This week was actually super good and productive, so it was a good way to end this transfer. I guess I'll just give you the big news up front. Elder Truman is going to Jurupa 2nd Ward and his companion will be Elder Olson. It is a bike area and apparently it is a pretty large area geographically. He's kind of excited to be leaving, but not too excited because it's a bike area. So for me. . . I'm training again! I didn't think I would be, just because so many people have already been trained in the Valley View Ward in the past year. Elder Walker, my first trainee, has been called as a District leader in Mt. Rubidoux so I guess I did okay at training. For the next few days I'll be with Elder Glathar since he will be training also. We will pick up our new companions on Tuesday following the training meetings.
The rest of transfers were really crazy too. Every companionship, except one, in the Moreno Valley Zone is having someone move. Elder' s Frost, Smith, Waldron, Doi, Foy, and Sister's Bjork and Cramer are spreading out across the mission. And half of the people coming to Moreno Valley are people I've already served around, Elder Vang, Elder Carillo, and Sister Burris, so it was a big change for our area.
Overcoming the 0's training was pretty good. President Mullen had chosen one companionship from each zone to come to the training. He gave us tips from past MLC and Multi-zones, most of which were before my time, so it was nice to get those handouts. And it seemed to have worked. This was one of the most productive weeks I've had in the mission so far, both for the work and numbers. So that bodes well for when the new missionary arrives.
For service, there are two places we go. Sometimes we go to the Salvation Army and unload or sort food, or we'll sometimes just clean up around the parking lot and stuff. It depends on how much they have for us to do. The other place we go is the FSA (Food Service Association?). It's basically like a Meals on Wheels type organization. So we are either making the meals or bringing in food donations. We do service at least once a week most of the time, but FSA is on the other side of the county so sometimes we don't have the miles to go that far.
Teaching the young Catholic guy was. . . interesting to say the least. We took over the Gospel Doctrine teacher because we knew he would have scriptural knowledge he could use to help us teach. When we showed up, Nicholas wasn't very excited to see that we had brought someone with us, but he was still willing to talk with us. And so Brother Martin jumped in and started talking about prophets and things like that, which was fine. When he started the conversation I was excited. The thing is, that eventually Nicholas started to disagree, and get defensive. And because Brother Martin has studied the scriptures intensely for 71 years, he just told him what it was and where it said it, and it sort of turned into a debate. Luckily Brother Martin realized where things were going and backed out. We were able to calm down Nicholas and start a discussion, but as soon as he saw we were trying to teach the same things Brother Martin was, he cut us off. He had expected us to come and be taught by him. He was convinced, that because he had faith, he could no longer sin. The concept of repentance did not mesh with him at all. And having prophets didn't really sit well with him either, so eventually we decided to agree to disagree. It was sad that it had to end that way, but he wasn't willing to even hear us out. And we can't blame Brother Martin either, he just helped us cut to the chase, otherwise we would have danced around the issue for a few weeks and reached the same conclusion.
But something Elder Camper always said was that the Lord blesses you if you have the faith to drop people. And this past week we were able to get two more investigators from referrals from other missionaries. One of them is named Robin, she is a military IT and master fitness trainer. She's currently doing a program to become a certified yoga instructor. She is really awesome and willing to talk to us. She said she'd heard so many things she wanted to hear it from us instead, which most people don't really do. She'll be out of town this week, but we'll be contacting her during general conference. She is also currently meeting with the Jehovah's Witnesses, but she doesn't agree with a lot of the things they say and is fine with telling them that. She's been meeting with them for 2 years, so she has the potential to turn into an eternigator if we're not careful. The other investigator we got is named Elvis, he's a massage therapist and a "new age spiritualist", whatever that means. But we showed him the Easter message and he really liked that, so he invited us back. I'm really glad that we have some investigators to teach with my new companion. If you don't get that experience it makes you feel like you're still inexperienced even after 2 or 3 transfers.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby