Another Transfer

This week!:

Monday: Today was interesting. We got up and did our shopping but we went somewhere we hadn't gone to buy groceries before.. so I may starve this week haha oh well. When we got that done we headed to T.O for the zone activity! It was pretty fun we just played Kickball and Football. It was pretty fun. We had dinner at the Pinneo's house, they are maybe my favorite members in this ward! They live on a big property because Brother Pinneo trains Sport horses. He has like 20 stalls and a barn with more spaces, in addition to that he has an area where he gets the horses out and trains them in like an arena type thing. So whenever I go there I honestly feel like I'm home haha. Even though I never had horses or anything of the sort. It just feels right I guess haha. Anyway after that, we went and saw Laura, who was recently baptized. We helped her print off some names so that we can go to the temple tomorrow and do baptisms for the dead. I am super excited for her! We dropped by Bishop's house and visited with them and we also saw the Hansen family. They are really cool! Their twin sons, Blake and Ryan, went out on splits with us a couple weeks back. I always enjoy seeing members and being able to build relationships. 

Tuesday: Today was filled with hard work and the spirit! So today is the mission wide walk day so Elder Campbell and I walked everywhere and we tried contacting and a bit of tracting. We handed out 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and have one return appointment for next week! When we got all that done we had dinner with the Barker's and afterwards we headed to the Temple!! Our friend Laura who was baptized recently had some family names she wanted to be baptized for, her daughter and her mother. The temple is my favorite place on Earth. Sister Laura was very touched by the spirit, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to go with her so she could have those ordinances done. This church is true!

Wednesday: Today was exhausting. We did some good studies in the morning then we went and did service for a man named Dean, we put 2 coats of primer on some wood posts, we will paint them tomorrow most likely. Dean is hilarious! He has very certain sense of humor. We tried to see a few people but none of them were home. We had dinner with the Scheu's again. They are some of the best people ever. Some of my favorite members for sure! We dropped by Dean's again because he and his family had some questions about the Book of Mormon. It was actually a really good discussion!

Thursday: Today was full of service! We went to Norm's farm and did some work roping haha. Then we did some work for Dean again and stained some of the wood beams for his project. We had dinner with the other Barker's in our ward, they fed us super good Japanese curry. We finished by going to T.O for some errands we had to run. 

Friday: Our last district meeting of the transfer! It was so good, two of the missionaries in our district here in Moorpark are going home next week. They gave amazing talks and bore sincere testimonies. Their service to the Lord has helped me a ton to be more missionary minded and doing all that I can to serve. We rode the city transit bus around for an hour until dinner at In-n-out with the Donkersgoeds. The members our here spoil us haha. We then attended a baptismal service for a person who is going into the Young Single Adult ward. I love baptisms, they just have a special feeling about them. The spirit is so prominent and flooding during the service. I love the actions that we make to show our love for God.

Saturday: Transfer call day! We had a decent start to the day, we wrote our white wash sheets. Just in case we both leave the area! We took a bit of time to do that. We finished those, and headed out to serve the Lord. We knocked on a few peoples door but no answers, except one. A lady named Evelyn. So a little backstory on her, she is super shy and actually kind of scared of people. Anyway we go and knock on her door twice. She answers by yelling through the door. She asks who we are and she says "oh well I'm only the babysitter and the home owner isn't home." She was totally lying to us and just saying she was someone else. Its whatever though. We got to see Laura again and see how she has been. Then we dropped by and saw Dean, he is really funny. We had dinner with the Penfields, they are super nice and missionary minded! It was a really good spiritual experience, cause we shared a good scripture with them. And then we got transfer calls! Drum roll..........................................................................................................................................................................

Both Elder Campbell and I are staying!! I am so excited for this next transfer with Elder Campbell!!

Sunday: Today was alright, we had a good day at church. We got a new Elders quorum president! It has been pretty exciting! We stopped by a few people, but nothing too crazy happened. We had dinner with the Adams Family, their kids are just entering the stage where their kids are gonna be getting phones. So they asked us what our parents did! I explained how my parents always hovered over my shoulder through everything..... haha just kidding! I told them how good of a job my parents did. But I did advise that the Adams should keep a good balance between monitoring and letting your kids learn on their own but with some guidelines so they don't have free reign. It was good! Then we visited with my favorite member family here, the Pinneo's! We watched 'The Phone Call' with them, it's a funny video from the 70s the church made trying to get kids to be more confident. We talked with them for a while, it was great! They are just a very fun loving family!

I really love being a missionary :)

- Elder Smith