Good day everyone!
The title of this email comes from transfers! Today, I am moving to Brawley, CA. It's in Imperial Valley, or just "The Valley". The Valley is half of the mission geographically, but only 1/8 zones covers it. It is the banished land if the mission because it's over 2 hours away from everyone else in the mission. My new comp will be Elder Creasy. With me only having 2.5 transfers left, it will probably also be my last area of my mission. Therefore, I will "die" there. My area is also the largest in the mission because of all the land we cover. It's all desert. The red border is the mission, and the blue one is our area.
A few weeks ago, as I was pondering on my mission, I had a stronger thought that I should probably work on my Spanish. I don't get as much practice here, and haven't been making time to study, so I've been slacking. But the Valley is almost all Spanish speakers. Later, I was talking with one of the other Elders here, who came from the Valley and he said there's a lot of really poor people there. My Patriarchal Blessing says that on my mission, I will witness shocking poverty and see people with a big lack of opportunity in their lives. I would say that promise has been fulfilled do far, during my time in San Diego County. It is #8 in the U.S. for the highest homeless population. But when this Elder told me about the Valley, and after I was thinking about better working on my Spanish, I had the thought that I would probably get transferred to the Valley. I was talking with my Dad a few P-days ago, and I told him that I felt like I was going to go the Valley. But before I did, I had the thought: "If you say 'I feel like I'm going to to go the Valley' then It will happen". I decided to say it anyway and now it's happening. I'm excited, but it's also the wrong time of year to go to the Valley because it's gonna be 120° and above. So we're in for it! Currently we're driving on our way.
Now for a quick miracle. So, a few weeks ago my buddy Aidan said he would be down in San Diego and would love to meet up for a bit. Earlier this week he told me he was in LA, but I couldn't respond until P-day. I messaged him this morning breaking the news that today was transfers and I was getting shuttled off to Brawley which is 2 hours away. As a mission on transfers we all meet up at the Mission office church building to meet with our new comp, and we start at 9. I couldn't meet with my comp Elder Creasy, since they're in the valley, but I am going to be temporary comps with Elder Hill who is going to the valley also. He is also was in my 4 man apartment. After transfers, Aidan messaged me and said they were at Sea World and weren't sure if they were going to be able to come by today. Elder Hill was playing basketball, so I told him that we'll be at the church for a little while if they end up being able to come. Some time passed, and we thought we were ready to leave, except that we didn't have the keys to the car we were going to take, or the SIM card. One of the other missionaries had it and we basically had to wait for him. Eventually he came back and we got our stuff loaded up into the car. Right at that time I got a message saying that Aidan could be here in 15 minutes. That was fine as we had to finish loading, and drop some mail off at the office. They came up and it was so good to see them! They are from my home ward back in Sandy and Aidan and I have been lifelong friends. To top it off, Aidans older brother Ethan also taught in the MTC and was the teacher for Elder Hill so they also got to reunite. It was just so cool that we saw them right before getting sent off to the most far away part of the mission where they probably wouldn't have been able to see me. The timing was perfect!
Other than that this week was pretty good. My favorite lesson was with one of our friends Sallee. She's the one we met when Elder Yuvienco commanded a cat to point us the way to someone to teach. Last week when we met we taught the first half of the Restoration, and yesterday we taught the rest of it. We shared Joseph Smiths first vision with the "Ask of God" video and the spirit was there. We bore our testimonies and invited her to read. It was a really good lesson. Fun fact: She grew up in Brawley which is my new area.
For my spiritual thought today I wanted to share a little bit about contraries. I listened to a message on Facebook by Jared Halverson. There's a quote by Joseph Smith where he basically says that truth is made manifest in the contraries. One basic example is Justice vs Mercy. These things are seemingly opposites, and yet in the gospel, they are both true principles. Because God is a God of mercy and justice. Another example is whether we are saved by grace or works. Jared Halverson gives a lot of other examples and it's a really good message. Facebook isn't working for me right now so I can't link it, but I highly recommend searching for "Proving Contraries" by Jared Halverson. The one I watched was a recording from a chapel in some sort of fireside presentation.
I'll miss the Harbor ward and I'll miss the cooler air. Pray that the Valley will have more clouds and have a cooler summer this year. Thanks for all you guys do!
- Elder Wride
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