So this week, Multi-Zone Conferences were held in the California Riverside Mission. This past weekend, General Conference was broadcast from Salt Lake City, Utah. We were certainly inspired by the many messages we heard from the General Authorities of the Church and the training we received from our mission leaders.
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So the big news for this week, is that on Saturday, President Mullen called all of the visa waiters and all three will be leaving at the end of the transfer for their assigned missions. They are all pretty excited and it seems to have improved Elder Riding's mood and tolerance. I think he is willing to put up with anything for the next two weeks.
This week was a pretty amazing week!
Monday night we visited a family that had set up a return appointment with us. We started out meeting with the dad, and taught part of the Restoration, then the mom came back and started listening too. We spent a long time there, probably a little too long, teaching the Restoration, showing them a general conference talk President Monson gave, and answering their questions. About 20 minutes before we left, their oldest son came in and listened in on the discussion and asked some questions for himself. They currently attend a non-denominational church, but he is willing to bring his family to church with us. This week he had to take a shift on Sunday because he took Wednesday off to replace his flooring with some help from family on that day. But we're meeting with them again tonight and we're going to invite the family to be baptized in April! Elder Riding is temporarily serving in the California Riverside Mission while he awaits his visa to go to Australia. Hopefully we can get him off to a great start and send him out prepared to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ "Down Under".
The biggest success story from this week was with an investigator named Johnny. I don't know if I even told you about him, but about a month ago, we were seeking with faith, when we met him and he requested a Bible from us. He told us we had to come by in the mornings, and set up an appointment for a Thursday. Well we went back, he wasn't there, and we kind of forgot about him to be honest. Last week during our weekly planning session, Elder Goodrich brought him up, and we realized we hadn't given him enough of a chance. So we went by this past Thursday, and he was outside working on his car. He allowed us in and we taught him for 20 minutes about the Bible and God and he was so willing and accepting. He was raised Greek Orthodox but never attended church. Within the first 5 minutes of the lesson he was committed to baptism and to coming to church. Through the rest of the lesson we were able to teach about scripture study, extend a specific date for baptism, and testify of the restoration of the priesthood. In the end, it was an awesome lesson, and he said we could come back the next day to finish up. I was on exchanges that day but it went pretty well from what they said.
So on Tuesday I went up to the mission office with Elder Moss and Elder Young for the trainer meeting. The trainer meetings seem to get more fun each time I go, maybe that is because I am less nervous each time I train. We ate dinner and then received our companion assignments. So I am training a missionary who is waiting for a visa to go to the Adelaide Australia Mission. His name is Elder Riding and he is from Heber, Utah. He is pretty pumped to be going there, but he doesn't mind being here. Elder Riding is just barely 18, he enjoys playing soccer and working on his truck. He participated in VEX robotics in high school.
What kind of service can 5 Elders be doing with 2 mules?
Whatever it is, it looks like they are enjoying it. So I guess I'll start with the transfer news. It seemed like a lot of things happened, but also like nothing changed. So the trainer thing is not set in stone for this transfer. On Friday, Salt Lake City called President and said they'd like to send him some visa waiters, if they don't get their visas by 4 PM on Monday. So, that means that I don't even know if I will be training yet. And because it's a maybe, they already had a companion lined up for me. So what happened is that Elder Goodrich is going to be staying with me, and Elder Haltli has left to go to Hidden Springs in Moreno Valley with Elder Maughan. I am still the District Leader, though my district was changed around. Now I have the Spanish Sisters in my district, as well as the Sun City Elders, who are on bikes, but the Perris Ward Bike area has been dissolved. Elder Mayo is going to Temescal Valley in Corona, and Elder Hofer is going to the Menifee Lakes Ward. Elder Brown and Elder Cox are still together, the Spanish Elders are the same, and the Zone Leaders stayed the same. Things are definitely kind of weird because lots of people are going back to wards where they have previously served.
So the rain that pounded Southern California was sort of a bust in Perris. We did have to be in by 3:00 PM on Friday, but it barely was misting at all. Then around 6 or 7 it started raining in earnest, but nothing compared to how hard it has rained on other days. So because we're lucky enough to be in the same complex as some other missionaries, Elder Brown and Elder Cox came over to help us keep our sanity but it was still pretty rough by the end of the night. We had dinner with the Langston family on Saturday though and she said that over near Los Angeles and some other more coastal areas, there was a ton of rain and sinkholes everywhere. We missed pretty much all of that, so that was both a blessing and a disappointment. It was especially a blessing though because there was a funeral for the mother of a member in our Ward on Saturday, and everybody expected it to be really muddy, if not still down-pouring.
So this past week was interesting for missionary work. One of the most interesting days was Thursday, when we literally wore jeans and a t-shirt all day. So it started with normal studies, and then we had planned to go do service with the Romero family, some investigators, at 10:00. They have a really cool farm where they do a lot of composting and natural stuff, plus they have goats and pigs and chickens and they also breed dogs. He milked the goat for us and let us drink some. It tasted pretty good, but it would have been better if it wasn't warm. So we did that for a couple of hours and then we had to run down to Menifee to do service at a food pantry with the Zone. About 30 minutes before we finish service there, our Ward Mission Leader calls us and says "Sister Castro is moving now because it's going to rain this weekend, can you come help us move?" We were already in service clothes so we figured why not. Well we get there, and because she thought she wasn't moving until Saturday, nothing is packed. So Brother Sperry has a contractor pack of big garbage bags and just starts throwing everything that's loose into a bag while we move the furniture. It was pretty amazing that we were able to pack, move, and drop off an entire house in 4 hours with only 2 trailers. At that point it was nearly 6:30, and we have dinner with the Sperry's every Thursday anyway. So we just went over to his house in our service clothes. He'd had chili in the crockpot all day, and we had dinner and MCM in our service clothes. So that was our Thursday - 9 hours of service and a planning meeting.
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Elder CornabyI'm a missionary for the LDS church, teaching the Gospel while soaking up some California sun! Archives
June 2017
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