they progress. 


I have been able to visit 2 of the converts from when I was here in the first time. We stopped by Raquel twice in order to be able to talk about the temple, but both times Rosa wasn't there. We really want them both to be able to go together this time around since Raquel is the only one that has gone. 
We also taught Carmelo last night and it was pretty awesome to see him. My second companion, Elder Bailey, and I found Carmelo and he was super elect and was baptized, but has just had a tough time this past year. We are helping him get back on the right track with coming to church and Institute, so that he will be ready to receive the priesthood and go to the temple! 

As far as my companion goes, Elder Abraham is a beast. He is coming up on 6 months in the mission and is our DL out here. He is a natural talking to people and ministering to them, so it has been pretty fun to learn from him and his example. The title of the email is a quote from Elder Abraham and we pretty much just quote that now back and forth to each other to keep the hype going haha. Our district had almost 1/4 of the mission's baptismal invites last week, so it just goes to show how Elder Abraham is already doing a great job leading and how much fire the ward has for missionary work. It is so much easier to invite people to be baptized and for them to change their own lives if they can already see the blessings in the lives of those members with whom they are friends/family.


To top off the week, our ward had a baptism. Julio was able to be baptized and it was really a miracle because his mom and dad are members who were baptized in Riverside. I would stop by their house a lot when I was out there in their ward and one time last year, we met Julio as he was there visiting and he told us some of his concerns, but that he had that desire to have an eternal family, so we told him to talk to the missionaries in Hemet. Elder Abraham was able to start teaching him with his trainer and they passed him off to the sisters since he ended up actually living in their area. The sisters taught him all the way, I interviewed him on Saturday morning and he was baptized Sunday afternoon by Elder Abraham. It was pretty awesome seeing his journey come full circle.

Elder Moon

 P-day round of golf

Julio's baptism this weekend

Adios De Anza

It was a pretty awesome last week out here in the De Anza ward. We were able to set up a potential baptism for next weekend for Marisela and I was able to go back to Corona to see a baptism for a man I taught named Diego!
First, Marisela has a lot of desire to get baptized since her daughter and dad already were, but she has been in a tough situation. We went over all the lessons for the last few weeks, but because of some complexities, her baptism was going to take forever. God took over and is opening up a way for her to keep all of the commandments now because of her desire, so she should be getting baptized soon!
Second, Diego's baptism was really special because now he will be able to baptize his daughter, Angelina, when he gets the priesthood. It was fun seeing their whole family at the baptism! 

I'll be going back to Hemet and serving in the same area I began my mission in! I'll be with Elder Abraham who has been out for 3 transfers, so this is his first area and it will be his first transfer as a District leader! I'm really excited to see some of the people I baptized there and to be able to help them get to the temple as well as finding and teaching a lot of new people! 

We also did exchanges this week with the Eastvale elders, so I went with Elder Ottman and we worked in our area. He is a really young missionary and has a lot of fire, so it was a lot of fun! I did a baptismal interview that day for the Foothill elders and they were able to baptize this weekend. The kid they baptized, Devin, is such a good kid and is going to be a great leader/missionary in the future!

We found a lot of new people to teach this week + the area will be getting bigger, so next transfer is looking good for Elder McLaughlin and his new comp.

We ended the transfer with a dinner at the Haroldsen's house and they are an awesome family out here in the De Anza ward along with a lot of the other members I met out here in a short 6 weeks. 

This week I was reading in Luke 10 when Jesus Christ called the 70 and gave them the authority to go out and preach the gospel and exercise the priesthood. I really liked Luke 10:17 which says, "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name."
I know that especially being a missionary gives great opportunities to bless others and help them change their lives through priesthood blessings and ordinances, but it is something that I'm looking forward to for the rest of my life as well. I know that everyone that is called of God can fulfill their callings in this life and return back to their heavenly home with that same joy because of the strengthening and cleansing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Elder Moon

Summer in Riverside 2.0

This'll be our last week of the transfer and honestly it has been going pretty well. This last week was definitely one of the harder weeks of my time here because a lot of the people we are trying to help get baptized are difficult to work with and are somewhat stuck in their progression. A lot of great things are happening in the zone though as we had a few baptisms this last weekend.

Something crazy that happened last night was that there was a "Possible Kidnapping" outside of our apartment complex. There were tons of police cars there last night when we came back and a lot of CBS news vans this morning. We are safe though and enjoying this fine pday!

So we had exchanges with the APs on Tuesday, so Elder Moloney came to my area and we had a pretty successful day. One of our first street contacts of the day ended up with us both getting free Toronto Raptors throwback jerseys because the guy we were talking to had some extras that he was looking to give away! We taught a lady named Antonia in that area as well and set up a few more appointments.

On Wednesday, we had multi zone conferences and everything went pretty well! We gave a training on how to work with the leaders in our wards and we learned a lot about the area plan as well. The goal is that we 5× the number of Spanish convert baptisms in this part of the country, so we have a lot of work to do with the members!

On Friday we did exchanges with the Chinese elders and I went to China land with Elder Stewart! Elder Stewart is a really funny guy and a great missionary from Provo and he has been out for only about 4 transfers, but killed it in his own area. We went up to Ontario, which is out of our mission boundaries, but their Chinese work allows them to teach people out there, so that was pretty fun! Usually they have an English class that they teach fron 6:30-8, but nobody showed up, so we left at 7 to go teach some more people since the Lord provided us with some more time. We went and taught a less active family that has some foster children who aren't members of the church, so we taught one of them and she is down to get baptized!

We did a service project on Saturday as a zone and planted a bunch of trees and this discovery center up in the Jurupa mountains. 
We taught a few more people before Sunday, including Marisela and Rogelio, and they came to church! After church we found a couple right before the night ended, which was a miracle that we had been looking for that day.

One of the scriptures I read really caught my attention this week in D&C 35:21

"For [the elect] will hear my voice, and shall see me, and shall not be asleep, and shall abide the day of my coming; for they shall be purified, even as I am pure."

After I read this scripture, I realized even more how little time we have left to work in the Lord's vineyard. Those that are "asleep" or not willing to make the time and sacrifice to keep the commandments of God in this life are not the elect. With the little time we have left to work, I'd much rather spend it finding the elect and working with them, so we are starting pretty much from scratch in this area to find some people who are ready to make and keep covenants with God.

Elder Moon

 Service Project

Exchanges with Elder moloney

Exchanges with Elder Stewart

Moving Crew

We moved apartments this week, so that took most of our Saturday since we had to completely clean out an apartment that missionaries had been in for 6 years, but now we have a renovated apartment in a different part of the complex! 

We were able to teach Marisela and Rogelio a few times and get them to church again. We have been visiting them ever since they came to church together 2 weeks ago. They have a baptismal date now for the end of June, but it will be a lot of work to help them get ready. They came to church again, which is helping them see the bigger picture! We are bringing over some members tonight, so that will help them have some good role models.

We have a few other people coming to church and they all want to get baptized, but they just have some legal problems that they are figuring out. We are working hard to find people that can be baptized a lot faster though because honestly these people are going to get baptized, but it just takes some time when you are dealing with divorce papers or immigration appointments.

We did exchanges this week with the Spanish bike elders that live with us. I went with Elder Ngatuvai in my area and we had a pretty solid day. We went tracting for a little bit in a place that hasn't had many missionaries, so we are seeing some success there. We also went out to Norco and did a home visit with some less actives, which went well and they want to feed us some Nicaraguan food next week!

We had MLC on Thursday and now we have Multi-zones this next week. The transfer is almost over, which is pretty crazy because next transfer, our mission is getting 60 more missionaries from 2 other missions. A lot of changes...

My favorite quote this week was from a General conference talk in October 2001 by Elder Clayton.

"No matter who we are or where we live, there is much about our daily lives that is routine and repetitive. As we go about this dailiness, we must be deliberate about doing the things that matter most. These must-do things include making room first for the minimum daily requirements of faithful behavior: true obedience, humble prayer, serious scripture study, and selfless service to others. No other daily vitamins strengthen the muscles of our faith as fast as these actions."

Our prophet has told us that we need to be "taking our vitamins daily" and that's pretty much what the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the world keeps on changing, all we need to worry about is a bunch of small daily actions that will prepare us for eternal life.

Elder Moon