Well I definitely feel like a headless chicken at the end of this week haha! Man we've had a ton of stuff to get done. It's not been to bad though. It's been cooling down a bit here too, which is really nice. I'm not melting anymore at least.
So here's the run down for this week. Tuesday was transfers which is a nightmare and a half for us, and we spent nearly the whole day trying to help everyone get adjusted. It was pretty hectic, but everything got in place. We had dinner with the Bundersons that night though, so that kinda made up for it all haha! Then we went and met with Bishop so that was good. I really like Bishop Broberg. He's really on top of things and is really missionary focus, which is a HUGE relief. There is nothing worse as a missionary than a bishop that isn't missionary focused. Anyhow, the rest of the week we spent trying to meet the rest of the ward council and our investigators. Our WML is AWESOME, and he thinks we're awesome so that's good. Investigators wise, we have this really cool guy named Mike that's really close to baptism. He just needs to quit smoking and get his act together. We set him with a date for September 3rd so keep him in your prayers. We also saw a really cool miracle this week. We have a couple in our ward, Russel and Cheryl Platamone, that have two kids that got baptized about 10 years ago, and she's investigated since but never gotten baptized because she doesn't want to get baptized without him. He's always been more than supportive and loves the Church but has never showed an interest in joining. But a few weeks ago he was getting ready for a risky operation on his neck, and our WML and a member of the bishopric (who are good friends of his) gave him a blessing and it was a really powerful spiritual experience for him. His member son, who is also an RM, came down last week to help a bit with his recovery, and Russ asked him to teach him as much as he could about random things like the Book of Mormon, the role of the Bible, etc. Long story short, he now feels like this is the Lord's way of slowing him down and pointing him towards the Church and he and Cheryl are thinking about baptism at the beginning of next month. Pretty freaking sweet. Our WML nearly fell out of his chair when we told him haha!
Also, I was rightfully excited about Elder Willis. We've had so much fun this week. I'm pretty sure he's going to be my last companion, so I'm looking forward to the next 12 weeks. Then again those are famous last words, but we'll see what happens hahaha!
1. Emailing selfie with 2 of the 5 NEW MISSIONARIES IN OUR ZONE THIS TRANSFER. We have so many exchanges its not even funny...
2. I thought Dad might appreciate this.
Week of August 15, 2016
Anyhow, Simi 5th is still doing well! I feel like we lost a little momentum with coming in, but we're starting to pick it back up. Honestly I really hate whitewashing into Sister areas haha! Sisters are great, but they aren't very straightforward with things and they build things up to be a lot better than they really are. The ward as whole is great and this area has a ton of potential, but....Sisters....hahaha sorry random rant. The best example is our investigator Mike. The Sisters had made it sound like he was right on the water's edge, but the more we've met with him the more we're finding that he still has a good ways to go. Technically the only thing standing between him and baptism is smoking, but we're seeing that him quitting is more of a change of behavior rather than a change of heart. We're making a key focus on helping him to really gain a testimony this week and seeing what happens. I don't doubt that he'll get there eventually though. The Platamone's are doing really well though!!! I really really like them. They're probably in the top 5 favorite investigators of my whole mission. We had a couple really good lessons with them and I'm really excited about them :)
Sorry I've gotta go...the library is closing..
Week of August 22, 2016
Anyhow, work wise, things are going splendidly. We were able to accomplish a lot of really awesome things. We had some really great lessons with investigators, scheduled more with others, and on top of it we found 2 really solid new investigators. One of them, Dani, went to church with a friend in Fillmore a few months ago but the Sisters were just never able to get in contact with her. We managed to pin her down and we had a REALLY good lesson with her. She was telling us that she's had plenty of opportunities to be baptized, but she never did because it just never felt right. We explained baptism to her and she said that she really wants to work towards it. The other guy, Justin, was a referral from a member and the lesson we had with him was one of the greatest lessons I've had on my mission. He had some questions about the necessity of authority and we were able to walk him through the scriptures with him, and he commented on how he had originally misinterpreted those verses but how they now made sense. He then ended up asking about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which we explained, and then he "confessed" to us that, even though his church told him that he should be feeling the Spirit always, he rarely felt it at all. Sometimes at church and then when he reads the Bible, but that's it. He then said that that is something that he's been looking for, and our whole lesson went from "I'm curious to learn more about their doctrine" to "I think I better find out if this is legit." It was really awesome. Unfortuantely we weren't able to meet with the Platamone's this week because they were out of town, but we're meeting with them on Wednesday so it's all good.
That's really my life right now though. I do have to say, I couldn't have asked for a better place to finish out. This ward is awesome, and they love us and we love them. We have some awesome investigators, and I think I'll really be able to go out with a splash here :) Anyhow, I'm excited and my life is great. End of story.
Week of August 29, 2016
Anyhow this week was AWESOME. Like this may have been one of the greatest weeks of my mission. We got so much crap done. We just saw miracle after miracle. We set Dani with a baptismal date for Sept. 24th, the Platamone's are soft set with a date but are double checking with their kids so they can come, Mike actually came to church, the Steens are doing great....I could just go on and on. The work is exploding here in Simi 5th and it's all we can do to keep up with it. I'm loving it. We looked at our teaching pool this week and we realized that we have 8 investigators (and one more we just need to set an appointment with) that we are teaching regularly. That's a really great feeling. You should've seen everyone when the Platamone's came to church this week, by the way. They haven't been able to come the past couple weeks because of his recovery, but when they came this week everyone was floored. (Keep in mind that they've been on and off for years and he's never come before) It was like a ghost walked in or something, and it was awesome. Serious points with the members, let me tell ya.
I love this ward. Like I can't even begin to describe it. It's awesome. The members are awesome, I'm getting some of the greatest work of my mission done, my WML is fantastic. I couldn't ask for a better place to finish off my mission :)
That's all I got for this week!
1. Random selfie
2. Brian got baptized this week!!
