Week 40: Goleta

July 12, 2021

We spend the day packing, washing our car, and saying goodbye to our district. It was a really fun couple of transfers here, so I'm glad I'm not moving too far away. I've learned a lot in the past nine months, more than I thought I would. Elder Peterson was a good companion, and it'll be fun to see him around the Zone. The members here are awesome too, I'll definitely visit some people when I come back here someday.

July 13, 2021

Today was pretty crazy, as transfers usually are. Elder Blue won't be with us sadly, but Elder Hernandez is awesome, a cool Elder, and used to weight lift. We share a ward with the Zone Leaders, so that's kind of weird, but it's still working well. Elder Kaylor and Elder Marks are some good elders. We were able to meet with the Bishop and talk with him some, there are some really great members here. It should be a good transfer, as soon as I kind of get the hang of things.

July 14, 2021

We were busy today as well, did some studies, and called a ton of members, trying to set up some visits. We had a lesson with someone named Perry, he's this cool guy who used to live in Compton. He's Christian, and has some good faith, but he'll need to work on some Word of Wisdom issues. But he's cool, we'll get to know him better and hopefully he'll progress. 

We also had a lesson with someone named Justin. He reached out to us yesterday and asked if we wanted to meet, which was the first red flag. But I was still hopeful, even though it said in the Areabook that he wasn't very receptive. The second red flag was when he introduced us to his toddler daughter, whose name was Grace. It was pretty rough, we saw around 45 minutes that it was going nowhere, but that guy kept bashing and bashing, and we kept trying to get out of the there, but he kept bashing.

July 15, 2021

Today we had a lot of things to do. We had a district leader training meeting, and I gained some good pointers how to do this job. It's kind of nice, I don't have a huge district to look after. It's just us, the Zone Leaders, and two Sister companionships. So I get to pretty much just look after the sisters. I'm sure it'll get more fun and less stressful after a transfer of figuring it out. But it was a good day, we got to talk to a lot of people, even though none of them were receptive. But we did get to meet a bunch of the members today. So that was a blessing. Missionary work is best done through the simple testimonies of members. Because I think a guard can sometimes go up when people are approached by missionaries, but it's different with members.

We also had something cool happen. As we were walking back to the apartment, we said hi to someone and he kept walking, but then he turned and stopped us, and identified himself as an inactive member. He asked where the church was located and said he wanted to start coming back. So that was a great spiritual boost, and hopefully we'll get to help him start coming back to church. 

July 16, 2021

We had a super productive day today. We started off with my first District Council, which I was actually really nervous for. But it went well, and I think everybody learned something. We have a good, strong district here, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be their servant. 

For the rest of the day, we had some really good contacting, and were blessed with many great people to talk to and get numbers from. We had Brother Pearce reach out to Perry to reschedule our lesson with him, and he's a very bold guy. We were able to make some great progress here. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone more, it really helped to keep the stress down. Elder Hernandez is awesome, he's very willing to be bold and learn a lot. He has a really funny sense of humor too. It's been fun so far, and I think it'll stay that way. 

July 17, 2021

Today was a grind day, and it went really fast. We did some studies, and then had our lesson with Otis cancel. So we walked around and were able to get some numbers and hand out some pamphlets. Got some more solid potential, and we're keeping up with the bold contacting. Elder Hernandez and I both agreed that it feels really, really good to talk to literally everybody we can. 

We got into another Bible bash today, two in one week haha. People really like to argue, but I hate how I feel after. Something I never thought I would hear when I ask, "Why do you believe in the Bible?" is "Because it's verified by the scholars." That doesn't seem right. Our faith should not rest in the authenticity of manuscripts, or the knowledge of man, just by God's witness. We also had a lesson cancel with Perry, but hopefully he comes to church tomorrow. But it's been good here, it just been pretty humid, it's 86% humidity tonight.

July 18, 2021

Had a pretty good day, we weren't able to get anybody to church. But we had a pretty full day, and had a really good dinner of ribs with the Grimand's. We also had a good member visit with the Lee's. Other than that, we kind of just kept up the grind, and tried to contact some people in our Areabook. It was a really quick week.