Hey Everyone!
I hope everyone has had a fantastic week! Here in the California Arcadia Mission, we learned this week about how much testing we do for the Church. Our mission president, President Becerra, talks to the Quorum of the Twelve on a regular basis and was able to set up a training meeting that was the first of its kind in the history of the Church. We were trained about our new teaching style (of which only about 15 missions in the entire world are doing currently), in addition to being briefed about the technology age of missionary work starting in one month!
Tuesday, January 7th, 2014:
Hermano Montanez had all of us over to his house for weekly correlation meeting. Hermana Bardsley was on exchanges, so Hermana Aydelott was Hermana Stohlton's companion for the day. Hermana Aydelott is one of the sister-trainers in the mission, so it was neat hearing about some of her experiences in Azusa. After finishing the meeting, our district carpooled over to the Chino Hills Family History Center to do Facebook. It was a nightmare trying to unlock the room because the English stake president gave us the wrong hours. We ended up waiting there for over an hour for someone to arrive to let us in to only use the place for an hour. This Facebook proselyting thing is making things difficult in Chino. In the afternoon, we went by Valentina Flores (Miguel's wife) to check in and see how she has been. Some of her family was over, and we assisted them with taking down some things from a party they hosted the night before. They were really happy to see us. The Mendoza family had us over for dinner, and I really enjoyed their company. I didn't know them well prior to that visit, but they are a very nice family and have this crazy five year-old son named Yair. Eating with them made me realize how little time we have spent with the members recently since receiving instructions not to pass around a dinner calendar. I want to start working with them some more to foster some greater success.
Wednesday, January 8th, 2014:
Elder Porter had a mission leadership training meeting in Arcadia, so I ended up going to Azusa to be with Elder Cobb while his companion, Elder Ingram, went to the meeting. Elder Cobb is Elder Ingram's trainee and has only been in the field for about four weeks. It was really cool being a trainer for a day and helping Elder Cobb out. He's an awesome missionary and will see some great success as he continues to learn and grow on the mission. Although we were actually unable to teach anyone during the day we set up a few return appointments with other solid potential investigators. We returned back to his apartment to meet up with the zone leaders and district leaders in order to switch back to our companions. Everyone in the car said that the meeting was literally the best meeting they have ever been to in their entire lives. The zone leaders dropped Elder Porter and I off at the Castaneda family's house for dinner when we returned to Chino. We ate dinner with them and taught them about the importance of the Sacrament using our new teaching method. They loved the shorter, more powerful lesson and wanted us to come back next week, too!
Thursday, January 9th, 2014:
The training meeting today was definitely the very best meeting I have ever been a part of in my entire life, and that includes school, church and anything in-between. Brother Donaldson was the mission president in San Diego when The District 2 (the Preach My Gospel DVD's that we use as missionaries) was filmed and now works very closely with the Quorum of the Twelve and Presidency of the Seventy. President Becerra got special permission to have a meeting with him, which was the first meeting of its kind in the history of the Church. Our mission is a special mission because of how much the Quorum of the Twelve trusts President Becerra in particular. Brother Donaldson also told us that we were likely called to serve with President Becerra, not just called to serve in the area! Often times, a missionary is assigned to labor with a particular mission president, not just to a specific mission. During this training meeting, Brother Donaldson showed us multiple role plays about the new teaching style with the pamphlets. Our goal is to teach the entire Restoration lesson in seven minutes. That allows for a couple of minutes getting to know the people, seven minutes to teach, time to introduce Mormon.org, and time to have the person/family pray. It was incredible. It is so simple, yet it is so effective. He also told us at the end of the meeting about how our mission is being selected to receive iPads in the middle of February! President Becerra didn't want us to know that, but our entire mission started going crazy when we heard that! The technological capabilities that the iPads have will help our efficiency as missionaries shoot through the roof! I can't even wait a month now; it's worse than Christmas as a kid. There are going to be major changes to how we go about missionary work, according to Brother Donaldson. He was an amazing speaker and taught us for over six hours. I was anxious to hear more. The normal person's attention span is twenty minutes (that's why we're using the new teaching method) and yet he managed to keep all of our attention for well over six hours. Upon getting back to Chino, we taught Ruben. The plan was to teach him about member missionary work; however, the lesson turned into teaching about the reason behind having trials in life. To end the day, Ruben took us to Carl's Jr. to get a hamburger. It was such a perfect end to a perfect day.
Friday, January 10th, 2014:
Weekly planning lasted much longer than normal due to the amount of time that we spent on companionship inventory. Clearly, I talk too much. I think Madisen has had too big of an impact on me... During the day, we were unable to really find anyone to teach. We tried testing out a few finding ideas that Brother Donaldson suggested yesterday, such as "would you really be willing to bet your entire eternity on the fact that you think we can't add any knowledge to what you already have?" I thought it was golden, but people are just really hard-headed sometimes. At night, we ate dinner with the Ramirez family. I love visiting them; they are so humble, friendly and love talking to the missionaries, despite the fact that they are less-active. We taught them the Restoration using the teaching method, and we managed to teach the entire Restoration lesson in under ten minutes.
Saturday, January 11th, 2014:
I am gradually feeling more and more physically drained during the day. I find myself yawning all the time and constantly feeling sleepy. I believe it is because we don't always have full agendas and have to devote a great deal of time to chasing people down to try to set up appointments, rather than teaching at pre-planned appointments. In the afternoon, we stopped by the Montes de Oca family to talk to Javier for a while about how he can continue preparing to serve a mission. He is kind of lazy at the moment and needs the push to serve a mission. We also invited him to help us teach Ruben later that evening about the first lesson that we will teach to Ruben's family. Javier agreed to help us out. We all went down to the Church to meet up with Ruben, where we role-played the Restoration and how we would teach it to Ruben's brother. Ruben seemed nervous the whole time about what his brother might say, but I think all will be all right. After the lesson, we stayed and played volleyball with the ward. Elder Porter and I grabbed some tacos on the way back to our apartment. Often times, we get busy and don't have time to eat, so we improvise in whatever way that we can. Those tacos we ate are from a taco stand outside and are the best tacos I have ever eaten in my life! I ate two tacos al pastor and two tacos de chorizo. That place is called La Carreta de Don Jose and is definitely worth going back to after the mission.
Sunday, January 12th, 2014:
Elder Porter and I talked to Hermano Kirk during the day, and he told us about how different it is serving in California than where he served in Mexico. He said he wouldn't be able to handle teaching so many fewer lessons everyday here; it is much more difficult finding investigators in California than Mexico, no doubt about that one. That was a bit of a confidence builder to know that I'm not doing quite as poorly as I thought. During the afternoon, we tried visiting several potentials but ended up spending the majority of the time talking to Mauricio Dominguez. He is fourteen and is a freshman in high school. We are trying to help him start the habits that he needs to develop now to begin preparing to serve a mission in just a few years. At night, we went to a family home evening in the home of the Moreno family in which the ward was also invited.Hermano Moran, the stake patriarch, talked for almost an hour and a half. It was a good talk.
Anyway, the training meeting on Thursday made this week so exciting! The fact that iPad minis are coming in a month makes me so excited! We are going to be able to use the iPad minis for our scriptures, Church magazines, area books, journals, TALL language learning, dictionaries, maps, bus routes, and many more things yet to be seen! Remember that the Lord has given us tools to assist us in many different facets of life, but we must be responsible and use them for their intended purpose. We must be careful not to give in to different distractions.
I hope everyone has an awesome week! I love you and appreciate your love and support!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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