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
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