Hey
Everyone!
I apologize for not getting around to sending off my weekly email last
week. We went hiking in Pasadena, which did not leave sufficient time
to be able to spend a great deal of time emailing. It was a rough week
the previous week, but this past week has proven to be much more
productive and full of miracles. Elder Corbett and I have been
discerning much quicker when we teach, which has helped us drop people
who are not willing to progress with a much faster rate.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2015:
We had zone conference today, and Presidente Villanueva asked me to
conduct the zone conference. I was a little anxious going in because
it was my first time ever conducting a missionary-related meeting, but
I feel like everything went well. Presidente Villanueva has the zone
leaders make the program for zone conference, so we planned everything
with the East Los Angeles - South zone leaders, Elder Cobb and Elder
Alcaraz. During our portion of zone conference, Elder Corbett and I
taught our zone about the Christ-like attribute of humility. We shared
Mosiah 3:19 and talked about how the process of becoming a disciple of
Christ is related to being humble and fulfilling our missionary
purpose. It was a powerful meeting, and Presidente Villanueva made
some very powerful comments during our meeting. Overall, zone
conference was very uplifting, and it was a very neat experience to be
able to plan and conduct the meeting. After zone conference, we taught
Carolina Garcia. She had been thinking about dropping us, but we began
asking a number of powerful inspired questions about why she wants to
be baptized. Carolina began to see how much she has already changed
and why she truly wants to follow Jesus Christ more fully in her life.
Inspired questions can help someone see the bigger picture of how the
Gospel can bless their life.
Wednesday, February 25th, 2015:
We did exchanges with the assistants today, so Elder Fellows came to
Lincoln Heights to work with me while Elder Ramos stayed in Boyle
Heights with Elder Corbett. It was my first exchange with Elder
Fellows, even though he was my zone leader for a large portion of my
mission. We got right to work and had a successful day after we got
supplies from the mission office. Elder Fellows is very easy-going and
is great with all kinds of people. We began our day by teaching Maria,
Maria Ofelia, and Mateo Lopez. We contacted them on the street, and
they let us right in to their home to share a message. They were
willing to listen when they weren't trying to preach their own
message. They were very involved in their Christian church, so we
decided that it would be best to not continue to teach them. We later
went to teach Juan Jaimes with the help of Jose Mendez. We taught
about the Plan of Salvation and how Juan can be together with his
family forever. Jose shared a very powerful testimony, which invited
the Spirit to testify to Juan about the power of the Atonement in his
life. I learned a lot from Elder Fellows during the exchange about how
to enjoy life and do missionary work at the same time; I seem to
struggle with having fun and being happy while doing missionary work
at the same time because I often am too serious while I am going from
appointment to appointment. The exchange was very successful overall,
both in Lincoln Heights and in Boyle Heights.
Thursday, February 26th, 2015:
Due to zone conference, there was no district meeting today. We still
went around to the different districts to deliver supplies and mail,
though. Elder Corbett and I went to teach Jorge Perez during the
afternoon for the first time in a couple of months. We were very bold
with him about the importance of baptism, seek that he already knows
that the Book of Mormon is true. Jorge understood the need to be
baptized, but he doesn't want to leave behind his family traditions
because his whole family is Catholic. It amazes me that people will
forego the truth that God tells them for what other people think of
them; the first Commandment was to love God, meaning that we must love
His will more than our own will and more than the will of our friends.
Elder Corbett and I then went to teach Wendi Martinez. She is doing
extremely well and has been progressing wonderfully since being
baptized just a few weeks ago. We taught about the principle of
forgiveness and how she can forgive others in order to become more
patient and charitable. We concluded our day by teaching the
second-most prepared person that I have ever taught on my mission
(only behind Ruben Torrado from Chino). His name is Eric, and he had a
lot of great questions of the soul. As we testified to him about how
much God loves him, he remembered an experience of when a man came up
to him to tell him how much God loved him. It had only happened two
weeks prior, and we knocked on his door just two hours after he had a
lengthy discussion about religion with a girl that he went on a date
with. Everything caused us to show up at that exact moment, and the
lesson was extremely powerful. I am very excited to see Eric's
progress over the coming weeks and months.
Friday, February 27th, 2015:
Elder Corbett and I have been very physically exhausted lately, due to
the fact that we have been getting up one hour early every morning to
go running. As a result, it was a little difficult to focus and be
alert during weekly planning. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles made a remark once that said that the success
that a missionary has during morning studies and in planning will
affect the success of the day; I can honestly say that our struggle to
focus during weekly planning made it a little difficult to find very
much success during the day of work. We both received the impression
to visit a less-active member named Leticia Preciado. She was baptized
in our area about two years ago, so we decided to stop by. We
discovered that she had passed away about two days ago and that the
family was all mourning her death at her house. Leticia had been a
heavy drinker, but the death still came as a huge surprise to her
loved ones. We talked with a few members of the family about God's
Plan of Happiness, and they expressed interest in learning more about
how they can all be together forever. It always amazes me how people
only seem to turn to God in times of despair, yet people always ask
the question about why God lets bad things happen in the world. If
nothing bad ever happened, humanity would be way too prideful to ever
remember its Creator.
Saturday, February 28th, 2015:
We went to correlation meeting with Hermano Ojeda during the morning.
We talked a lot about how we can all be more united with our vision of
missionary work here in Arroyo. Elder Corbett and I then went to teach
Hermana Padilla, a less-active member, about how to apply the Book of
Mormon to her own life. She expressed a little bit of depression, due
to the fact that her sons are studying in Arizona and that she feels
lonely. We read 1 Nephi 4:1-7 with her and helped her see the
connection between her life and that of Sariah's. It is incredible to
see how the Book of Mormon can answer any question or problem that we
may encounter in life. We then went to teach another less-active
member named Oscar Zavaleta. He was baptized in Canada as a teenager
and then went less-active when he became an adult. We talked with him
a lot and helped him see how the Church was a source of strength for
him as he grew up. Oscar expressed that he would like to come back to
an English ward, so we are going to pass him off to the English
Elders. Elder Corbett and I then saw a wonderful miracle with the
Vargas family when we went to teach them during the evening. We shared
the Sacrament prayers with them. The Vargas family then began to get
really close together on the couch and asked a number of questions
relating to the Commandments and what we have to do to truly follow
Jesus Christ. The Spirit was very powerful, and they received their
own testimony that the Gospel truly does bless families. I love that
family more than any investigator family that I have taught on my
entire mission, and I am very excited to be able to watch their
spiritual progression.
Sunday, March 1st, 2015:
Carolina Garcia came to church today for the first time in several
weeks, which was very exciting to see. Church was uplifting, and a few
members shared their simple, powerful and heartfelt testimonies during
Sacrament Meeting. The power of a testimony comes from the conviction
of a person's belief and the sincerity of their belief. True
conversion comes when we act upon the testimony that we receive from
the Holy Ghost. The purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to help
us gain a testimony and then become converted so that we can return to
live with our Father in Heaven again. Elder Corbett and I went to
teach a former investigator named Antonio Sanchez. He had expressed
interest in having us come by, so we went in with the excitement and
anticipation that he would be ready to act on our message. He seemed
like he had no desire to change, so we were extremely bold with him.
The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ helps us change the desires of our
hearts, so we must act in order to increase our faith and change our
inward desires. Elder Corbett and I also taught the Giron family. He
has been trying to understand the repentance process better.
Repentance requires sincere and lasting change, both within and
outside of the individual. If one is to repent, he or she must change
both inward desires and outward behavior. We ended our week by eating
with the Jurado family. They seem to be opening up to us more and
more, and I love visiting them on Sunday evenings.
For our P-Day today, Elder Corbett and I are going with Elder Flindt
and Elder Garcia to the mercadito in East Los Angeles. It should be
really fun, and we are all looking forward to the gorditas that they
sell there. We are looking forward to a tasty lunch, in preparation
for the monumental changes that will be coming tomorrow. I have heard
rumors about exchanging the iPads for some special "pens", but we will
see what that is all about tomorrow when we have our training meeting
in Arcadia. The head of the Missionary Department and a member of the
First Quorum of Seventy, Elder Nielsen. I am really excited to see how
the Church has completely changed its vision of how technology will be
used in the Hastening of the Work of Salvation. I hope everyone has a
wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley
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