March 21, 2011

Hello everyone!

Wow, so this past week has been SOOO AMAZING!! So many spiritual experiences and just plain good hard work :). On Monday my companion and I decided to go tracting up by UCI (University of California Irvine) again and we started tracting in a set of apartments we hadn't knocked before. But that wasn't where we had planned to go and the whole time we were there I kept having this really strong feeling that we needed to go to the part of campus we had planned to go to. So I kept telling my companion we should go to that place and after a little bit of persistence we decided to go there. On our way to the other apartment complex we saw a man walking on the sidewalk and I went up to him and started talking to him. His name is Francesco and he is from Italy. We talked to him for a bit about what we had to share and then asked him if we could use 15 minutes to teach him and he said yes. So we walked over to a less walked on path and sat down on a dirt path. It was a really neat experience because we were teaching him there on this little dirt path as people walked by all around us. He said at first he didn't know why he wanted to talk with us more but he felt something special. He said an amazing prayer asking if the Book of Mormon is true and then he accepted a baptismal goal! It was such a cool experience. This week has helped me realize that we can teach people ANYWHERE, not just in a closed apartment. This week we also taught a lesson to a man in the middle of a parking lot at a shopping center and he also accepted a baptismal goal. Then we taught another man named Jimmy on a patch of grass near the path we found him on. To me it has been great to notice that really we can teach people anywhere because I notice some missionaries may be afraid to teach someone in public, but really that doesn't give me any fear whatsoever because I know these people need this Gospel, so my companion and I will teach them wherever we find them. There was another door that we knocked on and the man opened the door. I asked him how we was doing and he said not very good. He told us that he had just separated with his wife earlier that day and he was going through some really rough times. I told him we had a message that will definitely help him and he let us in. It was one the most touching lessons I have ever had on my mission. He told us we were angels sent from God because he really needed people to talk to. We felt strongly to talk to him about baptism and how we can become clean through and it wipes away our past mistakes and we can start anew. He said he was so happy we asked him that because that is exactly what he felt he needed. He set a baptismal goal and we have given him as a referral to the other elders in that area but it helped my testimony to grow, that I know that God loves his children and will help us in our time of need.

This past week we had my first Zone Conference as a Zone Leader! It was great to be able to help out all of the missionaries! For that Zone Conference we were all asked to prepare a ten minute talk. The tradition is that one of the missionaries will get randomly selected. Sister Watrous had a basket full of every missionaries name and she grabbed one, it ended up being my companion, he was pretty surprised ha ha. i love Zone Conferences because they give everyone a huge spiritual boost! This week my companion and I also gave talks in our sacrament meeting for the NCYSA (Newport Coast Young Single Adult Ward), and it went very very well. Our investigator came to church! His name is Davi and he is from Brazil! He has the funniest personality and I love him to death. He is progressing very well and I am excited to see him this week when we teach him. When my companion started his talk he began in spanish and nobody expected it, and then when I got up for my talk i started in chinese and it caught them off guard again and then I told them "Well, with my companion knowing spanish and me knowing chinese and we both speak english, we can speak to about 90% of the population here in Orange County) they all thought it was funny...I thought it was funny ;). Anyway, this week has been lots and lots of finding! I love it, we talk to so many people.

This week I also got the opportunity to help my companion by translating for him for Guo Feng Zhi's baptism (she is the investigator from the chinese branch that I started the teaching with her), when she saw me come to her house she ran to me and gave me a huge hug ha ha (we aren't supposed to hug girls and she knows it, she is just funny that way) she told me she misses me a lot and she is being baptized this coming week!!! I really hope we can go to her baptism (in order to go we need an investigator that can come with us) so we will be searching hard for an investigator we can bring! I have something cool I guess i could share, I am mainly putting this in for my mom and little sister Hailee but I think others will like it too. This Saturday we had a Temple Tour and as Zone Leaders we are asked to go to supervise and make sure everything runs smoothly. After the temple tour was over and we were getting refreshments and talking to investigators my companion saw someone that looked strangely familiar and then pointed him out to me. It was David Archuletta (and I am not joking), he was at that building because he was going to be recording there later that night. I didn't talk to him but he was there and apparently he comes down here often and sometimes goes to the OCC (Orange Coast College) institute building randomly, previous missionaries in this ward have talked to him there. Anyway, personally that's not something that distracts me but I thought I would put it in to let my little sister know ;). For other news, on the 28th of April (my exact year mark) L. Tom Perry will be coming to Fountain Valley and he has asked for the Long Beach Mission and the Anaheim Mission to meet together for a special conference with him! I am way excited!! I love you all!! I can't believe I hit my year mark next month! Time is going by so quickly and I am enjoying every minute of this mission. The church is true! Until next time!