Hey Everyone!
I hope that everyone has had a great week! This week has been really
busy, and we haven't had a whole lot of time to work in our area
together, due to exchanges and the stomach flu; however, we have been
seeing a number of miracles, which has testified to us of the Lord's
timing in everything that we do. We are getting ready to be bloated on
Thanksgiving, but we will survive!
Wednesday, November 19th, 2014:
Due to the short transfer (five weeks, instead of the usual six), I
have to do exchanges a lot more frequently than normal. I went to
Belvedere 2 - East to do exchanges with Elder Marchan today. We spent
about a transfer and a half together in Azusa, so it was really fun to
catch up again. Elder Marchan and I will also be leaving on the same
day to return home, so we have been out on the mission about the same
length of time. During the morning, we contacted a few former
investigators. I then had a meeting with the other district leaders,
zone leaders and sister trainers for our zone. It seems like everyone
is divided into three distinct groups with distinct ideas: the
district leaders are all on the same page; the zone leaders are on a
different boat; and the sister trainers are lobbying to go a different
way with zone meeting. It is interesting to see how important it is
for leadership to all be on the same page when preparing to teach a
group. During the afternoon, Elder Marchan and I taught a couple of
investigators named Mike and Giselle about the Plan of Salvation. They
had a lot of very good questions, even though some of the questions
touched on some deeper doctrines that we didn't want to discuss (to
avoid confusing them). We were able to help them see the positive
effects of the Fall of Adam. During the evening, a number of our
appointments fell through, but we had an awesome lesson with an
investigator family named the Becerra family (no relation to my
previous mission president, at least that I know of). We didn't know
exactly what they needed, so we began by asking inspired questions to
help the family see that they had already received their answer that
the Church is true. It was an awesome lesson, and they actually
committed to be baptized a week from this coming Sunday.
Thursday, November 20th, 2014:
For the first time in quite a while, I did not recognize or even know
the majority of my zone. I am finally getting to the point on my
mission where I am becoming one of the "older" missionaries. Elder
Cobb and Elder Gallegos did a wonderful job of teaching zone meeting,
and Hermana Beckett and Hermana Hernandez presented the importance of
maintaining a positive attitude in a wonderful manner, too. I wonder
if zone meeting may have tried to touch on too many topics, however,
to be as effective as it could have been; I honestly believe that the
lack of unity yesterday in our preparation meeting may have played a
part in that. Regardless, the Spirit was present, and I'm sure that
everyone got something out of the meeting that they needed for their
individual area and investigators. Elder Alcaraz and I went to go eat
dinner with Maria Manriquez later during the day. She is such a sweet,
old lady who loves learning about the Gospel. We shared "The
Restoration" video with her and discussed the importance of having the
Priesthood authority to perform the ordinance of baptism. She seemed
kind of reluctant to accept the invitation to be baptized, but she did
begin to understand the importance better as we continued to talk with
her. All of her family has been encouraging her to take the step and
be baptized, even though none of them are members. She is just a
little scared of the unknown, but she is ready. She accepted a
baptismal date for December 7th, 2014, and we are going to go to the
Temple Visitors' Center on December 2nd with her, too. We ended our
evening by teaching the Preach My Gospel class at the church to all of
the ward missionaries. Elder Alcaraz and I taught about Chapter 2 of
Preach My Gospel, which addresses the topic of how to study as a
missionary. We were able to teach a powerful lesson in which we
addressed the importance of gaining knowledge in the mind and
understanding in the heart. We can learn and know the Gospel in our
mind, but we must come to understand it in our heart to be truly
converted, rather than becoming convinced by what someone says; only
the Spirit can help us truly understand in our heart.
Friday, November 21st, 2014:
Elder Alcaraz was feeling a little sick for the better part of the
morning, so I had him lay down and sleep for a few hours. During that
time, I got a big chunk of reading done in the Book of Mormon in
Spanish; I am now just eight pages away from finishing The Book of
Mormon in Spanish for the second time. Supposedly, there is a promise
from an apostle that states that a missionary will not lose his or her
mission language if he or she reads The Book of Mormon twice in the
mission language as a missionary. Elder Alcaraz and I then began
weekly planning. It was a little difficult to concentrate because we
were both unusually sleepy, but we managed to plan very well for how
to begin working with a lot of the less-actives in our area. The
Belvedere 2 Ward has an average of about 175 people at church every
week, but the ward list shows that there are about 825 members. We are
trying to follow our mission president's counsel and begin to work
with the less-active members more. There was a mission in the
Philippines not too long ago that stopped all work with investigators
and only worked with less-active members for one full calendar year.
The interesting thing was that the number of baptisms remained
constant, but they were also able to bring back countless numbers of
people into the Church. The Work of Salvation is meant to unite
members and missionaries so that we may save souls, not just baptize
people. Salvation requires much more than baptism, and we aren't doing
our job correctly if we put one facet of the Work of Salvation ahead
of another. Elder Alcaraz and I later went to teach Hermano Antonio
Escobar for the first time. He normally hides from the missionaries,
but he felt the Spirit when Elder Alcaraz and I gave him a blessing,
prompting him to listen to us. We focused on how he can become a
better father as he begins to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ more. We
shared a Mormon Message entitled "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" to
further illustrate that principle. It was a powerful lesson, and
Hermano Escobar said that he now wants to become part of our religion.
At the end of the evening, we had our ward Thanksgiving party. There
was a huge turnout, and we were able to see a lot of investigators who
came. Despite the fact that the activity started nearly an hour late,
it was very successful. The food was delicious, and I think that the
mole may have been the best mole that I have ever tasted in my life.
At the end of the night, I began exchanges with Elder Turner in his
area, Belvedere 2 - South.
Saturday, November 22nd, 2014:
For the first time in approximately six months, I did exchanges with
Elder Turner; it was our first time together since our days serving
together back in El Molino. I enjoy serving around him, and it will be
sad to see him go home in just three weeks from now. Our service
project in the morning ended up canceling, so we went by an
investigator named Janelle. She didn't seem really interested, but
Elder Turner and Elder Coca have been doing a lot of service for her
to help her see the love that comes from the Gospel. We were able to
set up a service project with her for the following week. We then went
to teach a recent convert named Jose Garcia about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ with a specific focus on having the companionship of the Holy
Ghost. He is a very strong recent convert and shows a lot of progress
spiritually. Elder Turner and I then read in the Book of Mormon with a
less-active member named Hermano Chavez. He seemed very interested to
learn, and we were able to help him understand how he can better apply
the teachings of the Book of Mormon to his own life. I feel like we,
as missionaries, often teach the "what" and the "why" behind the
doctrines, but we often neglect the "how"; many people understand the
importance of what we teach, but we don't always provide them with the
tools that they need to become self-reliant. We finished our evening
by stopping by Hermana Calderon. She talked to us about how she wants
her son to serve a mission and how we can help him gain the desire to
serve an honorable, full-time mission for the Lord. Serving the Lord
as a full-time missionary is a great privilege and honor; however, it
is a personal commitment that cannot be made by a parent pushing the
young man or young woman to serve. Living the Gospel, like serving a
mission, is an individual commitment and cannot be forced by someone
else. The whole purpose of the Gospel is to change the desires of our
hearts so that we naturally want to live more like Christ would have
us live.
Sunday, November 23rd, 2014:
I have been rather fortunate over the course of my mission: I haven't
ever had to stay home as a result of my companion and I being sick. It
was not meant to continue that way, however. After Sacrament Meeting,
I immediately began realizing that I may have caught the stomach flu.
Elder Alcaraz and I got a ride home from Sergio Mata after the end of
Gospel Principles, and I ended up sleeping or laying in bed from 11:30
AM until 9:00 PM. I would have laid there the entire night, but the
only thing causing me to get up was Sunday night calls. I couldn't eat
or drink anything all day. Hermano Becerril came over to give me a
blessing and also to bring a small bowl of soup. It was wonderful to
see how caring the members of the Belvedere 2 Ward are.
Despite the craziness of the week with mission conference last Monday
and P-Day last Tuesday, in addition to two exchanges and a day of
being bed-ridden, the week actually produced a lot of miracles and
positive experiences. I am still feeling a little sick, but I have
been able to recuperate immensely since yesterday. I'm hoping to be
back to full strength in order to win the soccer tournament on
Thursday for Thanksgiving and then also have the stomach to be able to
eat three or four dinners. I hope everyone has a wonderful week and
remembers to always be thankful for the meaningful things in life.
More important than material possessions are the experiences with
family and the opportunity to learn and grow. Truly, Christ paid the
price so that we could rise again from our mistakes. May we all
remember Him always!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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