Hey Everyone!
I hope everyone has had a fantastic week with Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations! This week here in California has been pretty average by mission standards. We're just always trying to look for people to teach.
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013:
Elder Knight and I went to the library for an hour to use our one hour of lds.org time to do some research on family history and how it can help us with contacting people, in addition to finishing up some in-field training that I have to do as a "greenie." A lot of the in-field training stuff is all review from the MTC or common sense, but this training actually proved to be quite helpful and useful. The Spirit of Elijah is definitely prompting people to do their family history today, so we should be able to use family history as a more effective means of contacting new people to teach. During the evening, we went to go talk to Camilo. He insisted on buying us dinner, despite his humble living conditions. We went to Rio Ranch for their "Taco Tuesday" special. A lady in line was nice enough to pay for all of us right after we began talking to her about the Church. She wasn't interested, but it was so nice of her to buy dinner for us without us even knowing until after the fact! We talked with Camilo about the Plan of Salvation again because we need to go through all of the initial lessons another time after baptism. It was a good visit, and I just love how humble Camilo Gomez is.
Wednesday, October 30th, 2013:
I love teaching English class every Wednesday afternoon! Elder Low and I teach a group of beginner-level adult English students. It's really neat to see their progress over time, too. Our district ate lunch at the church after the class; Hermana Valencia bought us Pizza Hut! The members are great about making sure that we are fed when we aren't expecting to be fed, but I want them to turn that desire for feeding us food into a desire for feeding others with the Bread of Life. We had a lesson this evening with Enrique (instead of on Tuesday, like normal) in which Hermano Moran, the stake Patriarch, accompanied us. Hermano Moran was set apart by the late Bruce R. McConkie, and he is so incredibly smart. We taught Enrique about what he can do to improve his studies of the Book of Mormon through the use of a study journal. It was a good lesson, and the Spirit was there, but Enrique told us he never felt anything. We know that this was due to his continued sin of breaking the Law of Chastity. If he doesn't have the desire to live that commandment, Elder Knight and I will probably have to drop him. It's interesting that dropping an investigator can actually be a help for the investigator to gain the desire to want to make the changes in their life that are necessary. We talked with Bishop Arriaga during the evening about what to do with Enrique, and he recommended dropping Enrique. Apparently, he tells the exact same story to every set of missionaries that teach him - he wants to change his life but is unwilling to commit to living the Law of Chastity until his wife dies. It's not how the repentance process works. If he wants to know for himself through the Holy Spirit about our message, he will need to live the commandments of God in order to actually be able to feel the Holy Spirit and receive the answer.
Thursday, October 31st, 2013:
Happy Halloween! It was weird being a missionary on Halloween. We had district meeting in the morning, and I absolutely love Elder Porter's lessons during district meetings. We had a great discussion about the importance of the missionary purpose in the lessons that we teach. Every person that we teach should know how the Doctrine of Christ and the missionary purpose are really one and the same. Through Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End, we are able to live the Doctrine of Christ and live the way that Christ would have us live. After district meeting, we began brainstorming problems and solutions to each particular problem about the work in the Chino Ward. Hermana Bardsley (she's from Renton, Washington, by the way!) suggested that we ride the bus, even if it means riding the bus not to go anywhere. We can ride the bus to see if we can contact more people. It's a possibility, and we are going to put it into practice. At night, we had the ward Halloween party. Hermana Connelly and Hermana Bardsley decorated the trunk of the mission car so that it was pretty spooky! The Hermanas have to have a car after 6 PM for safety reasons, so all of the missionaries in our district handed out candy and Jesus Christ pass-along cards to people during the "trunk-or-treat" segment of the party. It was just a really fun evening and a much-needed break from the toll of riding a bike around all day.
Friday, November 1st, 2013:
Elder Knight and I didn't do a whole lot of different activities today, but it was a rather busy day overall. In the morning, we did service for Hermana Sazo. She need help cutting up a bunch of branches and really thick bamboo. I love doing yard work; I never though I would hear myself say that, either. It was really fun, and it was a great workout trying to cut up everything and fit it all into her two yard waste bins. We are going to return on Tuesday to finish up the job. After returning to the apartment after service, we began weekly planning. I can tell that Elder Knight and I have a much better focus during our planning sessions now that our apartment is in a liveable state (no more deathly mold or trash around everywhere from previous lazy missionaries). We decided that we are going to make the effort to set aside more time during the day to find people to teach, instead of focusing so much time on going by potential investigators that probably aren't available because they don't want to talk to us. During the evening, we went to the Morenos for dinner to have pizza night with them, and it was so much fun! They are one of the nicest families I have ever met. We found out that they have been having problems with their twelve year-old son, Randy, and wanted our help with what to do. We testified to them about the power of the Book of Mormon in changing behavior and uniting families; they committed to reading it together. It was an awesome member lesson.
Saturday, November 2nd, 2013:
In the morning, Elder Knight and I taught a lesson to a less-active nineteen year-old named Henry Montanez. He is Hermano Montanez's oldest son and is preparing to serve a mission once he becomes more active in the church again. We shared a little bit about how he needs to gain his own, personal testimony in order to be a powerful missionary and what he needs to do in preparation to leave on his mission (Preach My Gospel, missionary work now, etc.). It was also an awesome lesson; he felt the Spirit. After finishing the lesson, Hermano Montanez took all of us to Ontario, CA to play soccer against some of the Ontario Spanish-speaking Elders from the Rancho Cuckamonga Mission, as well as against some non-members. It was a lot of fun, but we were so wiped after playing in the hot sun for three hours straight. It was a good turnout of people. We later went to dinner at the Menoza family's house to celebrate Hermana Menoza's birthday with a bunch of other people from the ward. It seems like this ward has ward unity between a certain group of people, and everyone that isn't really in that group is either inactive or doesn't really do anything related to the church at home. After eating with them, we went to ward volleyball. It is just getting too competitive. Latinos in general know how to give sarcastic insults, but they can't take anything without getting offended. When they all get competitive, it just turns into a vocal argument about pointless rules in volleyball. I want to help them learn how to play to have fun.
Sunday, November 3rd, 2013:
Fast and Testimony Meeting today was quite powerful and very enjoyable to listen to. It made me ponder about fasting over the past day and how my fasting could help Elder Knight and I find at least one new investigator to teach. Despite the minor struggles, I'm really growing to love the people in the ward. We just need to motivate them to do their job: be a member-missionary. After church, Elder Knight and I got to go visit Camilo Gomez again and talk to him about the process of receving his Patriarchal Blessing. He seemed so excited! We are going to meet with him on Wednesday night, as well as meet with Hermano Moran (the stake Patriarch) there to teach Camilo a little bit more about this great privilege he has ahead of him. After visiting Camilo, it was back to trying to contact more potentials without much luck. However, we did stop by the Herrera family. They are really nice, and Hermana Herrera is the Seminary teacher for all of the Spanish-speaking kids that attend high schools in Chino. We offered to come by to Seminary one morning if she needs us, and she seemed pretty excited about that idea. I think they felt even more inspired to look for missionary opportunities after talking with us. Our member visits are continuing to improve; I just hope that it will lead to some more referrals. We need people to teach pronto.
For P-Day today, all of our district took the bus down to Chino Hills area, which is in Chino West's area. We want to get a few days of riding the bus in to see if it is actually worth our time. In the west side of the mission, there are many people who utilize the public transportation system, but we haven't seen as many people use it here on the east side of the mission. It's harder to find people here in Chino because many of the ideas that missionaries use to find people in East Los Angeles and Pasadena just don't work at all here. I think Elder Knight and I are going to ride the bus for about three hours on Thursday to get a better idea about the bus system as well. I'm guessing we won't have time to do anything again today for P-Day, but that's just becoming the norm, I guess. It's hard when we absolutely need a break, or at least a lesson, but we just aren't getting lucky. I keep looking in the mirror to see what I can change in myself to help the work, but it really just seems like I need to keep plugging along. I'm trying my very best to study hard, study effectively, plan effectively, plan useful and meaningful visits, as well as talk to everyone and ask them for referrals. I don't know what else I can do there.
I hope everyone had a great Halloween and is looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas as much as I am! The holiday season will soon be upon us, and that means more people will be ready to hear about the true story of Christmas - that means there will be more people ready to receive the Restored Gospel. I miss you all and appreciate the support you show me!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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