Week 44: Goleta

August 9, 2021

Today was fun, we tried to go bowling for our activity, but the lanes weren't working, so we played some Spikeball. We've got a fun district with some awesome missionaries. It was fun calling home, and getting to relax some. 

After dinner, we were able to have some awesome contacting. We talked about eternal families with somebody named Michael, and I think he's interested. We just bore powerful testimony and told him we wanted him and his family to have the blessings of the Gospel and be sealed forever. It was a good day to be a missionary and share the Gospel.

August 10, 2021

Today we did some more Facebook, we've been trying to really put a lot of effort and faith into it, because President Carter promised blessings if we do. So we'll do it with faith. I have really learned the importance of faith in finding God's children to teach. If you don't have faith you will find anybody, then it won't happen, it's that simple. 

We also taught Angela today, she really likes to talk. we couldn't really help her progress much because she kept getting off track. But she has had a rough life, and the Restored Gospel can improve her life drastically. But she's a nice lady, I hope we can keep helping her learn.

August 11, 2021

We had Zone Conference today. We talked a lot about having the correct principles of the gospel in our hearts and teaching those principles to our friends. Something I also liked was how to help our friends keep commitments. Afterwards, we grinded a lot of finding time and had another cool experience with someone named Kevin. He was sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette. We talked to him a little bit and Elder Hernandez talked about how we go around teaching the Restored Gospel and help people get baptized. When I heard him say that my ears perked up haha. So we talked about baptism and how it would be a new start for him. He said he was never baptized, but would like to be. So we talked about what baptism means and shared 3 Nephi 27:20. We asked what it would mean to him to stand spotless before God, and he said "That would be incredible." So we have a lesson on Saturday. It's so funny how baptism is the perfect thing to talk about with some people. It increases my faith to just follow the Spirit, no matter what.

August 12, 2021

Today we had all of our lessons cancel, which was a bummer, but it's just more opportunities to find more people. We got some good potentials, and keeping up the work. We dropped a bunch of people today, it's kind of sad, but it's also refreshing. We gain so many more people to talk to when we have the faith to drop those that are not keeping commitments. Time is too short to focus on people who don't care about learning. But there are awesome people here, it's been the most successful area I've been in.

August 13, 2021

We had a fun day, got to do some service for some nice people. The first was this lady who needed a giant headboard moved up two flights of stairs. That was a piece of work, and she gave us a delicious salad lunch. After that, we helped another lady move out, and she gave us a $25 gift card to Blenders. Californians always try to give you tons of stuff for doing hardly any service.

After dinner, we had a lesson with Angela. It was much more productive this time, and we read some scriptures with her and committed her to church. After that, we had some Facebook and a Zoom member visit. It was a really good day, kept us on our feet. We talked to one guy named Andy, he was kind of drunk, but not so much that we couldn't talk about the Gospel with him. It's awesome when we can dispel rumors and misconceptions about our church. We did that with him. One lady today said, "I just don't know how the Mormon's don't believe in the Holy Ghost." Then we said, "We do." And then, "Oh.. well do you believe in the Bible?" haha, I think that's one of the best things we can do, because it really softens their hearts to the Church and they can find out what we truly believe. 

August 14, 2021

We had a great day. We did something called a walk day, which is where we drive the least amount that we can. The goal is to talk to as many people as possible by walking between all of our appointments and activities. But Elder Hernandez and I had far away appointments that we needed to get to, so walk-day was kind of a wash for us. 

It was a day where we didn't have much success. Nobody was interested, but we did end on a good note, though, calling through our interested people. We called Abigail, a lady we haven't been able to contact since the beginning of our time here in Goleta. We asked her if we could talk with her more, and she said "Yeah, how about now?" So we shared the Plan of Salvation with her and we started officially teaching her tonight. A little miracle, she is just prepared to hear the Gospel. 

August 15, 2021

We had the special privilege today of teaching Primary. We did a fun activity where we held a picture of the Savior at the front of the class and someone stood across from it. And every time we said something that brings us closer to Jesus Christ they take a step closer; and every time we say something that brings us further away, we take a step back. It was fun, and the little kids really got into it. 

We had some awesome contacts today, people that had a really strong Spirit in them, we were even able to set up return appointments with them. One guy looked completely shocked when we told him that he could be with his kids forever. We gave him a pamphlet and we're going to try and teach him and his family later.