Almost a Transfer Already? - October 21, 2013

Hey Everybody!

 

I hope everyone has had a great week! It's so crazy to think that I have been here for almost an entire transfer in the field already! This week has been a little slow, but it has been filled with great experiences, too.

 

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013:

 

Due to some unforseen circumstances, we had to postpone weekly planning from last Friday to today. I don't ever want to wait that long again. During the evening, we went to go teach Camilo Gomez, our only recent convert in the ward, but he had already left for the store. Elder Knight and I decided to use our skills to see if we could track him down at the Rio Ranch Market across the street. Sure enough, we found him and had a lesson with him inside of the Mexican grocery store. He is so humble and so much fun to teach. The highlight of his entire life is talking to the missionaries, and he constantly prays for our well-being and success. I love him so much. We taught him about baptisms for the dead, and the importance of doing temple work for our ancestors. He is also getting ready to receive the Priesthood on October 27th! We are really excited for him. At night, we helped the Hernandez family move. It was sad to see them go because they are an awesome family with two sons who just returned from missions about four months ago (they are twin brothers and left at the same time). They even gave us a giant Book of Mormon and Bible made out of styrofoam that we screwed into the wall in our apartment! It looks pretty sweet.

 

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013:

 

Once again, we got to go teach English class! I love teaching it because of how much fun it is to help other people. Elder Knight and I have been trying to focus on reactivating some less-active families, and we decided to try to talk to the Barragan family. They weren't really interested in coming back to church after talking to us, and we later discovered from the Sister Missionaries in our ward that the family has had some ongoing problems that we can't really help them with. There wasn't a whole lot else during the day because of how many people are unavailable during the middle of the day. We went to correlation meeting tonight, only to find out that Hermano Simmons (our ward mission leader) was out of town! He never told us, and it has been like three weeks since we have had a correlation meeting with him there. I also found out from Elder Porter that we will need to really focus on the needs of the members and the needs of less-actives because President Becerra told him that the work won't pick up in Chino until we can first address those two things. It just means that we need to refocus our efforts in a different aspect of missionary work.

 

Thursday, October 17th, 2013:

 

We had district meeting in the morning, and Elder Porter prepared an awesome lesson about using our study time effectively. I have really come to cherish the hour I get during the morning for personal study. Elder Knight and I received a working oven today! We have been here for a month with only a toaster, microwave and semi-working stovetop to make food haha. With the new oven, we decided that our apartment needs cleaning. We also decided to try and come up with clever ideas to help out the work here. The Lord is perfectly organized, and revelation flows better when everything is clean and pure. As a result, we decided that our apartment needed to also be clean and organized. There was this black mold growing in the bathroom that Elder Knight was pretty sure could kill us if we were exposed to it for long enough in extreme circumstances. Missionaries are supposed to do a really thorough cleaning once per transfer (every six weeks), but we were sure it had been over a year since our apartment had been cleaned. We got some bleach and went to town. Our apartment looks amazing now, and we can even feel the difference of how nice it is during our studies. We can focus so much easier; hopefully, that will transition over to the work itself. The only major event of the day besides cleaning was eating dinner with Sofia Castro and sharing a message about the importance of the hastening of the work of the Lord. She was really inspired to do member missionary work afterwards, and those are the kind of lessons we need.

 

Friday, October 18th, 2013:

 

Elder Knight and I continued cleaning today before engaging in weekly planning. Weekly planning ended up taking longer than usual, but it was VERY EFFECTIVE. I feel like I know exactly what we need to do to best help out our investigators and less-actives. We were both commenting on how much easier it was to focus and feel comfortable in our clean apartment. I can't live in a junkyard, like our apartment was before we cleaned it. When I was going through old potential records, I felt like I was able to select certain names that we need to visit; I attribute the revelation to the fact that we had spent so much time cleaning. It is so easy to draw parallels between our clean apartment and the flow of revelation. I really felt more in-tune with the Spirit through such a simple act. Elder Knight and I ate dinner with Hermana Ramirez, who is a less-active, and she is reading the Book of Mormon every day! She is even on track to finish by the end of the year! I'm really beginning to feel that the small and simple things that we are doing to are leading to greater things in the work! I also found out that I will be going on exchanges with Elder Low in Chino Central tomorrow. It's awesome that we served together in the MTC in the same district, and now we get to be companions for a day!

 

Saturday, October 19th, 2013:

 

Elder Low and I were working very hard today together. It's funny how "greenies" have so much more energy and enthusiasm to use every waking second and not take a break. I think we ended up visiting almost every single person on his list of potential investigators and less-actives. We kept striking out; we would find the people home, but they were unavailable or leaving. We did, however, catch one lady named Hermana Montes de Oca home and got her to commit to coming to Church tomorrow! After that, it was back to striking out. It was a productive day, but it was just one of those unlucky times where no one had time to talk. Eventually, Elder Low and I decided to say a prayer to know who to visit before exchanging companions again; we immediately knew who we needed to talk to. Elder Low checked his phone, and the name of the person was on the background of the phone. We went to go visit Jose and his wife, who were both less-active, and we committed them to coming to Church tomorrow, too! We shared a lengthy message about the importance of going to the temple, and Jose even committed to preparing himself to enter into the temple. It was really awesome to have the hand of the Lord helping find those people who are prepared to hear the message. At night, we went back to having our normal companions, and it sounded like Elder Porter and Elder Knight also had a successful time during the day in Chino East.

 

Sunday, October 20th, 2013:

 

I always love Church on Sundays, and it was great to see so many less-actives at Church today. It was weird, though, because many of the active families weren't there, and many less-actives were. After Church, Elder Knight and I continued in our efforts to contact people who are less-active. In missionary work, if the investigator doesn't have fellowship and support after their conversion, the conversion won't last. That is where the ward comes into play. As missionaries, our job is to teach the lessons and then "hand off" the member to the ward for an enduring conversion. However, without a whole lot of support, many converts will gradually fall away - this is what has happened here in Chino. As a district, therefore, we have really made a group goal to focus on strengthening the members' desire to do missionary work, stay active and strengthen the ward. This is what we must do before great success will occur. During the evening, we ate dinner with the Zavala family. They speak English and Spanish, and Hermano Zavala is the stake president. They live within our ward boundaries, but they attend the English ward because their youngest son is really "pocho" (he is Latino, but he doesn't understand any Spanish). I loved visiting with them. We focused on helping them have the desire to share the Gospel with their neighbors and friends whenever opportunities present themself. I also think that Hermano Zavala will take a bigger initiative to emphasize missionary work at the stake level, which is much-needed. I'm really excited to see some progress get made here in Chino in the coming weeks and months.

 

Today, for P-day, our district is planning to do something fun, but we aren't really sure what yet. It is Hermana Vellinga's 25th birthday (she is serving in Chino West), and we are thinking of doing something together to celebrate. A couple people recommended going to a Hindu Temple for fun, but I'm not sure exactly what we will do yet. I will try to remember to report next week on what we decide.

 

I'm loving every minute of being here, and I continue to grow and learn daily. We constantly share lessons about the work of salvation (the updates to missionary work from the broadcast in June about the hastening of the Lord's work), and it is important to remember that the success of missionary work doesn't come from people necessarily choosing to accept the Gospel; rather, the success comes from the invitation that we extend to people to hear the Gospel. They have their free agency, and we can only invite.

 

Also, this picture is of Elder Knight and I "Bible Bashing" with the giant styrofoam scriptures we got this week, prior to putting them up on the wall.

 

Love,

Elder Gabriel Valley

October 15, 2013 - The Loss of a Fellow Missionary

Hey Everyone!

This has been a chaotic week, and I am emailing today (Tuesday) due to Columbus Day yesterday. First off, please pray for the family of Elder Andrew Edward Page. He was killed this week when he was hit by an oncoming car on his bicycle. I knew Elder Page personally, and he was in my group that came from the MTC in Mexico to Arcadia to speak Spanish. He was also serving in my zone here in the mission field. Prayers on his behalf would be much appreciated because his father passed away just a couple of years away; his mother is probably struggling immensely at the moment. Also, please pray on the behalf of his companion, Elder Ostler, who was training Elder Page before he was killed. I will have to be brief, as I have an appointment soon.

Thursday, October 10th, 2013:

This morning, we had interviews with President Becerra at the Pomona building. Every so often, President Becerra will interview all of the missionaries to see how everything is going. I LOVE talking with President. He is an inspirational man, and he always knows what each of us needs individually. He even thought to ask me if I had neglected to talk to anyone on the street, after receiving a prompting to talk to them. Of course, I had fallen prey to this mistake. He encouraged me to stop and talk to people, even if my companions were ahead on their bicycles. He is going to come to Chino to help out the work because of how tought the area is. Out of the past 26 baptisms in the last three or four years, not a single person is still active. It is awful. On the 27th, President is going to come to the Chino Spanish Ward to help us out. We had dinner with Sofia Castro that evening, but we were unable to contact anyone else during the day. We have been striking out with teaching appointments lately. Also, today was the day Elder Page was killed. He was hit at 4 PM while riding his bike, and he passed away shortly before 10 PM in the hospital. I can't believe I knew him, and now he is gone. He will reunite with his father and help teach the message to those who are still waiting to hear the gospel in the spirit world.

Friday, October 11th, 2013:

Elder Porter, the district leader, arranged for Elder Smith and Elder Low to swap for exchanges. As a result, it was Elder Low, Elder Knight and I for the day! I love serving with Elder Low; he's awesome. During district meeting in the morning, we really focused on what we need to do as a district to help the work progress. We found out that there are a lot of basic things the ward is missing that we can help fix, such as a ward mission plan. Some very fundamental pieces of missionary work have apparently been lacking for quite a while. We plan to fix that. We are by no means perfect missionaries, but we will be unable to accomplish what we need to do if we don't have support from the ward, too. During the day, we concentrated on visiting members and sharing with them the importance of the hastening of the work and how they can help us share the gospel with others. We hope to get this message out to everyone in due time, but it will not be a quick process.

Saturday, October 12th, 2013:

With relation to the work, today was an exceptionally slow day. It seems like appointments that we have are constantly getting canceled for various reasons. I don't even feel like we have been able to meet very many of our potential investigators. During the day, we got a call from one of the Spanish Assistants to the President (AP), and we found out that Elder Smith is getting transferred tomorrow to Fletcher, CA! He is going to leave us at the memorial service for Elder Page on Sunday night to head over there. I'm really going to miss him. I do, however, hope that he is able to get his visa soon. The only other event of the day was volleyball in the evening. Sadly, only two people came! We had seven missionaries, plus the only other two people, who both happened to be kids. This is part of the reason that we need to help the ward get more active.

Sunday, October 13th, 2013:

This was probably one of the most difficult days yet. We went to church at 11 AM, like usual. The lesson in Elders' Quorum was great because it focused on missionary work! After church, we went to the Moreno's house for lunch/dinner and were able to talk to Hermana Moreno's parents, who aren't members. It was a good visit. That evening was the memorial service for Elder Page. Elder Ostler was fighting back tears as he talked about his beloved companion who was no longer there. It was so very solemn, yet every single person in that room knew that Elder Page was meant to leave this earth when he did. Sister Becerra and President Becerra both shared some very inspirational thoughts. President shared something that Elder Page wrote when he left home on his mission: the mission is a lot like an airplane. As we leave the earth, we are brought above the world to be able to see life from a greater perspective, live "in the world, but not of the world," and grow much closer to God in the process. I just cannot believe he's gone. After the memorial service, we said our final goodbyes to Elder Smith as he headed off to Fletcher. I have since found out that his visa finally came! He will be leaving in two weeks for Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Monday, October 14th, 2013:

I feel weird writing a Monday on here, but it was Columbus Day and I didn't have access to the library. We did everything like usual on P-Day and didn't have time to do anything. However, our district did make an effort to get out and play soccer and frisbee together at a local park for about an hour before being required to leave. It was great to do something together and build some unity. Unfortunately, during the day, I had the second popped tire on my bike in one week! I finally decided to take it into the bike shop. Apparently, the spot where the valve goes was really sharp from when they first drilled the hole and had sliced two different tires. The shop filed it down for me and gave me a new tube. They were really helpful; I just wish I hadn't had so many bike problems in just the first month. For dinner, Elder Knight and I went to the Ramirez family's house for dinner. We shared one of the new Bible videos about the life of Jesus Christ with them and then boldly challenged them to come back to church, in addition to sharing the gospel with their friends. It was a GREAT lesson, probably one of the best with a member since I have been here.

This week has just been immensely stressful with the passing of a fellow missionary in my own mission. I think he was the thirteenth missionary to pass away this year throughout the whole world. The Lord watches over us, but we aren't invincible as missionaries. We must live every single day as though it is our last. This life is shorter than we may often realize, and that means we have to work even harder to make sure that we are living how God would have us live.

Thank you all for all of your support, encouragement and prayers. Also, Elder Karren, you're more than welcome to use my idea! Hopefully it works out for you! My district here is planning to do the family home evening lesson with the Day of the Dead theme on the 27th, and I will be sure to let you know how it goes! I hope everyone is having a fabulous time at home or in their places of service. I love you all and your faithful examples.

Love,

Elder Gabriel Valley

October 9, 2013 - General Conference as a Missionary

Hey, Everyone!

 

I apologize for the late email; everyone has P-Day this week on Wednesday, instead of on Monday, due to General Conference this past weekend and the opportunity to go to the temple this morning. I had the opportunity to go to the Redlands, California Temple! Chino is the only area in the entire mission that doesn't go to the Los Angeles Temple, so I felt very fortunate to be among the seven missionaries who got to go elsewhere. As far as this week is concerned, it has been really tough, yet rewarding at the same time. People to teach are few and far between, but my companions and I have been working hard to find those who are prepared to hear our message. Because I have two extra days to write in this email, I will try to be more concise.

 

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013:

 

The highlight of the day was giving a Church tour to a man named Ed Silva, who has a girlfriend that is a member of the Church. The Arcadia mission has been giving tours of buildings for about three years, despite the fact that this change was just announced about three months ago. My mission is the smallest in the world or second-smallest in the world, so the Church uses my mission for many "tests," such as the current test that we are on to get rid of cars and see how numbers change - that is why my mission has no cars and is entirely on bike now. The tour with Ed went well, and we were able to teach him the lesson about the Restoration. We went to teach Enrique again with Hermano Montanez, but the lesson didn't go as planned. We wanted to be bold with him about the Law of Chastity so that he will be able to feel the Spirit again by actually living it; however, the lesson took a detour and went into 1 Corinthians chapter 2 for most of the time. We are considering dropping him as an investigator because he won't follow his commitments and won't progress. As missionaries, we don't want to waste time on people that just like to talk - we have a purpose to find "those who are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it." We finished the evening by going to Bishop Arriaga's house to eat dinner. Many ward members have a problem with the Bishop because he is very opinionated and doesn't always help the struggling Latinos. One family may get everything paid for without even looking for a job, but another family that works two full-time jobs to try to make ends meet doesn't get a dime from him when they want to send two sons on missions at the same time. We, as missionaries, are somewhat annoyed by this because it is hurting the missionary work and hurting our opportunities to receive referrals for people to teach. I guess it just means we will have to work that much harder.

 

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013:

 

As I said earlier, the work is tough here, and it has been progressively slowing down. This is not good. We began today by teaching English class, as usual. I love teaching English to all of the people there because it really shows me how tough it is to learn a language - this is exactly the same thing that I am trying to do: learning Spanish. However, it makes me realize how true the Gift of Tongues from the Spirit is because of how much quicker missionaries are able to pick up the language than an average person; it is a huge blessing. We didn't find anyone to teach during the time after English class up until dinner with Sofia Castro. She, along with her son, Eduardo, are struggling members who are trying to build a testimony. Her big problem is that she can't take the Sacrament because she lives with her ex-boyfriend (he pays all the bills, etc. so that Eduardo will have a good situation with both parents being home) and, therefore, isn't living the Law of Chastity, even though she isn't doing anything bad. I feel bad for her being in that situation, but it is what it is. We read the Book of Mormon with her, and now it's just going to be trying to get her to read it on her own. In the evening, we had our weekly correlation meeting at Hermano Simmons' house.

 

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013:

 

Our zone is made up of three districts: Azusa, Pomona and Chino (my district). Once a month, we have zone meeting together in Pomona, which happened to occur today. At zone meeting, we practiced asking inspired questions to help in our efforts to find people to teach, which was very beneficial. I also found out I will be having an interview with President Becerra next Thursday about post-hastening missionaries; I'm really excited! He's such an inspiring man! After zone meeting, my district met at the Church to begin planning for our Family Home Evening on Family History. The idea is to combine Mexican Day of the Dead (they build "altars" for their deceased ancestors with food and flower petals, etc.) with the temple by making the flower petals from the altar things leading to the temple to show the importance of doing proxy ordinances in the temple. My companions and I had a little success in contacting people today. We met a man named Gabriel who is interested in hearing more about the Gospel, in addition to having nearly a full lesson on the street with a man named Christian. They both appear solid, so maybe we will be fortunate and have some new investigators to teach! At night, we went to the Morans for dinner. Hermano Moran is the Stake Patriarch; their family is so nice! One of their daughters-in-law was over for dinner, too, and she was best friends with Lynetta Claire from Carnation, Washington in college! She texted Sister Claire while I was there, and Brother Claire responded by saying that I looked good in my missionary nametag haha. It was so cool to meet someone who is familiar with the tiny town where I grew up. After dinner, we taught Camilo again about watching Conference this weekend, so hopefully he is able to watch it! I want to teach some people like Camilo because he is so humble and knows the worth of the Gospel in his life.

 

Friday, October 4th, 2013:

 

Today was a ridiculously LONG day. Every Friday, we have weekly planning, but we had to wait for Elder Smith to go with Elder Porter, Elder Low, and the Sisters to a service activity (the sisters needed one more elder to go with them so that they could pick up Elder Low and Elder Porter in their car without being against mission rules). While Elder Knight and I waited, we went through the area book and cleaned up a ton of stuff around the apartment. We got everything reorganized, and it really helped us refocus ourselves in how to be most productive with the work. Once Elder Smith got back, it took us until almost 5 PM to finish weekly planning. For dinner, we ate dinner with an older lady in the ward named Hermana Verom. It was a good spiritual discussion at dinner as we talked about the hastening of missionary work. After dinner, we went to talk to Luis Cabrera, who has been a drug and alcohol addict in the past and wants our help to change. Unfortunately, we got there and he was drinking a beer in his driveway! Elder Knight was furious, and I was rather disappointed. He asks us to help him but then tells us that it doesn't matter if he drinks a beer here or a beer there. The whole goal of getting over a habit is to not do it again, and that isn't even taking into consideration that the Lord counsels us not to drink alcohol. I got the impression in my mind when we first got there that "he isn't ready yet to change." I'm thinking that it was the Gift of Discernment, which can help missionaries tell if someone is ready to receive the Gospel or not. The lesson I learned from Luis that day is that we, as missionaries, are like Christ knocking at the door in Revelations3:20; Christ is waiting to help us, but we have to make the choice to let him to help us through our own actions.

 

Saturday, October 5th, 2013:

 

General Conference!!! We all went to the Kirk's house to watch General Conference in English, and there were so many powerful talks given. One of my favorites was by Elder Bednar on the subtle blessings we get from tithing that we normally wouldn't attribute to receiving as a result of paying tithing. Everyone should get the Conference Edition of the Ensign magazine when it's available to read all of the talks again when they're available. Six hours of Conference during the day was a good rest from the physical labor of missionary work, but I'm going to try to put into practice the things that I learned from Conference. I also particularly liked Elder Holland's talk about people with special needs, like my sister, Dorian, who are people with some of the strongest spirits. It was very moving. For dinner in the evening, all of the elders in my district went to the Moreno's house to eat dinner. They are such a nice family, and Hermano Moreno has a powerful testimony that he often shares in lessons with Elder Low and Elder Porter as they teach investigators.

 

Sunday, October 6th, 2013:

 

More General Conference!!! I had to watch the first session today in Spanish, which was almost a waste of time, due to how hard it was to understand General Conference in a foreign language; however, the second session was very powerful. We also had lunch between sessions as a ward at the Church. All of the members brought stuff from home to have a potluck-style lunch. Thank goodness one of the members let us use their iPad to watch the second session in English. I'm not making a ton of notes here about Conference because all of my conference notes are in my small, black journal back in my apartment. After finishing up Conference, my companions and I went to Juan Martinez again to check in on him. We taught him about the Law of Tithing, and I was able to reference Elder Bednar's talk during the lesson! General Conference is already blessing us with ways to apply its messages! After meeting with Juan, we had a lesson with David, a senior in high school who is the boyfriend of Betzy Sanchez, a member from a strong family in the Gospel. We met with David for only the second time, and he committed to baptism! We have a goal set with him to be baptized on November 10th, and I am so excited. Listening to the words of the modern-day apoostles and prophet gave us blessings in the work of the Lord already!

 

Monday, October 7th, 2013:

 

Normally, today would be P-Day; however, we are going to the temple on Wednesday, so today was back to missionary work. We went to English class to help out in the afternoon, due to the fact that we will be unable to help out on Wednesday. It's really fun teaching there, and I have been teaching some beginner-level Chinese adults how to speak English. Elder Low and I had to go to the library to work on in-field training on the computers, which ironically is related to Family History - the same topic as our Family Home Evening lesson that is coming up on Sunday (because it's a ward activity, it can't technically be on a Monday night). Tracting didn't yield any successes, but we did go to the Hernandez family at night for another Family Home Evening lesson with them and Glendy. We taught about the Restoration so that we could teach Glendy, while at the same time doing a fun activity for Family Home Evening. Elder Knight brought a rock and play-doh. The rock is Christ's church: it couldn't be molded or changed. The play-doh was symbolic of other churches that sprung up: they were molded out of the original foundation, but they missed some of the truths. As a result, the Restoration of the Gospel was needed. The lesson was great, and Glendy even said a prayer to conclude the lesson!

 

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013:

 

Today was a horrifically long day. We spent between four and five hours on bike looking for people to teach, trying to contact every referral that we had. The times during the middle of the afternoon when people aren't home are often referred to as the "dead hours" by missionaries. This is when missionaries really have a tough time. It is so discouraging trying so hard to find people to teach but then never having anyone home, or the occasional person home that is entirely uninterested. Before dinner, we taught Enrique again - this time it was just us, without a member present. The lesson acutally went very well as we taught him about the Word of Wisdom. He even committed to living it as an experiment for this next week; we will see how he is doing with it at Church on Sunday. I don't think we will drop him just yet! To conclude the evening, we met with Camilo Gomez again and talked to him about his responsibilities as an Aaronic Priesthood holder. He is so solid. Everything he learns, he applies, and he is really receptive.

 

Today, we got to go the Redlands Temple, which was really nice to be able to go to the temple again in English. I felt like I was actually able to understand everything and really enjoy the temple for what the temple is. Today will be hectice trying to get laundry and grocery shopping in in time, though. I hope everyone is doing well at home and enjoying life. The mission is so difficult. I can see why perseverance is needed here. I have never felt like I have been required to do so much all at one time, but there are tremendous blessings from missionary service. I like what Bishop Kimzey told me this past week as he recounted what a General Authority said: a two-year mission is like the tithing of your life up to that point in your life. The blessings won't be what you expect, but they will always be of greater worth than the sacrifice made to serve the Lord.

I love and miss you all immensely!

 

The picture I attached is a picture of Elder Knight, myself, and Elder Smith (in order) at the Redlands, California Temple this morning.

 

Love,

Elder Gabriel Valley

September 30, 2013 - Week 2 in the Field

Hey Everyone!

I hope all is well! This week has been a week of some important and rather interesting events. Life is tough as always, but it is so rewarding and worthwhile being here in the mission field. I will have to be brief, seeing that I don't have as much time to email today as usual.

Tuesday, September 24th, 2013:

There was so much that happened today! We went and did service for Hermana Sazo from 11 AM to 1 PM, in which tore out some massive plants and weeds from her garden. It was gross to see how many spiders and ants she had living in there. After eating lunch with her, we went looking for a potential investigator named Guillermo. We couldn't find him, so we tried the finding approach of "Knocking With a Name." We stumbled upon a lady named Rosa Barbosa, and we got her number to be able to set up a future appointment; hopefully she will be interested in learning more. We found Guillermo's house, but his wife wouldn't let us in. It's quite frustrating when people don't let other people make decisions for themselves. In the evening, we went to teach Enrique again. We brought a convert with us named Hermano Montanez who joined the church about 14 years ago. He is solid. We taught Enrique about recognizing the Spirit, and Hermano Montanez totally took over the lesson! It was so cool to watch his testimony touch Enrique - Enrique even started crying as he said the closing prayer. After the lesson, we got word that Hermano Mendoza was in the hospital for an emergency relating to his kidneys! He isn't a citizen and isn't allowed to receive a kidney transplant. We waited to be able to give him a blessing, but we had to leave for the night before we were able. Hopefully he will be alright.

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013:

I love teaching English class on Wednesdays! Every Wednesday, there is a free English class at a local school that our district volunteers to teach at. We teach a bunch of Mexicans and Chinese people some basic English, and it's so much fun. When I'm teaching the Mexicans, they even help me with my Spanish! After the class, we went knocking doors in hopes of finding some new investigators. We stumbled upon a man named Juan, whose parents had been talking to the Spanish elders a long time ago. Juan had also been talking to some English elders recently, but hadn't heard from them since he had surgery on his foot. We taught him about various principles from each of the three first lessons and bore powerful testimony to him. It was cool to finally teach a lesson in my native language, too. We went knocking again after talking to Juan, but to no avail. At night, we had our weekly correlation at Hermano Simmons' house and began planning our Family Home Evening lesson forOctober 13th with the ward. The whole district is struggling right now with finding people to teach, and part of it may be some of the hostility between ward members / gossiping that goes on. It's quite unfortunate, really.

Thursday, September 26th, 2013:

In the morning, we had our weekly district meeting, in which the zone leaders (Elder Mahoney and Elder Morrell) joined us. We talked about the importance of agency in all that we do. Elder Porter shared a scripture from 2 Nephi 2:16, which talks about being influenced in either one way or the other. It is up to us to help influence other people to do good and choose the right in their own lives; if they don't ever have a good influence on them, they are more succeptible to falling prey to the enticements of wordly evils, such as drug and alcohol addictions. We tried going to a few appointments, but not a single one of our investigators answered when we went to our appointments. We tried knocking doors again, but we didn't have any luck once again. We did, however, find an English member while knocking who offered to give us a ride to our dinner appointment located about 12 miles away. He dropped us off with our bikes and left. We went to the door, and we came to find a Chinese family there. Oh no. They moved. Apparently, the Cardenas family lived about 2 miles from there and had moved a year prior, but our records weren't ever updated. We trekked on over to their house up a ridiculously long and steep hill. We ate dinner with them, and they were so nice. Hermano Cardenas was a professional soccer player on the Argentine national team! I then had the opportunity to give a Priesthood blessing of healing to Hermana Cardenas to be able to overcome her illness. It was very powerful. After dinner, we biked all the way back to our apartment. I think it took somewhere around an hour to an hour-and-a-half to get back. It was so exhausting.

Friday, September 27th, 2013:

Today was a day of polar opposites. Our first lesson was with a lady named Irma, who is a Seventh-Day Adventist. She didn't want to do anything, except "Bible-Bash." It just kicks out the Spirit and makes everything impossible to teach. Elder Knight got really mad and almost completely walked out. We left her with an ultimatum: either she follow through with her commitments by praying about our message, reading the Book of Mormon and actually listening to our message (instead of just trying to insult us and tell us how everything we say is wrong), or we leave and don't return. She was taken aback with how boldly we told that to her through our testimonies of the truthfulness of our message. She then proceeded to tell us in a rather compassionate way that she will call us when she is ready to listen to our message again. I'm guessing that means we won't be back to visit her again. Trying to argue about doctrine will get nowhere and leave people frustrated. The only way to teach is to teach by the Spirit. The polar opposite occurred during our next lesson, which was with a less-active named Luis Cabrera. Luis is struggling with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. We helped him develop a plan on how to overcome his addicition, and I had the opportunity to give him a Priesthood blessing after the lesson. After that, we went to the Sanchez's house for dinner, along with Elder Porter and Elder Low. They fed us pizza, and we talked with their family about the importance of General Conference this coming week. We even met one of the daughters' boyfriends, named Daniel, and he committed to watching Conference!

Saturday, September 28th, 2013:

Once again, today was a tough day of looking for people to teach. Chino has been known to be a tougher area for the work here in the California Arcadia Mission. After failing to find many people in the morning, we went by Luis again to read the scriptures with him. He is having a really hard time with resisting the temptations he is feeling - he is succeeding at the moment, though. After talking to Luis, we went knocking again and found a single lady named Evelyn. One good thing about being in a trio is that we are able to teach single ladies without having another member there (per mission rules, at least three people besides the investigator need to be present). We taught her the first lesson, and I gave out my first Book of Mormon. However, we weren't convinced that she is going to be a solid investigator because she seemed to lack the ability to think for herself much of the time. After setting up a return appointment, we went to eat dinner with the Ramirez family for dinner. It was good to visit with them, although it was very awkward when I mistakenly thought that one of the daughters was an investigator and not a member. Hermana Ramirez had apparently said that the daughter's boyfriend was an investigator, and not the son's girlfriend. It was awkward. Elder Knight and I began teaching for almost five minutes before Elder Smith finally clued us in. After dinner, we went to the church to play volleyball with the ward. It was super fun, but unfortunately no investigators came to play with us. We invite people every week to volleyball and church, but few people follow through with their commitments.

Sunday, September 29th, 2013:

It was tough being Fast Sunday and being on a bike. I was struggling for a while, but I did manage to really focus my thoughts on the Savior. Church was great, as usual, and Camilo Gomez, who was baptized in late-July, shared his testimony for the first time! After church, we biked over to Hermano Simmons' house to drive up to Tujunga, where Elder Knight was going to perform his first baptism. Hermano Simmons got called as our ward mission leader, and so now we finally have a reliable source of help from the ward. We drove up to the baptism, which was more than an hour away. Elder Knight had found, taught and was now going to baptize twenty-year-old Deanna Jimenez; I have never seen him so excited. I was really excited for him! The baptism was great and the Spirit was very strong. Unfortunately, there weren't as many people there as could have been, which was even disappointing for Deanna. I felt really bad. She is going to be a solid member, though. We drove back and broke our fast at Hermano Simmons' house at around 9:15 PM. I was starving.

This week has been exhausting, but it has flown by! I'm enjoying my time with my companions, and I absolutely love having Elder Low and Elder Porter in my district. We are all probably going to head over to Hermano Simmons' house on Saturday and Sunday to be able to watch General Conference in English! I'm so excited to be able to understand it! My Spanish is progressing, but the Spanish at church is, at times, difficult to understand. Many natives don't annunciate, slur, or talk to fast to be able to understand well. I'm really excited to hear from all of the General Authorities, too! Even though the work is very slow here, Elder Porter gave some great advice: "These are the times where you can really learn how to be you; you can learn how you study, who you are as a person and how you work. Focus on really getting to learn about yourself during the times that the work is slowest." I'm really trying to be like my high school tennis coach describes me as: a sponge; I'm trying to soak up everything that I learn and really apply it to the best of my abilities. Anyways, I hope all is well with everyone! I miss you all!

Love,

Elder Gabriel Valley