Elder Pérez' Mission: September 2014

Thursday, September 18, 2014

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!