Week 58: Goleta

November 15, 2021

Today we had another good final preparation day of the transfer. It was a great transfer. I learned a lot from Elder Tree, and I think the Lord made a good call keeping us together, because I still have a ton to learn from him. We had a really busy night, got to teach the Douglas family, and do the pepper water-soap trick for talking about baptism. We also had to clean the Goleta 2 apartment for the new Elders coming in tomorrow. It should be a really good transfer ahead of us. 

November 16, 2021

Had a busy transfer day, as per usual. We had a few people forget their stuff, but we got a bunch done and even got to contact some. We have some good potentials, and made some progress in getting our Zone situated and ready to jump right into another transfer. We spent a bit of time just helping get things situated. Talked to some nice people, especially this guy named Dwight. We got his number and hopefully we'll be able to teach him later. Then we did some dot knocking because it gets dark earlier. We also made a ton of member calls and then finished off the night with a "get-to-know-you" Zone Zoom. 

November 17, 2021

Today was a great day. We went to this sweet park in Goleta for exercise, and played "Bank Basketball." Interesting game, actually kind of challenging. We also had a really good ZLC today, it was just Elders. Our ZLC is us, Elder Kartchner, Elder Parker, and Elder Hales. They are all awesome Elders with a lot of great ideas. 

We also did some service for some nice ladies from the Spanish branch here in Santa Barbara. We had a lesson with Anthony, and we have officially determined we are going to pass him off to members. I feel ok though, because we really did everything in our power that we could have. 

We also had a good lesson with the Villanueva's and we established the intent that we have for Sister Villanueva. And so we're helping her gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon! It was a good day, we are super excited for the transfer, and feeling good about it. 

November 18, 2021

Today we had some regular studies, got to do a Mission Zoom about doing social media work. We had a pretty cool miracle happen, after weekly planning, Elder Tree says "Let's go get our mail." So we went out, and our new friend Jason was getting is mail at the same time. So we started teaching him, it added to my faith that we can find in any activity of the day. 

We also got to have a lesson with Dave. He's doing well, we talked about fasting and helping him work through some issues. We also had a fun lesson with a member named Mindy. She has two crazy little boys, Luca and Levi. While Elder Tree and Brother Valenza were talking to Mindy, I was showing magic tricks, trying to make paper airplanes, showing Book of Mormon pictures, making animals with my hands, getting climbed on, doing handshakes, all while they were screaming and running around. It was super fun. 

November 19, 2021

It was a day. We had a pretty good start, but then for the rest of the day, stuff was just off, and our contacting didn't go too well. We were able to find all the people that weren't having such good days. But that's ok, because things will turn around tomorrow. We had a lesson with Dave cancel, but we made a bunch of calls and have some good stuff coming. We had a member visit with Brother Webber and Brother Christopherson, and then finished off the night on a bad note by getting Munchy Meals. 

November 20, 2021

Today we had a successful day! We got to do some finding in the morning, and also got to finish the poem video of Elder Tree. We had some good finding today and found two new people to teach, Thomas and Santiago. With both of them we got to talk about how others don't quite have the full truth. Excited to keep going strong. 

We spent some time driving through Isla Vista tonight, which is a Saturday night at the #2 party school in the nation. Not a good place to be spiritually. For the rest of the night, we ran between some member visits, got to talk to the Coulters about some Beatles trivia haha. I'm trying to build up my ability to feel like we are succeeding even if we aren't succeeding numbers-wise. Just another thing I need to work on. 

November 21, 2021

We had some good church today, although we are yet to get anyone to church this month. That's been a struggle for us. But we had a good day, got a bunch of stuff planned and set up. We also had a good finding day, we found this awesome guy named Steven who let us come in and eat some of his pizza haha. He's interested in learning more, so we're going back later to teach him again. 

Something I'm working on this coming week is readying a page in the Book of Mormon before I eat breakfast, so I hope I can keep that up.