I hope all of the fathers out there had a wonderful Father's Day
yesterday! It kind of saddens me that we are able to call home on
Mother's Day, but we don't get to do anything special like that for
our fathers. I thought a lot about the role that my father has played
in my life, and I am very appreciative for the countless life lessons
that I have learned from him.
Tuesday, June 10th, 2014:
Elder Barnes and I were very successful with making sure that our
schedule would be filled with appointments today. Out of six teaching
appointments that we had set up, five ended up happening, which made
for a busy and productive day. We went to the Luquins for lunch to
begin our day. I ate about nine enchiladas; Hermana Luquin really
knows how to cook! We shared a message about the importance of
inviting others to be baptized and about how they can join us in the
Hastening of the Work of Salvation. After leaving there, Elder Barnes
and I made our way over to Silvia's house to eat chilaquiles. It was
one of my favorite foods that I have tried so far on my mission; I
just felt bad that I was already stuffed from eating with the Luquins.
Silvia really wanted to make something nice for my birthday yesterday,
so she went out of her way to make some really good food. She is still
waiting on her ID card to arrive from El Salvador, but once it comes
she will be able to get baptized right away! After visiting Silvia, we
stopped by Alex Varela to see how he has been. Alex has been working
on finding a job, and he is looking to work as a security guard. He is
such a wonderful guy, and I really want to see him succeed. To
conclude the evening, Antonio Perez joined us for our lesson with
Erika and Hector. We stressed the importance of reading the Book of
Mormon, praying and going to church in order to receive an answer
about the Church. They are making tremendous progress towards baptism,
and I hope that we can help them get there!
Wednesday, June 11th, 2014:
After not being able to meet with Fernando and Gloria for a little
while, we were finally able to meet with them in the afternoon. They
seem to disagree with a lot of the Book of Mormon and the basic
doctrines that it teaches, which made me think that they must not have
a firm grasp on the Bible. The Book of Mormon does not contradict
anything that it states in the Bible; they are to go hand-in-hand and
be used together. We tried answering more of their questions, but they
were constantly saying that they are way better off than most people
and that we should be focusing our efforts on the people who don't
even have God in their life. I appreciated that they told us that they
weren't interested, rather than the typical Latino response of "si
Dios quiere." I was really sad that they weren't interested, but it
will help us focus our efforts on finding people who are more
interested in listening to us and are willing to act upon what we
share with them. We stopped by the Luquin's house again to help them
paint their kitchen after our poor lesson. It was a really fun service
project, and we are building a strong relationship with their family.
They have a daughter who will be returning from her mission in just a
few weeks, so we are trying to motivate them to engage in missionary
work as much as possible.
Thursday, June 12th, 2014:
Elder Merrill had us all study a talk by Elder Callister entitled
"Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" for district meeting. He gave a
great lesson that focused on that particular talk and how it can help
each one of us become a greater and more effective missionary. It was
quite a powerful talk that made me feel like I'm not doing enough to
give every ounce of energy that I have to trying to proclaim the
Gospel. The most incredible part was that Elder Callister stated that
two consecrated missionaries are actually better than one-hundred good
missionaries. Elder Barnes and I then went to visit the Silva family
and share a short message with them about our vision to baptize. It
was a good lesson, but Hermano Silva talked a little too much to make
the lesson as powerful as it could have been. We then went to go help
a lady named Gloria move out of her house. The Gonzalez family from
Arroyo came to help us with moving all of the boxes down to the moving
truck. It was some good, tiring physical service, and it left me
feeling very sleepy after finishing up with everything. I don't know
where Gloria is moving to, but hopefully she decides to investigate
the Church more in the future. To finish off the day, Elder Barnes and
I went to go visit a former investigator named Laura Burgos. She is an
elderly lady and was very nice and sweet. Her son, Javier, kept
interrupting our lesson, and I couldn't tell if he just didn't want
her to learn anything about what we had to share. I'm not sure how far
either of them will actually progress, and that is always the
difficulty of working with former investigators. We are trying to find
more investigators, but finding quality investigators is always the
difficult part.
Friday, June 13th, 2014:
Elder Barnes had worn through his shoes completely, so we needed to
run to the store to go buy some more for him. We had to finish up
weekly planning really quickly so that the Hamilton family at the
mission office could pick us up and drive us up to Glendale to make a
run for some shoes. I felt so out of place inside of a mall as a
missionary, but we got the job done. He found a really good deal on a
pair of shoes, so I decided to pick up a new pair as well for myself.
It was incredible to see how worn my current shoes are after a year of
wear and tear. Dress shoes definitely do not hold up as long as tennis
shoes. When we got back to El Sereno, we went by the Caceres to eat
dinner with them. I love visiting them because the Hermana is really
active in the Church, and the Hermano is less-active; it is a good
opportunity to work with the family to help them strengthen themselves
and also motivate them to do missionary work at the same time.
Correlation meeting was canceled, unfortunately, and our appointment
with Erika and Hector fell through, too. It seemed like a lot of
running around during the day for just a dinner appointment, but we do
have days like that on occasion.
Saturday, June 14th, 2014:
The branch needed our help with setting up for a Father's Day
activity, so we had to be at the church at 6 AM. It was way too early
to be getting up before 5 AM. With as hard as we work everyday,
anything less than the full eight hours of sleep makes it really
difficult to function. We helped out at the activity, which ended up
being really successful. The branch made breakfast for all of the
Hermanos in the ward, and they also televised one of the World Cup
games for them to watch. If you think that Americans are crazy about
football, you should see Latinos and soccer! There are an estimated
2.5 billion people expected to be watching the World Cup this year,
meaning that it will be impossible for us to be working here whenever
Mexico is playing. After finishing up at the breakfast, we went over
to Hermana Alvarez's house to help her with service in her garden. She
needed a lot of help chopping out some bamboo, so we went to do about
two hours worth of service and clean up a lot of bamboo in her garden.
After finishing up with the second service activity of the day, we
returned back to the apartment and ate dinner with Elder Merrill and
Elder Turner, who were working around our area and wanted to come eat
with us. I love those short times that we have to bond together as
missionaries and enjoy the company of one another. To conclude the
evening, we were able to meet up with a recent convert in the ward,
Genaro Fuentes, to teach a lesson to Erika and Hector. We had planned
to talk about baptism to reaffirm the vision that we have for them,
and Genaro was amazing in the lesson. He felt prompted to bring his
journal to share his experience of getting baptized, and it fit right
in with the lesson perfectly! Hector even began describing the feeling
that he was getting during the whole lesson, which was exactly what
the Spirit feels like! It was such a powerful and spiritual lesson.
Erika and Hector are progressing very well and have tremendous
potential.
Sunday, June 15th, 2014:
Church was really good again, but we had a few problems with some
Hermanos going into deep doctrine during the classes. Latinos seem to
love talking about all of the deep doctrines that aren't really
important for our salvation, which ends up confusing all of the recent
converts and investigators; it makes our job as missionaries a
complete nightmare. We talked with President Muriel for well over two
hours after church about a lot of things that the branch needs and how
we can fix all of the problems. It was a really productive meeting
with him, and we planned out how to solve a lot of problems that need
immediate attention. Elder Barnes and I then went to work with finding
people the remainder of the day, but we didn't have any success. It
has been a little difficult as of late to find new investigators, so
we will likely focus on that in the upcoming weeks.
Thank you again for all of your love and support! I appreciate
everything that each and every one of you does for me! I hope you all
remember to appreciate your fathers beyond just Father's Day and look
for opportunities to be able to serve them, just as the Savior would
do. Have a great week, everyone!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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