Week 90: Oxnard

June 27, 2022

It was a good Preparation Day, we had some fun playing basketball, and later played some sand volleyball. For our three hours of time to do work, we pretty much stopped by some more friends and yellow dots; then we made a lot of member calls and did some Facebook work. 

I've already been here in the area for four weeks, which is crazy to me. Just trying to do the most important things every day, there is so much to do and very little time to get to it. 

June 28, 2022

We had exchanges with the Thousand Oaks Zone Leaders, I went with Elder Robinson, and Elder Davies went with Elder Merling. We started off the day visiting the Dunham's, and then had lunch, and then a language study. We had a call with our recent convert Larrita; didn't go how we had hoped. She's a convert from the missionaries a few months ago, and she's special needs, so it's hard to help her have a good foundation. 

We started teaching a new friend named Zach, he's a cool guy, we'll see where it goes. We also saw Doris, and she won't be talking with us much anymore, but we'll think of that as the next step in her progression. Finished off the night with Facebook, and that's a wrap on another day.

June 29, 2022

Very busy day, we had our day packed with lessons. Our first was with Socorro, she is progressing and getting closer to coming back to church. Second, we had a lesson with Nikkos, and it was a little more fiery than usual but that's alright. Next we had a lesson with Brother Awpin and talked about the sacrament. We also had a lesson with Carlie and Roxana, they inspire me and are getting closer and closer. Then we finished off the night saying hi to William at sports night, and finishing off with Facebook and joining a Thousand Oaks Zone Zoom. 

June 30, 2022

We had exchanges with the Santa Barbara Zone leaders today, and Elder Teichert came along for the ride, so I went with him and Elder Parker today. We did some service at the Foodshare, and that was a good experience, it's pretty much just missionaries putting random food into the boxes. Then after personal study we did Facebook work and had some beef stroganoff for lunch. We spent most of our day stopping by interested dots in our Areabook, and started teaching our friend Byron, a nice kid who we will teach the Plan of Salvation to soon. We had a fun time and ended up getting some cheap Chinese food for dinner. After watching one of the Spanish baptisms for a few minutes, we split up and went to have a visit with Brother Brown. A day well spent, and June has already come and gone.

July 1, 2022

We went to the Spanish district council today, and it went well. We helped with a follow-up training Zoom. Then I went to the Las Posas area with Elder Herget and Elder Thomas came here with Elder Davies. We had a busy day, did a bunch of stop-by's and visited the Morales brothers. Finally got to meet Benjamin, heard a lot about him from Elder Tree. 

We got Rolling Pin donuts on the way back to Oxnard, and finished off the night. Love those Elders, I think we'll have a good day tomorrow as well. 

July 2, 2022

We started off the day getting to clean the church, and that was fun. Got to see most of the Zone. Later on in the morning, we had some busy work to take care of, planning for MLC. Then we helped the Spanish Elders re-split the areas here in Oxnard, because we had to send one of them elsewhere in the mission. 

After lunch we had some weekly planning and stopped by to visit a bunch of people. We've found it's pretty easy to find people through our own efforts in this area, so we have been really shooting for member referrals and social media finds. Had a nice dinner with the Brook's family, and then headed off to Ventura for a quick split with Elder Isaacson. Ventura is a pretty sweet place, first time I've done missionary work there. Great day, we've got church tomorrow.

July 3, 2022

We had good church attendance again this week, the main two successes were Keith and Charlie. Keith hasn't made it to church in a while, until today. And Charlie showed up too, it'll really help him as he tries to live the commandments. After church, we did some planning, and visited May. We really love May, she has had such a hard time recently with loss, and she just needs our ward family. We also went to the Basua's tonight, Elder Basua leaves this week to go to the Provo MTC. We had another really great lesson with Roxanna, we even discussed baptism, and she is doing so great. Again, we are trying to work through members because that is going to help our friends progress. It's going to be a fun day tomorrow, there's a lot going on for the 4th of July.