Week 82: Simi Valley

May 2, 2022

Today was a fun last day with Elder Hales. I have loved my transfer here with him, and I hope I've made a lifelong friend. I finally decided to buy a Carver board, two transfers too late, but we've made some good plans to skate later. I was able to say goodby to the members here, and now I'm just packing up. So long Dos Vientos. 

May 3, 2022

Today I left Newbury Park and was transferred down here to Simi Valley. We spent a lot of our day at the Wendy Drive building, and then headed down to Simi Valley with Elder Tree and Elder Taylor. There are luckily a few elders down here that I've served around before. We spend a bunch of time today driving around and helping things get to be where they need to be. It's fun being with Elder Strauss again. We got Burger King tonight, because the members here love to give the missionaries gift cards, and so that's pretty sweet. We were able to meet a bunch of the key members, and finish off the night with a Zone Zoom. We have some fun Elders in the Zone. 

May 4, 2022 

Day 2 in Simi Valley went well. We had a ZLC with our Elders, and started laying a good foundation for the future. We also did service for a nice lady named Elizabeth, we were able to help her out. Then we did some Stake Reports, and after we had a visit with a member named Brother Ouimette. we didn't have too much time to find today, but we were able to have a win by teaching someone over social media as the night was closing. 

Still trying to adjust. We're just trying to start and build up the Zone and our missionaries from where they are. 

I have also been enjoying practicing on my Carver board on our nice hardwood floors. 

May 5, 2022

Had an eventful day full of lessons, and Stake Reports kept us busy as well. Also had a micro zoom today, got to be on the other side of it. We also had a pretty awesome miracle. Our Relief Society president had us do an impromptu lesson with one of her grandkids, who is unbaptized, and so we were able to start teaching him, he's an awesome kid. Afterwards, we stopped by and had a visit with Sister Potts, who missionaries haven't been able to get in contact with for a while. Then we had a lesson with Jorge. He's a college student, and he really had some good stuff to say about the Book of Mormon. We had a read of 1 Nephi 15. It's always the best to just answer questions about the Gospel and have it make sense to people. For the rest of the night, we had social media work and a lesson with an inactive member named JJ. She's a funny German lady, and has the driest sense of humor you could imagine. Good day full of good stuff.

May 6, 2022

Didn't have any lessons today, besides a member visit with the Ary family. As I've gotten to know more of the members, I've really liked getting to know them better, such nice people. 

We had the chance to do a lot of finding today, and we were able to talk to some people who are interested in having us come by again. I've been trying to really hone in on why I'm doing what I'm doing. And I'm trying to make that why because I love God and His children, or my missionary purpose that we recite so often. Good day, we've got a lot of things planned for tomorrow that'll be really good, like service and some lessons. 

May 7, 2022

Today we started the day with a lesson with Tom, one of our friends. We tried making a calendar to help him progress, but that didn't work so well. He is coming to church tomorrow, so still doing good. After lunch, we did some service with Elder Smith and Elder Wilber. It was one of those houses where you wish you could do more for them, if you know what I mean. Some people have it tough. After a little more service at a different place, we hit the road and had dinner at the Parry's. 

Then we did the usual stop by's and were able to start teaching our friend Cameron. He's looking to have God in his life and change his life around, because he's been turning over a new leaf recently. Humble people, just who we are looking for. 

In a lesson with our friend Ishwar, things got philosophical, haha. He was asking a bunch of different questions, about agency, animal treatment, and a bunch of other things that we were able to answer for the most part. But what helped him the most was the testimony of Elder-in-training Asher, so hopefully Ishwar feels the Spirit as he prays. Good day.

May 8, 2022

Today was really good, we had a bunch of people come to church today, 4 of which we are teaching. Those people are Tom, Jorge, Jackson, and Tami. We actually didn't teach Tami until later at Sister Bower's place. She has been through so much hard stuff, and the Gospel really will help her as we continue to meet. Then we went over and had a visit with the LaBass family and got to know them better; awesome family that likes to do missionary work. 

The only issue we ran into today was that everybody was busy with Mother's Day. I swear, it's probably more effective to do missionary work on Christmas Eve than on Mother's Day' because not everybody's Christian, but everybody has a mom. But we kept busy. It was an extremely successful week, great way to start off the transfer here in Simi 5th.