For P-day, we had to pack up all of my stuff since I thought I'd be staying haha; I also packed up a bunch of packages and sent them home to my family since I'm coming home super soon! It also allowed me to make my move to Los Altos easier since I'd be carrying less stuff! Afterwards, we went to the little Mexican store down in Hollister and got some cowhide slides! They are so cool! I'll include a picture! Maybe I'll wear them at home haha (definitely not). After, we drove up to Gilroy and did transfer signing with the other missionaries in our zone! We weren't there too long but we said hi to Elder Astle and Elder Rushforth and talked with them for a while! They were definitely the Elders we were the most tight with while serving down there!
After finishing up in Gilroy, we headed back down to Hollister to say goodbye to a couple of people! We said goodbye to Klaudia and her little girls! They are such a sweet little family and I'm so grateful for the time we got to spend with them! The little girls are adorable, and we always had a great time playing and chatting with them! After taking a couple pictures with them, we went and said goodbye to Henry and Maggie! Henry was such a good kid and I'm glad we were able to get pretty close with him! We were able to build a great relationship with him, Maggie as well! She has a really cool story and such a strong testimony! She left her home at the age of age 10 and started her "life" by selling chips on the side of a road! After making enough money, she moved to the United States and started her family! Now, she has a son serving in the military and she works at Taylor Jobs as a forklift driver! She is an amazing example of perseverance, hard work, and never giving up to me! I'm so glad I was able to meet her; afterwards, we went and said goodbye to Hermana Kratzer and her family! I'm super grateful for Hermana Kratzer and her dedication to the Savior and Missionary work! She was a great help to us, and she was always willing to serve and help us! I loved her zany personality and how much she loved the temple and family history work! She's a perfect example on how to be an amazing disciple of Jesus Christ!
Afterwards, we went over to the Lepe Martinez family and said goodbye to them! They were thinking that I was going to stay, and I mean I did, too, lol, so they were super sad when they found out I was leaving as well! We talked with them for at least an hour about the time we've had together as missionaries, the conversations we've had together while visiting with them, and the importance of the gospel and the blessings that come from following the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Alfredo Sr was tearing up the whole time: he was pretty sad when he found out both of us were leaving: Martha, Alfredo Lepe Sr and Jr, Eric and Axel (the cute little kids of Maria), Juanito, Bryan, and the rest of the family are some of the most solid people I've ever met; they are such an amazing family and I'm so grateful for the time me and Elder Isaacson had together with them! They taught us so much about Mexico and the culture of Jalisco, what life is like as an immigrant in the United States, the importance of family, and a variety of other things! I hope we were able to teach them about the gospel and blessings that come from learning and applying the doctrine of the Restored Gospel in our lives! I know for a FACT that we planted seeds in all of them! They WILL be a part of the gospel one day: specifically Martha! She's felt the Spirit and has the desire to draw closer to the Savior! There're a couple circumstances that prevented her progression, but with time, faith, and prayers, I'm confident she'll get there! The Sister missionaries will take great care of them! I'm so grateful for them and everything they've done for us! They'll always be my "family from Jalisco" and I'll stay in contact with them! To end the night, we packed up all of our things in our car and cleaned up the apartment!
On Tuesday, we woke up super early and cleaned up and checked on our apartment one last time before heading down to San Jose! On the drive up, I was able to call and text a bunch of our friends, recent converts, and members! I'm super grateful for the opportunity I had to serve and help three friends enter into the covenant path and be baptized while serving in Hollister! I sent texts to Dora, Diego, and Daniel letting them know how grateful I was for them, how much I love and cared about them, and how happy I was to see them come unto the Savior and be baptized! I really opened my heart and let them know how grateful I was for them! They all responded back to me letting me know how grateful they were for me and how blessed they felt to have known me as well! All three of them are going to be such strengths to the Branch and I've had so many spiritual and special experiences with every single one of them that'll always have a special place in my heart! The experiences I've had with them are experiences I'll always remember for the rest of my life! I love these people so much and I'm excited to continue visiting and speaking with them! The Sister missionaries will take such great care of them! I have faith Juan will be baptized soon! He's so close and he knows that the church is true! I know there'll be a day when he's ready and he'll be baptized! I can't wait for that day! I'm also super grateful for the friends that I was able to teach! Javier and Veronica were such a great couple and we had super good conversations with them while I was serving them! They were always so sweet and kind towards us and they were always willing to listen to what we had to say! Hopefully, one day they can progress and start coming to church! Perla and Mitchell were also a super sweet little couple! In all honesty, they were never too interested but they enjoyed hearing what we had to say and reading in the scriptures with us 😀! I'm also super grateful for Erika and for the opportunity we had to teach her; she was sooo close to being baptized, but the Law of Tithing was something that scared her off pretty badly (we are thinking she heard some anti as well). I pray and hope that we were able to plant a seed inside of her and maybe, maybe just maybe, she'll give the church another chance! I mean she was seriously walking to church every single Sunday! I'm going to let the Sisters know that they should try passing by and visiting her again in the future! I also really enjoyed my time with Maria! She was a sweet older lady that we spent a good amount of time with! Overall, I was also able to meet a lot of cool people that can have potential to continue to progress! I'm also super blessed that I was able to serve and help so many amazing members of our branch! Hermano Montuy was such an amazing member of the branch, and he was always willing to help us! He had such a strong testimony, an amazing story, and an amazing spirit! I'm truly convinced he was one of the key reasons that Daniel was baptized! His witness, teachings, and testimony during our lessons with him helped him significantly! He also provided amazing service opportunities for us! Morris was also another member I got to know pretty well! He was the one that actually found Daniel haha! Funny story, Daniel was found by Morris while he was at McDonald's! He saw him sitting under a tree and felt inspired to invite him to church! My first Sunday at Hollister was his first Sunday at church! Morris has a cool story as well: he found the missionaries while he was eating at a McDonald's one day (go figure) and went up to him and asked them to teach him! Beforehand, he had been praying to God and letting him know that the first set of missionaries, Jehovah Witness, priests, etc. he found was the church he'd join; and the first ones he found were the Elders! His wife is also a member; so, the Elders were able to teach and baptize him! On top of that, they were also able to reactivate his wife! Now, they are endowed and are now sealed in the temple! Even though he has experienced diabetes and has lost half of his leg, his faith and testimony are rock solid! He's a super cool guy with an amazing story! I'm super grateful for the rest of the faithful members of the branch (Hermano and Hermano Villa Hernandez, Arturo, President Starkweather and President Nordstrom, Hermana Booth, etc.) and all they did for us and how kind and thoughtful they were towards us! They were such a blessing to me and Elder Isaacson while we served down there and I'll always be blessed and grateful for the time and the opportunities I had with them! I loved Hollister and the experiences and time I've had down here! My time and experiences down here have changed and blessed my life! I'll always remember my time down here!
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Once we got to the Mission Office, we had some pretty bad traffic on the way up, we unloaded all of my and Elder Isaacson's things and dropped off my Sim card and our card! After, it was finally time to say goodbye to Elder Isaacson; it was super sad to see him go! He's one of my best friends and I had an absolute blast serving with him! I was able to learn and experience so much with him! He taught me the importance of loving other people, getting to know people for who they are (the cultures they are a part of, what they like to do, their passions and what makes them happy, etc.), and expressing genuine love for those around you! He also taught me SO much about the countryside! He taught me so much about horses, hunting and fishing, cattle, ranches, roping, and the cowboy "lifestyle." I can't wait to go down to Arkansas and live the "cowboy" lifestyle with him and Sally haha! Hopefully he's able to come down to my Homecoming! After saying goodbye to him and taking a picture with him and President Larson, I got my new companion (Elder Fuller) and we headed up to our area! Elder Fuller is a really cool guy! He's from a small town near Logan, Utah, and he's been out for around eight months now! He shows cattle, so he's very similar to Elder Isaacson! We already get along great! After the drive up and getting to know him better, we stopped by our apartment and dropped off my stuff! The apartment was pretty clean but of course, my OCD made me deeply clean the apartment haha! So luckily, we'll have a really clean apartment for the next six weeks! Afterwards, we went and got some groceries from the store! We went to the most boujee Target I've ever seen! It was on the second floor, so they had a separate escalator for the shopping cart! It was pretty cool! After shopping, we dropped our food off at the apartment and began the day! We were able to teach and find a couple people that the Elders had been teaching before I had gotten there! We also found a couple new friends who actually seemed pretty genuinely interested! We ended the night by visiting a couple members! I'm still trying to learn all the new names of our friends and members haha
On Wednesday, we began the day by working out and then going up to San Jose for Elder Fullers District Leader meeting! Since Elder Fuller is becoming a district leader for the first time, we got invited up to go so that Elder Fuller could get trained on how to be a District Leader! I've already been district leader before, so I just caught up on my emails! After finishing up at the Mission Office, we headed back down to Los Altos to begin the day! After finishing our studies and planning the day, we went and found some people! We had a really good lesson with a cool lady named Hilda! She had talked with Jehovah Witnesses before, but this was her first time talking to missionaries! We explained to her the Book of Mormon and the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ! She seemed really interested and we got a return appointment! It always feels good bearing testimonies and sharing what we know to be true! Afterwards, we talked to our friend Yolanda about the Atonement and how it plays a role in our lives! After finding a couple more people, we ate some dinner, and I invited a really nice lady to English class! I'm trying to have more casual conversations with people so that I can build more trust with those I'm speaking to! It allows others to see that we are normal human beings as well who aren't just trying to shove religion down their throat! It's been working really well! We also had a pretty cool spiritual moment where we prayed with a lady who was recently recovering from a stroke! I shared how the Savior allows us to be spiritually healed, even though we may not be physically healed, and the blessings that come from so; it really touched her heart, and she was grateful for what I shared with her! Afterwards, we ended the night by teaching a nice lady named Maria about the purpose of life, why we are here, and how the Atonement and the Savior allows us to be physically resurrected and spiritually made whole. Random but throughout the whole day we were seeing Waymo cars! I t's the first time in my life ever hearing or seeing one of them before but essentially, they are self-driving cars with no drivers inside of them! The whole car drives itself! The ones we saw were driving perfectly with nobody inside of them! It blew my mind! It's insane how much technology has advanced! It's been really cool serving in Silicon Valley and seeing all the office buildings for the big tech companies such as Apple, Google, etc. I really want to bring my brother-in-law Jake here after my mission! We also had some basher call us and tell us that Joseph Smith was a false prophet and that the Book of Mormon was a scam; I asked him if he had ever read the Book of Mormon before and he said no; I basically told him he'd never know for himself if what we teach is true or not since he's never put in the time to actually study or understand what the Book of Mormon teaches; I love how those who "attack" the church don't actually understand what we actually believe since they never put in the time to actually study it out! People can say whatever they want but we know we have the truth, and we can never deny it!
On Thursday, we began the day by playing pickleball with the Zone; the whole zone loves playing pickleball (I despise it) but I just took one for the team lol; I'm never going to ruin what other people want to do. They didn't have enough paddles so they were all playing pans which was kinda silly, but I was just like whatever! Afterwards, we came back, worked out, and did our studies for the day! After eating lunch, we weekly planned and cleaned up our area book! I'm still trying to learn the names of our friends and those who have the most potential to progress! Luckily, there's a lot so we are going to try and do our best to get as many baptisms as we can before I head out! After weekly planning, since it took a while, we went and found a couple people! We talked to a cool guy from El Salvador named Rolando and we explained to him the Book of Mormon, our purpose as missionaries, and the significance of Jesus Christ and his Atonement! We gave him a Book and set up a return appointment! He seemed down to learn more! Afterwards, we talked to a super nice guy from China named Ivan! He told us that he had only been in the states for around three months now, but he had pretty good English! He explained to us what the culture is like over in China and what he misses about it; he told us that they'd make noodles the size of humans over there 🤣; he did tell us he likes the orange chicken over here! We gave him a Book of Mormon and explained to him what we do as missionaries and what we teach! We sent him over to the Mandarin speaking Elders; hopefully they are able to teach him! Afterwards, we tried to teach our friend Hilda, but she wasn't home. Luckily, we ran into Cesar, our most progressing friend and had a quick lesson outside of his house! He's been taught almost everything, so we quickly went over the importance of reading the scriptures, keeping the commandments, praying, and enduring to the end! We showed him 2 Nephi 31:20 which he really enjoyed! We are going to go over the baptismal questions with him and then try and set a firm date with him! I have a good feeling I was sent down here to help and get this man baptized! Me and him instantly hit it off and we already have a great relationship! After dinner, we taught another one of our progressing friends named Pascua! He found our church through English class, which we were teaching right after his lesson as well! He had been to English class before, but it was his first time sitting down with us one on one! For our lesson, we taught him how to pray, who God and Jesus Christ were, and the doctrine of Jesus Christ and why it's necessary! We read 2 Nephi 31 and explained to him the principles of faith (read Alma 32:21), repentance (the way we change and become better) and the importance of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost! We talked about baptism and it's something that interests him, but he wants to learn more before getting a baptism date! He's definitely going to progress since he's already been to church! We had a bunch of friends in English class as well! I wasn't able to catch many people's names since I was helping a couple of people learn how to conjugate verbs in the present, but I'm definitely going to do my best to learn them next time on Monday! 🤣 We ended the class by sharing a spiritual thought about faith and how we are blessed by our faith after acting upon and through trials! Brother Packard is the English class teacher, and he does an excellent job! He was a mission president down in Mexico, so his Spanish is perfect! He also has a bunch of tricks and tips for us since he worked with so many missionaries! He's a really cool guy and I'm excited to get to know him better!
On Friday, we were busy! We began the day by playing pickup ball with the Zone again and then working out! Afterwards, we visited a recent convert down here named Maria Engracia! She's around 80 years old, I'm not sure her exact age, but she's very old haha! She was found by the missionaries a couple months ago and has been a member ever since! She was the sweetest lady but she talked forEVER! She yapped for about an hour about how we need to find a good wife to marry someday, how she admires what we do as missionaries, the loss and hardship throughout the years (a couple of her family members have passed away unfortunately: we explained to her the Plan of Salvation again), and a variety of random things; she lives alone she never has anyone to talk to! I'm glad we were able to be there for her and listen to what she had to say! She definitely needed someone just to listen to her! A Lot of the time, the best lessons as missionaries are those where you are there to morally and emotionally support a person by just listening to them; it's what the Savior did! After, we ran into one of our friends that the Elders had been teaching named Alfredo! He's been taught by the missionaries for a while now and comes to church constantly! He just refuses to give up smoking! Hopefully we are able to meet with him some time and discern ways we can help him out! It's what's preventing him from being baptized! After, we daily contacted our friends, tried visiting some people (none of them were home), and then we visited with a really cool friend of ours named Angelie! She's a super nice young lady from Peru! We taught her the first half of the restoration and helped her better understand the reason for the restoration! When we go back and visit her, we are going to explain the story of Joseph Smith and the Gold Plates; after, we went and talked to a bunch of people but none of them were interested; we had some guy try and give us his Book of Mormon back haha. We told him to keep it, but we had to drop him; he was crazy though! He worked at Petco's and had a collection of snakes, spiders, and insects in his house 😂. After a couple more contacts, we went to dinner at John's! They were a super nice family! While driving to get there, we drove by Googleplex (Google headquarters and I was blown away by it!) We are definitely going to go visit it! The Johns have a son named Brigham, who has pretty severe Adhd, but he was an absolute genius! He knew everything one could know about A.I and the power behind it! A.I is pretty amazing if you think about it! A.I can write you papers, self-generate any type of media you want, drive CARS, create coding, etc. Who knows how much jobs are going to be affected or wiped out by A.I! A.I is already so advanced, and we are just seeing the beginning of it! Being down in the heart of Silicon Valley has truly opened my eyes to how amazing technology is! It's definitely the field I want to study after my mission! Brigham also let me play with his oculus (VR headset) which was fun! We ended the night by finishing up with a couple contacts! There's also a huge NASA testing center near here that I really want to visit!
On Saturday, we began the day by playing pickleball, studying, trying to visit a lady named Saira (she didn't live at the address she told us lol) and then went and got cupcakes for Elder Fountain's birthday! We were having a surprise birthday for him, and we wanted to get him some treats! After lunch, we had a really good lesson with our friend Andres! He's super cool! Elder Perschon and Elder Fuller had found him the week before and we were finally able to get into contact with him! He's a 26-year-old man from Columbia and he is looking to get closer to God! We explained to him who God was and who Jesus Christ is and the significance of him in our lives! We shared with him our purpose as missionaries, and we explained to him the doctrine of Christ! We read through Mosiah 4:2-10 to explain to him the Atonement, repentance, and faith! We went over faith, what it is, and how it needs to be acted upon to obtain! We also went over repentance, what it is, and how we apply it in our lives! After, we read 1 Nephi 11:27-33 to help him better understand baptism and what the Savior did for us! Afterwards, we explained to him baptism and the covenant of baptism and the four things we promise God to do when we are baptized (the covenant we make) and the blessings we receive in return (gift of the Holy Ghost, membership, Priesthood/Temple) etc. We ended by sharing 2 Nephi 31:20 to explain during the end and explained to him what church was! Hermano Preza called and bore his testimony as well! He's super cool! We set up another lesson with him and invited him to church! Afterwards, we drove around all the stupid protests going around laughing at the people wasting their time! I could get SUPER political here but I'm not going to since I'm a representative of Jesus Christ (but the people protesting don't use common sense, aren't smart, and don't understand anything 🤣) After finding a couple more people, we contacted and invited every single one of our friends to church! After, we went and tried to visit a couple of people but they weren't home. After, we went to the Father's Day activity that the ward was having! I got to know the members better and me and Elder Fuller played volleyball and cornhole with the kids and our friend Johnston! Johnston is our friend from English Class, and he was able to come! He's a super social, talkative man from Nicaragua! He's trying to learn English, so he asks us to only speak English to him; it's pretty funny! He is a super zany man! After the party, we headed to a park in a super nice part of Los Altos to teach a referral named Jorge! He's a super nice guy but he's super socially awkward to the point that he can't express himself but he's super nice! He doesn't know very much (like little to none) about Christianity so we explained to him who God and Jesus Christ were, the importance of prophets, and how the Atonement plays a key part in our lives! We also testified to him that the church is a place where we are all treated as family and where we are equal! He's looking for a community with good people, so we explained to him that's what the church was! He likes us since we are happy and don't judge people based on how they look! He also was grateful for how good of examples we are as missionaries to the rest of the world! He was basically telling us how our generation has kinda gone off the ways and how he respects what we chose to do with our lives! We were very grateful for him and afterwards, we testified to him that Jesus and God love him and that they are the way toward eternal life! We also read Mosiah 3:5-12 to explain to him the Atonement and life of Jesus Christ! He's a really good guy, and we just have to help him overcome his fear of people! He'll get there! To end the night, we had a surprise birthday for Elder Fountain at the church! I threw a cupcake at him and it got pretty messy 🤣; he thought it was funny!
We had a good Sunday! It was Father's Day, so I was feeling extra grateful for him today! I love my dad so much! He's an amazing example of love, hard work, and putting others before himself! He truly contains every characteristic of Christ and I'm so beyond blessed and grateful to have him as my dad! I could go on and on about how much I love my dad and how grateful I am for him! Words and feelings can't describe the love and gratitude for him! I love him so much and I'm so beyond blessed I get to call him my dad! I was able to listen to Elder Isaacson's farewell talk on Zoom! He did a great job! At church, we had five friends come! Johnston, Pascual, Camilo, Luis, and a friend named Alberto! All of them were found, except Luis, who we found through English Class! The first hour we had our "Principles of the Gospel Class." It's a class that our friends and recent converts go to learn basic principles of the Gospel! We talked about Joseph Smith and the Doctrine of Covenants! They were all pretty confused who Joseph Smith was and what the Doctrine and Covenants were. Johnston was asking like a million questions about how Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and where he was mentioned in the Bible! We had a really good, but long class helping him understand the apostasy, the restoration, and the need of the Priesthood and a modern-day prophet and apostles! After, we had the service! It was a really good service! The primary sang and a couple members of the ward were able to give really good talks on father's; this is by FAR the largest ward I've ever served in! During the sacrament, I was able to help our friend Alberto understand the sacrament and why we participate! I had him read 3 Nephi 18 during the service which he really enjoyed! After church, we decided to meet up with Johnston since we had time and we wanted to help him better understand what we teach! He had a couple questions about the sacrament and how he felt like he wasn't it worthy to participate since he's breaking the law of chastity; I mean technically he is and the scriptures do teach us that we have to take the bread and water worthily, but we explained to him it was a bit different in his scenario since he hadn't made a covenant with God yet! We helped him understand that we take the sacrament to not only renew the covenants that we have made with God, but also as a way to remember the Atonement of Jesus Christ! We also explained to him the Book of Mormon and how it's similar, yet different to the Bible and the importance of both! We went over apostasy, the need of a prophet and proper authority, and how the power of the Priesthood allows us to make and keep covenants! It was a good chat on a lot of topics on the restoration! Hermano Cruz was able to join us and he shared his testimony as well! Johnston has the desire to learn but it might take a while with him! After, we had a missionary correlation meeting with the Hermanas! The Hermanos of the ward got into a super-heated argument about immigration and how we shouldn't/should be worried about it 🤣; it was super random, but we just sat there quietly; I wasn't really even paying attention to it. Afterwards, we headed back to the apartment and called our families! Navy and Luna were being funny together! I also got my dad his Tampa Bay Buccaneer poncho that I had found while down in Gilroy one day! After talking to our families for a while (I also talked to my brother-in-law about the tech. industry and what Silicon Valley was like) we headed out to go find some people to teach! The area we were at was surrounded by Indians since there's a huge Indian temple they go to on Sundays! Super nice people but none of them are interested in learning 🤣; we were able to find a couple of cool people! We had some guy come up to us named Joel and he started hugging us! He wanted to learn more so we got his number and set up a return date with him! The letter sent us a text that day saying he was so excited to see us again! This guy seems super cool so I'm excited to see where it goes with him! After a couple more contacts, we had a really good lesson with Jorge at the chapel! We took him on a tour of the chapel and showed him where we do the sacrament! We explained to him the sacrament and the significance behind it! Also, we explained what services are like! After, we sat and explained to him the first half of the Plan of Salvation! We went over the premortal life and God's plan for us, how Satan was cast down and how Jesus Christ was chosen to be our Savior, the purpose of coming to earth to receive a physical body (we also explained to him the doctrine of the soul) and the creation/fall of Adam and Eve! We explained to them the Fall of Adam and Eve and the consequences of it! We explained to him how the Atonement of Jesus Christ allows us to overcome spiritual and physical death! We explained the Resurrection and how it allows us to overcome physical death while the doctrine of Christ allows us to overcome spiritual death! We bore our testimonies on the church and the blessings that come from repenting and learning! He was very grateful for the time we had given to him! He had the desire to grow closer to the Savior and find a higher purpose in this life! We are going to continue meeting with him and helping him out in any way possible; he really needs the Gospel in his life, and he'd be so blessed to have it! We ended the night by having a district leader meeting for Elder Fuller!
On Monday, we began the day by heading over to the chapel to help with a service project! The young women of the stake were heading out on a girl's trip so we helped them load their stuff into a U-Haul van; we also helped clean out the storage unit. After, we headed back to the apartment to workout, study, and then have district council! It was Elder Fuller's first district council, and he did a pretty good job! We discussed the needs of our friends and then talked about how we can keep our PMG app updated, the importance of daily contact and planning our day, and how we should set high but realistic finding goals! After the district council, we went to the subway to have lunch! While at lunch, we ran into Johnson and said hi to him! He let us know that he'd be coming to English class! Afterwards, we headed back to our apartment to get some service clothes! The day before, the Elders had invited us to come help a friend of theirs they were texting to help move a bunch of furniture; the friend that we helped had only been coming to church for two weeks! I guess she had known members of the church before in the past and just finally decided to try our church one day! She was a super nice lady! She was very, and I mean, very stressed out by the whole move! We helped her box up a bunch of packages, move a couple tables, move a bunch of nightstands and drawers from the upstairs and we also had to help move a huge mattress! It took quite a lot of work, but we were able to get it done! Her house was also very old haha; it felt like stepping into the 80s! After the service project, we tried to go visit some of our friends but none of them were home! We talked to super nice Muslim men! They really respected what we did as missionaries and were super ready to listen to our message! After getting gas and eating dinner, we headed to the chapel to teach Pascual! Before going to Pascual, we got a random phone call from a member of our ward saying he wanted to be excommunicated and stuff, I was so beyond frustrated; apparently some members had said some mean things about him, and he basically told us he was done with the church! I basically told him we as missionaries have no jurisdiction over that and that he'd have to go to his bishop for that! I also told him that we go to church to honor God, renew our covenants and learn more on how we become like the Savior! We don't go to church for other people! While the community aspect of the church is a fantastic part of it, and any hard feelings should be fixed, we go because we want to have our own personal relationship with God and the Savior. I hope I was able to talk some sense into him! Afterwards he seemed pretty calm and let us know how much he respected what we did as missionaries! Anyways after that ridiculous call, we had a fantastic lesson with Pascual at the church before English class! We went over the first half of the Plan of Salvation! We went over the premortal life and God's purpose for us, the creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, and how the Atonement comes into play. We read in the Book of Mormon with him, and we helped him better understand the importance of opposition and why it's necessary! He told us that it helped him better understand the reason we all go through hard things and how hard and difficult things allow us to enjoy and appreciate the good times! We also explained to him how when we sin, we can use it as a learning opportunity and that through the Atonement of Christ, we can be cleansed of our sins when we repent! We ended by bearing our testimonies on God's love for us as demonstrated by the Plan of Salvation; we also shared John 3:16! Afterwards, we taught English class! I helped one of our friends better understand how to ask and respond to questions; we ended the night by sharing a spiritual thought about the Resurrection! I shared Mosiah 16:7-9!
On Monday, we began the day bright and early by playing pickleball with the Zone! After, we came back, studied, worked out, and then went back over to the Elders' friends' home to finish the service project we began the day before! We had to put everything in a giant U-Haul; it was like a giant game of tetras haha! She was grateful that we were able to help her; she almost began crying haha! The service project took around three hours because of how much stuff we had to put in that U-Haul! We put dozens of boxes, chairs, tables, desks, mattresses, and more in the truck! After, we had to help her move a bunch of her plants to her neighbor's house in fear of her sister cutting them down (idk the whole situation but apparently her family is crazy and that's why she was trying to clean out the house). After finishing with the service project, we headed home to shower and then begin the day! We had a really good lesson with friends of ours named Kevin and Betsy! They are a super nice couple from Columbia! For the lesson, I got to know them better and what they've been taught! They've been taught almost everything; they've just never been able to come to church! They are just so busy as they are working multiple jobs! Silicon Valley is no JOKE! It's expensive down here. They've met with the missionaries in Columbia before as well! We explained to them the Spirit World and the Resurrection, as they had a couple questions about it! But for this lesson, we explained to them the Sacrament and why it's necessary we go to church! We explained to them the Ten Commandments and how one of the commandments given to us was to keep the Sabbath day Holy! We explained to them what our services are like and the significance behind the bread and water! We read through Moroni 6 to help them better understand the importance of gathering and learning with other members as well; we also went over the doctrine of Christ and how the sacrament also allows us to renew the covenants that we have made! We bore our testimonies on the Atonement and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing anyone can receive! We boldy invited them to church so we really hope they are able to come! We ended the lesson by sharing Elder Holland's testimony on the sacrament! Kevin and Betsy are SUPER cool and have the desire to learn more! If they can come to church, they can for sure get baptized! After a couple more contacts, we taught our friend Angelie the second half of the Restoration! I botched the first vision pretty badly, so we just ended up showering her with the video 🤣; we were able to help her understand the Restoration completely. We let her know that the message of the Restoration can help her better understand the reason for making and keeping covenants with God and how there can only be one true church! Hopefully, she can come to church on Sunday! She's looking for a job right now, so it's been a little tough for her! After a couple more contacts, I had to RUN to go use the bathroom! Like it just came out of nowhere 🤣. It was so bad that I had to have Elder Fuller drop me off at Target. After that whole experience, we had to do a couple contacts and make a couple calls before teaching Johnston. We taught Johnston for an HOUR and a half about so many things. Johnston has studied the scriptures his whole life and has gone to every single church out there! Now he's studying at our church! Basically we read the intro to the Book of Mormon with him, explained to him the "lost sheep" Jesus Christ was talking about were those in the ancient America's, how the stick of Joseph was the Nephites while the stick of Judah was the Jews (B.O.M and Bible), the whole story of the Book of Mormon explained (Elder Fuller did a really great job) how the Book of Mormon and the Bible work together to help us understand the Atonement, coming forth of Jesus Christ and his doctrine, the Plan of Salvation, covenants/commandments, etc. The scriptures really do teach us so much! He seemed to understand what we were telling him, and he now understood the gist of what we were teaching him. He tried pulling out Revelation 22:18 to try and discredit the Book of Mormon (he wasn't doing it out of mal intent) so we explained to him how the Bible was not written in order (chronologically) and how it's a collection of texts. We explained to him that the Book of Revelations was actually one of the oldest written texts in the Bible and how John the Revelator was only talking about the Book of Revelations! We further proved our point by showing him Deuteronomy 4:2! It was a really good chat, and Johnston has the desire to grow and better understand the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! We bore our testimonies and emphasized the importance of reading the Book of Mormon to gain a witness from the Spirit! While leaving (it was seriously such a long lesson) we explained to him how the Law of Tithing works, how the First Presidency is organized, and how callings and missionary work works!
-Elder Copeland
