The Cali (Missionary) Life‏

Hello everyone!

Well things are as great as always here in the Great California Ventura mission, and things are even better in Atascadero! This place is really awesome. I honestly just love it in the northern part of the mission. It's still technically SoCal, but it's more of the transition from SoCal to NorCal, and I love northern California. Plus, the people here are always so courteous and friendly :D

Anywho, I'm still loving it here in Atascadero. Things have slowed down just a little bit, but we're still hard at work. We're gradually working our way through the ward list, and we've met some really awesome people along the way. There are a few people that we're hoping to start teaching on a regular basis, and a couple of those are part member families which are always promising :) We've also had the opportunity to take some time in both High Priest's Group and Relief Society to talk to them about member missionary work. Both went very well, and we committed both groups to read Chapter 9 of PMG. We're in the middle of following up with the HP, and then we get to take on the task of following up with the RS. That will be an adventure haha! But overall I think a lot of success will come out of this. We also gave them a recommendation to look into "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton M. Christianson, which is a personal favorite of mine, and I've been surprised to see how many actually have accepted the invitation. We've even had a few people pull out their tablets and buy it on the spot! And everyone who's read it is super fired up and willing to help in any way that they can! I'm excited to them get so excited, and I'm also excited to see them feel the joy of spreading the gospel :)

This week will also mark the end of all our exchanges this transfer, and thank heavens for that! We've had to do 5 so far, and we have 2 more to do this week. So. Many. Exchanges. The ones that I had this last week were a lot of fun though. Last tuesday I went with Elder Stewart who was comps with Elder Collard after he finished training me, and then on Saturday I was with Elder Waite. That one didn't feel any different that any other day last transfer haha :)

As for the miracle/spiritual thought for this week, I just wanted to talk about how awesome it is to meet those that have been prepared to receive the gospel :) So this week we started teaching Cassidy, and she is the daughter of a less active. She was a little apprehensive at first, but she finally agreed to take the lessons with us. We met with her for the first time last Tuesday, and because of some questions she had and what the Spirit prompted us to do we ended up teaching the Plan of Salvation, and she absolutely loved it. She said she's always had a problem with Christianity (or as I call it "mainstream Christianity") because she doesn't believe that a loving God would damn His children to a Hell to suffer for eternity. When we taught her about the resurrection and the three kingdoms she said, "That's what I believe! I never could fully describe what I though heaven was like, but now that you've said it I know what I believe." We had to pass her off to the YSA Elders unfortunately, but it was great to work with her for just a little bit and see just how ready she is to receive the gospel at this time in her life :)

Well that's all for now! Hope that you all have an excellent week! I love you all!

Much love,
Elder Brennan Jon Rosenlof