Elder Wride in California: Week 21 - Elder Christofferson!

Hey Guys! This week was pretty good. The end of a 7 week transfer.

1. Transfer news

2. Temple and Spiritual Thought

3. Mormon Batallion

4. Elder Christofferson

1. Got transfers today. Elder Hayes left this morning and will be released later tonight which is weird to think about. My new comp is Elder Tillman who we knew each other in Poway and came out at the same time. It's weird because I'm not District Monkey anymore! For my whole mission I've been District monkey, which I should probably explain. It means your the District Leaders companion. So yeah now I'm just Junior Companion but I'm still in the same area.

2. I was not able to attend the temple this transfer. Elder Hayes Temple recommend expired which he didn't realize earlier. And President doesn't start Temple recommend interviews until the end of the transfer. So, Elder Hayes got a new Temple recommend for his departing interview after out last P day was over. Which was just in time for Elder Hayes to go to the Temple on Friday for departing activities. But, since our last P day had passed and I'm not a departing missionary I wasn't able to go. Kind of lame, but Im ok. What was cool was being able to have Personal Study on the temple grounds while they were inside. I read in Alma 18 where King Lamoni just heard about Ammon defending his sheep and feeding his horses. I liked verse 10 which says "Surely there has not been any servant among all my servants that has been so faithful as this man: for even he doth remember all my commandments to execute them". It may seem like kind of a weird verse to pick, but I really liked it. I compared it to Heavenly Father and keeping his commandments, and I asked myself if I could be as faithful in keeping God's commandments, as Ammon was for King Lamoni. To please the Lord by remembering and executing all His commandments. I really liked it. Anyway, so yeah, we'll go to the Temple early this transfer.

3. The 175th Anniversary of the Mormon Batallion was this week, and we Elders got to March in it. Something super exciting is that Elder D. Todd Christofferson came to San Diego for the event! I've known he was going to come since like November, and I've been super excited. Even more so because, for those of you who don't know, Elder Christofferson was in my ward for many years so I was really excited to see him again. Well Saturday morning we went to the Historic site in Old Town and got dressed up and we were told we'd be given fake guns, which was a big motivator for me. But as my luck would have it, we were given Shovels. They said they didn't like the look of Missionaries with guns, so it made sense, but still. Eventually they ran our of Shovels so most of the Missionaries I think had guns. I was not pleased. While we were marching people were confused as to why we had Shovels and we didn't know either what we would do with them, but whatever. So we marched around and got to this spot where Elder Christofferson was! We had a little thing there and then Elder Christofferson gave us a motivational talk and we were off. I don't remember who I represented in the March, but something cool was two guys from my Distrcit were Levi Savage from 17 Miracles, and Ephraim Hanks from Ephraims Rescue. It's cool that they were also in the Batallion.

4. After the Batallion Elder Christofferson came and spoke at our church building. It was really good and our friend Taryn was also able to come! To be honest, I just really wanted to go up and say hi to him because he knows me and it would be really cool to be recognized by him because he moved like 3 years ago I think. Anyway, so he gave a talk and after he came down to shake people's hands. When he came around I said something like : "Elder Christofferson! It's Elder Wride from the Granite Ridge Ward!". He was like "Oh really? You made my day. Tell the folks I said hello". It was so awesome. That was the entirety of our conversation as he had things to do and other people's hands to shake. But it was just really good to see him again. I'm currently hunting for a picture of him shaking hands because there were a bunch of guys taking pictures so it's somewhere. I'll include it one of these weeks if I find it. But him coming out to San Diego at the same time as I was here, and being in one of the few wards that was allowed to go. We also couldn't go unless we brought a friend and Taryn was barely able to come it felt like. There were just so many things that lined up that made me really feel like I was meant to be here.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for this week I think. Hope you all are doing splendid and send me an email if you wish!

- Elder Wride

1. Shovel Company