Shalom!
This week has been good! It has been my first week in the Harbor ward! We share the ward with another set of Elders. Our half of the ward is basically just National City. It is the area right below the Fairmount/College ward, which is where I was a year ago now. Because of that, a lot of this area seems very familiar.
But we've had a good week! It has been busy and hard-working which we love. Especially now that I'm coming closer to the end. I haven't completed a Sisters Mission yet, but I will in a couple of weeks. I feel like people and sources all around me are telling me that I am old, but I still have time to go. But we have more work to do here which is good. My new comp, Elder Aguilar, is also a hard worker. He's been out for almost a year and he is a Tagolic Missionary. There are a lot of Filipinos down here, but a lot of them speak English so he doesn't have to use it that much. I'm not really Tagolic, but I feel cooler being around a Tagolic missionary. He's a really good guy. A lot of the work we will be doing is probably going to be member work. We have a ward list of over 900 members, but only like 200 are active.
The main highlight for this week was for our friend Anette! But first, a little backstory. Saturday the 11th (before transfers), Aguilar and his comp met Anette. They just knocked on her door while they were making some visits and shared a scripture with her. They also invited her to church the next day! She came and she really enjoyed it and felt the spirit. Right after church, they taught her the Restoration, and set up a return appointment for Wednesday. We had transfers Tuesday, and my first day in the area we went over to see Anette. She wasn't home because she forgot, but we gave her a call and ended up having like a 30 minute conversation! She said she's been praying every day since church and has been thinking a lot about what they shared. We talked about missions, baptism, covenants, etc. We invited her to think about Baptism, and we set another appointment for Thursday. On Thursday Elder Aguilar and I went over and taught the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She understood and accepted it all super well, probably better than I have ever seen. We put her on date for Baptism on March 4th! We told her about the YSA ward and invited her to read Alma 32. The next day we had another appointment with the YSA sisters to pass her off to them. We followed up on her Book of Mormon reading, and she read the whole chapter! Twice! It was a super good lesson and discussion. The YSA sisters have been teaching her since. She went to church with them again on Sunday and they have taught her all of the commandments. She said she already pretty much lives the commandments and has accepted them all. She has been super prepared! It is really cool to see and we are excited for her baptism.
There's also these two boys that are recent converts that had some cool legos and lightsabers that caught my attention
Also, we went to a library this week for studies and saw this in the Non-fiction section
For my spiritual thought, I wanted to share the Bible Dictionary section for Miracles. It says:
I just thought that was really cool. Especially the part where it says that because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, all other miracles cease to be improbable. And that, miracles should be seen not as deviations from the ordinary course of nature, but as manifestations of divine or spiritual power. I think it is really cool to think about God using more natural means to perform miracles. One example is from a talk my dad shared years ago, referring to the split of the Red sea. He said that we often portray the crossing of the Red Sea as very peaceful and amazing. But he thinks that the Red Sea didn't split so magically, but that God sent just massive amounts of wind to split the Red Sea, and that the children of Israel would have been miserable in their crossing of the sea. It is kind of a cool principle to think about. One other part of it that I think is cool is when it says "Some lower law was in each case superseded by the action of a higher". I am trying to get what it means by that and would love to hear thoughts from that.
But yeah it has been a good and fulfilling week and I am really excited for the rest of the transfer. I love the gospel and I love being a missionary!
- Elder Wride
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