Hey Everyone!
This past week has been filled with success! Elder Knapp and I have been tearing it up here in Chino and have been fortunate enough to witness the single-best week in as much as a year-and-a-half in Chino. Elder Knapp is a great example of what it means to be exactly obedient, and it really shows in his work ethic. He is a quiet, lead by example kind of missionary, and it is very inspiring. I'm really happy to be here and be able to work with him.
Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014:
In the morning, Elder Knapp and I went to go teach Alejandro and Josefina about the Restoration. There were a few interruptions with people entering and leaving the house, but the lesson went quite well, overall. They were a bit scared when we invited them to be baptized in the first lesson, but they will come around with time and as they understand more. After teaching them, we went to English class. It's strange to think that I am the oldest missionary in the area, in terms of time spent here in Chino. I still feel like I'm the new guy, but everyone looks to me for how to go about doing things in Chino. It's really a strange feeling. Elder Knapp's tire popped, so we ended up having to go the bike store. I feel like we are in there every other week for one thing or another. All of our pre-arranged appointments before dinner ended up changing on us and canceling, so I had to improvise and figure out where to go. I still don't know Chino Central as well as I know Chino East, so it is also a learning experience for me as we go around to meet new potential investigators. For dinner, the Ramirez family invited us over to eat. Elder Knapp and I practiced the new Book of Mormon lesson with them. We are definitely still working out the kinks with teaching the first chapter and applying it to the investigator in a way to make them understand how important it is, but the teaching success will come with time.
Thursday, January 23rd, 2014:
Our first district meeting with Elder Knapp consisted of role playing a church tour. I enjoyed his way of teaching because of how much he likes to encourage discussion. Elder Knapp is a quieter person and doesn't talk as much, but his character speaks volumes. After district meeting, Elder Knapp and I went down to Chino HIlls to do Facebook at the Family History Center in Chino Hills. Later in the day, we went to Hermano Montanez's house to have our weekly correlation meeting. I love his excitement about missionary work; it is so contagious! He is a solid member who truly understands the value of the knowledge the Gospel of Jesus Christ can bring into someone's life. To conclude the evening, we taught Martin Ramirez again, with the assistance of our recent convert, Ruben. Martin ended up talking way too much in the lesson to let us teach what we wanted to teach. The hard thing with teaching is that we have to guide the investigator to what we want them to learn. Latinos, as a whole, are a very talkative people who like to tell stories. It's hard to get them to stay focused on what we are trying to share, and this lesson was a prime example of just that.
Friday, January 24th, 2014:
In the morning, Elder Knapp and I found out more than we wanted to know about a certain problem in the ward. I can't really elaborate more than that, but it was sad to see people make choices they know they shouldn't make. We must always remember that we must put the Lord first in everything that we do, regardless of the fact that we may not always not get the things that we want. The Lord will provide us with the things that we need, but not always the things that we want. Elder Knapp and I had our first weekly planning session together, and it went very well. We work very well together, and we both have the same purpose in our mind all the time. This will be a transfer in which a lot of work gets done. The one success story we had was teaching a man named Raul during the time in which he was having a garage sale. It wasn't the best situation to teach the first lesson, but he was open to listen to us. We are going to go back to teach him next week. At night, we taught Camilo Gomez, but, like Martin the night before, Camilo talked way too much for us to share what we wanted. Latinos have some incredible stories (especially dreams), but we are there to teach.
Saturday, January 25th, 2014:
Today was an awesome day for teaching; we taught five lessons in one day. There were weeks last transfer where I didn't even end up teaching five total lessons through an entire week. We taught two other people in the same apartment complex as Martin Ramirez in the morning before going almost the entire afternoon without any success. We brought Hermano Montanez with us to a lesson, but the investigator ended up canceling on us. Hermano Montanez ended up taking us to the Moreno family's home to eat dinner with them and their other friends who were over to celebrate their son's birthday. During the evening, Elder Knapp and I returned to go teach Martin Ramirez and ended up committing him to baptism on the 16th of February! We ended up walking home, but we were way too excited to care.
Sunday, January 26th, 2014:
Church was surprising because of the fact that we had such a high turnout of people come. It was nice to see a near-full chapel. Unfortunately, Martin didn't end up coming to Church, but we will get him there next week! The longer that I stay in this ward, the more that I love the members. The people here are such great people have such strong desires to help out the missionaries. It is wonderful to see. It's also cool to see that they seem to trust me more because I have been here the longest. They are so willing to help me and help Elder Knapp with lessons and whatever we may end up needing. During the afternoon, Elder Knapp and I taught the Restoration to Jesus Nunez. We ended up finding eight new investigators this week! I think we found two the entire last transfer, total. At night, we taught Ruben about the Plan of Salvation and helped him understand why the Plan of Salvation is so important and key to our Church. Many other places think that they have the same knowledge, but we truly have all of the puzzle pieces together. After teaching Ruben, Elder Knapp and I stopped by a few members before returning to the apartment. We are much more efficient with our time than before, and it is really helping out the work here in Chino.
This week has been very successful in the finding department, and I'm really excited to see how this transfer goes! I hope everyone has a fabulous week this week, and I look forward to hearing how everyone is doing! I'm grateful for all of your love and support! Thank you for all that you do and for being great examples to me!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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