Week 61- October 13, 2014 - Pomona

Dear home,

This week was another fast one. But a good one. For starters, we got

to watch meet the Mormons, which was awesome. I definitely enjoyed it

and recommend everyone to go watch it!

This week, we had MLC and zone meeting. We focused a lot on less actives and personal conversion in our zone. We took time to establish

what our Vision, Goals, Plans, and Accountability for ourselves on

what we want to become. I focused on trying to become "the man of

Christ" (Hel. 3:29). So that is what I am working on. We finished the

meeting with having the three new trainees that just came in bear

their testimonies and it was awesome. The spirit was very strong. I

can tell that they will be way better missionaries than I am. The

world is in great hands!

This week, we had exchanges with the Azusa elders, they cover a very

white part. It is always interesting to go to those areas because I

feel like I'm back home haha. But while I was out, ,y companions had a

great lesson with Sara. She admitted that she needs to change the way

she treats Luis and acts, so things are looking great there. Luis is

doing awesome, as well. My companions taught him as well. His

fellowshipper, Alfred (he is an RM who served in the mission that

 Hunter Roeller is in), has been doing really well with him. He invited

him to hang out with a group of the young single adults from the stake

and had a really good time. And we didn't even know about it til then!

Apparently, Luis was really happy about it and couldn't stop smiling.

Goes to show that a small invite and some quality time goes a long

way. They shared with him the strength for youth, primarily focused on

the language part. He had a bit of a sailors mouth, but he is doing

awesome. It's been pretty great to see him progress and change. It'd be cool if he could go to BYU-I with Alfred (that's where he goes),

but he has a 3 year old daughter, so I'm not sure what he could do

there. The only thing holding him back is smoking. He has reduced to

it to 1 cigarette about 4-5 days out of 7. He always calls us though

and let's us know what his trigger was so that we can work on it.

We're trying to help him pick up some habits like working out or

drawing. Overall, he's doing great.

I'm going to send the Man of Christ talk as well, you should read it.

But yeah, I can't really think of anything else. Love you!

        

Week 60- October 6, 2014 - Pomona

Dear home,

This week went by pretty fast. I do not have a lot of time to write,

but I really liked General Conference. Something that stood out a lot

to me was personal conversion. Lately, we have been focusing mainly on

the conversion of our investigators. But I feel that something that is

really key, and also fixes a lot of problems, is our personal conversion. 

We are really excited especially because our zone is

really young and ready to go. It's weird because I feel like all the

people I knew and have been around my whole mission are all home!

But that's all I really have time to write right now. We've seen some

great miracles along the way and are excited to continue. Love you!

Week 59- September 29, 2014 - Pomona

Dear home,

This past weekend was transfer call weekend. And I got called to:

(drumroll) stay in Pomona with the same companionship!! I am still a

ZL as well. I probably say this everytime, but I definitely expected

to be released and transferred this time, but it seems like I always

end up getting surprised when these come around. But it looks like,

once again, I have a lot more to learn.

This past week, all three of us in our companionship were absolutely

exhausted. We all ended up getting a bit sick because of it too, so we

had to take some time to rest. Right now we are feeling a bit better,

so that's good.

This past week went pretty well. We have been working with Luis,

Sara's son, a lot. He is progressing really well towards baptism. He

came to church yesterday and for some reason, as his mom said the

opening prayer in gospel principles class, he started crying. I didn't

ask him about it since he kinda likes to play the tough guy image

sometimes. But I feel that he felt the spirit as his mom prayed. 

This past Sunday Jenny, Sara's 9 year old daughter, gave a talk in primary!

We helped her write it and she asked us to watch her give it. It was

really cute haha. She said that when she got baptized she felt like

"there were 100 happy people smiling inside of me." They are doing

great. We are focusing a lot on the relationship between Sara and her

kids because she can be a bit impatient with them. But we think as

Luis keeps changing, she will have her heart softened a bit more.

Other than that, not too much out of the ordinary has been going on.

With Rigo, we have set a goal for giving up meth for 21 days and he is

about 5 days away from that, so we are focusing on that before we

start teaching him in depth. Things have been going well, we are

really excited to continue working in this trio.

Love you All!

Week 58- September 22, 2014- Pomona

Side story before the big email. I went on exchanges with the APs this past week and I got to go to visit Boyle Heights. We were teaching this guy who is about in his 20s named Jorge. He is originally from Boyle Heights, but for the past year almost, he was living in San Francisco due to work. A friend introduced him to the church and he was right about to get baptized, but he had a setback and ended up moving back to Boyle heights. So where am I going with this? In that past year or so while he was investigating the church, he visited his family in Boyle heights for a weekend and decided to go to church on Sunday (this was in December when I was there). He went to the Boyle heights sacrament and after I talked to him! In the middle of the lesson he stopped and said: Hermano: you look really familiar... Were you at the church in east la in December? And I said yes, of course. And then he explained how he visited that day, but no one talked to him. Apparently I was the only person that had talked to him at church and that made his day haha! After the lesson he gave me a big hug and we took a picture together, I will send it in a bit. Pretty cool!

Temple visit with the Nava family

Someone is taking a nap!

With the Nava family at the Temple

Dear home,

This week went by pretty fast and at the same time pretty slow. We

had 2 exchanges, one with Elder Tovar, the Pomona district leader. The

other one was with the assistants in Boyle Heights.

And then on top of that we had zone conference towards the end of the week.

The first exchange went alright, I stayed in my area with Elder

Stuart, Elder Tovar's trainee, in my area. We had to do a lot of stuff

on the computer so it wasn't super eventful. Then that night as we

finished that exchange, we started the exchange with the assistants. 

I got to go back to my hometown Boyle Heights haha! The Assistants cover

the one Spanish young single adult Ward in the mission as well as

Boyle heights. But this day we got to teach just all YSAs. It was

definitely a lot more different than teaching the older people who are

stuck in Catholicism and refuse to be open. It was a pretty great day

full of finding prepared people. 

We contacted a 21 year old guy fixing his car. We asked him when we could come by and he said right now, but we had an appointment to go to so he said we could come back after we finished. The appointment wasn't there so we went back and he opened the door and said "where do you guys want to go to lunch?" You can imagine how happy I was since I was getting hungry. But he just took

us to subway and paid for us! We talked to him as we ate and he said he is looking for a church where he can belong to and develop family values in which he can start his own family. For those of you who are not familiar with the people of east LA, that is extremely uncommon for a 21 year old guy to have desires like that hahah. 

The day just kept going like that, which was pretty fun haha.

The day after that we had zone conference. It was pretty good to get

to hear from president and his counsellors. The main focus was on

obedience. Recently, president took away sports since a lot of people

 have been getting injured and have been going home because of that.

Even though he said it's just temporary, a lot of people sent him some

less than kind emails because of that. So he just helped us understand

that we need to realize why we have rules. (A lot of those came from

English work).

Then in the weekend we had a temple visit with Sara, Jenny, and Luis.

It was pretty cool to see Luis come to even though he had just gotten out of work and was super tired. It went pretty well, it was great to see all the family together. Jenny and Sara got confirmed this Sunday as well. Elder Merrill gave

Sara a really powerful blessing. It seemed to had made such an

impression on her that this morning she called us asking if we could

write it down for her so she can remember it and share it with Luis (he wasn't able to go to church).

So all in all, it was a pretty good week. This is the last week of the

transfer, so we'll see what happens!

 Love you all!

Week 57- September 15, 2014- Pomona

Jenny and her mom are getting baptized!

Dear home,

This week we were very blessed to be able to baptize Sara and Jenny

Nava. It was a great service, the spirit was really strong. Something

that really stood out to me in Sara's testimony after she got baptized

was: "They (the missionaries) listened to me before I listened to

them." Which was exactly what we have been focusing on these past few

weeks. It was great to be there and be a part of their conversion. The

cool thing too is that Luis, her 21 year old son, came to church with

his sister and mom! We had a great lesson with him the day before at

the church and we reset him for baptism for the 19th of October, which

he was pretty excited about.

Jenny's baptism

This week we had zone meeting. Elder Merrill and I focused on helping

our investigators be converted and being more charitable to them. We

used the talk "The challenge to become" by Dallin H. Oaks in the

October 2000 general conference. What I really liked was that he

talked about how about how charity is a condition, not just something

you do. Really great! Our sister trainer did a great job in sharing in

her testimony as well. It turned out that the missionaries who

baptized her when she was around 10 years old didn't put in too much

effort on helping her being converted. As a result, she went inactive

all the way up to about a bit over 7 months before she came on her

mission. The spirit was really strong through out the meeting, it was

awesome. 

This week we have zone conference and president has given

elder Merrill and I the opportunity to talk to our zones for an hour,

so we are excited for the opportunity to follow up on it.

Yesterday we had a meeting with the area 70, elder Haney and the

"Arcadia Council." I didn't even know this kind of thing existed, but

we went with all the ZLs and sister trainers in the mission and the

Arcadia Council. This just consists of all the stake presidents, stake

relief society president and all the presidencies, all this fancy

stuff. 

 Elder Haney introduced to us this program called

"Just Serve." Justserve.org is the website for this program. So far it

is only rolled out in Texas and California, from what I understand.

Justserve is a really useful way to find service opportunities within

the community. You should definitely check it out, I don't want to

spoil it haha.

Love you all!

Week 56, September 8, 2014- Pomona

Dear home,

This week went by way too fast! It makes it kind of hard to remember what happened.

This past Saturday we had Elder Brent Nielsen of the first quorum of the 70 come talk to us at MLC. It turns out he just recently got called to be in his calling. His assignment is all of California right now, so the meeting was a bit more of an evaluation rather than a counseling instruction. After the meeting, we had lunch and I was going to ask him another question but instead he told me to sit next to him during lunch, so that was cool to get to talk to him a bit more personally. But overall, it was not as "mind blowing" as I expected it. I guess that just means we have more room to learn on our own.

Elder Ramos is in my old area (Lincoln Heights) which is awesome! He told me that the recent converts I helped are doing awesome, it is always awesome to hear good things about them. I don't know of you remember the lady I talked about in an email a few months ago that I contacted? The one that I talked to in Lincoln heights who we had an awesome lesson with but we had to pass off to another area? Well apparently her and her soon-to-be husband are going to get baptized in a few weeks!! Hopefully I get to go to that baptism haha.

This week, Rigo went to church! It was pretty awesome to see him go.

We had a big miracle as we fasted with him last week. He was able to get this Sunday off to go to church. He did have leave for a bit to satisfy his narcotic temptation, but he loved church and really wants to go back.

We have continued to teach jenny and Sara, and they are doing awesome.

On Tuesday, we went to court with her 21 year old son, Luis. He has a

3 year old daughter that he was trying to get more custody of his daughter. But I have to say, I never want to be in a courtroom again.

The commissioner was so inconsiderate and there was just a lot of sad family cases there. It definitely confirmed to me that God has really been taken out of the law systems. But it was good to be there for Luis, we ate with him after and I think him and I would have definitely hung out before the mission. The only thing is that he has a bit of "flojeritis" so he has a bit of a hard time getting up for church.

Right now, we are focusing on finding more elect investigators who are ready to change and progress. We have been getting a little too comfortable with what we have, so we are really focusing on this.

I know the church is true. I know God lives. I know that the Book of Mormon and the bible are both true. And I know that families can be together forever!

Love you!

Pomona 3, with two future missionaries!

Best tacos in Pomona

Best taco place in town!!

Elder Merrill, It's taco time!!

Week 55- September 1, 2014- Pomona

Week 54- August 25, 2014- Pomona

Dear everyone,

This was a great week. We got to teach over 20 lessons, so it was

super busy. We had some extremely stressful days as well, but at the

end of it all, it was worth it.

As I said in my last email, Elder Merrill and I are in a trio with

Elder Crawford who came in from Boyle Heights. We have been working

really well as a trio and are getting a lot done. Elder Crawford has a

lot of energy, which has been great to bring about miracles.

Especially since Elder Merrill and I are both pretty calm, mellow guys

haha.

This week, the biggest miracle came from Sara,p. She is the lady I

told you about last week that went to church the day after we taught

her and was crying for a majority of the time. We went and taught her

the next day and gave her the date of baptism for this upcoming Sunday

(August 31)! Which she accepted. She has been doing great progressing

and accepting the gospel along with her 9 year old daughter, Jenny. We

also took them, along with Rigo, to see a baptism in our neighboring

district. It went super awesome, all three of them seemed to have felt

the spirit strongly. 

It is really interesting to think about this miracle that God has placed in front of us. I say this because we found her due to God blessing us because of our diligence when we were doing our best to contact 10 people before the night ended right before we went home at like 8:30 at night. And of top of that, the

first lesson with her was Saturday night 3 weeks before the 31st,

which was the last possible moment we could have taught her in order

to be baptized on her date. 

I realized a lot that The Lord blesses us when we put all that we have towards Him and especially in the last moment to test our faith. Trials precede the miracles is probably the biggest lesson have learned these past weeks. As we have been doing our best to be consecrated, we understand more that the trials of

faith are always going to come. And we might always ask ourselves why

those things happen? But those are the times that we need to pray in

order to redouble our faith and continue to be diligent. So that was

the big part I wanted to share. We are doing great, Rigo is doing

really well too and we are working really hard. Love you all!!

True doctrine understood changes behavior ;)

Week 53- August 18, 2014- Pomona

Dear home,

Transfers came this past weekend and elder Merrill and I got called to

stay together in Pomona as ZLs! I am officially the ZL with the most

time as a ZL in Spanish work... I think I might be getting old... I

hit my field mark this week as well!

This week we had some awesome miracles! Firstly I will start with

Rigo. Last week we had set the goal with him to get rid of his Santa

Muerte. We found an awesome fellowshipper for him named Berenice.

Berencice has been a member all her life but went inactive for a long

time. She was a chola that went to jail, did a lot of drugs, has a

bunch of tattoos, and was even homeless at one point! But she is an

amazing member with a super strong testimony. She clicks really well

with Rigo and they stay in good contact. 

We went by on Thursday to get rid of the Santa Muerte, but Rigo didn't feel ready. We spent about almost 2 hours trying to help him, but he kept saying he didn't feel strong enough. We decided to go inside his house by the idol and after

a few minutes, even our spirit got drained and we got super tired and

weak. At this point, not even elder Merrill and I had the energy to

get rid of it! It was so crazy because we literally could feel those

idols draining us. So we set a date for the upcoming Saturday to get

rid of it. Due to some bedbugs in a sister's pad, we had to split up

with our district leader, elder Tovar, to clean the pad. So I went

with elder Tovar on Saturday morning to help Rigo get rid of his

idols. We were prepping a lot as we walked to his house. We knocked on

the door and when Rigo opened the door, the big Santa Muerte statue

wasn't there! 

This was such a big miracle and surprise! He told us he

knew or was time to let it go so he gave it away. So all we had to get

rid of were the smaller idols and junk he had. So we gathered it all

up and drove to Sodom and Gomorra (Los Angeles) with him to get rid of

it. We had to go to a special idol store where they sold a bunch of

idols and demonic stuff. We quickly dropped the stuff off and ran out

of there. The people that worked there looked enslaved by the devil,

it was pretty sad... I could start feeling our spirit being attacked,

it was crazy! But there was a huge difference in Rigos house after,

his parents seemed happy that he got rid of it . So things are going

awesome with him, he should be able to go to church this Sunday.

This week we saw some miracles of finding a really humble family, and

some unexpected people going to church. Someone that elder Mathews (my

trainer) taught over a year ago and wanted nothing to do with the

church (his wife is a member) came! After working with him for the

past months, his heart has been softened a lot. As well as a pother

returning members' father (non member) who didn't really want to

change, went to church as well. He is a bit older, so lessons are

kinda hard with him, but he went to church, so that is cool. 

We also found a lady who moved to our area about a month or so ago from a

close-by. She actually had some member friends and listened to the

missionaries for a little bit, but nothing big came out of it. But we

taught her for a short 15 minute lesson for the first time on Saturday

and the whole lesson she was crying. The next day she went to church

and brought her daughter with her. I had to leave after sacrament

meeting to do an interview with our district leader in another ward so

elder Merrill took care of our investigators. He said that after

sacrament meeting, she was crying the rest of church. So we are really

excited to continue the work. 

Obedience brings blessings. 

Exact obedience brings miracles! Love you all!