My week:
Monday: Today was a pretty fun day. We went to Nordstrom Rack and Elder Campbell bought a new suit. We went on a hike to these waterfalls in Thousand Oaks. It was pretty cool. We then went to a park and played football as a district, it was pretty fun I guess haha. Then we went to dinner with the Barker's and they gave me a brand new Raincoat which is actually super nice. I was super grateful, then we headed off to a lesson with a lady named Jennifer who is gonna get re-baptized in May. It was a really good day.
Tuesday: We started our day with Laura's baptismal interview! She is ready to go this Saturday, I am so happy her and excites for her decision to be baptized. Then we headed off to a member family, the Pinneo's house and planned out Laura's baptism program. They are one of the coolest families out here! We had dinner with the Barker's again at a restaurant called El TapatÃo, they had one of the best burritos ever. It was like a foot long burrito. Then we head a lesson with Laura and took the Priest quorum along. They taught her about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Our day was great!
Wednesday: We started the day with riding the city transit bus for an hour and a half trying to contact people. But no one really got on the bus. Not to mention it was raining like crazy today. We then did some service for Laura, painting one of the rooms in her house! We only put on a coat of primer and we will put the paint on later. Our dinner was with the Downs family, super cool people. We visited with some members, Brother Quinton, Sister Luekenga, and the Purcell's. It was great! Our day was pretty legit haha.
Thursday: The day was fine here, we started out with service for Laura. We finished the room we painted. That was pretty good, today was extra rainy. After that we did some weekly planning and took the other elders around to a bike shop so that they could fix their bike tire. After that we had dinner with brother Quinton, our ward mission leader and correlated plans for the ward mission plan. Then we saw some more members after that to invite them to Laura's Baptism. One member family were the Zeedik's, they are super legit! Haha They are super fun to talk to and chill with. We had a pretty good day here.
Friday: Today was an interesting day. We started with riding the bus to the church building for district meeting. Then after we had a really good companionship study with all of the Elders in our district. We then did some more weekly planning after yesterday, and we headed to pick up dinner from the Villafuertes. Then we went back and had fun with some of the other elders in our apartment complex. We visited with a potential named Dean and talked with him for a while. He is pretty legit, he has a really cool dog. We had a good chat today. I realized that the spirit really does reside with those who are obedient.
Saturday: Today was amazing. So the first half of our day from like 10am-1pm we spent prepping everything for Laura's baptism. We were working pretty quickly and thankfully got everything good and ready in time. Elder Campbell got all dressed up ready to baptize Laura and tons of missionaries who have taught Laura in the past showed up. We had about 14-20 missionaries there, all just for Laura. Along with the missionaries we had tons of members show up too. Laura is definitely well loved. The whole baptismal program was fantastic, we had two really amazing members give talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. We also had a beautiful musical number sung by one of the members accompanied by a violin and piano. She sang Gethsemane and it sounded perfect! The spirit was so strong. I was also able to witness Laura being baptized, and as soon as she was immersed into the water and brought back up, I was able to feel God's love for her so powerfully. I know how happy our Father in Heaven is whenever one of his children make the decision to come back to him. And the delight, and pure happiness I felt for Laura is definitely how our Father in Heaven will feel when we do our best to return to him. Then we decided to bike to the church from our apartment to conserve miles on our car. We tried talking to a few families but no one was interested.
Sunday: Today was great, we have church at 12:30 so before then we drove to the church and walked about a mile and a half to a trailer park to see Laura before church and on the way we talked to a man named Gary Share, he had an Austrailian Sheepdog and was out side watching it as it played around. We chatted with him and he was very friendly. His wife is actually a member but she hasn't been to church in a while. Anyway he said we could come back and sit down and have a lesson. At church we were able to stand in on the confirmation of Laura. It was a truly amazing experience. She explained to us that as we put our hands on her head to bless her, she got a tingle in her back that she made her feel good. After church we went to dinner with a younger family, the Roberts who know Joe Elison. Jason Roberts is the name of the father. Then we went out to find some people. As we were walking in the neighborhood we met a guy named Frank. He had a Ferrari and he was super friendly and he took a Book of Mormon. Then we talked to another guy named John Greenwood. He is super cool, His family is all affiliated with Law Enforcement in some way. But he was willing to have us come back and talk with him. The rest of the night we tried talking with people but no other luck.
-Elder Smith
1. Hike with some of the Elders in my district.
2. Laura's Baptism.
