So Senior Week was hard, and interesting. Monday was Family Home Evening in the Park, which was a lot of fun, but it meant that we weren't able to get any lessons that night. That night we also went and got the ball rolling on printing out the flyers for our Open House, so that was good. We were able to get 600 printed out and passed out at church this week for people to share with their friends, and all our extras we'll be handing out on the street and at stake conference.
Wednesday was a super busy day. We went and contacted a referral we'd gotten from the Corona Sisters a couple weeks ago. Her name is Judy, and when we rang the door bell she answered the door and welcomed us in as if she already knew who we were, which seemed sort of strange. After talking to her for a while, we found out that she knows her LDS neighbors in our ward and she's talked to missionaries a little bit before. A little bit about her, she was raised in New York as an orthodox Jew, but she converted to Christianity about 15 years ago, but it's sort of a hybrid belief called Messiahnic Jews. It was cool to talk to her because she talked a lot about Jewish tradition and history, it was like reading Jesus the Christ almost. Unfortunately, she's the kind of person who can talk your ear off, and as the senior companion, I wasn't quite sure how to handle that, and Elder Camper didn't do anything about it. So we were there for 2 hours to say the least, but we'll be better prepared next time and she welcomed us back.
The next day was kind of hard because the later in the week it is, the less names you have in your pool to go by and visit. That morning we did some service for a family in the El Cerrito ward digging a trench, though we hurt as much as we helped. A recent convert we brought along accidentally busted a pipe while we were digging, but they were going to be cutting up and reconnecting that pipe anyway so it wasn't a huge deal. I did feel really good though because near the end of the project when everyone is sitting down and goofing off, I went to ask one of the Zl's if I could borrow his pick, and he said "No, I haven't seen you sit down once this whole time Elder Cornaby!" So just kind of made me think of Ace and how hard he said he's been working on his service projects and hopefully I can keep up with him and do Oklahoma proud.
That Thursday we did get to teach Eddy though, so we read through a little bit of the Book of Mormon with him to hopefully help him get started on that. Then we asked if he'd come to church, and he said yes, which was great, but 15 minutes later he texted us that his mom made plans for the weekend, so that was less awesome. Just getting to teach him was sort of a miracle though because we'd set up the day before to meet him at 3:30, but we get there and his mom said he wasn't home. So we left, and on our way down the street we see him, so we pull over and talk to him and he lets us come over right then to teach him.
Friday was a really rough day because nobody was able to meet with us. The worst part of the day, was that our first appointment I'd gotten a team-up for, thinking I was doing a good thing and being a good missionary. But we get there, and he says that his wife has the flu, so we can't come in, so I just have to tell the team-up that I didn't have any back-up plans so he just has to go home, so I felt really bad about that. The lesson I learned is that you should always try to call ahead the day before for appointments or dinner, because otherwise things just fall apart. I've gotten so spoiled by you mom because you always remember what day everything is, so I just assume that everyone else will too. Elder Camper said he's had some experiences with that and people get really mad if you don't give them enough notice so I'm trying to get better at that.
On Saturday we went by pretty much all of our referrals and potential investigators to give them flyers for the open house. So that kept us pretty busy for the most part, but the whole day you still spend it worrying about if you have enough to do and if you're spending your time wisely.
Sunday was a nice change of pace. At church, it was fast and testimony meeting because of General Conference next week. I went up there and bore my testimony as part of a deal with a recent convert that was sitting with us. If I went up there, she had to, but she didn't really like it. It took the rest of Sacrament meeting to get her up there. I bore my testimony on the power of prayer, and how it is one of the best ways to bring the Spirit, and that one of the Spirit's roles is as a Comforter, which is what a lot of people, including me that week, need.
So that was senior week, it was stressful at times, but I know it was good for me and it will be valuable experience somewhere down the road.
P-Day today was super fun, though it's a little rushed. We finally went and hiked the mountains near Corona. We could have taken a trail called Skyline, which was longer and paved and supposedly you can see the ocean from the top, but we didn't think we had time. So instead we went down a less well established trail. It was still a trail but it was small and dirt, and it involved quite a bit of steep hiking/climbing. It was really fun. I attached some pictures of it. In the group picture about half the missionaries are missing. Some of them were with an Elder who was blacking out a little ways down the trail, and Elder Camper and Elder Higashi had forged out on their own so they missed out too. The really cool pictures though, is that at one point, we were all strung out along the trail and they had the awesome idea to do a "Selfie Chain", where each person got a selfie of them and the person behind them so that when you play them all in order you see the whole group. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, but it was a long day so we're rushing to shop and e-mail and get to dinner.
I hope everything is going well at home, tell people I'm sorry I didn't get to respond to some of them because we didn't have as much time this week. I do check the blog, nearly every week, just to see if anybody leaves comments and make sure that you're keeping it up alright.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby
"Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work." -Gordon B. Hinckley