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
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