Week 18: Morro Bay

February 8, 2021

Today was a good P-day, and we did a bunch of laundry and cleaned our car because we have Zone Conference tomorrow. Then we played some beach volleyball in a park for our district activity, which was fun. After that, we called our families, played some piano music, and went home to have dinner. After that, we did a member visit and then did Facebook for 2 1/2 hours. Good day. 

February 9, 2021

Today we had Zone Conference, which was fun, and also very enlightening because we talked about how to receive personal revelation. One of my largest takeaways was to humble yourself so that you will accept revelation when it comes. Because if you aren't humble, there's no point in God even sending revelation to you. We got really close to finding someone today, but when we mentioned something other than the Bible to her, she wasn't interested anymore. The Bible is probably one of the most misused and abused books in existence. It is amazing and provides things that the Book of Mormon doesn't, and contains Christ's actual life experiences, which is also amazing. But people twist it to give people the wrong idea. No one has the full truth about God, and it doesn't make sense to confine God to a single book and claim that He has no present-day voice. What I'm praying for is these people to give us a chance to help them bring Christ into their life even more, and I'm praying for help with patience with some of these people in the meantime. 

February 10, 2021

Today we had a really busy day, as per usual, and so now I'm really tired. We did some service for a nice lady named Jen, then we did some studies, then some park contacting, then we did some Facebook and then finally a member visit. Today I was reading in a Resolving Concerns book I have on my phone under the question, "Are We the Only True Church?", because I have been trying to figure out where all of these other Christian churches fit in, in terms of evil or good, or right and wrong. What it said was something along the lines of this: There are celestial churches and terrestrial churches, and God can guide and inspire other churches. Of course, God wants all of His children to make it to the Celestial Kingdom, but most people don't have it in their hearts to do that. They can't abide a celestial law, and so they won't abide a celestial church or a celestial glory. But God still gives them good values and churches to get to the terrestrial kingdom. That's the best way I can explain it, but it still probably don't make much sense. Oh, and we gave Sister Mitchell a blessing of comfort tonight. 

February 11, 2021

Today was a really good day. We were in studies, and Alissa called us back. She said she needed a little more help moving, so we did, and we got to sit down with her and talked some more. She is definitely prepared to hear the Gospel, dare I say she could be the Lord's elect. We're very excited for her. 

We also met with a very interesting person named Victor. He's a 60-something year old man, who owns a house and some property in the backwoods of Morrow Bay. He's pretty much the king of the homeless, and he lets them live on his property and has them do work for him. He's very kind-hearted, and he converted from Catholicism to Judaism. He has some very interesting stories, from homeless people trying to kill him, to his old days getting mixed up in organized crime stuff because of his old friend Vinnie, who was a gang leader about 30 years ago or so. He doesn't believe that Jesus was the Christ, so that will definitely be a new challenge, we'll have to do some adjustments. But adjusting has been all we've been doing, so I'm not worried. 

February 12, 2021 

Today we did some service for someone named Erin, who was very grateful because she's going through a very rough time right now. After that we taught Tony some more about the sacrament and about how the priesthood was restored through Joseph Smith. He took it very well, and is still progressing steadily. In the park today, we met a born-again Christian who talked with us for a good 45 minutes. He was fairly nice, but obviously he has the wrong idea about why we're here and why the Atonement was performed. He was listing off a lot of verses in the Bible that were misinterpreting the Bible to point to the Trinity. I had my pocket New Testament ready like a gun in the holster, but I decided against it. The Spirit was telling me that it's better to leave without contention than to disprove the Trinity using Matthew 3:13 and Acts 7:55, because he wouldn't have listened anyway. In the past in my short time as a missionary, I have always seen the faith of other people's religions as an obstacle to me truly having faith in mine. Questions like: "They know more about the Bible, maybe they could have the right idea.." or "There's so many people that believe in their religion compared to ours, how can we really be the true church?" came to my mind every so often, because these people seem to know what they're talking doubt. But as I have gained a further witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and studied the Bible, I can see that they perfectly coincide and work together to testify of Jesus Christ, just like we claim it does. It's gotten much easier to say that these other faiths and Bible 'scholars' simply don't know what they're talking about. 

February 13, 2021

Today we did a whole lot of service, we were in service clothes for about 80% of the day, and it was interesting how we did the service as well. For the first service, we moved a single entertainment center into the back of someone's truck in about five minutes, and then he offered us $20, which we naturally declined. Then later in the day, we went to the apartment of a lady named Joni, and she needed us to move out her entire living room, which took one hour, and then something she didn't tell us was that we needed to move it back in later. Our schedule wasn't going to work out because we were going to have dinner with the Boyette's, but they cancelled. So we were able to help her out again, and then she told us that she would text us when she needed the other two rooms cleared out haha. But it's always great to help someone do something that they could never do on their own.

February 14, 2021

It was a good Sunday, a nice way to finish off the week. We met with Tony again after church, and he is so prepared! He asks all of the right questions, and he loves the Bible and sees that it and the Book of Mormon make perfect sense together. That's what we've been trying to tell everyone else haha. We'll be able to go to church next week in person, so he's excited for that. Dan and Daniel are progressing very well, and Dan's wife Rebekah is reactivating. We're teaching Alissa, and it seems like her heart is so prepared to hear the message. And we also met some people at the park who are interested, not to mention a lady named Gail and another named Erin who are interested as well! Not to mention Donald, who just needs to get out of the hospital so he can get baptized. In conclusion, Elder Strauss and I are very, very blessed to be in this area. It's hard to believe the transfer is already halfway over.