My week!:
Monday: P-Day! And my 7 month mark! Holy cow time seriously flies!! Its crazy! Haha We spent a lot of time downtown Santa Barbara shopping and just having a good time. Then we went to the institute building in Isla Vista and played pool and ping pong and yeah. It was fun. Our dinner appointment was with the Records. Brother Record used to be in the mission presidency, he was a counselor to the Mission President. They are super cool, and super missionary minded for sure! We had a good day today. I still can't believe its already 7 months though, it feels like yesterday I left the MTC.
Tuesday: Our day was fun today! We had another Elder with us, Elder Nielson! We tried by a few people, then we dropped by the church so that Elder Nielson could buy a box for his bike because he is shipping it home. He has 2 weeks left of his mission! Its crazy haha. We had dinner with some of my favorite members, the Carlson's! They are so cool, they have lived in Utah and California, but they are super chill and funny! We dropped by a member named Buck Paulson as well. He is an amazing artist! He has his own TV show on PBS, called 'Painting with Paulson' he is a really neat man! We also dropped by some members who I haven't met while I have been here. The Saal's, they are really cool as well! Sister Saal's son, Duncan really likes surfing and doing all things outdoors, like skiing and anything that involves adrenaline haha he is super cool! We visited with them and shared a message of hope with them. Hope truly is a beautiful thing, anyone can hope that something happens and wish that it would happen, but Hope, real hope is the Faith that you know it will happen especially if you work through Christ's Atonement. Anything is possible through Jesus Christ.
Wednesday: So today was interesting, so usually as a missionary when we plan in the mornings we try to set something up for every hour and half hour of the day. And usually missionaries will find out your days will never go as planned haha. So Elder Jones and I planned out a pretty good day to do some work! And we followed the day up until around 1 when we went to Sprouts to grab something real quick, anyway after we got out I got into the car and Elder Jones was ready to back me out of my parking spot, but unexpectedly a lady quickly jumps out of her car and asks Elder Jones "Are you two LDS??" I quickly got out of the car because I thought this lady was ready to argue with us about doctrines. But she didn't, she actually had a few really good Mormon friends that she is in contact with everyday and she just so happened to be leaving a voicemail to one of them when she saw us. Anyway she explained to us that she has been struggling to get by for the last year, she is incredibly smart and capable of doing many different things. She is currently without a home though, she has had an extremely rough past that has caused her to think that God does not care for his children, but she has been able to realize through her Mormon friends and the not so coincidental meeting we had with her that God is reaching out to her. She is pretty exhausted from the living the way she has been and is ready for it to end. We told her how we will help her, and I was able to bear my testimony to her how much God really loves her and wants the best for her because I was able to feel that love for her, a random stranger I barely met, and I was able to feel God's love for her. Anyway jumping back to our schedule, that little meeting with her lasted 3 hours in the parking lot of Sprouts. But really it didn't feel that long at all. So we were off our schedule by a long ways haha. The rest of the day was spent trying to squeeze in all the people we tried to go see, which was difficult. Haha so our day was kinda weird.
Thursday: Our day started really slow, we did our weekly planning session, and then we headed out to see a few people, but no one was home. We did talk to a few people outside though, and saw one of our members as well. After that we went off to dinner with a member who is really good at cooking, she fed us this indian food that tasted really good! We then had our sports night playing basketball with a court-full of people who were not members, it was awesome!
Friday: So our day started with a visit with Steve! He is one of my favorite people here in Santa Barbara! I have grown to love him! He is amazing! We had our district meeting which was focused on one of my favorite topics of Charity and Love! I love being able to study and then apply a lot of the principles. I have learned how to love all those that I come into contact with. Because everyone really is a child of God, we are all brothers and sisters. After district meeting we had lunch at the other Elders apartment and had a pretty good time! Missionaries get bored sometimes haha. So they end up doing not so smart things sometimes haha like playing with Nerf guns but putting a thumb tack on the end of the bullets haha. After that we went to see some potential investigators, but no one was home. We will continue to try though. We had dinner with some members, the Murdoch's. They are super cool, sister Murdoch is from France and she is super knowledgeable on scriptures and the Gospel in general. We ate in their Yurt which is on their property, they are pretty well off, but very humble! After dinner we tried by some people who were less active but found no one until our last visit. We decided to go see a man named Bogdan, he is from Ukraine. He is super nice and he has a sincere testimony of the church and of many of the doctrines within. We talked with him for a little bit and then we headed back to our apartment for the night! That was our day!
Saturday: Today was slow we didn't get to do much work. We were however able to do some service for a member in the ward. We helped him in his backyard moving some hay and then digging a ton of dirt to move their garden box, which they turned out to use an old drift boat for that haha. After that we ate dinner at Chick-Fil-A and went to our apartment so we could get ready to go out and proselyte. We had our weekly correlation meeting with our ward mission leader, Brother Nair. And we tried by to go see a pretty solid potential investigator but he wasn't home. The day was slow, and a bit discouraging.
Sunday: Our day at church was pretty good, a sister missionary, from the ward I am serving in, had just gotten home from her mission this past week. She bore her testimony of how true this church is. How perfect of a plan God has for us as his children. It was super cool. After church we went by a guy named Carl, who is an older man but is very faithful. He is into the Baptist church and his father was a minister for quite a long time. Anyway Carl said he had gotten his hands on a Book of Mormon a long time ago and has read it a lot. He said that the Book of Mormon is very straight forward and to the point when describing doctrines. He also recognized that the Book of Mormon clarifies a lot of what is in the Bible. That was a really cool experience! After that we had our dinner with some members who are moving soon, to Ohio. They fed us some gourmet Mac n Cheese with Chile. It was good haha. After that our day just got slow and boring. We knocked on door after door trying to see potentials, and even though they were home (we knew because lights were on and we could hear people talking) they still would not answer the door. It was so frustrating and quite a bit discouraging. It's all good though. The church is true.
Sorry I sent this out soon late! 😅
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