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

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