December 11, 2023 - 16th Email - Barstow and baptisms and exchanges

What's up guys

So I didn't get to write about what we did last pday, we went up to Barstow (smaller town in the middle of nowhere) and did some cool drives and hikes up there with the missionaries up there. It was pretty cool I'll attach pics

Also one of the Hermanas was absolutely dying of something earlier last week, they had no idea what it was but we brought them food from a member and she fell asleep while talking to us. So we gave her a blessing and she got completely better in two days. It was pretty awesome. And Elder Gonzalez and I bought beanies to get us through the winter

We also started going to a church building to play basketball in the mornings which is pretty fun

And we did service for Bishop's Storehouse

filling out orders and we gave food to a member in our ward. Turns out she wasn't feeling well either so we gave her a blessing! That day we were also doing exchanges, I was with Elder Taylor. Apparently his companion and Elder Gonzalez put someone on date they had just met tracting that day so that was pretty cool. I had to teach a lesson by myself in Spanish lol, that was a fun day.

Then we did exchanges again the next day, I went with Elder Jensen in the English area. We had wholesome conversations making Spongebob references and rocked beanies together

Friday was super busy. We had a 2 hour daily contacting session (calling people, normally takes a half hour) because we couldn't find a building to hold our friend Kimberly's baptism in. On Saturday we had 8 baptisms in the whole zone. There were 13 in the entire mission that day. And there was also other stuff going on and we were trying to find the right building at the right time. We couldn't do any building after 11:30 because out Obispo's daughter was getting baptized then and no member would be able to go to any baptisms after that, and because of activities and other baptisms the only time we could do was at 9 am at the Ridgecrest building but we had to speedrun because there was another baptism at that building at 10.

Then we had lunch at an all-you-can-eat Asian restaurant and of course I ate all the American food there because most of the other food was seafood, a lot of missionaries were there and it was all paid for by a member. The Barstow Elders even came down. We were actually gonna go up to Barstow again anyway that day so we did a short mini exchange with those Elders. I got to go with Elder Parry (who actually is in the same transfer as me). The actual city of Barstow is both really weird and surprisingly normal, I don't really know how to describe it. But we did some service shoveling rocks and I didn't have a change of clothes lol

The reason we were going up to Barstow is because there was a Christmas activity at their building (which is surprisingly big for just one ward) for the whole stake and even other churches were invited. We sang in a ward choir, and other missionaries were there too doing the same thing.

It was pretty funny because people were clapping after each "act" and the stake president got up and told everyone "we appreciate the enthusiasm but we want to be respectful in the room where we partake of the sacrament" which was pretty funny

Also the apartment in Barstow is actually really nice and big

And Elder Parry got an email saying his Visa came in and he's going to Cusco Peru on his mission on Friday. It's a little sad but he's also going from Barstow to one of the most famous cities in the world

Saturday was also crazy. Because we actually had the baptism we planned. We ended up attending 3. Ours, some other Elders', and then Obispo's daughter's. The last one was at the Maple building, which has a broken water heater and it has been broken for about two months now. Every baptism there has been absolutely freezing. So we didn't want that to happen again for an 8 year old, so we boiled pots of water to dump into the font. We probably got like 7 full pots of boiling water and then it proceeded to not have any effect on the cold water. So her baptism was freezing cold and she was crying. I felt so bad but then apparently she was chilling by the time they got home

Then we tried to get the parents of this family to want to get baptized but they still need some work and concerns to figure out

We had a lot of lessons that day but they ended up being like really weird and we didn't teach anything. For example, we crashed a party full of drunk people.

We got a ton of people come to church on Sunday! New converts and friends. It was honestly a chill day overall. Plus three of our recent converts got temple recommends!

Yeah good week overall I just think it's funny we did exchanges three days in a row

K bye

Elder Hanson

Pictures!

Me and Elder Jensen wearing beanies

Me and Elder Taylor

Me and Elder Parry shoveling rocks

There's a shopping cart in the tree outside our house

Roblox face on a pumpkin

Cat stuck in a water bottle thingy

Spongebob doodles we saw on a chalkboard at a church building

Hike pics from last Monday