Week 80: Newbury Park

April 18, 2022

We had a very busy day full of fun stuff to do, we met up with some missionaries at the skate park and had some fun there, even though there were a lot of people there. There are a few guys we're trying to teach, some awesome people that we see at the skate park. 

After lunch at the Oaks mall, we went thrifting and scored some shorts, and then had some time to unwind at the church. We were able to have a lesson with our friend Jim and his wife Sarah, and they are super, super nice, but just not quite open to the Gospel yet. They just need some more time. A green tomato, one might call it. A good Preparation day, on to week 5 of the transfer. 

April 19, 2022

There were many lessons today, so we stayed on our feet. Our first lesson was with Lynn, and it went really, really well. She asked a lot of questions and is eager to learn more. Our fellowship was also very helpful, and she is on the fast-track to progression. Our second lesson was with Hildegard, it as an interesting lesson because we brought fellowship and everything, but she started her walk, so we taught her while walking to the park. She's not progressing as much, because she's a bit older, and things get off track, but such is missionary work. We were able to have a great lesson with Rick, and we gave him a picture Book of Mormon so he can read it to his kids. 

A very productive day, and we are beat. Our goal has been to make everybody's day better than we found it, rather than be super bold and pushy with people. We decided that we don't want anybody to regret running into the missionaries. We also had a fun time correcting Hildegard's "Joseph Schmidt" into Joseph Smith, there was some confusion there. 

April 20, 2022

A little bit of a slower day, we didn't have any lessons or member visits planned. We had tech council, and then after lunch did some more service for James Storehouse. We also had a short Zoom companionship study with Elder Winn and Elder Starkey, because we've been trying to help everybody work on what they are improving about themselves as missionaries. After keeping busy and finding, we had some tacos for dinner and kept it up. We stayed busy with social media, and did our best to share the Gospel today. 

April 21, 2022

Had exchanges with the Assistants today, we split and I went down to Oxnard with good ol' Elder Holmstead, my MTC companion. We had a good day, it was his birthday, so he got a lot of birthday wishes. Had their Bishop give a mini surprise ice cream cake party. 

We met this cool guy named Miguel in the park next to the Oxnard church, and were able to start teaching him. We also had a lesson with Joe, and taught him about prayer and how to receive revelation for his family. As I was telling him that there was nothing too small to pray to God about, I remember the Spirit prompting: "This is exactly the right way to say it." And it was. He said that he had been talking about that at work with his friends, and we all recognized it was no coincidence. 

We kept it up with many stop-by's, and finished off the night with yet another birthday cake. Almost forgot to mention, we had a fun lunch with the office staff for Elder Holmstead. A good day for journal writing. 

April 22, 2022

Today was an interesting one for sure. We had district council in Agoura, it went awesome. Then our studies, and a brief companionship study with elder Packard and Elder Chang. And then the fun started. We had just received some equipment to do an interview with a recent convert named Grace for the page, but while we were testing it out, the cords wouldn't connect properly for the recording equipment to our phones. So we spent the afternoon to the end of the night trying to figure out what went wrong and making several trips to and from Target to get cords and connectors. We haven't found a solution yet, but we still have tomorrow to figure it out. We also got Jack-in-the-Box shakes to keep our sanity at the end of the night. 

April 23, 2022

Had my second exchange with Elder Burkhart today, we did some service early on in the day and helped a man named Carl take some stuff to Goodwill. There was a bunch of tools, a super nice guitar, and a model car, and he said we could take them for ourselves. So we have some good stuff on our hands. 

We had some great studies today. Something that really struck me was that Jesus Christ didn't just suffer for our sins, he completely conquered them, put them under His feet, so much that He wore them upon his vesture (Rev. 19:13) and defeated them entirely. All that's left for us is to accept His infinite sacrifice and then His Atonement is immediately brought about upon us. 

But anyways, we met a lot of nice people today, and handed out a lot of materials. We had the Maddox's provide dinner at El Pollo Loco through a gift card, and we got a ton of food. But it was a really good day, I had a lot of personal wins today. 

April 24, 2022

We had good church attendance today, we had the Boyce's and a kid named Smith come to church. We were lucky enough to have Elder Jaggi from the Seventy visiting, because Dos Vientos Ward is his home ward. 

We plan on going skating with some of the youth tomorrow. After studies and a few stop by's, we had dinner with Jared Pace and his family, really good people. We did some more social media tonight, and had a visit with Sister Haglund over Zoom. Then we had a mission-wide Zoom. They clarified some dress standards, but one of the biggest corrections was for us to wear proselyting clothes on Monday's as well. It's been tuckering me out with substantial changes every other week, but I know it's all for good reasons.