Week 24: Morro Bay

March 22, 2021

We had a pretty fun Zone Activity today for preparation day. It was like a Nerf war, but we used PVC blow-pipes to shoot darts in dead of guns, because there wasn't enough to go around. Fun stuff, and we went to In'n'Out after.

Then we went contacting and did some Facebook. We met with Sister Fishman and she's pretty awesome, and wants to do missionary work. She's also a recent convert of a few years, so that definitely adds. A pretty solid day.

March 23, 2021

The first different thing we did today was doing service for somebody new named Monica. She definitely needed the help, so we were glad to help her out. 

After lunch, we taught Warren with Brother Cleveland, and made some good headway. We are able to answer his questions, it's just helping him believe the answers for himself. After that, we taught Donald with Brother Dison. Donald is so awesome, he's already read the Book of Mormon once and he has gotten to Alma 57 within a matter of two weeks. He puts us missionaries and our weak scripture study to shame. 

After some finding, we dropped off a KJV Bible to Karmen and McKenzie along with some cookies, she is such a nice lady. Then we did a member visit with the Shurtliff's, a young newly-wed couple that is awesome for missionary work. Once again, I'm reminded how great this ward is. 

March 24, 2021

Today we had some awesome service with Stacey, and she wanted us to stick around to have a conversation, so we talked about God. She doesn't believe in any kind of specific nature of God, but she says it really just matters that you believe in a higher power. She has an adopted son that she has a very strong, righteous desire to raise him to know God. She's gay, and her wife actually passed away many years ago. She is one of the nicest ladies I have met, and we're basically friends at this point. I felt the strongest desire to bring her and her son into the Gospel after we taught her, so hopefully we can help her progress. 

Then we had 3 lessons cancel, so we actually got to do all of our studies today for the first time this transfer. Then we did some store contacting and park contacting, just doing pretty much anything we could. Then we had a Ward Coordination Meeting and a member visit, and we were already done for the day.

March 25, 2021

Today we got to take a trip to Cambria, and we did some service for Brother Jensen, who had to get a couch to his bottom floor. He also showed us this really cool clubhouse/treehouse thing that he made for his grandkids when they were young. It's the kind of thing us brothers would have died to have as kids.

Then we went to lunch with the Liesers, an awesome old couple who converted about 10 years ago in their 70's. Brother Lieser pretty much bore his testimony for a full 45 minutes, and about how he converted because of the Book of Mormon is just like another chapter in the book of knowledge about Jesus Christ. He also went to WW2 as a 16-year old, so that's super cool. 

Then we were able to meet with Karmen and McKenzie, and they are doing great and love the Book of Mormon. They are just always busy and it's hard to meet often. We had a canceled lesson, and then two member visits. Ready for a good CDC tomorrow. 

March 26, 2021

We had a good CDC Today, and I was able to gain some good spiritual insights and advice on how to do missionary work in a better way. Afterwards, we drove to Burger King to get some nice, cheap food, and hurried and changed so we could go to a lesson with Warren. We had a good lesson with him, trying to help him progress. Then we hurried to Tony's for a lesson, and he is still trying to figure out from his wife Linda if she is okay with him getting baptized. He is doing great, and he said it would be really cool to be baptized in the River Jordan like Jesus Christ, but that might not happen haha. 

Later that night we had a lesson with Jeremy which went really well. He said he hasn't really gotten along with his family very well, and there's some stuff there, so we read Moroni 7:45-48. I think it helped, so we were glad to have that scripture in mind, it's actually what I was studying this morning. Then we had a fun experience - he said that he actually hadn't tied a tie in forever, so we taught him how to, right then and there. We untied ours, and showed him how to retie it, pretty fun stuff. He asked because he wanted to come to church with us. 

Then we did some Facebook, and then we had one of those Zoom member visits where you can't stop laughing, especially when you shouldn't laugh.

March 27, 2021

So we had service today for Mimi, and she got little disappointed that we couldn't come back later that day. But we're doing so much service we don't even have a choice haha. We had a lesson with Stacey today, and she started calling us her "boys" haha. But we're bringing her to church tomorrow, so we'll see how open she is to the Restored Gospel. 

We had a very interesting experience with Donald today. We showed up for our lesson with him today at 3, and we got bush-wacked. While we were praying, Donald's AA friends had slipped out and went and got someone to kick us out. He walked in, interrupted our prayer, and told us to stand up and get out. He said Donald didn't want to talk to us anymore, and said he didn't want to talk with non-Christians. Elder Strauss and I were completely stunned but Brother Valerie asked the guy who he was, and he said he was Donald's 'overseer.' Then when Brother Valerie asked Donald what was going on, he said "I agree." We asked him what changed, and he just told us he had already been baptized into a good church a long time ago, which was the Calvary Church. So we kind of made our way outside in shock, not really knowing what had just happened. Elder Strauss had a few choice words he wanted to say, and I had a few choice actions I wanted to do. It was very hard to have charity for these guys, and it's especially hard to have charity for the Calvary Church. When a church goes around brandishing an Anti-Mormon, saved-by-grace, Bible worshipping poison to infect the Lord's elect, it gets hard. I haven't seen anyone else lead people further from the truth while proclaiming to be on the right path. But I'm trying to have charity, because if I don't, then what am I really doing as a missionary? I think Donald still has his testimony, they just got to him with some anti stuff. And it's not that I think they knew that they are dragging him down, I think they were just ignorant people that haven't ever given the truth a chance. I hope they all come around someday, and really see that the Restored Gospel will bring them closer to the Lord than anything else will. But at least they didn't have to ambush us. 

March 28, 2021

Today we had a good church, we were able to have Dan and Stacey come in person, which was great, and Daniel watched over Zoom. We were able to have a lesson today with Warren, and we had Brother Cleveland with us, and he just went off. He was talking to Warren about how he'll be a Ward Missionary, and how he'll have the priesthood, and how he'll have the whole ward family, and all this stuff, and Elder Strauss and I were like, "What..?" but even crazier, he actually took it kind of well, and he was actually kind of joking how he can't be baptized because he can't swim. So it actually worked out pretty well, we might see how he's feeling about baptism after our next lesson. 

Later, we had dinner with the Bright's and the Elm's which was fun, we had Navajo tacos. Then we had a lesson with Dan and Daniel, they're doing good. Dan is just working through stuff, but we're just trying to help them feel the Spirit and become more converted to the Lord. Then we had a member visit, and our week was over, kind of crazy one. I'm excited for General Conference coming up, that should be good.