WEDNESDAY (7/24/24): We cleaned up, worked out, shopped and hung out with Elder Isaacson and Elder Morris. These Elders are the best! We went up to Salinas and looked around Boot Barn. They had some crazy boots: Some were made out of rattlesnakes, ostriches, etc. After, we went to Salinas Chapel and played some volleyball; I was able to get a haircut from Elder Morris as well! He did a great job! After P-day, we visited Susana and went over the baptismal interview questions. She passed the questions pretty easily! We had to explain to her the Priesthood again. We ended the night by teaching Clemente the first half of The Plan of Salvation.
THURSDAY (7/25/24): Today was boiling: it was pretty miserable. We started the day by trying to contact in the morning for a while. Our friends we were supposed to contact in the morning weren't home sadly. We found a pretty cool guy named Hector though. We taught him about the Book of Mormon. While studying at the church, our friend Joshua (the drunk man who came to church last Sunday) came knocking on the door trying to come in: he was drunk again. He was trying to come and was asking us if we could give him a sermon. He wanted to come in, but we obviously told him no 🤣: he wasn't too happy about that and flipped us off.
After, we decided to weekly plan since it was 110° outside. We also pushed our dinner hour so we could be out longer during the evening. After, we helped Fransico out with his physical therapy. I worked on his shoulder and back while Elder Paxman worked on his leg. We let him watch the 3 Nephi 18 video that explained the sacrament and the importance of partaking of the sacrament! Were gonna continue to be this guy's physical therapist and help him out!
After, we went and talked to Susana for a bit and helped her continue to progress towards her baptism. We talked about a bunch of random stuff for a while. After, we tried visiting one of our friends that we had met the other day but he wasn't home. We met some man with dementia though and he told us his life story. After, we met with Luis again. It had been a while since we had seen him. We talked for a while and how he had been doing. He told us that he is still continuing to work on himself and that he wasn't committed quite yet on making a covenant with God. He told us that he loved talking with us and that we had made his day better. He told us that he's going to continue to work on himself and his relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Luis is an awesome guy! He may not be ready right now, but I truly believe that one day he'll be ready!FRIDAY (7/26/24): We had interviews with President Larson up in Salinas. We had to wait a while for our interviews since the Sisters took a while. We had a training with President Larson afterwards. We talked about the Priesthood and read from President Nelson's last General Conference talk. After, I had my interview with President Larson. It was a pretty chill interview. I basically told him I never want leadership and that I was doing well! He said my spiritual gift is that I'm able to get along well with everyone (Hopefully that doesn't mean I get put with a clanker [no one likes clankers]). I also told him I want to stay with Elder Paxman one more transfer here in Greenfield! Elder Paxman is awesome: hopefully he listens to my request. After, we headed back to Greenfield to start the day.Since interviews took so long, we weren't able to get much done. After finding for a bit, we had Susana's baptismal interview. She passed! We ended the night by getting the chapel ready for her baptism the following day and having comp study with the STLs and Zone Leaders.
SATURDAY (7/27/24): We started the morning by helping Hermana Villa with her plants. We helped plant some flower bulbs and some plants in her front and back yard. The ground was super hard, so it was a lot of hard work. After going home and showing, we had the baptism of Susana! A good amount of people showed up! Elder Candia was able to come down and baptize her! I was able to give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost as well! Hermana Villa and Hermano Mateo gave great talks as well! All in all, it was a super awesome baptism; super spiritual as well! After filling out Susana's baptismal form, we headed up to Salinas for the baptism of Elder Paxman's friend Miguel! Elder Paxman baptized him! I was able to meet some of the members up in Salinas! Miguel is super cool! Overall, it was a super good day!
SUNDAY (7/28/24): We had five recent converts come to church today (Fransico, Susana, Freddy, Eduardo, and Juan De La Cruz)! It was super awesome to see them all there! Working with recent converts is crucial! Working with members is as equally important, if not more important, than finding and teaching new people! Clemente and Irma weren't able to come but Cesar and Brian pulled up. They actually behaved really well! During the Sacrament, Susana told us some things that had happened with her family yesterday. Apparently, during her baptism her mom pulled up to the chapel. While at the chapel, she saw that Natalia and Freddy were together and apparently, they weren't supposed to be together. In addition to that, Susana apparently hadn't told her mom that she was being baptized. Apparently, she wasn't too happy about that. Her mom is a pretty hardcore Pentecostal and wasn't thrilled with Susana being baptized. We helped her talk out her feelings; she was able to come to Sacrament but had to leave the second hour to go to church with her mom. She's already experiencing opposition sadly. It's ok though, we're going to continue to work with her! She has a testimony!
After, we decided to go visit a bunch of inactive members. We started the day by visiting an inactive member name Celso De Jesus. We talked with him for a bit and saw how he was doing. He told us that he's been busy with work and that he's preparing to go to school. He told us he'd like to try and start coming back to church.
After, we met with another inactive member named Cesar. He's struggling with his belief in God and still isn't fully convinced that God exists! He was doing a lot better than the week before though. He told us that he leans towards having a belief in God because he had lost his grandma in the past. We read from Alma 40:12 and testified of the Spirit World and the ability we have to live again through Jesus Christ and His Atonement! We also bore our testimonies on the importance of gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. After, we visited Generado and Jessica. They are recent converts in our ward who just had a little girl; she was super cute! We taught them about the temple and baptisms for the dead. They've prepared names and are planning to go up to the temple this Saturday with the Stake. After, we went and hung out with Siliva and Eduardo. We ended the night by having night church where no one showed up, then we went to eat at Tony's house
MONDAY (7/29/24): After district council, we went finding around the chapel. We found some cool people! After eating, we went and did some physical therapy on Fransico. We taught him about the Sacrament and watched the Book of Mormon videos with him. After, we visited with Freddy and saw how he was doing. He told us that he was still waiting for a response from his interview. He cut his hair though and was looking a little more cleaned up! He told us he was doing good with reading and praying every single day. After saying what's up to Brian and Cesar, we went and visited with Susana. She was doing better for sure! She told us she felt really good about her baptism and that she felt "warm" when she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We re explained to her covenants and the covenant relationship that she had entered into when being baptized. We also explained to her the importance of renewing our covenants through the sacrament. After, we taught Clemente and Irma about the Spirit World and the difference between Spirit Paradise and the Spirit Prison. We testified of the Book of Mormon and explained to them the importance of praying, reading the Book of Mormon, and attending church.TUESDAY (7/30/24): We began the day by finding for a while. We said a prayer with one of the friends we had found a couple days before. She was pretty sick, so she wasn't able to talk for very long. After, we walked with a Ayrelle (another recent inactive convert that we are working with) to her boyfriend's house. I'm pretty confident we'll be able to get her back. We've been re-teaching her and we're really emphasizing the importance of reading the Book of Mormon.
After, we had a lesson with a social media referral we had received named Danny. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and the Atonement of Jesus Christ; hopefully we can continue to keep teaching him and get him to church! After, we taught our friend Elvira again. Her kids were being pretty crazy, so we just talked with her awhile about her life and the trials she was currently going through. We shared with her a talk from Elder Uchtdorf and taught her about how Jesus Christ can help us through hard times. After eating some food with Hermano Mateo and waiting for people to show up to English Class (no one showed up), we visited with a man we had found a couple days ago named Andres. Super nice guy, but he really wasn't too interested; we'll see if he comes to church! We ended the night by visiting with Susana and teaching her more about baptisms for the dead and helping her set up a time to receive her temple interview with Bishop. Elder Copeland
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