Transfer 16, Week 3, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

 This is a pic that Ben Manning took. (one of my former companions). This is Gospel Principles with Jamarius.




Dear Family,

Wow! Amazing week! Great experiences regarding last weeks theme of  following the spirit! 

So first off, Monday we met with Savannah and we asked her how her reading went. She said that last Saturday she felt the Holy Ghost and she feels like its true. We told her to ask her parents when we could schedule the baptism and she said she would. She seems super excited to get baptized! However... this last Friday we found out that they are getting evicted and they will be moving to a different Zone that the one we cover. So that was pretty depressing. The 2nd person that we have so close to baptism and then moves, in the last 2 weeks! So we were pretty sad about that and this morning (Monday the 31st) we helped Kevin, her dad, and Savannah move out. They will be coming to our ward for a while until they can settle in. We really hope that she continues to progress and that Kevin will want to take the lessons. 

On Tuesday we had a pretty slow day. We had District Meeting in the morning and then we had a good lesson with Armour right after our meeting. We taught him part of the 1st lesson and right after we talked about Joseph Smith he said that he was really tired and hungry since he had not eaten breakfast yet. So we said we will teach the rest of the lesson next time we meet. Teaching him is such a different experience than everyone else I've ever taught. We go over the basic points of the principle that we are teaching, he asks questions that he has, and then when he is ready (done learning about that subject) he turns the page and we move on. I really feel like we are going at his pace and he is really understanding what we are teaching. He came to church on Sunday and he seemed to enjoy it. He darted out at the end of the meeting but Sister Bryan sprinted to go and talk to him (awesome members!). Elder Campbell was able to talk to him and he said he would be back next week. 

So after our lesson with Armour we had to go to the mission office, as we do every week, and by the time that was over it was almost time for dinner. We decided to try to meet one of our potential investigators, Kim and Reese. Before we got to their house we saw this guy walking to his truck. We started talking to him and he said that he goes to another church. He kept talking to us, however, because he said that if he ignored us then we might dust our feet off at him haha. So we continued to talk and he said that he and his wife are separated becasue he has some things he needs to take care of. I smelt alchohol on his breath when we first talked to him so I just assumed that it was that. I had a prompting to tell him about the addiction recovery program and when they met but I thought it would be too awkward so I didnt. He asked us what our names were and we told him Elder was a title. So he said, "Oh well I guess I'm Elder Gomez!". so we finished talking and started to walk to our potentials house. Then I told Elder Campbell that I had a prompting to tell him about the addiction recovery program. Then I said, 'oh I have to do it now'. So we turned around and walked toward his truck (in which he was sitting at this point) and I told him that I felt that I needed to give him this info about the program. He was appreciative and we headed over to our potentials home. 

Transfer 16, Week 3, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family, 

So first off, Monday we met with Savannah and we asked her how her reading went. She said that last Saturday she felt the Holy Ghost and she feels like its true. We told her to ask her parents when we could schedule the baptism and she said she would. She seems super excited to get baptized! However... this last Friday we found out that they are getting evicted and they will be moving to a different Zone that the one we cover. So that was pretty depressing. The 2nd person that we have so close to baptism and then moves, in the last 2 weeks! So we were pretty sad about that and this morning (Monday the 31st) we helped Kevin, her dad, and Savannah move out. They will be coming to our ward for a while until they can settle in. We really hope that she continues to progress and that Kevin will want to take the lessons. 

On Tuesday we had a pretty slow day. We had District Meeting in the morning and then we had a good lesson with Armour right after our meeting. We taught him part of the 1st lesson and right after we talked about Joseph Smith he said that he was really tired and hungry since he had not eaten breakfast yet. So we said we will teach the rest of the lesson next time we meet. Teaching him is such a different experience than everyone else I've ever taught. We go over the basic points of the principle that we are teaching, he asks questions that he has, and then when he is ready (done learning about that subject) he turns the page and we move on. I really feel like we are going at his pace and he is really understanding what we are teaching. He came to church on Sunday and he seemed to enjoy it. He darted out at the end of the meeting but Sister Bryan sprinted to go and talk to him (awesome members!). Elder Campbell was able to talk to him and he said he would be back next week. 

So after our lesson with Armour we had to go to the mission office, as we do every week, and by the time that was over it was almost time for dinner. We decided to try to meet one of our potential investigators, Kim and Reese. Before we got to their house we saw this guy walking to his truck. We started talking to him and he said that he goes to another church. He kept talking to us, however, because he said that if he ignored us then we might dust our feet off at him haha. So we continued to talk and he said that he and his wife are separated because he has some things he needs to take care of. I smelt alcohol on his breath when we first talked to him so I just assumed that it was that. I had a prompting to tell him about the addiction recovery program and when they met but I thought it would be too awkward so I didn't. He asked us what our names were and we told him Elder was a title. So he said, "Oh well I guess I'm Elder Gomez!". so we finished talking and started to walk to our potentials house. Then I told Elder Campbell that I had a prompting to tell him about the addiction recovery program. Then I said, 'oh I have to do it now'. So we turned around and walked toward his truck (in which he was sitting at this point) and I told him that I felt that I needed to give him this info about the program. He was appreciative and we headed over to our potentials home. 

They were not home but as we walked out we saw a guy standing outside on his lawn. We waved and started to walk toward him but he went inside his house. As we were walking away we saw him come out and say, 'are you selling anything?'. We walked up and talked to him. He was joking about selling something and he was very familiar with missionaries. He said that his son goes to Spring Valley High school and that he knows a lot of mormons there. He asked for 'Literature' and we gave it to him. He said, 'So is this how I become a member of your church?'. I told him,, pretty much yes, without saying yes. I said that we like to meet with people and teach them, then they can pray and choose for themselves. He agreed and hopefully we can meet with him this week! His name is Dave and he seems very interested! 

Wednesday we did exchanges with one of the District leaders in the Zone. I had the District Leaders 'new missionary' in our area. It was a great day! We taught the Worku family and invited them out to a baptism on Saturday! They came and seemed to have a good time. the person that was getting baptized is from Africa as well so they were able to talk to each other in their native language. The Worku's didn't come to church this week so we will have to get on them about that :) 

We taught Reese and his friend Mario on Wednesday and they were very drunk... so we decided to leave. We invited them to church and they didn't make it. We will keep trying with them though. We think that the mom, Kim, has some good potential to change. 

We had a pretty good exchange but it was a little stressful and not that great of a day. When Elder Campbell and I got together we were talking about our day and just trying to find something to make it better, because our dinner cancelled and they were scheduled to feed us at 8. We 'walk the streets' and talk to people that are outside, which I think is more effective than knocking on someones door. It was getting pretty late and we didn't have any success. It was about 9:00pm and we were heading back to our house. I looked over at one of the houses and saw that the door was open with the screen door shut. I thought that we needed to knock on it but I was like, "Its 9:00, Im not knocking on a door at 9:00 just because its open". Then I looked back and saw that Elder Campbell was starting to stop and look at the door. So I said, "Fine we will knock on it" haha. We knocked and knocked again. Knocked harder and harder because we were determined to talk to this person. She came to the door and we told her who we were and what we do. She said she was not interested but invited us in and gave us water. We left her with our number and she was super nice! I'm glad we knocked on the door! "No effort is wasted!" (PMG chapter 9, I think)

Thursday we had a really good day. We weekly planned and went out to 'walk the streets' before our lesson at 2. We met this really nice lady named Shirley and she was not interested. But we decided to talk to her for a while and then she opened up. she said, "let me tell you a story...". She told us of how she lived in a small town outside of provo, inside a trailer while her husband hunted. She loved the lds people and they were always over giving her fresh fruit and produce. She told her husband that she was going to be a mormon and he said that she needed to read up on it. Well she didn't meet with missionaries and she just read on her own. She found things that she didn't agree with that were pretty deep in our doctrine. So she said that now she doesn't want to get baptized. We invited her to meet with us, she was reluctant. but we gave her our number and she said that she would see us around. 

We met with the Faircloth family, a less active family in the ward, on Thursday evening. We say the daughter Natalia, who is 9, dancing outside on their porch. She does a Michael Jackson impersonation on the Strip on the weekends. She is super good and is getting hired to do some other shows. Hopefully they can start coming to church more. The mom is closing down one of her businesses so hopefully they will have more time now. 

Friday was a terrible day, at first. So there was a sketchy guy driving by our house so we decided to park the car at the house and just walk that day. So we walked a long way on Friday! Talked to a few people but overall not the best day. Friday is when we found out that Savannah, our closest person to baptism is moving. So we were pretty mad and depressed. We decided to keep on walking and up ahead a few blocks we saw this older lady sitting outside and her middle aged son watering the grass. As we were approaching I just thought, "this is not a good day. I'm not in the mood to have to argue with someone or to have to try now. If he gives us any flack I'm just going to say, have a good day, and move on". As we approached and started to talk to him, we realized that he didn't speak very good English but just spoke Spanish. We kept on talking with him and told him that we can have Spanish speaking missionaries come by. He said that would be good because his sister is in the hospital in California. He then came up closer and whispered to us that his sister died at 3:00pm (right now it was about 6) and that he didn't want to tell his mom yet. I pulled out a 'Plan of Salvation' pamphlet and told him that it answers the questions, 'where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going after this life'. I gave it to him and I said, 'I dont know if this will help because its in English'. to which he said, almost choked up, 'No, It will help a lot."

Saturday was amazing! We had exchanges with the Assistants and as we started the exchange we set a goal to follow all the spiritual promptings that we received. It was Elder Crapo and I.  So we went to the baptism that the Worku family was coming to and did some visits. We received a referral on Friday from the referral system. We went to our appointment that we set up. We parked in front of a random house, a few houses away from the referral. As soon as we parked an Asian woman came out of the house and looked at us. It was super awkward so we decided to just contact the referral. We met him, his name is Jamarius. We sad on one of his cars in his  drive way and we stood and talked. He has a strong belief in God and he really wants to change his life. Its funny because I talked to him in December while we were knocking doors on his street! He said, then, that he had a belief in God but things were going well. However, on Saturday he was totally different. He told us that he is a rapper and recently he has seen that he doesn't want to be involved in that anymore, its a bad environment, and he now see's who his really friends are. We taught him the first lesson and committed him to be baptized in April. He was excited and said he would come to church! 

So as we left we got in the car and I felt like we should knock on the Asian lady's door. I saw Elder Crapo looking at the door and he said, 'Should we knock on it?'. Then I said yep!!! 

We knocked and she speaks no English at all! We used hand motions to communicate and I just happened to have a Chinese Book of Mormon in the car. We gave it to her and she was super excited. She motioned that her grandson would be here later at 6. We told her we would be back at six. So we came back and he interpreted for us and we said we would be back on Sunday at 3. So we came back and sat down with them. We told her, through her grandson, about the book of mormon and asked her how she felt when she read the first page. She said she felt happy when she read it. We committed her to read the first chapter and told her that we will be back with Chinese pamphlets. We will be going over on Tuesday. 

We were also able to find someone else and set up a time to meet with them on Tuesday. Her name is Theresa and we were glad that we talked to her!

We had dinner at 5 Guys burgers and this lady that worked there asked us why her daughter cant date this lds kid at school. Her daughter asked her, 'Whats the difference between me and a mormon?"  So we got her information and told her that our message should clear that up. we will be sending missionaries to her. She lives in one of my previous areas in the Red Rock Zone.

So Sunday! Jamarius was 20 minutes early to church! Armour came! Savannah and her dad came! It was great! Oh and also Ali, the girl that we taught the first discussion to last week. We will be passing her off to some other Elders in the Zone. 

Jamarius, in Gospel Principles, was so great! He says so much and he is just looking for truth and absorbing it all! Brother Jolley, the teacher, asked him what the difference was if you had the priesthood or not and Jamarius said, "Well If I as a regular person try to share the gospel with my friends then I wont be as effective. But if I had the priesthood the message will get across to them." (paraphrased) He asked us, "Am I still scheduled to be baptized in April?" he is so excited to be baptized! 

So we were walking in an apartment complex and we met with one girl who said we could come back sometime... and then Natalia Faircloth was randomly there and said hey elders! She was over at her friends house and we were able to talk to the mom. We are going back on Thursday and the Mom, Gina, Said they would come to church. 

We are so excited! As we talk with everyone the Lord trusts us to meet the people we need to! 

Former Elder Ben Manning came to town and it was great to see him! 

Well.. I think Thats about it for this week! I look forward to a great next few weeks!!!

Love, 

Elder John 

"Yes there are real costs associated with meekness. A significant down payment must be made. But it can come from our sufficient supply of pride." -Elder Neal A. Maxwell

"I find that when I get casual in my relationship with Divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no Divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and spirituality returns" -Spencer W. Kimball 

Transfer 16, Week 2, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

This week was great!!!!

This past Monday we taught Savannah the first lesson. It went really well. We had to try to make it very interesting for her because her previous experience with missionaries was very boring. So Elder Campbell drew some funny pictures to help reinforce all of the points of the first lesson. So after we taught with the pamphlets we showed her the pictures that Elder Campbell drew and then we asked her if she would be baptized when she knows its true. Her response was "yes... yes sir" haha it was great! She also came to youth conference this week and she had a really good time! Today we are going to be teaching her the Book of Mormon. 

Tuesday we taught Armour. The last time we met with him we committed him to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and when we followed up on Tuesday he had read through chapter 9. We answered some questions he had and then we brought up baptism. He said he would need to get more familiar with it and that he has already been baptized before, but he still seems very open to it. When we asked him if he has thought/prayed if the Book of Mormon is true and he said, "Oh I guess I never thought of that. I just took it for granted that it was scripture and already true."

We met with a less-active family in the ward, Prestons, and in our previous spiritual thoughts they just kinda think its good but never really feel anything. However this time we shared a Mormon message on the atonement and then I shared a quote from Elder Maxwell, "Do not let yesterday take tomorrow hostage". Then we told them that they can always get better. She teared up a bit and really appreciated our message. They came to church this week and we hope that this is the start of something good. 

We had a recent convert move in to the ward a few weeks ago and he was been in a car accident a few months ago. He is very clingy and we just happen to live a few streets away from him... so we tried to keep it a secret... but an awesome member took him to a dr appointment and then they came to our place to talk to us, while we were at lunch. Cliff said 'Oh I didn't know you lived so close'. Our cover was blown! But I think it will be ok :) 

So it was very sad... Tuesday night we stopped by Konrad's and they were packing up to move to Sacramento the next day! They have had some financial trouble and they are going to live with some friends and family. They said we can send missionaries in a few weeks. We hope that Konrad can have a good experience and meet some great people! 

We had Leadership Training this past Friday and Interviews this past Thursday. Leadership Training was awesome! We received some great training and I'm looking forward to using some of the new things I've learned to help other missionaries and our investigators. 

One of the highlights of this week happened on Saturday night during dinner. We went over to this family's house for dinner and they had a friend there. Her name is Ali. So we ate dinner and everything and I was thinking, "We need to teach her the Restoration. but I don't want it to be awkward." So I thought that we would just say, to everyone, that we have a new teaching style when we teach people. Then we would just show them by teaching The Restoration. So we did. During the lesson we asked her if she had a belief in Christ and she said yes. Her member friend that was sitting next to her said, "You do? I didn't know that" Then Ali said, "ya my family doesn't but I do". So we finished the lesson and I asked her if she knew how to pray. She said she didn't. We went over the basic steps and then I asked her if she would pray about the message we've shared. (I intended for her to just pray on her own later, since there was 8 people at the table) but she said, "Ya I've never prayed before but I'll give it a shot". So she did! It was awesome! She came to church the next day and stayed for all three hours. She lives in another ward in the Stake and we will pass her off to those missionaries soon. 

So after dinner Elder Campbell said that he had the same impression to teach the restoration but he didn't know how we could do it. It was awesome that we both had the same impression. 

Then! Later that day we went to see a former investigator and Elder Campbell asked if he would like to meet with us. He said that he was born a Roman Catholic and he will die one. While he was talking I was thinking, 'That isn't the smartest thing, you need to at least pray about this'. So I tried to come up with a nicer way of telling him that. I told him, "Chris, I care about you and it would seem to me like I was not caring for you like I should if I didn't ask you to do this. Will you at least pray about meeting with us?" He said he would and that he really respects us. 

If we invite out of love then they cant get offended! 

So after those experiences Elder Campbell and I agreed that we would follow every prompting we recieved from the Holy Ghost no matter how stupid we thought it would be. So after we saw Chris we felt like to should see a particular potential investigator and they ended up not being home. So now it was about 8:50... and while we were at the door step and car pulled in to one of the neighbors houses. Elder Campbell said, "Well we know they're home" So we knocked on their door. We knocked about 4 times and they didn't answer. We didn't have "success" from following the Spirit, but now God knows we are listening. 

So one of the recent converts in the ward had her birthday on Sunday. and on Saturday she told us that she wanted flowers for her birthday... Well as Saturday rolled on we forgot to buy her flowers... So Sunday we made flowers out of napkins! and we gave her a card! So now she has flowers that will never die! She really liked them! 

Well I think that's it for this week! 

Love you, 

Elder John 

"Time, that aged nurse, rocked me to patience" - Jon Bartlett

"We are not always the already tempered and helpful hammer which is shaping and pounding another. Sometimes we are merely the anvil." -Neal A. Maxwell

Transfer 16, Week 1, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

This week has been great! 

Monday was a little tough. Elder Gonzales had the flu so we spent a few hours at the quick care to see if he could get some medicine. We were able to barely make it home to clean up and get to transfers, but it all worked out in the end. I am excited to work with Elder Campbell!

This past week we have been able to have a lot of success with meeting with people! We were able to see Savannah, Sister Corn's daughter. When we drove by the house the car was not there so we kept of driving. Then we both agreed that we should try just in case. Well we did and she said she would like to meet with us and start the lessons. The mom is out of town for work for a few months and so the Ward has really stepped up and is doing a really good job with letting her feel welcome. She came to church this week! We are having the Laurel class president and a young women s adviser come with us to our lesson tonight. We are called our study session this morning "Operation: Make Restoration fun and exciting", because her mom told us to make it fun for her :)

We received a referral this week for a newly baptized member that moved into our ward. He was baptized in the Las Vegas Mission a few months ago and was recently involved in a moped accident. He is living with his friends mom, currently, and is having a hard time. His name is Cliff and he has a broken wrist and his jaw is wired shut because he broke it in two places. He is needing a lot of fellowship and help because he is just home all day. He was not able to come to church Sunday because he is having trouble with the pain medication.  

This week we taught Bryan. He will not be able to make his baptism date because he is still living with his girlfriend and this time we taught him it was kinda awkward... because the first time we taught him about moving out or getting married he didn't really get it, I guess. So we just had to straight up tell him. We hope he still wants to meet with us, we haven't heard anything from him since Monday. 

We stopped by Steve and Kristi's this past week and planned on making it a short visit, just to invite them to church and see when a good time would be for us to visit. We ended up staying for a while and talked about finding happiness through being selfless. The came to church Sunday and we asked the Reyes family to sit by them. We hope they enjoyed the talks. The youth talk was very well done. It was on agency. The High Council speaker, Brother Manning (he is over missionary housing in the Stake), talked about President Monsons talk this past General Conference. It was a great topic for Steve and Kristi; How we can receive Gods help through trials. We are meeting with them this Wednesday and the Reyes family is coming with us. 

We have some potential investigators that live very close to us. We have not been able to get in touch with them in a while and we noticed that their rock landscape in the front of their house has a bunch of weeds in it. We went over in our 'regular' clothes and started picking weeds. We thought no one was home but after a few hours she opened the door and was so surprised! She said that she called her husband and told him what we were doing and he was very appreciative. She talked to us for a while, more than she has ever talked, and said that she will make us lunch (by this time its about 2:30) so we were like, 'ok'. well we kept picking weeds and then after about an hour and a half she came out and gave us these awesome burritos, home made cookies, and rolls. Obviously not what we were expecting! (by the way, our dinner cancelled in the mean time, so we were provided for!) During this whole experience, us just picking weeds outside, her whole street came out and talked to us. Her next door neighbor came and sat down and talked to us for like 20 minutes! Her neighbor on the other side said, 'can you do mine?' then she drove away. So Saturday we went over and started on hers. We will finish it sometime this week and hopefully we can talk to her more! It was such a great finding tool! We explained to all of her neighbors that we are doing it for free and we explained who we were! 

We had a great lesson with Konrad this week! We met with him earlier in the week and had a good lesson but this past Friday was the best lesson I've had with him! We brought the Gospel Art Book and showed him a picture of the Vision of the Tree of Life. We explained that that is how we receive the greatest happiness. We then invited him to be baptized and he said he would need to talk to his dad. Right then his dad was walking down the stairs and Konrad asked him to sit down. We talked about baptism and Konrad said he would pray about it and take it more seriously. They were not able to come to church because they were talking together until 5:45 in the morning. They might be moving because of some financial issues but we hope to see them again before they leave. 

So a highlight of this past week, my favorite part of it, was when Elder Campbell and I saw these 3 gangster looking guys walking. elder Campbell said, 'Lets talk to them!'. So we parked the car at a gas station a little ways away and started walking towards them. One stopped and talked to us, Reese. He said he would want to meet with us and we set up a time for the next day, Saturday. We came by and he was chillin in his garage with some of his friends. He was very kind but seemed pretty busy. His mom came out and said 'what are you guys doing here?'. Reese said, "I'm going to do a bible study with them". She said, "Oh not with the Mormons, your aren't." So she told us a few misconceptions she has had concerning the LDS faith and went in and grabbed her Book of Mormon. We explained that it is a record of Gods dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the American Continent. Then when I opened up my scriptures and showed he the King James Bible and said ok. We talked with her for a while and she agreed to set up a time to meet. One of Reese's friends was nearby and said, from the background, "You guys mormons? Kim (the moms name), they are good guys". He also agreed to meet with us. Soooo.... fast forward to Sunday! We had 13 lessons by Sunday afternoon and we wanted to exceed our previous week of 14 lessons. It was 8:30 and usually that's 'dead time'. we couldn't think of anyone else to see so we decided to see our Ward Mission Leader and update him. He wasn't home so we decided to drive to our place and plan for the next day. We say a guy sitting on one of the walls of the street and we both decided to park the car a ways off and talk to him. we said, "It worked last time". So we walked up and started talking to him. and guess what! It was Reese! His friend, Mario came out and started talking with us too. Their language needs some help but they are sincere guys. They were both talking about different things so Elder Campbell and I split up and talked to each of them. They committed to meet with us, when we saw Kim, and they said they would come to church. It was kinda sketchy, standing on the side of the road at 9:15pm but it was awesome! 

Well thats about it for this week! Love ya!

Elder John 

"If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived" - Elder Holland (Matt 27:46)

"Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Put another way, too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising. So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be." - Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Transfer 15, Week 6, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward

 This is my tag in Jello! Someone got a hold of my tag and put it in jello! 

Dear Family,

Well the last week of the transfer went great! We taught 14 lessons and met with with 8 families and discussed Family Mission Plans with them. We have been sick since Tuesday but other than that its been a Great Week!

Elder Gonzales and Elder Till are going to be transferred so its sad... Elder Till will be transferred to Tule Springs and Elder Gonzales will be staying in the Zone in the Palmyra ward. I will be getting a new Zone Leader, Elder Campbell. I'm very excited to be getting him! He is full of energy and is super hilarious! 

The other day we didn't have a dinner so we stopped at Wendy's to grab something real quick. The kid at the register said that we looked like FBI agents. Then after looking a little closer he said, "Oh Jesus Christ, ok". We told him who we were and talked for quite a while. He said he would be interested in meeting with us and might want to come to church soon. His name is Leroy and he seemed to be pretty interested! 

We had a pretty good lesson with a part member family this week. We went over for dinner and in the past its been a little awkward because they argue and fight all the time. Well, after dinner we shared the Mormon Message, Reclaimed, and then asked what they thought about it. He doesn't really have a belief in religion or anything like that and he asked us some questions. It was a little bit hostile at first and I was just sitting there listening to his wife try to explain it and them just arguing. After a while I just told him how god loves him and that I know that God loves me and that's why he's given me religion and church. Of course there was a lot more that we discussed but the basic message was that God loves him. Elder Gonzales shared some thoughts and committed him to pray. I don't know how much we were able to 'help' him but I do know that the lesson ended a lot better than it started :) 

This is just a random thought but I see myself turning into my dad so much more than I was before. In the way that I laugh and also in the way that I act in serious situations. I used to always think, 'aw why does he always have to be so serious when...' and now I see myself turning into that, while talking to investigators but more especially in talking with missionaries about serious things. Its Great! Now I understand Dad! :) 

So we had a wonderful Zone Training Meeting this week! The Theme of the month is 'The Living Christ'. So we decided to get everybody a framed "Living Christ" (dollar stores are amazing!) We talked of how the apostles fulfill their responsibility to be special witnesses of christ and watched a movie where Elder Holland is talking to a returned sister missionary and tells here that the only difference between his service and her service is that her service only lasted 18 months and his continues. He also touched on the fact that missionaries are Apostles with a little 'a'. So we talked about what it means to us to be apostles who, as the word means, are 'sent forth' to preach the gospel and be witnesses of Christ. We had them write their own missionary commission and then at the end we had them take 'The Living Christ' out of the frame and sign their name under the Fist Presidency. Hopefully some of it made an impact and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and have all my efforts focused on Christ! 

We had a lesson with the Worku family the other day and it was probably the best lesson we have ever had with them! We had the 2 Worku kids, the mom, and 2 little cousins there. We went over the ten commandments and showed them hand signals they can use to remember all of them. They were all very engaged and they loved it! We decided that we are going to get a Primary manual and start teaching out of that! 

There's a less active in the ward that we were able to meet with this week as well. She is having a hard time financially so she is going to leave to work somewhere else for a few months. Her daughter is not a member and the mom was very worried about her being alone. They came to church and met a bunch of good people! Hopefully everyone will continue to reach out to them and show them love! They are a great family! 

We had a lesson with Bryan this week and made a Baptismal Calendar for him. We also gave him a blank teaching record to show him what we still need to teach. We are teaching him tonight after transfers and then again on Wednesday. the only thing that could keep him back from baptism is coming to church since he works most Sundays. 

So yesterday was one of the best Sundays of my mission! We had 6 Investigators there! Savannah, the Workus, Simon, Konrad and his dad. it was great! There were some interesting things that happened during church ie boring speakers, friends of scouting during sacrament meeting and some other stuff, but overall it was great! I am so proud/appreciative of the youth in the ward! They did a really good job with accepting Konrad and helping him feel welcome! I think he will come next week! Yay for awesome fellowshipers! 

Well I think thats it for this week! I love you all and hope all is well! 

Love, 

Elder John 

"If we become too efficient at pushing, shoving, and shouting, then we are too adapted to this world- too busy polishing skills which will ere-long become obsolete." -Neal A. Maxwell

Transfer 15, Week 5, Lakes Zone, Desert Breeze Ward‏

Dear Family,

First week with Elder Till and Gonzales! This week went super well! People opened that have never opened in the past! We have knocked on these doors at least 15 times and they have finally opened! 

We biked around our area this week, trying to give us more opportunities to talk to people. Its been going very well and we need to find more time to do things like that. 

We finally were able to teach Bryan. He was set with a baptismal date a while ago but we have not been able to meet with him since we set him. We met with him and talked about setting a new date and having him be more committed to it. He didn't come to church this week, which is a bummer, but hopefully we can meet with him again and list out all the things we need to teach/things he needs to do to prepare for baptism. we committed him to be baptized on the 22nd of March. 

We also had the opportunity to meet with Konrad. Konrad is 19 years old and has not graduated high school. He sits at home and plays video games. His dad is worried about him. This last lesson we focused on making him feel accepted by us and helping him see that God loves him. He committed to coming to church but he didn't make it. I think he slept in. We will meet with him this week and see if we can get a fellow-shipper to help him feel accepted. After we left the lesson he said, 'thanks for coming over'. Hopefully he can feel accepted and start to progress! 

We stopped by Tommy, a former investigator, this week. In the past he has said, 'Its not a matter of if I get baptized its a matter of when.' We have worked with him for so long to try to just get an appointment set up. This time he finally said that he was going to make it to church. Well he came and guess what! He bore his testimony! There was one of those super long pauses between testimonies and I was just thinking, 'I hope Tommy gets up'. And he did a great job! He said that he knows Joseph Smith is a prophet. Now all we need to do is to funnel that and help him realize what that means for his progression in the Gospel. 

We also had the opportunity to meet with Steve and Kristi. We told them that we want to start the lessons and we will hopefully be meeting with them tonight. They got sick Saturday night so hopefully they have recovered. 

Sunday afternoon we were able to go to Zions Youth. A production that the youth in the valley put on. The production was called The Lamb of God. We invited the Langstons and the Worku's. The Worku's showed up and we think the Langstons came too. We also invited a less active in the ward who really wants to come back (Sis. Corn), but she got very sick Saturday night. It was great to have people come and hopefully it can help the Workus progress! Sister Stevens, our Relief Society President stopped by this past week and met with sister Worku. I think it really helped. Oh and those of you in Pueblo will be happy to know that we ran into Sister Swerdfiger at the performance. The location is on our side of the mission but it is really close to the Las Vegas mission so their mission president lets them come over. It was great to see her and she was very surprised that we were able to be companions! 

This Sunday was great! We had a Lady come to church with her member friend. She said that she will be back on Sunday and we hope to start teaching her. Tommy came to church. It was just a great day! After church we also taught the Worku's and committed them to read 'The Family: The Proclamation to the World'. 

We have been doing Family Mission Plans with the ward and we have hit most of the members of the Ward Council. In a few weeks we will hopefully have some referrals! or people will start talking with people and preparing people. One visit we made this week went very well! We met with The Young Mens President and his wife. He said that this has been weighing on his mind ever since Stake Conference. He has been worried about how to do it. But he knows that it is part of the plan and that the work is hastening. He said, "Things are supposed to be happening, why else would there be 90,000 of you guys?" 

So this is kinda embarrassing but this past week we were standing at a door and after I knocked on it I said, "This is really girly but I'm about to cry". Then I started to tear up a bit... I think its because I've realized how much more time I have to serve the Lord all day every day. I'm going to make good use of it. 

Great week! I love you all and hope you can continue to share the Gospel! Be BOLD because of LOVE. 

Love, 

Elder John,

"Some of us have been momentarily wrenched by the sound of a train whistle spilling into the night air, and we have been inexplicably subdued by the mix of feelings that this evokes, or perhaps we have been beckoned by a lighted cottage across a snow-covered meadow at dust. Or we have heard the warm and drawing laughter of children at a nearby playground. Or we have been tugged at buy the strains of congregational singing from a nearby chorus. Or we have encountered a particular fragrance which has awakened memories deep within us of things which once were. In such memories, we have felt a deep yearning, as if we were temporarily outside of something which we actually belonged and of which we so much wanted again to be a part... There are spiritual equivalents of these moments. Such seem to occur most often when time touches eternity" - Neal A. Maxwell