Hey Everyone!
This week has been very exciting and informative for me here in sunny Chino, CA! I had the opportunity to find out a lot of information about my particular area from the first counselor in our mission presidency here in the California Arcadia Mission; I'm guessing that I wasn't supposed to know about most of the stuff, but it was still really neat to hear about how the mission presidency is really working to clean up the struggles in our area.
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013:
We made the ward mission plan today, which was comprised of goals for each individual auxiliary organization, as well as ward goals for baptisms, attendance in church and percentage of visits for home teaching / visiting teaching. It was very productive and was needed. Elder Knight and I also began updating our Facebook pages! I don't really like it very much because I feel apostate by using Facebook, but I guess it is the finding method of the future. So, if you know anyone that would like to hear about the Gospel, I can now talk to them, via Facebook! Elder Knight later went to teach Enrique Olvera about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a solid lesson; the major problem is just getting him to act on what we are teaching. I feel like so many people feel a witness from the Spirit of the veracity of our message and are too lazy to act on it! At night, we had another lesson with Camilo Gomez. We taught him about the principles of "good, better and best." I love working with Camilo because I can see his progression with his Gospel knowledge, and he continually tells us that our visits with him are the highlight of his week. He likes talking to us as much as talking to his family in Nicaragua!
Wednesday, November 13th, 2013:
As usual, teaching English class was a lot of fun. It was also nice to have the regular teacher back; I feel like the people are able to learn more with her as the instructor. English class is a great culture-enriching experience because people there come from China, Syria, many different parts of Europe, and almost every Latin American country. After English class, we all went down to the library to do some more work with Facebook and Mormon.org, before beginning another planning session for the Noche de Hogar on Sunday evening. We all work in a room in the library, and it is much more conducive to a productive meeting than the church - we aren't really sure why that is, but if it's "on purpose," it's worth the time. We planned to do an introduction about all of our tools as missionaries, followed by a series of role plays to help the members learn how to share the Gospel. At night, the Elder's Quorum was able to do a big ward visit night in which we visited the homes of sixty less-active members. I was with Hermano Bautista and Elder Carvajal (one of the zone leaders who was on splits with Elder Porter) for the visits, and we were able to visit three different families. It's great to see this ward motivated to do some work!
Thursday, November 14th, 2013:
For district meeting in the morning, Elder Porter and Elder Carvajal had us all practice different situations of contacting people to share the Gospel with, such as on a bus or at the store. It made me realize how bad I am at it in Spanish. I feel like I can talk to almost anyone in English about almost anything, but learning another language and having to teach in that language is another challenge altogether. I also learned that President Becerra recently talked to Boyd K. Packer (yes, he talks to General Authorities all the time!) and Elder Packer told him that, as of right now, over thirty percent of the world is ready to hear the Gospel. That was really inspiring and motivating. That also means the challenge is on us to become even better missionaries. The Sazo family had Elder Knight and I over to do service later. We expected to only have to work for about an hour, but it ended up taking three. It was kind of annoying how much time out of our day it ate up, but I do enjoy doing service. To conclude the day, we went to Sofia Castro's house to visit her and her son, Eduardo. We really stressed the need to read the Book of Mormon. Every single time we have visited her, she has told us that she hasn't read. There is no way to progress in the Gospel if we don't use our agency to learn more about the Gospel for ourselves. One major way to do that is to read the scriptures.
Friday, November 15th, 2013:
Hermano Dos Santos needed our help during the morning with cutting up a few trees, so we went and did some pretty intensive labor with him. I absolutely love doing yard work on the mission; it's honestly like my favorite thing (besides teachings lessons, of course). Hermano Dos Santos is the uncle of world-famous Giovanni Dos Santos, who is a soccer player for the Mexican National team. He even told us that he can get us an autograph in the future! Hermano Dos Santos is also a former professional himself, which has led him into a coaching career for many nationally-ranked youth soccer players (such as Shaquille O'Neal's son, for instance). As a result, he always has to work on Sundays and has become "less-active" by the Church's definition, even though he still has a solid testimony. He told us that he can help with the role play segment of our Noche de Hogar on Sunday, too. During the afternoon, we went by the Montanez family's home for a lunch, and we are going to recommend that Hermano Montanez be called as the new ward mission leader. Our old one just suddenly decided to switch to the English ward without ever telling us, so now we have no ward mission leader. At night, we went to teach the Ramirez family a lesson, and Elder Knight and I were not on the same page. He kind of exploded at me after the lesson. We ultimately resolved the situation, and it was more out of miscommunication. Fortunately, we were able to resolve the conflict, which was the result of not talking. It reminded me a lot of when a similar event happened in the MTC in Mexico City.
Saturday, November 16th, 2013:
Due to service on Friday, we had to postpone weekly planning to Saturday morning. We planned up until a birthday party that Hermana Moreno invited us to, in which there would be a few non-member friends all meeting up at the party at Shakey's Pizza (and yes, the flavor of the pizza was definitely shakey - I would not go back to eat it again). We talked with Hermana Moreno's non-member father for a while before going with Hermano Sazo to a lesson at a former investigator's home. With Hermano Sazo there, we taught the Restoration and showed the Restoration video. The Martinez family was able to really feel the Spirit and were left with a lot of questions. We left them with a Book of Mormon to read and set up a return appointment for next Saturday. It's exciting to have four new investigators in one week! We only had two new investigators in the first eight weeks, but we had four new investigators this week. After the lesson, we went to the church to play volleyball. It was a poor turn out; we need to figure out how to get more people to our activities.
Sunday, November 17th, 2013:
The ward decided to have ward council today, and it was amazing! I hate to say this, but Bishop Arriaga wasn't there which was a large reason why the meeting was so good. Normally I'm not the person to criticize, but talking to President Gutierrez made me aware that the leadership at the stake level and the bishop of Chino Ward are a large reason why Chino is hurting. However, Bishop was away on vacation, and the ward council was very enthusiastic and motivated to help us out with the missionary work! I was so excited to get help from them; they now want to accompany us on lessons, meet less-actives and also get to know all of our investigators by personally going to greet them at their houses! Church was really cool. The primary program was all in Spanish, which helped me feel better that I'm not the only one in the ward who doesn't understand everything. It's really funny to see the older kids who are really "Pocho" - they come from Latino families but don't know Spanish. Their accents are really "Gringo," too, which makes it even funnier. At night, we had our Noche de Hogar. It was a good turnout! We first shared all of the tools we use as missionaries to share the Gospel, such as pamphlets, Facebook, etc. Afterwards, we did a series of role plays to help the members learn how to talk about the Gospel with their friends in normal situations. Finally, we had President Gutierrez speak about the job the members play in finding people for us to teach. As missionaries, we teach, and the members are supposed to find. It was a little sad to see how the ward wants to find so badly, but many feel that the Bishop's leadership discourages that. President Gutierrez later told all of our district that he feels so bad that all of his friends are suffering in the Spanish wards. He said, before too long, all of the recent converts, in addition to active members, will begin moving towards English wards because the wards have more to offer them. I loved hearing his input on everything, but it also made me a little sad that things have gotten to be that bad. He told us that the mission presidency loves us dearly and wants us to have the privilege of baptizing, so Chino will begin losing missionaries until the local leadership starts acting in accordance with the mission presidency. The funny thing is that all of our district talked after talking to President Gutierrez, and none of us want to leave. We are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and want to see this progression out. I know this work can pick back up in Chino, and I would love to see the fruits of my labors.
Overall, this week has been very exciting and very enlightening. President Gutierrez also told me that knocking doors actually hurts the Church more than it helps it, statistically. I would love to be able to learn more from him. He is an incredible man and is very intelligent. I hope everyone is doing well at home and getting ready for the holiday season. Thank you for all of your support and love on my behalf!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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