Week 76: Newbury Park

March 21, 2022

The end of a transfer. We played some Pickleball, Spikeball, and other games for Preparation Day. We were able to unwind, and we had a fun time. There's always these times when you've just got to take a break, take a load off. God wants us to rest our minds and bodies. I think it will be a really good transfer. I'm trying to do better at focusing on my personal goals that I set at the beginning of the transfer. 

March 22, 2022

Today was a really, really awesome day. We spent almost our entire day doing transfer train stuff. We were running around a lot, and we had some errands to run (taking bikes around, moving mattresses, unlocking doors, etc). After we took care of all of our responsibilities, we didn't have much time to do anything, because it was 4:30. 

But the day wasn't over yet. The Boyce's had us over for dinner, and we celebrated Charlotte and Channing's birthday! Such a fun time. We also set them on date to be baptized for the 18th of May! Really good things happening, we also picked up a friend of ours named Rick. A classic example of the Lord consecrating our efforts with the little bit of time we have. It's going to be such a good transfer. Only two new sisters came into the Zone, and our unity as a Zone is going to be through the roof. 

March 23, 2022

The trend of a busy first week of the transfer continues. We took care of our tech council/CDC stuff, and we did some more service at James' Storehouse. We were talking about how many good people there are in the world, and there is so much good being done for other people, but no one wants to admit it haha. We dropped off a baptismal calendar for the Boyce's, and gave them a picture Book of Mormon, kind of as a late birthday present. Going to be a good day tomorrow as well. 

March 24, 2022

Today was pretty similar to yesterday, we had a bunch of responsibility stuff to take care of, and then did some weekly planning. We have kept up the focus of keeping on cutting down the yellow dots, finding those people who are prepared to hear the message. We had a visit with Sister Haylund and a visit with the Merrill's. A productive day. We did a micro Zoom on contacting referrals, and we laid a good groundwork of our missionary work again. 

March 25, 2022

We had district council today, it's the same district as last transfer, just with Sister Henderson and Sister Vanderhoff added. Learned some great things, Elder Burkhart gave a good discussion on hope and finding joy in work. Then we had lunch together, Subway is always an easy pick for these things.

Owen got married to Dana today, and so I was able to call and see some family that I don't usually see. Pretty surreal stuff, came out of nowhere, because life moves pretty quickly out here, things come and go. Dana is now my first 'sister' I've had, pretty cool. 

Other than that, we spent some more time than usual finding, and we were able to talk to a few people. Just grinding. Can't believe we're already in the end of March, and that life is blowing by so fast. 

March 26, 2022

The main thing we did today was cookie runs. After some contacting, and other studies, we took some cookies and went by people that we have been trying to contact, or have been hoping to build a relationship with. It brought good success, and we were able to contact a lot of people. We had a talk with one of our less-active members, and she was having a hard time with the politics and the state of the world; she said that she has lost her peace. We prescribed to her the two most crucial inoculations against those things, prayer and scripture study. Anybody can reach peace when you have that open dialogue with God. I know it's worked for me.

For the rest of the night, we did some social media work and did some Areabook work. We weren't able to go to the member beach party tonight, but what do you do. It was a good night nonetheless. 

March 27, 2022

A great day, we had five people come to church (the Boyce kids, Bella, and Lynn)! The Boyce kids are coming right along. Bella also loves coming to church. The only issue is, she has never had religious experience, and so the concepts that we find commonplace in Christian denominations are foreign to her. We really take for granted the blessings we have to live in a country that has religious freedom. 

We had a lesson with a friend named Roy, and it didn't go as well as we had hoped; Roy struggles with the concepts of faith and hopes to be able to find God by running laps around the philosophies of the world. Something we didn't tell him but that is true is that that can literally never happen. I'm absolutely positive that God has made sure we cannot find Him without acting in faith. We can't find him by building a tower of Babyl, made up of scientific and philosophical bricks. 

After dinner with the Pace's, we did some of the usual stuff and turned in for the night.