October 2, 2023 - 6th Email - Live from California

 Hola a todos!

So I landed in California, it has been a pretty eventful week. And p-day is on Monday out here so that's when I'll send emails from now on.

So there's a bit that happened at the CCM before I left. By the end Elder Nelson and I were grinding the Spanish Book of Mormon like crazy and getting through a chapter a day, even though they were getting really long like one was 55 verses.

We had our last Helping Others lesson on Friday the 22nd. Elder Nelson and I had expected to give a lesson to someone pretending to be an investigator (someone interested in the Church) but we were like halfway through the lesson when I realized he was just acting like a regular member. I asked him after if he was supposed to be a member and he said yes and we had to explain that our lesson was prepared as if we were teaching an investigator and tried to clear up how awkward the questions we were asking were for a member. That's really crazy though, it feels like that was much more than a week ago.

Oh yeah also on Friday evening someone in the other district in our house sliced a really deep cut into his hand by jumping off of his bed. The beds are right next to our closet doors and the doors have these really sharp metal plates sticking out to cover the locks or something. He needed eight stitches, it's a miracle it didn't hit anything bad and even though the cut was pretty gnarly he was chillin.

On Saturday we did a tie draft in our house that I didn't participate in but some of the ties people threw in were so ugly we gave them names like "the Grinch" and "the Sistine Chapel".

Oh yeah I got a cold again too, but I got better like on Monday

Packing was a little hectic in the house. There wasn't a whole lot of space to throw suitcases on the floor so I only did a little bit before the last day.

Our last class with our teachers on Wednesday was really sad. Hermano Cano and Hermano Tapia both cried a little bit. We got some epic pictures though. Hermano Tapia gave us all candy and individualized post it notes with a scriptures he thought would apply to us. I already miss them a lot.

Saying bye to Elder Nelson and the rest of my district at the Dallas airport was hard too. We've already become great friends and now I can't use all our inside jokes anymore. But I know they all will do great things on their missions, and we'll all hopefully be in Utah to meet up after we all get back.

The Hermanas (sisters) in my district and Elder Hollberg and Elder Walpole left a day earlier than the rest of us, so that was a bit sad. The other district in the house all left on Thursday, too, so the eight of us that were left all just had the house to ourselves. It was pretty great. I used Elder Hollberg and Walpole's bedroom to do my packing on Thursday. Had the whole room to myself pretty much.

What was really sad on Thursday was the classes were with random teachers. They were really nice but we missed our usual ones.

A part of me wishes I could have stayed in Mexico, but I know I'm needed here in California.

The six weeks I was at the CCM literally felt like so much longer. I met great people and it feels like we've all known each other for years.

Also when I turned my phone back in the USB port on the charger was busted. The beds are placed in really awkward locations where they basically cover the outlet so we had to push it diagonal which is very hard because of how squished they are between the closet and the wall. We were barely able to plug the chargers in, and over the weeks the bed broke the charger. Elder Nelson paid the fee though because we both used that charger so shoutout to him

Printing our boarding passes was pretty goofy. I had to go through five different computers before I found one that would connect to the printer properly.

The airport was fine. A lot of walking and not really sure how we needed to stick together but it all worked out.

The Dallas Airport is so weird. They don't just pass on out luggage to the next flight, we needed to get our stuff at baggage claim and then re-check it in. Talking to people that happens in international flights and if the connecting flight is a different airline. But in my experience of traveling internationally I've never seen that happen before, and we had American Airlines both flights. It's just as frustrating because when I got my suitcase it slanted funny on the ground and I noticed a wheel was missing. Just gone. It was circling around the baggage claim and I was able to get it so it probably landed in the baggage claim in a way the wheel came off. I went to complain but they said they didn't reimburse because it didn't break a certain way and I can still fix it. But I need to empty my suitcase because the screws are on the inside.

My mission president and his wife, the Pinnocks, are really nice. Me and the one other person I was with met them almost immediately. On the drive to the mission home President told us about the area and then we learned mission rules and stuff. Apparently the work that's being done here is really great. They have a goal of 660 baptisms this year and we're on track at I think about 450 so far.

The rest of Friday I met a bunch of people that came from the Provo MTC, including a native Spanish speaker from Peru, the first native Spanish speaking missionary the mission has seen. He speaks English fine because he lived in Provo for the last two years. I got my new phone and all that good stuff (traveling without one was weird) and we slept outside on the balcony. The weather was perfect and there weren't any bugs. Redlands is a really nice area.

Saturday morning we all met our trainers (companions to new missionaries). My trainer is Elder Gonzalez from South Jordan, Utah. His dad is from Colombia so he has a bit of a Spanish background but is still learning it like I am. I've already learned a lot from him and we've been working really hard.

Pretty much immediately we started driving to our area, in Victorville in the High Desert. We had to listen to General Conference on the way because the drive was over an hour. It's just all brown here, and there's a ton of land for California. The houses are actually all pretty big and nice. But there's a lot of Spanish speaking people out here and we already had people from before that we're teaching.

We share a house with the Zone Leaders. Like, a house. Not apartments, it's just a regular single family house. Now that I think about it, I really haven't seen any apartments around here.

We watched the afternoon session of Conference with a family in the ZL's ward, and then the evening session and both Sunday sessions at the church building. One of the Sunday sessions we watched the Spanish though, but I was able to make out more than I thought I would. I definitely had a better time though when we watched in English.

After the Saturday afternoon session we just went tracting (classic knocking on doors). Even though it's the most ineffective way to find people who are interested, President said he'd rather us tract than sit around and do nothing. Elder Gonzalez has told me we usually don't tract a lot but we did on Sunday too, and he told me it'd be great for getting used to talking to people. And it already has. We had little luck on Saturday, met a nice lady, but on Sunday we actually handed out a Book of Mormon and referred him to the ZL's because he's in their area.

We've already had a few lessons with people and they've been really good. It's interesting to hear their questions and backstories.

And I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to shellfish because we ate some shrimp yesterday at a member's house and I was throwing up all evening so that sucks but today I'm feeling a bit better.

Spiritual thought:

Reading D&C in personal study, and in section 55 verses 27-29 say that we need to be "anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of [our] own free will" and "he that doeth not anything until he is commanded" will be punished for being lazy. These verses stuck out to me, especially being a missionary; I want to be actively looking for opportunities to serve and not just give up if we don't already have something scheduled.

Also General Conference was amazing and definitely the best one probably ever so check out all the talks

Pictures!

Mission map, pics from the drive, cool view, epic clouds in Victorville.

A lot of pictures from the CCM.