Becoming as a child

This week has been a bit of a rollercoaster, but there were also some really memorable things that have happened. Some of the highlights are:

• Jose passed the sacrament for the first time!
• Miguel got interviewed for the priesthood and will be getting the priesthood the week after general conference!
• Our District leader and his companion have been teaching this awesome guy named Roberto and they needed to get him interviewed. Our ZLs are English speaking, so I was able to interview him (which will probably be the last one I give), and he passed. He has read through the whole Book of Mormon in a few weeks and has overcame a lot of problems, so if all stays well, then he will be baptized this Saturday.
• We went on exchanges on Wednesday and I was able to work with Elder Jensen. He is from Washington and is the only missionary I've ever met on my mission that I can talk NHL Hockey with. We worked hard that day and it was fun showing him some of the good parts of my old area and his current area.
• We also figured out more about Reynaldo's situation and he will be completely off probation on the 10th of October, so we set a goal for the 19th of October, which will be my last weekend. He is the one of the greatest examples to me of what King Benjamin meant when he said we must "[become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
• The last highlight is that Raquel has a ton of members going to support her at her endowment, so October 12th will be a day she will never forget. She has her interview tomorrow with the Stake President and she is so excited!

I love this quote from Elder Robert D Hales,
"Retaining that companionship requires an earnest effort on the part of Church members. If we are not obedient to the laws, principles, and ordinances of the gospel, the Holy Ghost will withdraw. He cannot be with us if we are angry in our hearts, contentious with our companions, or critical of the Lord’s anointed. He departs whenever we are rebellious, are immoral, dress or act immodestly, are unclean or profane in mind or body, are slothful in priesthood callings and duties, or commit other sins, for “the Spirit of the Lord doth not dwell in unholy temples.”

With all the bad news and circumstances that can be thrown at us in this life, there is nothing more powerful than the comfort that the Holy Ghost can bring into our lives. Overcoming the natural man and submitting to the Father's will is completely necessary in order to have that comfort.

Elder Moon

Bacon wrapped hot dogs

I dont know if any of y'all have ate bacon wrapped hot dogs, but I've only had them a few times on my mission and they are pretty legit. The Rojas family is an awesome family that fed us a lot when I was in Hemet last year, but they fed us on Sunday and didnt disappoint with all the bacon wrapped hot dogs they made for the 6 of us!

Also our friend Rey took us to get some Philly Cheese Steaks on Saturday, so this may have been the first weekend on my mission without Mexican Food!

We were able to see our recent convert, Jose, receive the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. We were able to also plan a time to go to the temple with him and some other members. 

Raquel finished up her temple prep classes, so she just has a few interviews before we can go to the temple on October 12th for her endowment!

Reynaldo still is trying to figure out his legal situation, but if all goes well, then he will still be baptized before I go home.

President Nelson's BYU devotional was great and the Book of Mormon videos are pretty awesome as well. Go check them both out if you haven't!

Elder Moon

Having fun in Hemet

This week, Elder Crichfield and I worked a lot with the recent converts in the ward. We set goals with them to receive the priesthood, callings and to go to the temple. One of our converts, Miguel, said he had a lot of free time, so we set the goal to go out and have him visit people with us 2 times a week. Diego and his family are committed to come to church every week and to have all the young kids go to their activities on Tuesdays. Christian and Brenda are in a better spot with their temporal welfare and we have the Relief Society working a lot with Brenda now. Jose will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood this Sunday and hopefully a calling as well! We went and taught Jose on Saturday night, got some Sushi after and then went to go visit some of the people we are teaching with him. 


Raquel is preparing for her temple endowment still and we got the ward more involved with helping her. 

One more miracle this week was that we had Julio (a recent convert from June) come back to church for the first time and a while and he brought his sister who isn't a member. Or it could have been that his sister brought him because honestly, his sister, Diana, has picked up a lot of interest of recent and really wanted to come to church. We have been visiting them every week for the past transfer and they are making some good progress now. 
We will be able to find out this week if Reynaldo can get baptized on the 28th. There is just some legal stuff that needs to get figured out, so pray for him!

This week we also did a ton of community service. We helped out at all of our normal places, but there is an amphitheater here called the Ramona Bowl and we helped out for a few hours on Friday and Saturday. They had a ton of Kim Kardashian shoes that were donated to them and we were just moving boxes and boxes of these shoes and putting them on display, so that they could sell them for huge discounts. Definitely one of the more interesting services that we have done, but the Ramona Bowl is a really cool place and they have outdoor plays there during the summer that are pretty well known!

Other than that, we were able to watch the face to face last night where Elder Soares talked to the young adults and I would just like to mention something he said 
He told us, "we cannot condition our faithfulness to the immediate answers of our desires."
If we put the Savior first in our lives, then we will have enduring joy.

Elder Moon

Reynaldo next to Elder Crichfield 

Working with Jose

Last Transfer

Transfers occurred this weekend and.....

I have 6 weeks left on my mission and I'll be finishing up in Hemet with Elder Crichfield!! 


We baptized and confirmed Diego this week! We had his baptismal service on Sunday after stake conference and it was one of the most spiritual services that we had. This was mainly due to the fact that Diego just has so much faith and we were able to form a great relationship with him and his family. I met his family when I was trained in Hemet nearly 2 years ago. When we were visiting them, I felt that we were not progressing with them. They were less active when we started visiting them, people would leave in the middle of lessons, and by the time I left, they were still less active and never came to church. Diego, his mom and his sister moved to Hemet after I had left the area for the first time. When I came back, Diego's mom (who is a member) randomly showed up to church with her kids and her nieces and I was able to recognize the nieces (who were there the first time around) and set up a time with Diego's mom in order to go over. We went over on Elder Crichfield's first day in the field, we set a baptismal date with Diego, taught all the lessons, changed his date one time, and got him baptized and confirmed yesterday.


Elder Crichfield was able to baptize him and I was able to confirm him, which is always a special experience. Elder Crichfield sang a really awesome song at the service that he wrote before the mission and it was a great way to end the transfer. 


At stake conference, we had a lot of our converts show up and we were able to sit with them all. The goal is to get all of them to the temple this transfer, whether it is for baptisms or in Raquel's case, to receive her endowment!

P day flew by today but President Hinckley has some pretty awesome quotes, so here is one that I found this week,
"When we look for the worst in anyone, we will find it. But if we will concentrate on the best, that element will grow until it sparkles."

Elder Moon

Bautismo de Jose

Diego got interviewed for baptism on Thursday and passed pretty easily. He is the 9 year old we are teaching and he is just such a funny kid. Everytime we go over, he is already waiting outside and wants to give us chips, cookies, and something to drink. We taught the Plan of Salvation one last time and we brought a white board over to draw out all the different parts. It helped him out a lot to visualize it and he honestly just has a strong desire to do what is right. He doesn't want to fight kids anymore, say bad words and he always tells us that "Satan sucks" haha. He just really wants to be on God's side and he should be getting baptized on Sunday night!
The weekend was pretty awesome with Jose getting baptized and confirmed. Jose has been on fire from the time he met us and has a really bright future! He invited a lot of family and friends to his baptism and the majority of the people at the baptism weren't members. The service was well-attended and we had a little lunch afterwards with everyone that came! Jose felt really great about the covenant he made and was so pumped that he even ripped his jumpsuit whenever we were changing back into our dry clothes! He will be getting the priesthood really soon and hopefully we will be able to plan a temple trip for later this month.  Reynaldo, our 80 year old-soon to be 81 year old friend, is doing great as well! He even came to the baptismal service to see what it is like because he has a baptismal date for the 21st.

We had exchanges with our zone leaders this week and I went to their area again. We went to this neighborhood full of part member families and we met this really cool guy named Brother Taylor. He is in the Army and is launching a new eSports program in the Army, so he will be moving soon. It was really cool to talk about his hobbies and interests and then help him see how much his family needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives right now.

We had service this week at this "mini horse sanctuary" and these older ladies made us feel like body builders because we were just lifting stuff out of this barn and putting it in a different shed. I guess they are doing some remodeling on the shed and they just needed us to clear it out. It wasn't honestly that heavy, but just funny that they were hyping up our pretty average strength like it was something else haha.

We have some appointments set up for this week with some people with a lot of potential to be baptized soon as well. One of them is named Ana and she is great friends with a member and she even has a sister who is a member. It has been challenging to meet with her because she was trying to pass some sort of test at work, but she finally gave us an actual time to come by so we are stoked.

One last miracle was seeing our friend Christian get a job. His wife, Brenda, was recently baptized, but he still needed help with work. When we were talking with a member the other week, he mentioned that there was an opening at a construction company, so we helped Christian to start working with them, which should help them start a family soon! This guy almost died a few weeks ago, but now he is married, his wife got baptized, and he has stable work! The Lord has been blessing them so much recently.

I read a talk this week that explained how the gift of the Holy Ghost will help calm fears. It says,
"In these perilous times, we need this unspeakable gift in our lives. President Boyd K. Packer reminds us: “We need not live in fear of the future. We have every reason to rejoice and little reason to fear. If we follow the promptings of the Spirit, we will be safe, whatever the future holds. We will be shown what to do.”"
I think we sometimes take for granted this special gift and we let ourselves get overwhelmed with fear, but if we learn how to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost in the present, then future events won't be so scary.

Elder Moon