Week 38: Solvang

June 28, 2021

We had a fun day today. We went to the park to hang out with our district in Lompoc, so we could go shopping at Walmart. We only had about $23 combined on our MSF cards, so we got some staple foods; shredded wheat cereal, milk, soda, butter for buttered noodles, a salad bag, and tortilla chips. 

We rode our bikes with our new lights on them, and it was super fun. We got to contact at Sunny Fields and we got a number, and then we biked to the church to do a bunch of calls. We called Ali while we were there. She says she's been having dreams that happen after the fact, so she was wondering if she was becoming a prophet or something haha. Sheri has been kind of unresponsive lately, and so it's getting to the point where we'll probably ask her if she wants to meet still. It was very fun and even therapeutic to ride bikes tonight. I really, really hope it doesn't get stolen. 

June 29, 2021

Today we were able to find somebody new through a member, it was really cool. We were going for a member visit with the Gomez's, and her friend was there, someone named Mark. He didn't know much about our church, so we explained and actually had a really good lesson on the fly. We gave him a Book of Mormon and committed him to read the introduction by Friday when we come back. 

We had some good contacting, but it was one of those days where people would stop us mid-sentence and say they weren't interested. It's always a bummer when people don't even give you a chance to tell them what they're missing. But no worries, the success continues, and the work is moving forward in this area, I'm excited. Everybody's out of town right now on vacation, and so that makes member visits a little harder to get. 

June 30, 2021

We were able to get some good things going today, we had some good finding and were able to get a number of someone named Austyn. And yes, he did say to spell it with a 'Y'. But it was good, we kept the work progressing, and this area is getting in better shape each day. 

But our diet these past couple of days has really been something else. For dinner last night I had buttered noodles, and today for lunch I had half of a bell pepper, an apple, Doritos, and some tortilla chips. We're kind of running out of food, but we get to eat out now because our money cards got refilled. So we went to Eddie's Place, and that place is good. Another benefit of serving a mission on the Central Coast. 

July 1, 2021

Today we did some fun service, we took out a little shed for this lady, she was super nice and knows the Agin's well. We also got to have some people from our ward help Nati out and find out some more about his family. 

We were talking about how crazy it's going to be this weekend, the 4th of July, with COVID just loosening up, it's going to be pretty wild. We'll probably try to get some referrals and make use of the weekend. We talked to someone today who was really cool, his name was Chuck, and he's interested in reading the Book of Mormon. We've been having a really good past couple of days, things are going pretty well here in this area, it's exciting. 

July 2, 2021

District Council was good today, we all bore our testimonies about the Book of Mormon. My two main reasons are: 1.  Because the Spirit has told me it's true, and 2. Because of the enlightenment and peace it brings to my mind. 

For the rest of the day, we had a lot of bike riding, some cancelled lessons, and a lot of finding. Just before we were heading through the town center, we got to talk to this super nice guy named John from Lompoc. We were sad to hear we'll be referring him, because he was such a cool guy. He said he was "always looking to learn more about God." That's the kind of people that bring me joy when I talk to them, and even more when I teach them. Just humble followers of Christ with open hearts, there's nothing better, and nothing more I could ask for as a missionary. 

July 3, 2021

We had an exchange with Elder Olson today, and it went well. We did some service for Richard today, tearing up his deck, but only his wife was there. Afterwards, we talked with her a while about what we believe, and what her thoughts are on religion. We were hoping to be able to teach them, but her heart doesn't seem to be open or ready to accept the Gospel, she just kept getting hung up on her interpretation of the Bible. 

After that and some studies, we were able to go finding and talk to some people in the main town. One guy was named Anan, he's from India, and he was trying to convert us to Hinduism. "It's the full picture," he said. Funny guy, he offered to come share a power point with our church about Hinduism, and he was dead serious. We got his number, so we'll have an interesting phone call with him later haha. After that, we talked to this really nice Hispanic lady named Laura, we got her number and we'll try to teach her later. We had a good day, I learned a lot from Elder Olson, he is one bold Elder. It'll be a great day tomorrow, the way things are going. 

July 4, 2021

We had a good sacrament meeting today, there were a lot of visitors. After church, we had another mini-phone-call lesson with Susan. She's awesome, she has some strong faith, even though she's been going through a rough time. We really just want to help her reach her goals and grow her faith in the best way that works for her. 

After that, we had dinner with the Mathews', and then had to go back to our apartments for the rest of the night, in case there were any drunk drivers out there. We did some Facebook work, and I fixed some of my ties, so we stayed productive. We had a short mission-wide Zoom call, and President Carter talked about the Founding Fathers and how they were inspired and sustained by God. It's a really cool thing, how the reason we have America is to harbor the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God bless America.