Week 49: Goleta

September 13, 2021

We were productive today, pretty much a normal Preparation Day. We got to walk around State Street in Santa Barbara, and check a little more stuff out. Had a delicious lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich from Norton's, which was actually on Diners, Drive-In's, and Dives. For dinner we had fish, saffron rice, and broccoli, courtesy of Elder Marks. I am very lucky to have a companion that cooks so well. 

We had a lesson with Patrick tonight, and it actually went better than we expected. He kept his commitments, and he asked better questions and showed more desire. So we continue to chug along and find success. 

September 14, 2021

We went up to Zone Conference in Santa Maria today. All the discussions they gave were exactly what our Zone needs right now, so they were very inspired. They talked about finding, planning, member work, and a bunch of stuff from Preach My Gospel. Elder Marks and I gave a discussion in the breakout rooms about asking inspired questions. 

After Zone Conference, we did our regular activities and got to business. We were trying to teach Sam, but his mom was home instead and hopefully we'll be able to teach her soon as well. Elder Marks and I are trying to do some more social media so we can use all the finding techniques the Lord has given us.

September 15, 2021

We spent a little bit of time running around this morning, the Spanish Elders forgot their keys at the church and we gave Elder Kok a blessing. We got to do some full studies today, which doesn't usually happen. We did some service for the Weymouth's, which turned into them giving us a ton of ice cream, which led into us just doing a member visit. We were able to find another person to teach named Lucia. We also talked to a homeless guy named Travis, who did a maniacal laughter as we were walking away from him, which was weird because we had a good contact with him haha. We also ran into Amie, Perry's friend, as we were walking past a store. She's been doing well, and hopefully we'll start teaching her again soon. Then we finished off the day with some Facebook. 

September 16, 2021

Today was a bit weird for us, we had a little trouble being urgent today, but we still go some stuff done. We had a lesson with Jason at a Starbuck's today, and it was what Elder Marks coined a "logic bash." He doesn't believe in God, and it came back to the old reliable, which is: "If God exists, why do bad things happen?" He even printed off a flow chart about a philosophy by some Greek guy that is supposed to show that God does not exist. But the thing was, the answers in the Book of Mormon completely dismantled the whole thing. Jason is a really cool guy, but it comes down to whether or not he can bring himself to ask God the important questions with real intent. The Gospel really does have answers that the world is missing out on. 

We had quite the day for food, we had curry for dinner, a pasta/sausuage/onion thing for lunch, and after 9, we got a quarter pounder and an egg McMuffin each. So probably gained some weight. But it was a little bit of a sluggish day, I think tomorrow will go better. 

September 17, 2021

We had an exchange today with Elder Jenkins and Elder Phillips. I went with Elder Jenkins in our area. He's a really good missionary, and he's a hard-working elder. He's a great district leader as well. We got a bunch of Spanish referrals, and we were able to get some good stuff going. We had a lesson with Patrick and it went super well, we got to answer the "spirit world" question (i.e. what happens to the people who never got to know Jesus Christ's Gospel). But at the end, he pretty much won't commit to keeping commitments, so that's too bad. But we had a great day, I learned a lot from Elder Jenkins. 

Tomorrow we're going to the mission office in the morning to have a MLC, President Brent H. Nielson of the Presidency of the Seventy is coming, super exciting stuff. 

September 18, 2021

Today we woke up at 5:15am so we could get to the mission office for an emergency MLC. President Brent H. Nielson talked with us about the church and why it's so important to have organization in the church. There's the talk "Why the Church," which was given by Elder Christofferson, that goes over a lot of it. I gained a lot of amazing insights, and I'll be reviewing those notes quite often. 

We had a good rest of our day. For lunch we went to this really good place called 'On the Alley' and got some great fish and chips. After some more work, our member dinner fell through, so we went to a restaurant called 'Mesa Burger'. After both of those meals, my body was suffering, I was walking around with a ball of grease in my stomach. But other than that, we had a pretty good day, we made sure to do our best and take care of the people that we have already found. We're teaching some great people, just struggling to help them progress very far. 

September 19, 2021

Went to church today, it was good stuff. We didn't get anybody to church, we've been struggling to do that, but we have been able to help our people progress more this week. During our finding time, we felt prompted to go say hi to Susan. We've been trying to get some lessons with her without success. But when we stopped by, she was willing to have a lesson with us right then and there. So we got to do that, and we also had five member visits in one day, because we saw we were a little slim in that department this week. 

It was a good week, we only found one new person to teach, but we were able to help everyone else progress and drop the people that weren't. A recession, I guess. But it's going to be a great week ahead, we are going to do a bunch of member work and social media work.