Week 45: Goleta

August 16, 2021

We went bowling today, super fun. It was a little pricey, but it was worth it, it's been a while. We also got some really good sandwiches at a place down the street. They had a really good buffalo chicken sandwich. We got to make a lot of calls tonight and get some lessons set up, so that was great to get done, kind of filling our schedule for the week. Ready for another week of growth and learning. 

August 17, 2021

Today went great. One of our lessons we brought fellowship to fell through, so that was too bad, but we had some good finding. We talked to someone named Daisy, who seems very prepared to hear the Gospel. She's turning over a new leaf, and she is trying to change her life. When we gave her a pamphlet, she said, "I've been waiting for this!" She shows a lot of potential and she shows real intent, so hopefully we can get her progressing. 

We did the Angola diet today. For the whole week, all we bought was 14 bananas, 2 onions, 2 apples, 4 tomatoes, rice, and little bit of chicken, for each of us. I'll probably lose a little weight haha, but it won't be as fun when we're completely out of food. 

August 18, 2021

Today we got to do some service for a brother of a lady named Vicki, raked a lot of leaves. It was nice to have a cloudy day for once haha. 

Later on in the day, we got to spontaneously teach this awesome guy named David. He's this old guy who lives alone, and has three-ish teeth, and has some back problems. But he was so amazed when we told him about the First Vision, and when we told him about the Book of Mormon, he was just as amazed. So we started teaching him, and he's really willing to read anything we give him. That was pretty much the only other thing of note today. 

August 19, 2021

Today we had a bunch of lessons cancel, and so we got to have a lot of finding time. We got to talk to some people, most of which were atheist. Kind of weird, because most people around here are Christian. The more I learn about worldly philosophies, the more I see how they don't hold water. But I love the people anyway, and hate to see them blinded so easily. But it's awesome talking to people with open hearts, people that can feel, rather than just think. We need a good balance of both. The mission has definitely evened out the scales and allowed me to feel God, not just think about Him. 

It's been a great week so far. My commitment to the work has grown a lot this transfer. 

August 20, 2021

Had a good district council, I talked about changing personally through increasing our faith in Christ. But we had a really interesting day, Perry, Abigail, and David dropped us, and we dropped Christy. But unlike the past, I don't feel depressed about it. If people don't want to learn or progress, then they should be dropped, because we need time to get to the people that will. I love these people, and I hope eventually they come around. 

At the end of the day, a person we tried to reach out to in the past called us and said sorry for avoiding us, so hopefully we can start teaching her again. But we had a conversation with an agnostic today, and that always goes so well. The summary of agnosticism is: "But how do you know that?" times infinity. But we love them too, it's just 'intellectual's' running around inside their own brains. It just takes faith, and then the signs follow. 

August 21, 2021

Today was fun, we got to do some more service at the last minute, and the lady gave us a huge lunch afterwards. We had a lesson with Angela where we pretty much said, "If we're going to come back, you need to talk less and we need to talk more." Hopefully she understands, because we do love her and want to teach her and Garry. 

We did some more Facebook work, I posted a story and Elder Hernandez posted one in Portuguese. It was a solid day. The only thing about sharing the Gospel is that a lot of times people won't try it out, that's the only reason that they don't know it's true. But the hope is that someday, the Spirit will soften their hearts. 

August 22, 2021

We had Ward Conference today, it was some good stuff. Hopefully Angela and Garry watched, they just kind of fell out of contact today. We had a trainer meeting, because Elder Hernandez is going to train! We made some whitewash sheets, did some finding, had halibut for dinner, and made some calls until the testimony meeting. 

We got transfer news: Yesterday I found out I'm going to be a Zone Leader here with Elder Marks, and Elder Hernandez is white-washing and going to the Ventura 2nd Ward. There are 20 white-washes happening in the mission. And the craziest thing: Elder Strauss is training and he's going to be a district leader, and he's white-washing... into Morro Bay! So many crazy things happening this transfer, because of COVID, and we have 12 missionaries going home this week to Canada. Everything's going to be insane.