Week 73 - Displaced

Hello wonderful people,

This week has been long. As the title says, we are DISPLACED. Last Tuesday we were on standby, waiting for our Mission President to let us know what we'd be doing or where we'd be going since our ward/area got dissolved. Last Tuesday night, after P-day, the Zone Leaders called us with news. Basically, we are still here, but without a specific ward or area. Our main responsibility is to transition all our friends to the new missionaries that cover their area, until transfers which are on Feb 14. The problem with that is that we aren't really teaching anyone. We know and we've met a lot of people, but have not formally begun teaching any of them. The ZLs said they know the work would be rather slow, so they said we can go on exchanges 2-3 times a week or so. Most of our members are in La Costa ward and the San Dieguito ward, and we went to both wards on Sunday. So we've gone on exchanges a lot to keep our sanity. The Lord has been looking out for us mainly through the La Costa Elders. We'll either exchange and split up, or they will double book their evenings for dinner appointments, or even all 4 of us will go to an appointment. Yesterday this member generously took all 4 of us to Texas roadhouse. He said it was for "double the blessings"

So even though the circumstances aren't ideal and it's been hard, we are still blessed.

Because of our unique circumstances, there haven't been a ton of new events this week, but here are a few highlights:

- Exchanges on Wednesday with Rancho Carrillo were awesome. It was right after the change so I was feeling especially down. A happy missionary is a teaching missionary and we weren't teaching missionaries. But, on exchanges we had a couple lessons. One was with this returning member and he just really had that fiery spirit and love of the gospel. We reviewed President Nelson's message "The Everlasting Covenant", and talked a lot about hesed. It was so awesome and I just really loved that man. We also had another lesson with one of their investigators and we talked about what is holding him back from Baptism. He said he feels like he doesn't know enough yet and isn't ready to make such a big commitment, but he's practically already a member. He's a dry member (unbaptized). Hope the Rancho Carrillo Elders can work more with him to progress.

- Sunday was good. Like I said, my companion and I attended both La Costa and San Dieguito ward. It was the first Sunday with both wards since the boundary change so it was kind of hectic. Especially since in the San Dieguito ward, they had a change in the bishopric. The bishop of what was previously the Cardiff ward got released, and the new bishop is one of the members of our old ward, Bishop Archibald. It was a really cool testimony meeting because the entire old bishopric, and the bishop's wife, and Bishop and Sister Archibald all bore their testimonies and shared some of their feelings. It was definitely memorable and spiritual. The San Dieguito ward is awesome and it would be cool if Elder Roberts and I got sent there after transfers. One of the current Elders there goes home in 2 weeks, and the other one has already been there for 6 months, so they might be whitewashed. And since Elder Roberts and I know a lot of the members that are now there, it would make a lot of sense to go there. I think the work there is about to pop off

- Met a nice lady, Danielle, this week. Some Elders were moving her out of her old apartment into our area, and they asked if we could help her move in. We went to go help, and she actually lives in our apartment complex! The moving went well and we got to know her. She is a super nice lady from Brazil, and had some contact with missionaries before. We invited her to church and she said she would come next week. She is just one of those people that has that extra brightness about her and I really hope we, or the La Costa Elders can start teaching her too.

 

I have a couple of other things that have been on my mind. Two spiritual thoughts for you

- Back during Christmas time, our Mission President would send out an email for every day of December with a different name of Christ. On the final day, Dec 25, the name they focused on for the day was "My Jesus". Since then, as I have started over the Book of Mormon again, I have noticed how many times the scriptures say "My God", your, their, or other variations of that. And I have decided that that is my favorite name for Christ. Here is the prompt President Merritt included in the email: 

"December 25th: My Jesus - Jesus Christ is magnificent and wondrous, but He is also personal and loving. He created all things and is all-powerful, but He is still focused on our daily, personal struggles to love and be loved. He offers salvation from the worst that could happen to us, while also making possible the very best that we can ever hope to experience. As we contemplate His goodness, His majesty, His care and His nurturing – let us declare with Nephi, “I glory in plainness: I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell.” (2 Nephi 33:6) We can all receive God's fullness because of our Jesus, who is Christ the Lord, the Savior AND Redeemer of us all!"

- My second thought is that I have been feeling especially weak this week. Like, I'm not working hard enough, I'm not being faithful enough, we're not seeing miracles or people come to the gospel, and there could be something wrong that I'm doing. I know I need to be patient with myself, but it's hard to combat the natural tendencies. But, as I was studying earlier this week, I came across this quote by Richard G. Scott "When the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy". I know God loves us, and that He is long-suffering and patient with our weaknesses. We just have to keep trying, and call upon the Lord to receive His grace and strength. 

Well I love you all, but I gotta go. Hope everything is well with you all. Keep the faith!

- Elder Wride

Week 72 - RIP Olivenhain

Hello Everyone!

Zone Conference + Tom Brady: We had Zone Conference this week with Eric Weddle! For those of you who don't know who that is, that's ok because I didnt either until my mission started. He's a football player, and he won the superbowl this past year. But most importantly, he's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! He was in my first area in Poway, so that's where I heard of him (but I never met him there). Anyway, President Merritt invited him to speak at our Zone Conference. It was cool to hear his conversion story and what it was like meeting with the Missionaries when he was in college. My favorite part was when President told us a quick story after Weddle left. When one of the APs heard that Eric Weddle was coming, he wanted to give him an invitation. So, when he came, he went up to talk to him and invited him to give Tom Brady a Book of Mormon. He gave a good pitch, talking about how Tom Brady could use a lot more happiness in his life and Weddle accepted the invitation! We'll see how it goes because the APs will follow up and make sure he keeps his commitment. It was pretty cool. This may not mean much for those of you who don't pay attention to football, but you've probably heard of Tom Brady before. He's a very popular football player. 

Also, the Rancho Carrillo Elders got a minivan at Zone Conference. I wish it was ours, but at least we can put all the Elders in a seat now when we go driving.

Something I find interesting over the months that I've been here is that there are a lot of Bees in this area that are just walking on the ground casually. I've accidentally killed a number of them. This week one flew up and latched onto the front of my pants. I was understandably scared and tried to shake it off by making unpredictable moves. Eventually it flew to the ground and I killed it. Not before I had made myself look like a weirdo to all the cars driving by. Also, due to the rain not completely dry we got mud on ourselves while biking on the dirt trails and roads.

RIP Olivenhain: We had our stake boundaries changed this week. It's been rumored for a long long time but we never heard about it from an authorized source. Well finally on Saturday morning, the Stake Presidency sent out an email saying there would be a special stake meeting regarding boundary changes. Sunday at 7 we went to the Stake Center and they completely dissolved our ward! Our ward is one of the, if not the biggest ward and so we got sliced up, in order to distribute members more evenly. It was sad because I really love this ward. It's super solid, at like 60% activity, and I've just grown to love a lot of the people. They are some really salt of the earth people. 

Here's a picture of our stake before (Olivenhain is pink):

And after:

Hope you see now why I think it was lame that La Costa has had a car this whole time (they're the C shape). Rancho Carillo was unchanged at the top.

That night President Merritt called to basically figure out where Elder Roberts and I were going to go. He asked us what our thoughts were and then said he'd pray about and let us know. We were expecting a call yesterday but it didn't happen even by like 9:30 pm. We didn't know what to do all day, because we literally didn't have a ward, Bishopric, or area. We had District Council that day, did some video editing and a lot of updating and cleaning up areabook. We asked the Zone Leaders if we should be packing, or if we need to go shopping tomorrow because we literally don't know where we'll be going. President is going to have us double-cover the La Costa ward for the next couple of days until they figure out where we'll go. Which is unfortunate because there isn't a ton of work to do especially for 2 companionships. What I think will happen eventually is Elder Roberts will leave and I will be in a trio with the La Costa Elders because our main progressing friends live in their area now, and I have been here longer than Roberts. But who knows.

Friends Update: Our main progressing friends have not been progressing very well. 

- We have Julie, who's a 9 year old of an active family. Just hasn't been baptized before. We haven't been able to schedule a meeting with the family for a couple of weeks now.

- Jonathan's apartment flooded and he hasn't been able to make it to church. 

- Sam had a death in the family and said she wouldn't be available for a while. 

But, we did have a couple good interactions! -We met a nice old lady named Stephanie who came up to us and asked us if we were reading our scriptures. We shared 3 Nephi 11 with her and she liked it! Unfortunately we weren't able to set up a specific time to meet. She just said to talk to us whenever she sees us at the park.

- Mer a guy named Chris a couple weeks ago and had a good talk with him about the church. He has his own right now, so he didn't agree to meet but he said he also tries to be open minded. We went over last week to invite him to the Mormon Battalion event on Saturday, but that interaction didn't go well. He had a kid acting up and he slammed the door on us. We thought that might signify that he's not interested, but we ran into him again while we were out and about. He said sorry for the other night and we had a good talk with him. La Costa is having a Baptism in a couple weeks so we could invite him too as well. I'll probably be in La Costa for that, so you'll probably hear about it.

I've also consumed approximately 20 Fish Tacos in the past 2 weeks. There's a taco shop here that sells good sized Tacos for $1 each. Best deal ever.

I recommend this week that you all listen to a talk that I think is called "When prayers seem unanswered" by Michael Wilcox. It was really good. I'll share one part of what he said. He shared Matt 14:24-27 and talked about how the fourth watch of the night would have actually been the early morning of the following day. That means the disciples had been tossed with the winds and the waves for the whole night. Christ doesn't always save us from the storms of our lives right away. Sometimes he waits a long, long, long time. But rest assured, He does not put you through any more difficulty than He knows is necessary for your good. Just hold on and do your best to be of good cheer. 

But like I said, there are so many other good points that he makes so please please listen to it. I consider it to be Brad Wilcox: "His Grace is Sufficient" level good talk. 

Went to the Temple this morning too. It is always good. Elder Cummings hasn't sent me the district photos from the Temple though. Maybe I will include them next week. But I did take a new profile picture

Thanks for reading, love you all!

- Elder Wride

Week 71 - Rainy Days

Hey All, 

We played Chair soccer last Tuesday. I played my heart out and it was really hot. Heres a picture of me and Elder Cummings in the rain after our final game.

We also played it for the youth activity which was fun. We were put in charge of it.

There has been a lot of rain this week. Not an absurd amount in a lot of other places, but a lot for San Diego. We have a lot of tame weather here so when it rains it's usually a sprinkle. But it rained a decent amount.

 

Here's a picture of my comp in a puddle at the church. We jokingly recited Mosiah 18:7-11. Except we replaced the waters of Mormon with the waters of Roberts.

Earlier this week while we were tracting on Saturday morning, Elder Roberts said "I feel like we should go to the park". So we did. As we were walking I saw what looked like Sam's sister pulling into their apartment complex. At first we just continued walking, but then we thought that maybe someone would answer the door. We knew at least someone was home, and that we really didnt have anything to lose. We walked over, knocked on the door, and Sam answered! She initially said she isn't interested and that her mom doesn't like us coming by. We just wanted to understand what her concerns may be, and see if we can help with anything. She said we could meet up at the park nearby at some point and talk about it, but just to text her. So that was good! We've texted her but haven't gotten back from her. We afterwards continued to the park, and had some good conversations. But I feel that the spirit prompted Elder Roberts to take us to the park because on the way to the park we had the second idea to talk to Sam. She isn't home a lot and we kinda gave up on trying to reach her because we didn't want to push too hard or be annoying. But I'm glad we got back in contact. She hasn't gotten back to us yet, but we hope she progresses more. One of the hard things about thinking about the past experiences I've had with people, is that they felt like miracles, but a lot of the time they didn't actually progress or are not currently progressing. However, this is not the end of their journey.

This week I've been thinking a lot about this article/message given by President Nelson. It is published in the Liahona for October of 2022 as "The Everlasting Covenant". It's really good. Anyway, I just thought I would share a post I made on facebook that has some of my thoughts:

"Covenants are spoken of all throughout the scriptures. In almost every instance, a covenant refers to a sacred promise between God and His children. God determines the conditions of the covenant, and the son or daughter can choose whether or not to agree to keep those conditions. Those who make and keep covenants with God experience great joy and blessings. In his message, President Nelson speaks of a Hebrew word known as Hesed, which is a special kind of love and mercy we experience as we make and keep our covenants with God. He says: "Because God has hesed for those who have covenanted with Him, He will love them. He will continue to work with them and offer them opportunities to change. He will forgive them when they repent. And should they stray, He will help them find their way back to Him. Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God’s heart. He has high hopes for us."

By following the gospel path of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and making and keeping the covenants of the holy temple, we experience this special kind of love. We gain greater access to the grace of Jesus Christ by being bound to Him. We invite all people  everywhere to embark on this path, and come closer to their Savior by doing so. Moroni 10:32-33 reads: "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot"."

That's the end of the post. I really thought President Nelson's words on "hesed" were especially cool and they have been on my mind. Covenants really do bring that kind of power, we just do our best to keep them and follow the example of the Savior. 

I love you all! Thanks so much for everything. Have a good week.

- Elder Wride

Week 70 - Lost Keys + Cut Finger

Hello Everyone! Hope all is well. Things are going good here in Olivenhain. 2022 was my blackout year as a Missionary. Meaning, for the whole year of 2022 I was a missionary which is a weird thought. Since September I'm 16 months in as a missionary, which means I have about 7-8 months left. It also means I'm almost a complete sister mission done. I need to talk to President soon about when I will be going home because I won't have the full 24 months because of school. But I will be back sometime in August.

This week with Elder Roberts has been good. He's from Wyoming and he just hit a year in the field today. It's been nice because I feel like we're more equal in the work. It just feels like we're out and about more often which is good, even though it's sometimes hard. We've done a lot of Tracting + Member lessons. That's probably how we spend the majority of our time. 

We have dropped a lot of people over the past little bit though. We were never necessarily teaching them, but they were on our potentials list. Our two most progressing friends were Jonathon and Sam.

 - Jonathon is the father of a little family, and he's got a little 1 or 2 year old girl. We met him a few weeks ago via tracting and have been in contact since. He was really busy over the holidays so we were never able to meet, but on Thursday we went over to introduce Elder Roberts and we had a really awesome discussion with him! We started talking about the difference between the temple and the church and he mentioned that when he was in the military he went to a lds church and had a really good experience and he'd like to come again. He also asked what some of the differences were between the bible and the Book of Mormon, and after some discussion he asked "Where would I find a Book of Mormon?". It was awesome. He said he would come to church this past Sunday but unfortunately a family thing came up. But he's planning on it next week.

- I think I've mentioned Sam before as well. We met her around the same time we met Jonahton and she was working a lot in retail. We went by the same day, on Thursday and her sister answered. We had an ok conversation with her, mostly about the differences between Catholicism and the Church. it wasn't bad, but it definitely could've been better. She just kind of had a weird attitude towards us. Anyway, on Saturday we invited Sam to church and she said she would come! It would've been her first time. When, all of the sudden she changed her mind:

It was such a 180 from what she has said the past month or so. Elder Roberts and I think her Sister said something. Maybe she sent her some Anti. It was really quite sad. We tried stopping by too but she didn't answer. We think we might try to send her an uplifting message or something. She was so elect :(

The title this week refers to a series of unfortunate events that we experienced on Friday. Around 5pm we were biking to our dinner appointment while making visits to members or other people along the way. Eventually we arrive at our lesson, and upon setting up our bikes by the house, I realize that my keys are gone. The key to the apartment, church, bike lock, and an oil vile. Our lesson was about to start so we just went in and were going to figure it out later. After the dinner, the member offered to put our bikes in his truck and give us a ride back. We wouldn't say no, so we loaded up, and while I was closing the hatch, I slammed it onto Elder Roberts' finger. It could've been a lot worse because he just got part of his finger cut, not smashed. We washed that off and bandaged it up. When we went back out, we found out the truck battery was dead. Brother Dyer had a quick charger thing, but found out that it was dead too. We set it up to charge for 20ish minutes but it still wasn't starting. At that point, Brother Dyer said he would let it charge over night and bring us our bikes in the morning. He gave us a ride back in another car and it was good. The next morning we decided we would retrace our biking path with the Elders who have a car and see if we could find the key. Some parts were trails so we walked for some of it, but we didn't find anything. We got the bikes from Brother Dyer and then just decided to continue on with our day. We had an extra church and apartment key, so the only thing we were really missing was our bikes. We walked a lot that day but it was good because it gave us more contacting opportunities. Sunday night we found the keys. We went to the church and saw one of the other companionships in our district there. One of the Elders held up the keys and told us that their bishop found them. Where? In the freaking door of the church building. Turns out, when I went into the church on Friday, I left the keys in the door accidentally. It was disappointing. In other news, Elder Roberts finger is doing well. The cut sealed up that night and he is recovering well.

My spiritual thought is centered on this talk by Brad Wilcox that I listened to. I normally exercise in silence at the gym, but later in the day I often want to listen to a talk but don't have the time to sit or do anything. So I started listening to them while working out. Anyway, that's not important. The talk he gave was about Grace, and he shared a lot of the same things he did in his famous talk "His Grace is Sufficient". But, there was this one story I never heard before. He said one Sacrament meeting, a new priest was blessing the Sacrament. It was his first time, and he messed up a lot while giving the prayer. He would mess up, look over at the Bishop, and do it again. As many times as it takes, until he got it right. Brother Wilcox said that he thought that was a powerful message, and another symbol for the Atonement. Because of Christ's Atonement, we can try and try again when we mess up. Christ does not lower the expectation for us, but he lets us try and try again. As long as it takes. We just have to keep on trying. It also reminds me of this quote from a C.S. Lewis book. Hope it gives you a little bit to think about.

One last thing I forgot! After we tried visiting Sam, on our way back, we walked by this motorcycle with a little card in it.

The reason I noticed it was because it's one of our pass along cards, and it was one Elder Reinhart and I left on this motorcycle a while ago. We had just done a bunch of tracting and we got the idea to write on the card "God believes in you!" and leave it on the motorcycle seat. So we did and then we forgot about it. Until the next morning, when we got a text from him, saying thanks and that he got our card. We tried seeing if we could meet him or something, but he wouldn't respond and we haven't been able to contact him. But it is cool that he kept our card. We will see if there is any more to this development.

Here are some more pictures:

Anyway, that's all. Love each of you!

- Elder Wride

Week 69 - This Week's Email

Hey Everyone!

First off, we have transfers today! Elder Reinhart is now in Point Loma which is closer downtown San Diego. I'm staying in Olivenhain and my new companion is Elder Roberts. I'm about 11 transfers in the mission and I have about 5-6 left which is kinda scary.

I also totally forgot to include in my email last week that we had a wild thing happen while we were Christmas caroling. On Christmas Eve as we were walking to a member we were going to Carol to, we passed an apartment that had a fire alarm going off. We didn't think much of it, and assumed it was probably just someone cooking. But after the visit and on our way back to the cars it was still beeping. We looked through the window and the apartment looked pretty hazy and smoky. We decided to knock on their door. No answer. We knocked on some of their neighbors door and they said they hadn't seen them in a while. We ended up calling 911 and the fire department came over. They went in the apartment and discovered that it was just food left out on the stove. But someone would've had to come eventually. There was also a cat in there that we saved. It was a good thing.

This past week I've trally tried to focus on involving the Lord in the work. Specifically throught prayer. Here are some things so far

- Last P-day, we prayed really hard to know the will of the Lord in our goals. Even though we have not begun teaching anyone in the past many weeks, we set the goal of meeting 1 new person to begin teaching. Later that day we ended up talking to one of our members in the ward! The family has a daughter, 9 years old, who has not been baptized and they would like us to begin teaching the missionary discussions. It's not exactly what I had in mind when it came to meeting someone to teach, but we hope to help her progress along the covenant path as well. So we hit that goal!

- On Wednesday we had a lot of plans fall through which is always kinda discouraging. After prayers for guidance, Elder Reinhart had an idea that while we're walking around proselytizing, we should pick up garbage. We started doing it at the park and we've been doing it since. I think it's a really good thing. We have an additional purpose and it helps us serve the people here in a small way. I think it's also improved our image. I've been thinking a lot about our I recently and how people kinda see us the same way they see salesmen. It's kind of frustrating, but we're trying to do what we can to be more personable and genuine, because I think it opens the door to more conversation.

- On Thursday we went out and made some visits. At the end of our visits we had a lesson but we had some time. We sat on a bench and reported on all our visits and then went to our lesson. After our lesson, it being the end of the day, we started walking home. Then I realized that I accidentally left the Book of Mormon I was carrying on the bench. We started walking back and then thought about just leaving it to see if anyone would take it. We prayed about it and both felt good about leaving it there. A little while later we were in the area and went by to check on it and to save it from the expected rain. It was gone! We don't know where it is or who took it but we hope to find out sometime. Overall, its been helpful to be more intentionally prayerful about our work.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for this week. I look forward to working another transfer. Thank you all! I love you

- Elder Wride