March 24, 2014
Dear Family:
Last Monday we had one lesson. We met with Martha. She is
the one I was telling you about saying "ya mean?". She has a lot of
attitude and is super funny. It was a normal P-day. We just spent all day at
the church again. Not a whole lot to do in Lake Elsinore.
Tuesday we picked up a new investigator. His name is Austin.
He is our age. He is married to a less active member named Jerelle. Austin is a
Jehovah's Witness but not a very devout one. He doesn't do any of the holiday stuff,
but he is starting to give on it a little, and I don't think he ever goes to
church. He has had the lessons before but it doesn't sound like a whole lot of
progress was made. We also had a lesson with Art, Elva, and Justin. We went in
with the attitude of this being there last week before they got baptized but
things quickly changed once we got in there. Art's mom has been doing
everything she could to slow them down. She made Art promise that none of his
family would get baptized until after she dies (she is 96). I don't know why
but he gave in and promised her he wouldn't. The whole lesson I just kept
praying for knowing what to say. So right now things are at a standstill with
them. We met with them on Thursday as well so I will tell you more about what
happened then. On a less sad note I am liking being a ZL! You get some pretty
funny calls. Somebody had called us to take them some stuff, somebody else
wanted something at the same time, and then we got a call that a companionship
was locked in the church parking lot so we had to go bust them out. They pulled
in for like 2 minutes and got locked in. Just all sorts of stuff like that. It
makes you see all the stuff that really goes on with the missionaries. That
night we had exchanges with Elders Fransen and Muir.
Wednesday I was in our area with Elder Muir. We had a super
good day. We found a super cool investigator just outside of our area on
accident. We put her on date on the doorstep and she was excited about it. Her
name is Kristy. It was the Ortega Elder's area, but she was YSA (Young Single
Adult) age so we gave it to the YSA Sisters. They will be able to help her
better. Michelle had a lot of questions in her lesson. She never lets me
resolve them all of the way because she asks another one before I can answer
the first one. It is good though she is really excited. We are trying to teach
her mom Pat who lives with her. I think that is how things originally started.
She has been gone for the last week so we haven't been able to teach her yet. She
did sound super on board but Michelle said she isn't that interested right now
which is a bummer. We are still going to try once she finally gets back. We had
splits that night so Elder Muir went
with our ward mission leader to do member visits. I went with somebody else to
find new investigators. Ron Allen family is a part member family. He grew up in
the church but has been less active for a while. We finally caught one of them
home. His wife (whose name escapes me right now) was home and we had a half
decent lesson with her. My team up is a car sales man and he has the
personality for it. Sometimes he just keeps going and going and it is hard to
get a word in but he likes getting work done and is really good at connecting
with people so that helps a lot. I introduced the Book of Mormon and shared a
scripture out of it. She doesn't have a high level of interest but she said we
could come back. Turns out her husband came to church with the two kids and
stayed all three hours that week. He had a meeting with the Bishop after and I
think the Bishop helped us out a ton. We have a really good Bishop in this
ward. That night Elder Ringwood sent me a text that told me to bring all his
ties when we exchange back, so I grabbed a few of mine because I knew what that
meant. When we got there Elder Ringwood was giving them all a talk that they
needed. Two out of the 4 Elders think that it is worthless to set goals and
work towards the standard. An older missionary was living with them a transfer
before that influenced the younger missionaries that there was evil in it. It
is just like organized religion it will be used for whatever you use it for.
Some people use it to help them stretch, some people don't care, some people
are just stupid about it. So he pretty much told them they will never reach
even close to their potential as a missionary unless they are striving for
something. After that we had a quick tie trading session. I hadn't done it
before because I liked all of my ties too much. I got a couple of cheap ones
like a week ago I didn't care much for so I traded with those ones. It was
pretty fun to be honest.
This guy is always on this corner and he always wears crazy costumes. We finally got a picture. He saw us and we are pretty sure he didn't like us taking pictures cuz he pulled up his helmet and just stared at us
Thursday we took the Spanish Sisters over to meet Art, Elva,
and Justin so they could sit with them at church. Art's mom was going to come
every weekend so they didn't come to church with the excuse of I don't speak
English. I said no way, you are going to church in the Spanish Ward then.
Things didn't go quite as I expected. Right now the sisters are going to teach
Elva so she can understand it better. She has been having a hard time with it
in English. The whole lesson was in Spanish, I don't think I have ever wanted
to speak Spanish so bad in my life. Elva only wants us to go over once a week
now so things will be slowing down a lot. Bro Cassio was there and he helped
them understand better what is going on. I am at the point where I am just
praying for things to work out. That night we had a good lesson with Martha. We
got pretty bold. I love lessons like that.
Friday we found another part member family. Gus Flores is
the non member. He is a super friendly guy. Everybody else is baptized though
so there has to be some concern that is there. Sister Mohamed fed us lunch
after we already ate lunch so I was stuffed all day. Another lesson with
Michelle but Pat still wasn't there.
I found a cactus farm. and some goats...
Saturday we helped somebody move. Went to Martha's she told
us she wasn't going to be able to make it cuz she was going to see her son who
was in rehab. It was a good lesson, in the end she decided she is going to come
to church and go see him after. Our other lesson fell through so we went and
checked up on the Bishop. He got after the Ward Council last week about doing
missionary work (which I was super happy about) so we went to go see how he is
doing. We are having his family each make a list of the people they are going
to be focusing on. Then we also asked him to follow up in Ward Council Meeting.
Sunday was normal. Martha came to church. We had splits this
time Elder Ringwood went to visit the investigators and I went with Bro Cassio
to the members. They struck out and didn't see anybody, but we caught a few.
That is about all. Things were pretty boring this week. Sorry this letter isn't
very good, I'm not in much of a writing mood right now. Well have a good week!!
Love ya!
Elder Wood
