Another week in the books

We are really looking forward to this coming Saturday because Jose will be getting baptized! He passed his interview yesterday and is pumped for his baptism/confirmation/receiving the priesthood this weekend. 
We will still have the 2 baptisms we had planned for this last weekend, but they will just be at different times in September, if all goes well. Reynaldo is figuring out a few legal things and should be good to go by the end of September and Diego and his family have just been going to Mexico so much on the weekends that we are pushing his baptism to September 8th.

We have a lot of goals to go by the people we are teaching every single day or have members be contacting them every day. This is taking up a lot of our time, but it's awesome being able to tell these people that we are willing to see how they are doing every day because we love them and want to keep on helping them learn the gospel of Jesus Christ. It really means a lot to some of these lonelier people who feel somewhat rejected by their family/dont have too many friends. I can definitely see the gospel of Jesus Christ healing their broken hearts and we are just praying to see all these people get baptized, so that they can receive a remission of their sins.
This pday was pretty packed because we went on a hike this morning with our district and then hit the golf course later in the afternoon! Just trying to enjoy the all of the 2 or 3 fun attractions that Hemet, CA has to offer!

I loved reading this quote from President Hinckley's talk,

"Every man, woman, or child worthy of baptism is worthy of a secure and friendly situation in which to grow in the Church and its many activities."

Just look to see who might be some of the newer members in your ward and love them! 

Elder Moon

P-day round of golf 

 P-day meal

P-day Hike

 Trainer Trainee Conference

 Exchange with Elder Wise

With Hno Ganuza 

With Elders Parata and Potter

Wedding, then Baptism

The coolest thing this week was seeing our two friends, Christian and Brenda take some big steps in their spiritual journey! For the last 3 weeks, we have been having daily contact with them and pushing them to hit their goals. Christian is already a member, but we were teaching Brenda all the lessons and we set a date with them to get married and baptized. They got married on Friday and Brenda got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was a great weekend for them and they have plans to get their patriarchal blessings and go to the temple. 

We have been working a lot finishing up teaching Reynaldo (our 80 year old friend) and then Diego (our 9 year old friend). Diego's family is recently coming back to church and Diego is begging for his mom to take him to church every weekend and he will be getting baptized this weekend. We have been showing Reynaldo a lot of love and he is learning more and should be getting baptized this weekend as well.

We started teaching a new part member family this week. The wife is a member, but hasn't been to church for almost 25 years. Her husband is named Donald and he has never been baptized, but we have plans to have the ward help minister to them and to teach them again this week.

There is a super, awesome member referral named Ana that came to church this week. We have been trying to set a time to teach her, but she has been working a lot. She showed up with her member friend on Sunday and really enjoyed it. We are hoping to teach her and invite her to be baptized sometime in early September! 

Elder Crichfield is doing such a great job and I'm really proud to be his companion. He has only been out here a few weeks, but he has been able to get a lot of great experience and was able to get in the water for the first time on his mission to baptize Brenda!

One of my favorite quotes this week is from President Hinckley, he said, 
"We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith...
Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens."

I have not been out for this long just to be able to spread lies, rather, I've seen the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ change many lives, including my own.

Elder Moon

Cansados

Miguel got baptized this week!! It was awesome being there with my boys Elder Abraham and Crichfield. Elder Abraham and I found Miguel about a month ago and Miguel has been awesome with making changes in his life that lead him to the covenant path.  I was able to baptize him and Elder Crichfield confirmed him on Sunday. It was Elder Crichfield's first time confirming someone and he did a really awesome job!


This Saturday we have a baptism planned for Brenda. If all goes well, then she will be married to Christian tomorrow morning and then we will be able to have her baptismal interview before Saturday. She is ready and it is awesome to see her and Christian taking some big steps by coming back to church and wanting to start an eternal family.


We had a church tour with Diego and his family last night. Diego is a 9 year old that we will be baptizing on the 24th and he has so much energy! He was asking us if we could fill the font up to be about 8 feet deep whenever he is baptized haha but he is really understanding it all and learns really fast.


We are teaching an older man named Reynaldo and he has a baptismal date for the 24th. He still comes to church every week and has a desire to learn, so we are going to make a big push to get him ready by that date. 


Jose is just so steady and is going to be a golden convert to the church. He is almost reading in Mosiah of the Book of Mormon and already looks like a returned missionary when he comes to church and even enjoys Elders Quorum.   His baptismal date is for the 31st of August and the other elders in our ward should be baptizing one of the referrals (Maria) that we gave them on the 31st as well.

We went to the temple today (Tuesday) with the zone and it was really peaceful and a great way to start a new week!  I think one of my favorite General Conference speakers now is President Eyring, so I'll throw in one of his quotes this week that I loved. We are all looking for clear answers to the many decisions we have to make in life and he gives some great advice. He said

"The answer comes by the Holy Spirit. You will need that guidance often. To have the Holy Ghost as your companion you must be worthy, cleansed by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. So, your obedience to the commandments, your desire to do His will, and your asking in faith will determine how clearly the Master can guide you by answers to your prayers.  Often the answers will come as you study the scriptures. They contain accounts of what the Lord did in His mortal ministry and the guidance He has given His servants. They have doctrine in them which will apply in every time and every situation. Pondering the scriptures will lead you to ask the right questions in prayer. And just as surely as the heavens were opened to Joseph Smith after he pondered the scriptures in faith, God will answer your prayers and He will lead you by the hand."

Elder Moon

Nonstop Blessings

It has been an incredible first week of the transfer! I started off last week with Elder Parata and we were able to work together on Monday and Tuesday. Elder Parata is in his last transfer of his mission and he was assigned to train a new missionary in an area that is brand new for him as well. I was able to take him by some of the people that he will be teaching and we were also able to find some new people for him to teach in his area. On Tuesday, we had an appointment fall through, so we started to street contact. The streets were uncharacteristically empty and there weren't many people to talk to. We were about to head back to the car in order to get to the next appointment, but we decided to knock on some apartments. The first one we knocked on ended up being a great contact. The lady told us that she was upstairs and usually never answers the door if no one else is home, but she felt an impression to open the door, so we talked to her on her porch for a little bit. She talked about how her faith was diminishing in God because of some trials that were happening in her life, but knew that she needed to get back on track. She only spoke English, so we referred her over to the English elders, but she was really elect and ready for the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We were able to get in contact as well with some of the people in my area and help them to continue to progress towards their baptismal dates.

Wednesday was a really busy day! Elder Parata and I headed out to Riverside to go pick up our new from the MTC companions. All 3 of the new Spanish elders coming in seemed really awesome, so I was going to be happy getting to train any one of them! I ended up getting paired up with Elder Crichfield! He is most recently from Boston and recently finished college there. He came in super ready for his mission and is already teaching me a lot by his example. We were able to drop off Elder Parata and his new companion, Elder Potter, at their apartment, and then we were off to work! We had a few appointments that night and we were able to start teaching a new part member family. They are the Marquez family and are the family that I mentioned in my email last week. We were able to teach the Restoration and it went pretty well! The mom, Estella, has a son named Diego who is 9 and hasn't been baptized yet, so we set a goal with him for baptism on the 24th of August. He told us that he wanted us to baptize him even on that same day that we met him, but we will need to teach him just a little more haha.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and Sunday were all super packed as well. I mentioned in my email last week that we gave a blessing to a less active member named Christian that had a pretty serious accident at work. When we gave him the blessing, he had just returned from the hospital, but he could barely breath due to the poisonous gas that had filled up in his lungs. We were glad to see him on Thursday looking 100% better. We had a really spiritual lesson with Christian and his girlfriend. We set a time for them to be married and for her to be baptized. If all goes well, then we will be the witnesses to their marriage sometime early this week and she will have her baptism on the 17th of this month. They both came to church this week and Christian even brought his sister who isn't a member. Tomorrow, we will be teaching them all again and we'll see if we can help Christian's sister, Destiny, get baptized as well!

That night, we were teaching a guy named Abraham and we had no idea that he was holding a bible study a little bit later that night as well. The lesson was going alright, but then people started showing up for his bible study. There was an older lady named Maria who showed up who immediately started talking to us about our church and let us know she really wanted to go because she has been going through a hard time. We taught her real quick and found out where she lives, so we were able to give the referral to the bike elders in our ward. They ended up teaching her again and she came to church this Sunday and even bore her testimony!

We were able to teach an older man named Reynaldo a few times this week. He has been catholic his whole life, but never attended church, so he recently started coming to church with us and he is trying to see if he really wants to get baptized. His goal is to get baptized the 24th of August.

We also taught Jose a few different times this week and he is super set for his baptism on the 31st. He is inviting a ton of friends and family to the baptismal service, which will be a great missionary opportunity.

On top of all that, we will have a baptism this weekend because Miguel passed his interview. He is one of the 3 amigos that we found a few weeks back. He has embraced the restored gospel and is living all the commandments and is excited to receive the blessings of being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.

All in all, the Lord is blessing us tremendously and we should be able to see a lot of our friends get baptized this month of August. I love the tools that God gives us in order to see miracles in His work. The more chances to sacrifice, the better, because the Lord is willing to pour out blessings upon us according to our willingness to follow Him.  I guess the best way to describe this week is the revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 78:17-19

Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.  And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

Really looking forward to this week!

Elder Moon

 Some of the trainers and trainees (Elder Crichfield pictured on far right)

Service work