Week 47- July 7, 2014- Pomona

Dear everyone,

First things first, president Villanueva came in! He is super awesome and very Mexican. He doesn't speak English very well, but he is ready to work and get it done. He said he wants to go on visits with all the

ZL companionships in this upcoming transfer. I'm pretty excited for what's to come with him as mission president.

This past week, we had an awesome miracle. Like I had said last week, we didn't have anyone at church, so it was a bit tough for us to see especially with the goal we had set of 12 baptisms. This week I was praying a lot that I would have the faith to achieve my part of the goal. 

A few days after Sunday elder Clark, one of the DLs that was in my previous zone, messed me on Facebook. He asked that I go by one of his recent converts that lives in my area. So, I decided to go over the next day since I had never met her. We met her and her 12 year old daughter, Desiree. It turned out that just the mom got baptized a few months ago, but not the daughter. So elder Williams and I talked to the daughter for a bit and it turned out that previously, she really didn't like what we shared and she was really set on her catholic ways. She said that when the missionaries came by to share something,

she would usually just go to her room and not want anything to do with what they had to say (yes, a 12 year old girl was saying this). But a few weeks ago she went to girls camp and she had an awesome spiritual experience. She felt the spirit very strongly and knows she needs to change now, and she wants to get baptized in the following weeks,

before July 30. It was an amazing miracle we saw, we are very excited to help her get to her goal of baptism!

My previous companion, elder Williams, went home this morning. My new companion is elder Mitchell Merrill. He came out at the same time Elder Fellows so he is about 3 months ahead of me, mission wise. It's

kinda funny, because they used to be home teaching companions at BYU.

We had zone meeting this past week as well. Since we didn't receive any instruction, we had to come up with our own lesson. We based it off of an article in the July 1985 Ensign called: 

"Spencer W. Kimball's vision of missionary work." I would sugges that all members

read it! One of my favorite lines from it is: "Others see things and

say why, but I dream things that never were and ask, why not?"

The Spencer Kimball added: "The problems of the world cannot possibly

be solved by skeptics and cynics whose horizons are limited by the

obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things and ask, why

not?"

I love these quotes and the reminder they give us on having faith. I

plan to continue to exercise more of that so that we can accomplish

our great goals here.

Chao! Love you all!

Week 46- June 30, 2014- Pomona

Dear everyone,

Well, I have to say, this was one of the worst weeks I've had on church attendance. Now, I'm not saying that I blame the World Cup Mexico soccer game that was on at the same time, BUT it may or may not have had something to do with it... There were quite a few members that didn't show up for that same reason... But it was good to see the strong members there.

Last week, I forgot to write about the Becerra's farewell, so I will this week. Both sister and president Becerra spoke. They focused a lot on something they called the "Ideal Growth Cycle." Which

consists of: being raised in a family with ideal principles, going out on your own and applying them, getting married, and raising children of your own and them repeat. So they focused a lot on marriage and how

we just need to get married and sealed. It was a bit interesting, especially since that's like the last thing on my mind right now. But I'm sure when the time comes, their advice will come back to me hahaha.

Tomorrow is President Villanueva's first day, and the day after we have a meeting with him with the rest of the zone leaders and sister trainers. We are pretty excited for what's to come!

This week, we set goals with the district leaders in our zone. The Pomona district leader set a whopping goal of 12. We all agreed on it, even though it's going to need all our faith and effort this month.

It's definitely not going to be easy, and we have already seen trials of our faith coming, so we really have to grip down and believe it is

going to happen.

This is my companions last week, so we're trying to make it count! I forgot what else I was going to say, so I will just leave it at that 

for the week, things are starting to pick up more and we are getting it going!

Love you!!

With the new mission president and his wife, Elder and sister Villanueva