Week 67: Newbury Park

January 17, 2022

We had a lot of chores fall through today, but we kept it productive. I went and got a haircut, we went shopping, and then we went to the Oaks Mall food court to have lunch with the Westlake District. Afterwards, we decided to go buy me a new suit at Macy's. Luckily I found a good one that was 60% off, which is going to be much needed. My other suits are big and pretty worn. For the rest of the day, we went to the church and called our families. For primetime, we drove around and visited some folks. It's going to be a good week, and we'll have plenty of stuff to do. 

January 18, 2022

Today was a busy one. We had a full day, packed with great stuff to do. We were able to pick up a super nice lady named Vikki, she is the mother of a guy that sent in a request to have a Bible, and we started teaching her today. We had some solid finding today, which felt super nice. 

We had another lesson with the Boyce kids, they are doing so awesome and progressing so well. Erika, their mom, has been so great this whole time, she is being such a good influence on her kids recently, and is really taking big strides for herself. We had the Coons' on a Zoom call for a member visit, and then we finished off the night with a fun Zone Zoom about service. We also taught this awesome guy named Jason on his walk. 

January 19, 2022

Today was awesome. After some studies, we had a ZLC at the Westlake building, and planned out some stuff. It was kind of a slow day at first, we felt very, very out of it and weren't sure why. So it was a bit of a struggle, but we had a really good lesson with Natisse that was uplifting, she definitely has a strong enough testimony to be baptized. 

We had a fairly slow day of finding, but we had a miracle for our last contact. We started talking to Gary as we were heading back to our car. He's awesome, we'll get to teach him again this Saturday. It's always faith-building to be blessed with last minute success and be able to hang your hat up that night. God does look out for us, and He really helped me out today in many ways. 

January 20, 2022

We had Zone Conference today, learned some really good, important stuff. President Carter explained more about the ordinances of the gospel and why they are always affixed to covenants. 

We had another lesson with Paul (Jan) today, but it's been difficult to help him progress, and so we'll see him in a couple weeks after he's read the Book of Mormon. We had a lot of stop by's to do today, but it really seemed like our time just slipped away like sand. We had a good member visit, talked about social media. We're really been trying to help members do social media, because they can have much better success than we can. Good day. 

January 21, 2022

We had good success today, the Lord really carried us through. It was kind of a sluggish day, but we just got out of the apartment and got to work, which is sometimes the only thing you can do to get out of a rut. We started teaching Lynn over the phone, she is really amazing and was asking so many good questions, the Gospel is perfect for her. And turns out, she can only trace her Native American ancestry to right around the time that the Book of Mormon was hidden. She is going to fit right in, and the Relief Society will love her. 

We had a really good lesson with the Boyce's, they felt the Spirit when they prayed about Joseph Smith! And they're asking questions, and they are just progressing super steadily. They are such an awesome family, and they are changing so much. I felt the Spirit super strong when we taught them tonight. These are the kind of days that make you want to be a missionary until the day you die. It's been a good week so far, I'm hopeful for tomorrow. 

January 22, 2022

We had a good day. After the study grind, we taught Chris, and he's pretty awesome. I hope we can get to teach his family as well. We had another lesson with Vikki, we need to get her son Michael in our lessons as well, because they will really progress if they are learning together. 

We had a little bit of a slow night, because it was Stake Conference and our members were all busy. I had my testimony built on the gospel today, and that if we are worthy priesthood holders, we truly can teach with convincing power and the Holy Ghost. It has been a very good, productive week, and I am growing my faith everyday. 

January 23, 2022

Another good week on the books. I'm glad we came flying out of the chute in all aspects; I was little worried that we were going to be little sluggish coming out of quarantine, but we did well. And it felt good this week to take the new approach on contacting that we did. Rather than be kind of abrupt or overbearing with our approach, we were pleasantly persistent, as Brother Pearce would have put it. That approach felt better, and also brought better results. Anyway, we had Stake Conference today, and we gained some good spiritual food from the Carters, President Merril, and Elder Cordon. 

After some studies, we hit the streets and met a lot of great people who sadly weren't interested. But we felt very good about our efforts today, even though we didn't find anybody to teach. Because sometimes that's just how the day ends up. It was a very fulfilling week for me.