He's home!

Estoy Contento

Hey family!  I only have a few minutes to write.  I love you all!  This [mission] was and will continue to be the best decision I ever made in my life.  I know Heavenly Father is proud of me and I am grateful that I can continue to serve him after I return home.  Life is a mission for all of us.  The next adventure awaits!  See you soon!

Last Preparation Day!

I am a bit boggled right now. I will try to remain calm and controlled for the last e-mail I write home. WOW. Two years was like two months. OK. Down to the nitty gritty!

We had many miracles this last week. One of them was when M. had work off on Wednesday and we were able to teach him the last of the commandments before baptism! He and V. were interviewed that night and passed! V. was basically jumping up and down, she was so excited. I was also able to interview P., who is the husband of a member we moved from Centinela (my last area) to this ward. It was crazy to see the difference the gospel has made in his life thus far! The Church and gospel are true!  All three of them were baptized at 1:00 yesterday. It was an amazing turnout from the ward, too. People were standing in the back!

C. is progressing nicely and came to church yesterday. She will be baptized on the 18th. She went to the baptism on Sunday, too!

My birthday was great! Thank you all for wishing me a good one! I got the card and love it! And thank you Aunt Sharon for the cake!

I know I was sent here (and am still here) for a reason. I know that you are also in the place Heavenly Father wants you to be. In D+C 138:56 we learn that we have been preparing since the pre-mortal existence to preach the gospel. It does not say, "only full-time missionaries have been preparing". It is talking about every member of the Church, and it applies for our whole life. We are all missionaries. As President Tyler always said, "Life is a mission". I have served here for two years and am almost ready to be transferred home, to continue serving for the rest of my life. I love you! I know we can change and be forgiven. We receive so much joy when we obey, and only through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can we be saved with our families for eternity! I love you forever!

Pluggin' the Holes

Hey ya’ll! This last week was another great week! M. worked the whole week so we were not able to teach him, but V. and Ma. are progressing nicely. V. should be baptized on the 11th! :) Ma. probably won't until sometime later in August. I don't know if I will be here, but hopefully.

We helped the Elders Quorum President make some home teaching assignments the other day and we could feel his excitement growing for the work. We then had the BEST ward coordination meeting of the mission! It was incredible! When it was time for the prayer, all the missionaries automatically knelt down and the auxiliary leaders joined us. I hope that we can keep them that awesome!

The ward youth were having a dunk contest with their leaders after YM/YW the other night, and it was fun to watch. They challenged me, too, so I threw down a few times. ;)

So, weird story. Friday night I had a dream that C. came back from Mexico. Saturday morning I called to follow up with her friend and found out that C. actually did get home this week! It was super cool!

On Sunday we had six people at church, all progressing towards baptism. V. is on for the 11th, C. for the 18th, and the others will hopefully go down this week or next. Wow. Still lots of work to do! :D Well, I need to run. I love you! Stay safe this week and I will keep you up to date with everything that happens! Remember to smile more this week. I will, too.

Elder Jamoncito

July was CRAZY!!!

Hey everyone! We had our Noche de Hogar last Monday night and it went very well. They watched 17 Miracles while we gave out popcorn and drinks. Everyone cried and the Spirit was very strong. I really want to watch it now. The O. and D. families came. They actually carpooled there. :) C. came, too. It was a very successful event.

C. is very smart. We taught her several times last week. We came back and followed up on the Plan of Salvation pamphlet that we left with her and she remembered 90% of it, so we focused on the Spirit World. She left for Mexico this week, to renew her visa. Hopefully she will be back soon. We have been praying she will not get stuck down there. :)

The O. family is progressing nicely. We will need to move the dad's date because he will be out of town for work this week, but they love the gospel. The daughter M. wants to get baptized really bad. We set a date with the D. family, too. We went to the Visitors Center on Wednesday and it was way cool. Most of their preguntas (questions) were answered on the tour. They came to church again yesterday, too.

Yesterday was a great day at church. We trained our ward council with the broadcast and built them up. Everyone left very excited. We all knelt to pray at the beginning and ended with hugs all around (except the hermanas). Basically we pumped them up and showed them the potential that we see in the ward. :D

It was a miracle week again. The Lord is blessing us. I am excited to keep working and "know that He is God." I hope you all are recording the blessings and miracles you are seeing in your life, too. I love you!

Most Miraculous Week!

This week was INSANELY AWESOME! We have five new investigators who are excited to be baptized and they are from three different families! The O. family came to the church to have a lesson since we got a ride there without our bikes and were stranded. V. and M. were a referral from the ward that we called Saturday night and they came to church the next morning. C. didn't come, though, which was sad.

Both of our new families came to K.'s baptism Sunday night. One investigating family gave the other family a ride! They are coming to the Noche de Hogar tonight, too! I was so grateful all day at church. We tried to organize everything and make sure they have friends, and we also helped the ward with the program for the baptism. The members were amazing and talked to them throughout the day.

M. was also baptized yesterday in my former area and I was so grateful to make it there. Brother V. baptized him and I could hardly believe I was seeing it happen! He has talked about possibly serving a mission, too. Elder Ro. says it is all my fault because I always pray for people to teach and help. My focus since the broadcast has been to help members and less actives with a slight focus on baptism. President Weidman always says, "Salvation is more than just baptism." Now we are blessed with so many people to help progress that I crash every night when I finally get in bed. It is weird to think how fast it has gone! I still have some good weeks in me and I am loving it! I will send a few pictures to y’all. Thanks for your fasting and prayers. They made this a miraculous week!

July Flyin' By

Santa Mapache! Este semana termino bien rapido y no se que voy hacer! We had many miracles this week. It was amazing! We have been working with a lot of less active members, trying to rescue them from inactivity. We met with the Obispo yesterday, and every Thursday night from now on we will go on member exchanges to visit 20 families a week. I hope it works! We are excited for this opportunity and I know the members are, as well.

On Friday we went out teaching with a returned missionary named K.; he drove us around because we don't have a car anymore. We visited a few people and then he had to leave. We had not brought our bikes, but for some reason I wasn't worried. I knew that it would all work out somehow. A youth gave us a ride to our appointment at the park, but she did not show up afterward to take us to our next lesson, so we walked to a part-member family's home. We talked to the girlfriend of one of the sons, and it turned out that she wants to learn more and come to church. One of the other sons drove us to our investigator's house for our next lesson. They hit it off splendidly! It was all a huge miracle to me. It went so well that we decided to do it the next day, too! (I have made a personal goal to "go out with a member a day to teach away".)

Friday was great, too! While we were waiting for Hermano I. to come and pick us up to go teaching, we received a phone call from a nonmember who's relative wants to learn about the gospel. We went to visit her that day with Hermano I. and it was AWESOME! Her name is C. and she came to church yesterday! She doesn't have a job, so hopefully we can teach her three times this week. I hope you are all safe and working hard! Love you!

Elder Blackham

P.S. Yes Dad, we wear our helmets while biking. I really enjoy it, but sometimes it is hard to visit everyone we would like to because we can't get around as fast. There are benefits to both (car and bikes), so we cannot complain. I don't expect to get the car back any time soon; the Tongan elders' area is our entire stake, so they really need it. I always joked about finishing on a bike just to get back into shape. I am leaving it up to the Lord.

Onward, ever onward!

TRANSFERS!  Both Elder Ro. and I are staying in Century, so I will "die" here and he probably will, too. [Editor's note: I hate that terminology!  I'm knocking on wood.]

A less-active family that moved from Hermosa Liahona Ward to Century Second Ward came to FHE, the 4th of July breakfast and church last week! We never got them to go in Hermosa Liahona, but they are coming now.  Woot, woot!

We have been "running into" people that we couldn't find, and have faith that this is the Lord guiding us to them for His purposes. The A. family is an example of this. We know they need the gospel and we know that we can help them reach it. It is pretty exciting! :D

J. just received his mission call to serve in the San Fernando mission! It was especially cool because we were able to encourage him right up until the time he sent his papers in. :) He is super excited. I already told him that he can have my bike since he goes straight to the field.

Speaking of bikes, this transfer they are taking away our car and giving it to the Tongan Elders. Maybe the Lord is telling me that I need to get in shape...;) I think it will help me to work harder and be more dedicated.

We went to a baptism for some Elders in my district, and I ran into a woman named J. who was baptized in the Long Beach mission a few weeks previously. She lives in Compton. I asked her if she knows Elder N. Parker. Turns out that Elder Parker taught her before he was transferred!! Crazy small world! I took a picture with her and e-mailed it to him.

Last crazy bit of news was the Departing Missionary Fireside. It was very strange to know that mine will be in six weeks time. Ugh. I saw many friendly faces including the B.'s. I also had a huge surprise that completely made my month! The Baldwin Hills Elders brought Mi. as their investigator!! He was the one we taught everything to and he was ready to be baptized, but then he disappeared off the face of the earth. He is getting baptized on the 21st!! I prayed he would somehow come back, but I never thought it would be while I was still here. Such a cool experience. I love that young man. I love you!! Take it easy! (I won't.) Smile!

How you be?

Well, President Baker is now home and President Weidman is our new Mission President. It was a sad day, but I am excited to get to know President Weidman, too.

A member family invited us to go to see their sealing and we received permission from President Weidman. It was way cool. I did sealings with Mitch before the mission, and comparing then to now was very cool. I am a bit more excited about my own future sealing now than I was then. :D

E. came to church with her little sister on Sunday. We tried to fellowship her hard last year, but this time it miraculously worked! She made several new friends in the YSA class and I hope she starts to come more regularly now. :)

I finished the Ensign yesterday and am looking forward to my lesson plans and D&C. There is just too much to get done and learn! Agh!

We played a little soccer with a part-member family and their cousins. It was pretty fun; I was the goalie, and three little kids were talking to me and helping me, too. Elder Ro. was working the offense...:) We got pretty dusty. If you took away the rest of the world, you could have convinced me that we were in Mexico or South America.

I hope you all enjoyed the worldwide missionary broadcast, because I LOVED it! We are working very hard to incorporate the things we learned from it into our zone goal for this month. Everyone is excited and we are beginning to show it to all the members we visit. I want you to know that the miracles you saw in that broadcast can be yours, too! We need to increase our faith so that we can see (more abundantly) the miracles God gives us. I love you!

Would you believe . . . a mean little kid with a pea shooter?

 First of all, we went to the Temple this morning. Woo! The best way to start a day ever! This last week was full of baptismal interviews role plays with members, and biking. We let the sisters use our car because theirs was in the shop and they do not have bikes. Elder Ro.'s pedal fell off so we ended up walking the last half of yesterday. I loved being on a bike again and felt so free. My booty is a bit sore though. He he he.

Sunday we had a cool experience. President asked Elder Ri. and me to go teach a deacons’ quorum in Malibu and it was just like old times. :D Then there were several baptisms following the worldwide broadcast, so basically it was the most bomb day EVER! I am more excited to work with members now, and bring the work to pass in our area!

We were stopped on the street by a woman named E. the other day. She wants to learn more, but lives outside the mission so we are sending her to Arcadia...:) We found 34 new investigators yesterday through members and are excited. We visited a less active member who wants us to teach his son-in-law. We hope this is just the beginning!:) I love you all!!! I hope you are well. Keep working hard and don't forget that I love you. He loves you, too. Take it easy!

Put that thing back where it came from or so help me . . .

Heyo Familia! Today we are going to the "Callejones" (Alley) for Elder Ri. and Elder Ro.’s birthdays. Hopefully it all goes well. Did you have a good Dia del Padre? Let me know how it went.

We set a date with J. on splits last Tuesday, but she is a little less focused than we first thought. It was probably the most incredible Plan of Salvation lesson I have been a part of, though! M.'s parents still won't let her be baptized, but we haven't given up yet.

With the new zone goal, Elder Ro. and I have been sending out fun voicemails every few days, to motivate everyone. We did a reinactment of the super suit dialogue from Incredibles. It was fun.

I had a fat moment the other night. We had this chair that was falling apart, but we had both been sitting on it, anyway. Well, I was sitting on it when it decided to "give up the ghost" and kick the bucket. We had a good laugh after I massaged my ankle a bit. :D

Saturday was a rough day. We visited SO many people and not one of them was home!!!! We were both trying to be upbeat and then we went to the sisters’ baptism in our district. That was very calming. Our dinner appointment was with a returning member and they surprised us with a birthday cake for Elder Ro. We were both extremely thankful for a great end to a less-than-ideal day. :)

Yesterday was awesome! We took Juan (who is preparing for a mission) with us to a few lessons and found some new people. One house had three dogs out in the yard, but we went in the gate, anyway. A woman came out, warning us with a raised voice that we were going to let the dogs out. Well, one did get out, but Elder Ro. grabbed him before he could get far. The woman’s name is Y. She must have wondered what caused three young men to go in her gate with three dogs outside. Well, we went in because it is IMPORTANT! :D She accepted a Book of Mormon and we are going by on Saturday to see if she read.

That night we tried to contact a referral, but knocked on the "wrong" door. We were welcomed in by a HUGE family celebrating Fathers Day! We sat down and taught the Restoration to the mom and her son (plus visiting family). Turns out that her mom is a member in Tijuana and she is letting us back on Wednesday! The last few evenings have been awesome. I learned that we are often rewarded at the end of the day for working our best. It made all the hard times absolutely worth it!

I hope all is well and that you had a great Dia del Padre! This city of lost angels is just fine. Please be safe and don't forget to invite your co-workers and friends to learn more about the blessings we have received through the gospel! Les quiero mucho!

Greetings from Radiator Springs

Buenas tardes todos mis queridos! We updated our Mobile Area Book and gave all the places names from Pixar movies (we are a lot more organized now). We are finding and teaching lots of part-member families through less active members. Our district has 20 baptismal dates! It is pretty crazy.

We took Mo. to the visitors’ center with her parents and they seem more solid about letting her be baptized now. I hope they follow through with it this week. :) Yesterday we had a member bring two nonmember relatives to church. She says she wants to be more active. She used to go to a different ward, but wants to be obedient and go where she lives. :) Yay! They fed us that day and we sang hymns with the husband, too. All of it seemed to just fall into place. Love it when that happens.

Well, I love you all and hope you keep smiling. Whatever you do, try to do it well and enjoy it. This new Ensign has a lot of great messages about families and marriage, so I think we could all benefit from looking into that. Talk to you next week. Have a fantabulous Fathers Day!!!

Please let this be a normal fieldtrip!

Well, we found out that C. [former investigator] from the Centinela area is actually already a member!?! So crazy! I was able to call Elder H. and let him know that. It was fun to hear him answer the phone and to hear his surprise at finding it was me. Sad news next. Maria, the 75-year-old woman who was going to be baptized, passed away on Thursday morning. :( We were sad that she was not able to be baptized here on earth, but I know she will have the eternal record for fastest conversion in the spirit world. :)

We had a fantastic week and now have five people scheduled for baptism. Mo. and Ch. will be baptized the 16th, and Al. will hopefully follow on the 23rd. Ar. and Di. are set for the 30th, but we have only had one lesson with them. Our district has 17 dates and our zone has 31!! We are really excited for the new zone goal we made, too. It is called Glory Days and is an Incredible/super hero theme. We are Frozone :). We hope to have an awesome month and summer!:)

I was able to see Jo. and Iv. this week [recent converts]. It was sad to see them less active, but I tried to remind them of how they used to feel when they were active. I pray for them and hope the sisters can help them return by inviting the Spirit a lot.

We sadly saw first hand this week the destruction that alcohol addiction brings. I want to ask you all to never, ever drink alcohol.  It will destroy your life.  On a happier note, we know the joy and happiness that can fill that void. I am really grateful to be here, feeling the Spirit work through me. I read Elder Nelson's talk from Conference and I suggest you go back and read it. It was awesome! Please be safe and take care of that RM sister of mine. I love you all!

Nacho-o-o-o-o!

Well this week was awesome! Transfers are tomorrow and I am staying here with Elder R.  For P-day today we are going to “the alley” in the fashion district with a few missionaries.  That’s like a big swap meet, basically.  I am going to look for a luchador mask like the one from Nacho Libre. Then I’ll probably print a few pictures and write letters.  Something unexpected will pop up as well – we can always count on that. :)

We have not been finding too many people lately, but we keep trying. Our area is full of less-active members; my goal is to visit them all and ask them for referrals. We have a red area in our district (which means we can't be in there after 7:00 p.m.), so sometimes that limits us. We had a great lesson with Ma. and Ar. this week, which was cool. We are also teaching a couple of young kids who will hopefully be baptized next month. They are Mo. and Ch. Another investigator, Maria, is still in the hospital, but hopefully she can come back to church and be baptized as well. Now that it is a new transfer, Elder R. and I want to kill it and go CraZY!

I also want to give a shout out to Sister Julia Bham! That went by fast! Keep working hard. Brigham Young said, "There is neither man nor woman in this church who is not on a mission." What is your mission? Find it and work at it! Take care!

Zut alors! I have meesed one!

Hey everyone! I love you! Sorry I have zero time today, but this week was good. I cannot believe how fast it flew. Elder Quentin Cook was AMAZING!!! He helped me to connect some things in the D+C about how Christ is personally preparing the hearts of the people in our area, and opening them for us!! He encouraged us and taught us with great power. It was great to see some old faces, too, especially Elder H. (previous companion).

Elder R. (MTC companion) gave me some pictures from the MTC and it was really fun to look through some. I may send one to you all, just to look back a bit. :D I got to go on splits with Elder K. the other day (whose sister was companions with my sister in Ohio). It was oober weird! I remember that day almost a year ago when he got his call. People said we would be companions -- well, we were for a day!

President Baker had a fireside at the VC which we attended with C., one of our investigators. It was awesome. He talked about how he used to get discouraged when he thought about "his" list of things to do; now “his” list is “His” list. I need to apply this to myself and remember that it is His list, not mine. A. and R. were there with Elders H. (previous companion) and R. I also got to see several missionaries from Hermosa Liahona and 4th ward. A girl I taught on splits got baptized on Saturday, too. I was sad I was not still in Hermosa Liahona for that.

Well, sorry I need to run. I love you bunches!!! Oh wait! Chris O. sent me an e-mail just now. He was called to serve in the Loaog Philipines mission!?! So CrAzy! He is going to be companions with Elder W. (my cousin), I just know it! :)

Happy Dia de Madre!

We had a ward Noche de Hogar last Monday night and it was fun to see the old ward again. Walking into the building brought back a lot of memories :D We set a few baptismal dates last week, too! One is a woman named M., and the other is named A. Neither came to church yesterday, though, so we need to re-set their dates. Dang.

We had our zone conference on Thursday and it was all about change and repentance. I learned a lot and have been thinking about certain things I can put on the altar of sacrifice as a missionary.

We had a ward Dia de Madre activity on Saturday. Since I was here for it last year, too, I had deja vu so bad -- it was a bit surreal! I got to see lots of old friends, which was fun. :) The M. family just finished temple prep class, so hopefully they will be able to be sealed soon! So cool! I was able to see the S. family, too. They live in the Centinela area, but come with their family to activities here sometimes. :)

Last night we found out that Elder Quintin L. Cook is coming this Saturday to visit our mission, and we are having a surprise devotional with him. Woot! Super cool!

Well, sorry it is a bit short. I loved talking to you yesterday and loved seeing you! I think I was a bit quiet just because I was amazed that I was actually seeing you.... :D I LOVE YOU!

Good-bye to Centinela!

Well, as of this morning I am no longer in the Hermosa Liahona Ward, or in Centinela, or with Elder H. or in South Bay zone. I have been emergency transferred to take the place of an Elder who went home with appendicitis. I am in the Century Area in a car, and am back in the Inglewood 2nd ward!?!?! SO weird. Elder Ri. [Zach's companion in the MTC] and Elder K. [whose sister was Julia's companion for several months in Ohio] are now my zone leaders. I am their district leader and the new Fox Hills sisters are in my district, too. President called last night to let us know about the change. Elder H. and I were not expecting it at all, so it sort of shook us up a bit. I had the feeling that I should bear my testimony at church, so I did; I’m really glad now!  It was kind of a farewell. My new companion is  Elder Ro., who was in my zone in the MTC and came out at the same time I did.

 Here is an update on Centinela before the Spirit “called me away”:

I had exchanges with Elder B. and had a blast! I enjoyed studying Spanish even more than usual this week, and hope to continue now with my native companion. I learned a TON about the Atonement that I never knew before.  I also found out this week that we could skype for mothers day, which made me excited. I did not realize that Julia comes home so soon....santa mapache!

A. and R. are so awesome. I love them. They are going to get baptized – I can feel it. I will try to send a picture. 

After President called last night we made a few good-bye visits before planning, then got the area info all ready for Elder R. (Elder H.’s new companion), and then I packed. This morning the zone leaders moved me to the mission home and we got our car. Now I am here! I love you all! Hope your week is awesome!  God’s work is unstoppable and I love it!

But I ordered Shrimp Scampi!

Well, this last week was a busy one here. We found seven new investigators and gave out eight Books of Mormon (in three languages) and we are scrambling to follow up with all of them and teach them. That second lesson (Plan of Salvation) is always a crucial one that makes or breaks their progress. We have taught one man named V. twice already. He is very intelligent and let us come in even when he was ocupado (busy). We only had 20 minutes with him, but we'll take it!:D  I will let you know how that goes next week.

J.'s dad is not allowing him to be baptized, so we had to drop his date. We will still go over once or twice a week and see if we can involve his family more. I hope he can come to church this next week so he can receive more good feelings about the gospel being restored. :)

D. had a light bulb moment when we were re-teaching the Restoration. He all of a sudden said, " O! Por esto la iglesia necesitaba ser restaurado o re-establacido otra vez!" Basically "wow, that is why the church needed to be restored again". It was awesome. These are the moments that missions are made of. :D

Elder H. finished his 12-week training last week, so he is ready to be the next assistant ;). It is very odd to be done with that, and moving forward in other areas.

We met a Vietnamese family named the T. family. They had never heard of Jesus, which seemed odd to me. We tried to get another appointment, but the older family members are Buddhist and would rather we don't come back. We did get the chance to leave them a Vietnamese Book of Mormon, though. I think one of the daughters will read it, and another might, too. The mom loved us, even though she couldn't speak English. It had to have been the Spirit; he definitely speaks Vietnamese. :)

We had an amazing finding experience this week. We tried a potential we had never met before, but came to the wrong complex. As we walked up to the complex, so did a young woman named B. She asked if we wanted to get in, but we told her we had the wrong address (or did we?) We changed course, found the address and no one answered. The whole time I was thinking we needed to get into that first complex. We walked back out into the street, and a boy was walking that way on his way home from school. I knew he had to be going to that complex, so we followed him. He went inside, but the door closed and we were too far behind him to catch it. That was when the mail woman came up from behind us and let us in. That being the third miracle in a row, we went inside. I had no idea where we were supposed to go, but asked a family if we could help them carry their water jugs when they filled them up. They said they already had help. We stood there for probably 20 seconds and looked around. Then a thought hit me that maybe the family we asked to help was pointing us where we needed to go, so we tried their next door neighbor. We knocked, no response. This was when the same young woman (B.) came around the corner walking her dog. She lived in the apartment we had just knocked! We had an awesome lesson and she asked a lot of questions. We gave her a Book of Mormon and are going back tomorrow with a member, hopefully. She speaks English so we will have to give her to the zone leaders, but it was an amazing experience! It was all by the Spirit and we both pondered it for the rest of the day. It was a good day.

We had an earthquake the other day while we were on our bikes, which I actually did not feel. We were riding along when a couple of little kids yelled to us that an earthquake was coming, and to go home and be safe. It was pretty cute. We rode on, unaware that they knew what they were talking about and that an earthquake had actually already happened. Yeah, we had no idea. :)

We had the Mormon Helping Hands activity on Saturday and we cleaned out the storm drain by the Goodyear Blimp. It was pretty cool. We also taught R. again. We found him two weeks ago, but he did not show to his return appointment. We found him at home on Saturday and discovered that he is in 1 Nefi 11!!! Wow!! We will now try harder to nurture his reading desire.

We have made contact several times with a man named F. who is very generous, and we will be trying to do service for him this week, possible today. I will let you know. He gave me some basketball shoes and he is always trying to feed us. More to come in the future.:D 

I love you all! I think about you and pray for you, too. Keep working hard in everything and keep a good attitude. It makes all the difference in the world!

Morning at la playa

Howdie do everyone! We had a very good morning at the beach today and I got to see a lot of friendly faces :) I finally got to say high to Elder J. from Orem High. He is in the Korean Program! There are four Orem High guys here in LA right now. I also found out that Rachel F. from my freshman ward at BYU is here now in Spanish. Craziness!

This last week was awesome! We found several new investigators. One man has a crazy dog that is chained into the ground and jumps at us when we go by. I will try to take a video the next time we go.:) A’s wife was hit very hard by the Spirit when we gave her a blessing last week. She was talking about it for days.

We have literally been finding up a storm. We hit our BOM goal of six and had six new investigators. I love talking to people on the street or in their yard. We met one man named R. who was so intrigued that he wanted a Book of Mormon to read right away. One woman named P. had a BOM, but never read it because she assumed it was the same as the Bible. We taught her a bit and then gave her another BOM; she said she wanted to read a page a day! ALL of these people seem prepared, but we will see if they are ready now, or need a bit more time with the Spirit. We gave a Vietnamese Book of Mormon out the other day, too, to the lady whose door we helped fix a week or so ago. We wish- listed one and when it came, we took it to her! We also got to help S. paint his house on Saturday!

So, I was really enlightened in our Gospel Principles class on Sunday. I realized that I should have a lot more confidence in the things I do. I have the Priesthood of God and that gives me power to do hard things. With God on my side, I can do anything!:D  Elder H. also helps me see things differently; he analyzes things in ways I have never thought of before.

It was truly an awesome week. To cap it off, I was able to play a lot of sand volleyball today at the beach! We had too much fun. The time flew by and no one wanted to leave. It is weird to me that I am beginning to be the old fogie of the bunch. I don't recognize or know most of the missionaries anymore, and there are a TON of sisters here now. A lot of people asked me about my release date. Well, I figured the day would come. Now I need to find joy in my current position :). I love missionary work and want to live it for the rest of my life! I hope you are all safe and having a good week. Keep up your hard work and don't forget to smile!!! I love you!D

Remaining sentinel in Centinela

We are staying in Centinela! This means that Elder H. broke the pattern of my companions. I had never had a companion for longer than two transfers until now.

With our new zone goal, we have been finding lots of people these past two weeks. We are really excited and feel that there is some reason why we are both still here. Someone needs US. Now we just need to find them :D I feel like we are close to finding someone who really needs and wants what the gospel has to offer. We tract as often as we can and look for potentials. I have come to realize that we have no time to waste. We need to keep looking, even when we find people who have potential. Those who are ready will begin to progress and we will work with what we are blessed with.  We have begun to teach A.'s wife now, which is super cool. I hope someday soon to have the whole family for lessons.

We learned how to say hello in Vietnamese last week and I was able to use it once. The two woman looked surprised and began to speak excitedly to me. Sadly, I just smiled and nodded and they told me I was tall. Still, it was a funny experience. We also were able to get a Vietnamese BOM to give to a woman we did service for a while back. We got new phones last week, too! It is so weird to have a touch phone and better texting. I cannot imagine missionary work without cell phones and texting. That is a technology that Heavenly Father gave to us for a reason!

Between conference sessions last weekend, we helped set up a birthday party for C. and M.'s daughter A.  I also saw Kristen B. in the choir at conference!

A few girls from my freshman ward have received their calls to L.A., so that could be fun. We get nine more Spanish-speaking sisters tomorrow. Craziness! 

I wanted to ask all of you, what are you doing to catch the wave of missionary work? Keep moving forward, keep smiling, love those around you, bear testimony, look up often and express your feelings to those you love. Don't worry about the things you cannot control and take the challenges when they come. I am astonished at the difference I have seen in my attitude these last few weeks. Be optimistic and always see the positive. Those of you who are sharing the plan of happiness with friends, smile or they won't believe you! I love you much!