Week 68 - Last Christmas as a Missionary

Hello! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. It was my second and last Christmas as a Missionary. It has been a pretty good week. It seems like it's generally been harder to meet with people and find. We didnt do any tracting or calling to meet with members on Christmas and Christmas Eve (for good reason). So it's been more social media and some park finding/walking around neighborhoods and talking to people we pass. Except this week we also did a ton of Caroling! We went on 3 different days this week as a District (forgot to take pictures) to our different wards. Even though I feel like Caroling is a little weird, it was really sweet to see all the members and non-members that were touched by it. Sometimes we would be caroling at a house and someone nearby would compliment us. Then we would go over there and ask them what their favorite song was. It was really cool, and it's something we can really only do during this time of year. But other than that a lot of people have been out of town. Yesterday we went tracting for an hour or 2 and we only had like 7 people answer. We've also found out that a lot of members are going, or already are out of town between Christmas and New Years. But it's been good. Christmas and Christmas Eve were pretty regular days except we could spend more time at our meal appointments and we got to call home. I did also keep up with the family tradition of sleeping by the tree. 

 Elder Quiner and Gudino joined too, but Reinhart didn't want to ):

 

Here are a couple other things for this week

- Had our friend Bryce at church on Christmas! Good to see her there. Hope to be able to begin teaching her more soon. She's good friends with a member family and that's why she comes. It's been hard to meet with her but we still communicate.

- On Monday we delivered the last of our goodies to our friends and other members. One visit Michael, didnt answer, and so we ended up just leaving the brownies for whenever he came by. After dropping off the brownies, we normally stopped by to make sure they got it but we forgot to do so with Michael. We were walking by his place on Thursday and we were pretty sure he got them but we thought we'd double check. And they were still there! I don't know what it is with some people. We know he was home at some point because the cards we left were gone, and he'll also leave his skateboard out when he's home. But for some reason he didnt take the brownies. Hopefully that doesn't mean he's not interested anymore. The brownies were pretty stale but we weren't just going to let them go to waste.

- In Personal Study I read Moroni 7+8 today. Super good.Chapter 7 is probably my favorite in the Book of Mormon (except for those in 3 Nephi). There were so many verses that stood out to me, but one that I wanted to share was Moroni 8:3 "I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end". It reminds me of Brad Wilcox in his talk "His Grace is Sufficient" saying that Grace is not the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is the light moving us through the tunnel. I just thought that was cool. I would invite anyone to read those chapters.

We had a really good District Council yesterday. We are coming up on the last week of the transfer (5/6) and this was how we were doing on our Key Indicator goals. New People taught: 3/10. Church attendances: 21/50. Weeks of people being on date 3/6 (This ones a little confusing. Basically what it is is how many weeks one person has been on date. For example: If a friend is on date for 3 weeks it counts as 3 instead of 1). People Baptized: 0/1. It was a pretty big oof. Things in our area have been especially hard for me. I'm at 11 weeks in this area today and we've only begun teaching one person (they moved too). So throughout this whole time we have not been teaching anyone. As we were reviewing our goals, it was proposed that we should have our goals for this last week be: 1 New add per companionship this week (4 total). 10 more church attendances this next week, and 1 new person put on date for baptism. Thinking logically, I really did not think we would be able to begin teaching anyone new. We have had so much potential for so long, but I've been doubting whether or not we will actually begin teaching anyone because it's been so long. But, as a district we really prayed, trying to know what God's goals were. We believed that if we involve the Lord in the goal setting process, and really work hard to achieve them, that it will happen. I'm still somewhat skeptical, but I also believe in Miracles, and I hope that we can really work hard this week and achieve our goal as an area to within the next now 5 days (by Sunday), begin teaching one new person, have 2 people to church, and maybe have 1 new person on date. I really liked this quote that we read from Preach My Gospel "If you lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire will weaken, and you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit". I have been struggling to have a vision of high expectations for this area, and I want to be more faithful. Prayers this week are greatly appreciated.

This is the only other picture I have for this week. My desk has become more crowded over time, but I feel like those are all essentials. Especially the Rocktopus. The new additions from Christmas are the picture of my family (That one is the only one in there that has everyone else), the oil lamp, the Lego Millenium Falcon, and there's also a little lego basketball hoop with one of those characters that you can shoot with (springs in his legs). 

It was a good Christmas! Love you all and appreciate all your love and support. 

- Elder Wride

Week 67 - God Takes Care of Us

Hello There! Hope everything is well.

First, here are some pictures from the temple last Tuesday

And the Brad Wilcox Zone Conference from last week

For finding this week we've done a good amount of Brownie deliveries which has been good. Mostly for our friends and some other members. My favorite delivery was to our friend Jonathon. He's just super happy and was very grateful. Said we might be able to meet sometime after Christmas. We've also still been doing a good amount of Tracting

Had two exchanges this week. One with Elder Hansen who is an Elder in the District. We're actually both from Sandy and when we first met we kind of had a feeling we knew each other. Haven't figured it out after 10 or so weeks. This was from a Christmas party we went to.

I also had exchanges with the Zone Leaders in Encinitas. I was with Elder Whetstone who was actually my seatmate on the plane ride here to San Diego. It was a good exchange and we got a lot of good work done. My highlight of that day was dropping off a Christmas tree to some members of the ward. Another member bought the tree and wanted us to deliver it to them because he wanted to remain anonymous. The couple has been going through a lot of challenges. One of them is going through chemotherapy for I think the 5th time over many years. They were super grateful. Even though I didn't know them well and it was my first time meeting them I still just felt a lot of love for them. It was awesome.

So, last week I included in my email that I crashed on my bike and broke the seat. When I first came into the field the mission took care of repairs, but the vehicle coordinator messaged us back and said that I would be responsible for it. I was concerned and didn't know how much of the bike seat would need to be replaced. If it was just the saddle, or if the whole seat post and up. From a quick google search it looked like a seat post and saddle replacement could be $100-$200. I was worried about it most of the week and was thinking back to some of the thoughts I've shared about the Lord looking out for me. I remember earlier this year when I needed to get Orthotic devices, which were very expensive. The Lord was looking out for me and Doctor Krage gave them to me for free. I've been blessed by many other members with mostly food, but also new shoes, and other needs me or my companions have had. This time, however, I doubted for a bit. It wasn't even that much money, probably the least out of the other things I've mentioned, but I still felt a little upset. The Rancho Carrillo ward Elders then told me that they had an unused bike saddle that I could have. Yesterday, as I tried to look at more of the damage, I figured out how to take the old saddle off and replace it and voila! It was all fixed! It was humbling and next time I will try to not be so quick to forget that the Lord can take care of even the little things. Just because he can, doesn't mean he always will, but it is important to be grateful when he does.

This kind of goes along with what I've been thinking a lot about, which is sight. Specifically, spiritual sight. In Ether 4:15 it says "rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind". I thought that the representation of being blind compared to a veil was really cool. I have felt so much sadness as I get further into the mission on the state of the world. I am surrounded by people who do not believe and their eyes are blinded to what the gospel really means and is. I know that is the case because I feel like my eyes were opened from coming on a mission. I feel like I have not understood what the gospel really is, and now that I know more, I struggle to help others to see. I like what the rest of the verse says: "mind, then shall the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the world from you—yea, when ye shall call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then shall ye know that the Father hath remembered the covenant which he made unto your fathers, O house of Israel." I feel like these blessings I've been experiencing are only things we can recognize when we have faith. The Savior himself also said to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 19:35 "So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews; wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles, because of their unbelief". It can be hard to have faith in things we cannot fully see, but it does not require perfect faith. The Lord just asks us to believe, and I believe that the things I have seen and experienced are witnesses that the scriptures are what they say they are.

Also, here are some fire pictures we took the other day

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I love this work and this gospel! I love all of you! Thank you for all your prayers and support and I wish you a Merry Christmas this week!

- Elder Wride

Week 66 - Dirt + Mud

Hey Everyone! Another week has come around.

Elder Reinhart was sick on Wednesday and Thursday so not a whole lot happened. Thursday was our Zone Conference which was a bummer that we couldn't go in person. The 5+ hours over zoom wasn't very superb but I still enjoyed the trainings a lot. I have gained a strong testimony of Zone Conferences because they're always exactly what I need. I don't know what I'll do after the mission without them. One training I really liked was by President Merritt about being able to take correction. He talked about the difference between acceptimg and seeking correction, and just the overall blessings of having that kind of Humility. Since then I've tried to be better about seeking correction from those around me.

Set up the Christmas tree this week as well. Special thanks to Grandma Wride for going above and beyond.

The title of this email refers to the two times this week I have fallen on soil. They were both pretty much my own fault. Last Tuesday, after P-day I committed a dumb by deciding it would be a good idea to attempt to slightly touch Reinharts back tire with my front tire. It wasn't, and I crashed into the dirt at the apartment (we were on our way home). I wasn't too badly hurt, just scraped my hand and a little headache. My bike was a little bit more badly hurt. We haven't been able to get it fixed yet, and needless to say it has been very uncomfortable to ride.

The second one was due to the rain we experienced Saturday and Sunday. Our church building is right next to our apartment so we always just walk. As missionaries we are also supposed to wear our suits every Sunday. You might be able to tell where this is going. On our way to the church there's a grassy and muddy area. I took the muddy area because it's barely shorter. I slipped and fell into the mud a little and got it on my suit. It is now getting dry cleaned.

We actually had 2 zone conferences this week. The one I mentioned earlier, and also one with Brad Wilcox! It was really good. He talked a lot about the gathering of Israel and the Second coming. One of the really cool things he talked about was how basically what we're doing right now is just preparing for the second coming. That when the Savior comes, there is going to be probably billions of people coming to the church, and that when that happens, we need to have temples, stakes, bishops, etc. He talked about how in our different tribes in Israel, we will have different roles and responsibilities given to us when the Savior comes. It was super cool and spiritual.

We also went to the temple this morning, but whoever has them hasn't sent them in our District chat. Will probably just include it next week. It was really early though. Going to the temple for a 6:30 session can be nice, but I feel extra tired. 

For a quick spiritual thought, one of the things I wanted to share is just how cool the Bible is. Reading the Book of Mormon is important and I know why it's emphasized, but if you don't read the Bible there is a lot of cool stuff that you miss out on. Today at the temple I was reading some scriptures in Revelations, and other random parts of the bible from the topical guide. Really cool to see how well the church doctrine still is supported by the bible. I've been reading the New Testament during personal study as well. Right now I'm in 2 Corinthians. One of my favorite verses from that is 2 Corinthians 4:15-18

Love you all!

- Elder Wride

Week 65 - Where Are You Christmas?

Good day, everyone! Christmas season has officially begun. The main event of this week was this Christmas Concert for our stake that was held Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It's the first time they've done it since covid and apparently it was a pretty big deal back in the day. They have always had many many non-members there so it was also to be a good missionary event. We've been handing out invitations to the program for like 5-6 weeks now. They wanted every missionary in the zone there every night to hand out programs and start conversations with people. It was a good event, but I'm kind of glad it's over. One can only listen to the same hour and a half concert for so long. It was pretty high quality though. The one song that hit especially hard for us missionaries was "Where are you Christmas?". It's weird because it honestly does not even feel like Christmas right now. It feels like we just had Christmas not that long ago, and here we are again. It is a seemingly never ending cycle at this point.

Our district did a facebook live event on facebook. It's not super great, but if you want to watch it it's on the Come Unto Christ in San Diego page. I thought it wasn't a good idea to do it at a conflicting time with the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Plus, we were doing it right before the Christmas concert in one of the rooms at the Stake Center. During the event a couple people came by and tried to come into the room. When we ended we saw a sign that said "Boys Dressing Room". We're pretty sure it wasn't up there before, but oh well. 

Elder Reinhart is kind of an interesting and childish guy. Not in a bad way, he just has interesting behavior and humor. I sometimes feel like a single mom with a misbehaving child when he's distracted or misbehaving in public. The other day he used 12 eggs and bought a giant loaf of garlic bread and decided to make it for lunch. He was confident he could eat at least half of it for lunch. A quarter of a sandwich later he felt sick for some reason and we were late to our next activity. He finished the last of it this morning. Being in a 4 man apt with him and the other 2 elders is definitely an adventure, but it's fun.

Love you lots!

- Elder Wride

Week 64 - Day of Finding

Not too much for this week. Things are going well.

We had Thanksgiving dinner this week with the Birchalls. They are awesome. Had a lot of family over so it felt like a holiday gathering, except that I didn't really know any of them. But it was still a good visit with good food. Thanksgiving is a great holiday.

The main highlight I would say was our finding day of gratitude. Everyday is a finding day, but this one was a little different. Throughout a regular day here, we'll have studies, meetings, lessons, services, and finding. However, this Saturday we just had finding from 9am-9pm without anything else except for lunch + dinner. I wasn't sure what we were going to do during that time because finding can be a little harder in this area. It was just going to be a longer day, and we wouldn't have personal study which made me sad. But, we prepared and went out to work. In the morning we walked around neighborhoods for a while to catch people out and about. After we met up with some other Elders to do some filming for a video where we would ask strangers questions about one of the questions of the soul. The one we did was is there life after death. So basically we would just film people saying what they thought about what happens after this life. It was pretty cool. It should come up on the facebook page at some point. Then we would also try to talk to them after about the church or whatever. Then we had lunch, went out and did a little bit more filming. I should also mention that we held this big fast on Friday that we would be able to find people on Saturday. I was still hopeful, but it has felt really hard to find people generally over my time as a missionary, and I had some doubts about if we would actually find some people. But we did! We met this lady Sam while Tracting and she is super elect! We invited her to church and a Christmas program we're having and hopefully she'll come to that. She wasn't able to make it to church this past Sunday but said she will the following. She also took a Restoration pamphlet and we hope to go by soon to teach the Restoration lesson. But then we also met a kid named Ian on the very next door so it was a back to back miracle. He took a Book of Mormon, said he knew some members of our ward and we set up a lesson for Monday! Unfortunately he didn't show up and we haven't heard from him since, but we'll drop by at some point. We finished the night with some calls, visits, and facebook work. It was a long and draining day, but also really fulfilling. It felt like our spirit of missionary work amplified and it felt really good.

That's pretty much it for this week. I also want to share a little lyric that I liked from a musical number performed in church this week. This  dad and his little daughter sang "In Christ Alone". It was super good and I really felt the spirit. One of the verses that hit the hardest was when they sang "Till Christ shall come, or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand". It's ao good song and you should listen to it.

Love you all!

- Elder Wride

Weeks 62+63 - Past Two Weeks

Hey everyone, sorry I missed last week, I just never got around to writing

First up, we had transfers today! Still in Olivenhain with Elder Reinhart which I preferred because we've both only been here for 1 transfer. I was somewhat hoping/expecting for us to get a car for this change, but we didn't. It's kind of surprising just because our area really is big, and a bunch of people including members, our ZLs, and senior missionaries don't think we should be on bikes. I guess I assumed the right people would've gotten us a car, but it's ok. Members are willing and offer to give us rides a lot which is a mercy for me. My endurance is better now, but I still get sweaty. My white shirts have some sweat stains in the back which is unfortunate but you can't see them because they're tucked.

2 Wednesdays ago we had Zone Conference with Elder Sabin from the Seventy. It was really awesome. A spiritual feast. He talked about a lot of stuff. One of my favorite stories he shared was from when he was a Stake President here in Poway and there was a fire that burned down a few homes. One lady in the Stake came in and was talking to him about her troubles and how they lost everything. He said he got out a piece of paper, and put a dot in the middle with his pen. He told her to not be blinded by the dot. Meaning, in the grand scheme of things, our struggles, and our life itself is a very small moment in the span of eternity. We need to keep a focus on the very important things. It was a good conference and I definitely felt the spirit.

Not much has been new. We've found even more people this week, but yet again, have not been able to begin teaching them. It's a little bothersome just because they are so promising. It's just a matter of pinning something down. For the work we've still just been working on meeting with as many members as we can. For finding we've been doing mostly Tracting which has had some success. The best people we've found would obviously be people that members have told us we should knock on their door. We've also been doing some social media work, mostly content creation. It takes time, but I enjoy putting videos and posts together. Currently working on a video about the Holy Ghost. Although, none of the stuff I finish will probably be put on the facebook page for some time.

With it being the end of the transfer, we also had a big zoom meeting this week for missionaries to give their departing testimonies. There were some good ones. A lot of them just spoke about adversity on the mission and how the Savior helped them through it. I've been thinking about adversity in general a lot. It's so easy and natural for me to be upset when hard things happen, or to have a bad attitude about it. But I know I have nothing to be ungrateful for when I think about things with a greater perspective. I have found that it is a lot more difficult to have a negative attitude about things when I'm understanding what Jesus Christ has done. I realized that anyone who has a bad attitude about life, does not fully understand the Savior's Atonement fully, and does not remember it enough. I think that's what President Nelson was referring to when he said that "The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives". It is totally true. Like, I get to be a missionary? I get to represent the Lord everyday and spend my time inviting others to come unto Him? This is such a unique opportunity. How can I be ungrateful for anything? It's just humbling the more I think about it. It still can be hard when we go about our day to day and I'm feeling tired or like we're not having success. But I am trying to be firm of mind in focusing on the blessings I am receiving. When I think about this it reminds me of 3 Nephi 19:35-36 

"35 And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of praying he came again to the disciples, and said unto them: So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews; wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles, because of their unbelief. 

36 Verily I say unto you, there are none of them that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither have they heard so great things as ye have heard."

I just find that really interesting. When we are ungrateful, I think we hardly think of or recognize what blessings we receive. We are therefore blinded and cannot see the blessings or miracles we experience. Sure, things can be tough sometimes, but if the plan of salvation and the gospel are true, it is very evident that we are blessed much more than not. It just takes some effort in seeking them out. It's pretty cool, and is still a lesson that I am in the learning of. 

(The red light is from my bike while we were out at night. It was only like 6pm. It just gets dark so early).

Anway, all is well. We have Thanksgiving this week which will be good because it's one of my favorite holidays. We have dinner with a member family which we are excited for.

I love you all and I love being a missionary. As someone once put it, it's "The hardest thing I've ever loved to do". Have a happy Thanksgiving!

- Elder Wride

Week 61 - Contacts in the Trash

Hello Everyone! Time is zoomin

Here's a fun little story for the week: We are now 4/6 weeks into the transfer, and the whole time I have been waiting for something. That is, in my last apartment, I accidentally left some stuff in the bathroom. It was a little sewing and medical kit from my Grandma, some denture cleaners for my retainer, and most importantly, my 6 months supply of contacts. I messaged Elder Johnson the next day and asked him to put it all in a bag, write "Elder Hyrum Wride, Zone 1", and to give it to the ZLs to send it back to me through the mission office. Well, I waited a while but didn't get anything. I assumed it was just taking a while (Zone Leaders forgetting stuff is the biggest hold up in mission mail). But then we got mail last week and my stuff wasn't there. I first asked Elder J and he said he gave it to the ZLs the day after I asked him. I asked the ZLs in the included image below:

He then proceeded to thank me for the new toothbrush too. I thought he might have been kidding for a while because I have no idea how there was that miscommunication. Elder Johnson said he gave very clear directions. Why would they assume I didn't want my contacts? It literally has my name and zone on it. But alas, the contacts are long gone. They threw them away weeks ago. I just ordered another pair today which was a big oof.

We also went outside the mission. We went out for the first time a few weeks ago but it was an accident. Basically in order to get to this far part of our area we have to go outside our area and the mission. We were getting a ride from a member back to our apartment. I took a screenshot of the map. The red line is the mission boundary

But we also have a member that attends this ward even though they live outside the ward boundaries. They have their records here, and the President gave us permission to visit them. It was cool. She has a pet cockatoo but I didn't take a picture of it. Also, on the way back from the appointment we took some cool pictures

We were like maybe 7 miles from the ocean, but you can see it on the horizon. Anyway, things have been going well. We met a lady this week named Norma and gave her a Book of Mormon. She seems really nice and we hope to meet her this week. Other than that, we haven't begun teaching anyone new yet. It's been kinda frustrating because there are so many GOLDEN people in the area. They just haven't been able to meet with us yet. We invited a bunch of them to come to the Christmas concert we have next month which the members say is a really huge event and a lot of non-members come. Hopefully I'm not transferred then. Just working on being patient with everything though. The area has a lot of potential.

Also, here's another picture we took this week

A quick spiritual thought I had this week is just about gratitude. I think I've expressed this before, but sometimes it just feels really hard to get out of bed. In the morning, and during my lunch time nap. I just don't want to do anything or go anywhere sometimes. But, I've been trying to focus more on why I love being a missionary which I would say is summed up in this quote by Elder Rasbands talk "This Day"

There is no greater happiness I have felt than what Elder Rasband explains here. Of course, I will be able to share the gospel after my full-time mission, but it won't be the same. I think of all the times I have shared the Restoration with people, and I am just so hungry to be able to share it with everyone I can. The spirit in those moments is so strong that it is undeniable. So, I hope to be able to have another one of those experiences this week with Norma. Right now it looks like we might be able to meet Friday, but it's not set in stone.

Anyway, I need to wrap this up. Thank you so much for all your love and support! I love you!

- Elder Wride

Week 60 - Elders Locking Themselves Out of Apartments

Hello and happy Tuesday

This week went by stupid fast. Faster than most.

I don't really have much to say. We're just out here grinding. Our focus is still meeting with all the members in the ward. This ward so far has been the most open and excited about finding us people to teach which has been really cool. We haven't begun teaching any of them yet which has taken longer than I thought, but we'll hopefully meet with some of them soon. But this area literally feels like a gold mine of potential! It's so awesome. I hope to be able to tell you more about the people when we actually start teaching them. Here are some pictures of us out and about

One of the people I have the most hopes for is a kid and his mom. They both know the ward and the kid gets invited to YM activities all the time. He has some social anxiety but really likes missionaries and the mom really thinks we would be a good thing for him. They're both so awesome, he's just been busy with college applications. She said we'd meet soon though. That's one of our potentials, and there are many more that are open to meeting with us, we just haven't been able to make it happen yet.

We had a rather tragic Halloween yesterday. We had a dinner lesson for 5:30, but it was a 40 minute bike ride away on pretty fast and narrow roads. Our plan was to bike there a little bit at a time and make visits along the way to members, potentials, and previously taught people along the way. After a while we got a call from the other Elders we share an apartment with. It was about 4:50 and they said they locked themselves out of the apartment. Normally, we would just wait until the day was over, but they locked another set of Elders bikes in our apartment. The reason behind that is another long story that I feel the need to explain really quickly.

Basically the night before the other Elders in our district locked themselves out of their apartment and so they spent the night with us. I don't know what they did for most of the morning, but basically they waited a lot of the day to get another set of keys from the Mission office. 

So, anyway, they needed to get their bikes out of the apartment, but we were about 20 minutes away. We were also another 15 minutes away from our lesson in the opposite direction. They had the car and the car keys so they could come to us (I still don't know why they didn't get the apartment keys but they had the car keys). We waited until about 5:15 and then called again. They said they actually just decided to drop the other Elders off to their area because they also had a lesson at 5:30 and said we were good to go to ours. I was like bro, why didn't you tell us that? They essentially just made us late for our lesson for no reason. So, we hustled and biked to our appointment. It was uphill on the narrow roads and we also went on some of those trails in between neighborhoods. This one was a lot worse though because it was very sandy. Biking in deep sand is not good. It took us longer than we thought to get to the appointment and we were just completely dead after that bike ride. I get more wrecked by the humidity than Elder Reinhart. The mom came in and I was completely drenched in sweat. She asked me if I was okay and Elder Reinhart thought that was really funny. I think most members think that when I show up to their house after a bike ride, but she was the first one to say it. We cooled down over dinner, had a decent lesson and were back on the road. It was dusk and we were not looking forward to the 40 minute bike ride back. Or so we thought.

The first 15 minutes were ok. Since it was downhill we were able to go pretty quick and the cars weren't too bad. After a while we finally had a little room to bike to the side of the road. When it appeared I tried to make the transition, but the curb was a little higher than I thought. I ate it pretty hard. It wasn't too bad and I wasn't hurt. Just a little dirty and with a broken front light. So I now had to bike behind Elder Reinharts light. It was a little hard to see, but I managed. I think I rode over some horse poop piles though. They are all over. A few minutes later we were biking on a little trail and my bike chain fell off. It got stuck on something and it was pretty hard to try and fix it without getting oil on our shirts. Took a while but we eventually fixed it. 

The last leg of the bike ride was through the neighborhoods around the church. This is where a lot of the trick or treaters were. There were a lot of punk teenagers and kids going around making noise. There was also a green laser following us for a while from someone. We eventually made it though. It had been an hour long bike ride from the appointment. We were feeling pretty defeated at that point. Especially in our legs. We were both like "Do you just want to go home?". It was only about 7:30-8 so it was a little early to go home, but I felt justified in doing so. We went home, took a nice cold shower and did some laundry, cleaning, and resting before our temple trip the next morning. 

We went to the temple this morning and it was nice. 

For my spiritual thought I wanted to share my vision for  the rest of my mission. I made a few points this week of what I would like my mission to be like 

- Love the Lord and God's Children. Become a greater witness of Jesus Christ

- Be fully consecrated to the will of God. Put off the Natural man daily

- Be filled with the Holy Ghosts power and influence

- Be full of Charity, Joy and Thanksgiving

I've had some variations of this throughout my mission, but I felt like it was important to really create a vision of what I want my mission to be. It's been pretty cool to do through my interview with my Mission President as well as reading my Patriarchal blessing. I have some weekly goals as well of what I would like to do to accomplish my goals. Having goals is good and makes life more filling. I just invite you to make serious goals and consider this quote from M. Russell Ballard

“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”

Anyway, this email is long so I'll cut it here. I love this work and I love all of you!

- Elder Wride

Week 59 - Answers to Prayers

Good day everyone! Happy Tuesday!

There's a Christlike attribute activity in PMG and I took it this week. I marked low on some of the questions and a big takeaway was that I haven't been very good at noticing answers to prayers. Since then I have tried to be more specific in what I pray for and I've also been keeping a prayer journal to help me notice answers. One of the things I prayed for this week was for biking to get better. I wasn't expecting it to get super easy or anything, but I've been hoping to get more used to it. Well, I received something from that prayer. My former comp Elder Hatch is my Zone Leader and we went on exchanges this week. As we were biking to an appointment we found a biking trail that led literally right to our appointment. I looked on google maps under the bicycling feature and found out that in this area there are all sorts of biking paths in between neighborhoods. We rode through it and it was really nice actually. We tried to capture the moment on camera but it didn't quite show. It felt like an answer and something that made it better. We've also been able to get rides to places which I always appreciate. Plus, I feel like there's a kind of special bonding when you are chatting with a member while driving at night. 

I know there are a few more small answers to prayers that I've received that I wrote down. I just can't remember them right now. But in just a few days my testimony of prayers being answered has been growing!

The work in this area is going good actually. We've been meeting a lot with members because a lot of them haven't  had the missionaries over in a long time. So far, we've also had a good amount of members that have given us names of people to reach out to! We haven't begun teaching anyone from it so far, but it's been cool to see. I feel like things are picking up! The biggest thing I would say I have been praying for is to find those who are read[y to accept the gospel, and to have the faith to find them. It feels like that prayer is being answered!

I guess I don't have any pictures with my actual comp for this week. All these pictures are with Elder Hatch. We were on a 24 hour exchange and at the end he and his comp brought out their polaroids for some exchange pictures (Polaroids are basically cameras that you put film into and then it prints right out of the camera). Elder Reinhart started trashing on their polaroids, talking about how digital pictures are so much better. That was until we took our exchange pictures. Ours is the one below where we're on the stairs, but I don't have Elder Reinharts and the other ZL. It was funny to see Elder Hatch and his comp convince Elder Reinhart against his previous opinion and now, after taking some really nice pictures, he is converted. Elder R literally carries his picture with him everywhere he goes now because he really likes the picture. I like this one too, and also really want to get a Polaroid. Let me know if anyone is interested in contributing to that fund. They're around $80 I think. I might get it for Christmas. 

Second Polaroid picture that we took on the biking trail. It just looks a lot darker.

Also, I colored this rock this week at a service activity

So I'm doing good overall. Missions are kinda hard and I feel like I'm at a weird point. I feel tired and don't want to work sometimes. But at the same time, my greatest desire is to teach by the spirit and help people realize the truth of the gospel and the message of the Restoration. I just have to keep that as my focus. 

I love you all! Hope everything is well.

- Elder Wride

Week 58 - Demon Caster + Lunch with Family

Hello Everyone! Hope you're all doing well. This week has been really good!

1. Run-down

2. Highlights

3. Demon Caster

1. The area is doing ok. We came in with 3 friends we were teaching. One of them is actually in the other Elders in our apartments area so we sent that record to them. The second one is going to be sent out to Oceanside because he actually lives there, which leaves us with 1 person. The one non-member we've met with a few times is named Connor. Things have been good. We taught him the Restoration and also read 3 Nephi 11 with him. He also came to church on Sunday! He's not working right now though and is also homeless. We're working on getting him into the LDS Employment services which would be good. But, he's also YSA, so we passed him off to the Missionaries in the YSA ward because we thought it would be better for him. So, right now we don't have any friends that we're teaching. Hopefully we'll meet some new people as we continue to meet with members, go to parks, knock on doors, find on facebook, etc. The bikes have been ok, but it's been kicking my butt. We haven't biked that far from our area yet. To get from one side to the other takes literally an hour and a half, with what google calls "very steep hills". We've only biked around this side of our area with moderate hills and it's been pretty bad. It's a little humid, and after a 12 minute bike ride to a member lesson, I am sweating really badly. Maybe I'm just out of shape. I'm hoping that either a miracle happens and we get a car, or I get used to it soon, or we could just always ask members for rides. I don't know, but I think our area is way too big for a bike. I think I included last week the fact that our area is bigger than some car areas. Anyway, sorry for the rant. My new comp is Elder Rainhart from Boise, ID. He's doing really well so far, and seems to be loving it. It's really good to hear him talking a lot about the things he's enjoying day to day. I also love being in an apartment with another set of Elders. It's so much fun to be around more people and we've had a lot of laughs already.

2. Here are some highlights of the week.

- We had a member lesson on Wednesday, and the youngest daughter was getting baptized on Saturday. We invited them to think of someone they could invite and they did! They invited us to come as well and it was fun. The non-member coming didn't lead anywhere, but hopefully they felt the spirit. 

- We also had the ward chili cook off and trunk or treat this week! It was fun, but after being there for a long time for the set up and the party, I was pretty beat by the end of it. It was still good and we got to meet more of the ward members there. 

- The biggest highlight this week was having lunch with my aunt and uncle! My extended family has been in Newport this week, and my aunt and uncle were coming down to the San Diego temple to perform baptisms. I talked to the MP, and we were able to meet up for lunch! It was really fun to be with family again for a little bit. It was initially kinda weird to see them again, but after a while it felt like I never left.

3. We were visiting some old records of people previously taught this week. At our first visit, it was the wrong address for the lady we were looking for. The guy said he didn't know her, but while we were talking, I noticed inside that he had a picture of that painting by Harry Anderson of the second coming.  It's the one that I'm pretty sure is in every church building. It's the one where Christ is descending from the clouds in a white robe, and there are tons of angels around him. It's a pretty popular one, and I guess I thought it was exclusive to our church or something. I asked him about it and that led to a very long discussion. Basically, this guy is Christian, and is somewhat familiar with the church, but believes the church to have the doctrine of demons. He talked to us about a lot of things like Joseph Smith, Kingdoms of Glory, etc. He said he had done his research and knew what he was talking about, and while some of the things he said were correct, he also had a lot of partial truths, and complete lies. I guess that's what you find on the Internet. He also told us about his church and how they cast out demons, perform healings, and speak in tongues. It seemed like he believed that our church is not true unless we have people screaming as demons are coming out of them because of the power of the holy spirit in our church services. He was probably the most nice and gracious anti I have met, but it was still a little weird. Near the end he asked if he could say a prayer with us. He grabbed our hands and in a circle he gave us a prayer and a blessing. During the prayer he prayed that demons would be cast out of us and that we would realize our false doctrine. It was a nice gesture, but nothing really happened. We said goodbye and put it in the notes to probably not go back.

Love you all! Thanks for all your love and support.

- Elder Wride

Pictures:

- Picking up my Greenie

- Lunch with Family

- Halloween Party (Elder R was trying to do a last minute costume as a vampire)