July 29, 2024 - 49th Email - I hopped a fence

Hey

This week was kinda crazy

La última semana estuvo loca

A lot of stuff happened including me hopping a fence and it looked pretty sketch probably since I wear this black hoodie all the time (everybody thinks I'm crazy for wearing it when it's literally 100 degrees out but I don't really see it personally)

Context: our apartment complex is gated and you need a clicker to get in. I had a meeting with the zone leaders and the other district leader on Monday and elder mullins and bryan went to da store and then went home. I ended up getting a ride home from the other district leader and his companion because the zone leaders even tho we live wit em they werent gonna actually go home for another 40 minutes. But elder andersen dont got no clicker to our apartment complex (because bro dont live there) so I just ended up having to hop the fence lol it was a pretty intricate process because obviously the top isnt flat it has those metal stick thingies and then it was really tall so I had to get on some outlet thing first and step on something I dont really know what it was to get back down

Anyway then tuesday came along

Elder bryan was pretty sick and i woke up to him puking in the bathroom and so we kinda just took it chill that morning

But then when we were planning on just weekly planning we had a guy who we havent been able to sit down with for a month call us saying he was free for a lesson so we had to drag elder bryan along even tho he was literally dying it was ok i think getting out was actually good for him because he said he felt better but that lesson was long and we just basically bashed about how he needed to get baptized and apparently that conversation has happened like twice before lol so we'll see how he goes

And then we end up at the mission office because reasons i forget

Oh wait elder bryan had to get his phone fixed by the tech elders

So basically elder mullins had an ingrown toenail and one of the senior missionaries saw it and told him to go to the urgent care and so he was like "ok i dont want to but sure" so he went with the mission nurse guy and elder bryan and i were on our own and remember elder bryan was dying but he was actually pushing through it really well until we got to english class and bro passed out just out the door from where we have the class

Luckily the hermanas we ward share with pulled up so i didnt have to teach the whole english class class by myself but it was kind of comical when they asked me where my companions were and realized we were kind of falling apart that day

Uhhhhh

We got some AWESOME people found btw our numbers were insane we found like 14 and had 18 member presents and 12 people to church easily best week ever for how crazy it was the Lord blesses hard work fr

This one guy Eduar is a DAWG

This other guy we got too is also a dawg but we're trying to get him to church and he's probably on drugs so we think he doesnt want to go to church when he's high so we gotta get im off dat

Did an exchange on saturday in english land for my district and it was super cool because hes a greenie fresh outta da mtc and it was super cool seeing how well he led his area even tho we didnt get any lessons because nobody answered the doore

We also ate some BOMB taco bell that day it was great this is now a taco bell ad

We have a friend that lives up in the mountains too so its cool we'll be able to go up there again

Sunday was CRAZY with all the friends we got there it was really awesome to see our work pay off and see people come to church that weve been teaching for a while but havent gone yet so committing them over and over again can work sometimes

Finished the day off hanging out with a cool family for dinner too, their last name is Paz and they were super fun to talk to and it was really good to practice my spanish theyre just a funny family and we were just dying laughing the whole time so having fun and cracking jokes in spanish was a w

It's super cool tho being able to to learn the language even tho im still in the united states i thought itd be hard but honestly yeah it probably is taking more time than if i was totally immersed in a spanish speaking place but its coming along for sure

Good week overall. Did a lot, worked really hard, and that's what the Lord asks of us.

Less than a year to go as of this week! Crazy how fast time flows by. I hit a year in 15 days

Love you guys have a good one

Dos pulgares hacia arriba

Oops I didnt get any pictures this week uhhhh

Oh yeah I got a picture finally from our friend Marco's baptism back on the 14th so I'll send that

Ok bye fr

July 22nd, 2024 - 48th Email - Ahora somos tres

 Qué pasa todos

So basicamente transfers happened last week

It was pretty crazy honestly like last monday seems like forever ago

I bet you're sitting at the edge of your seata rn reading my email like "holy cow where did he go"

Im still in san bernardino you dont have to worry my guys

Although lowkey I was expecting that I kinda felt like id get six week shafted though

Elder mullins is still here too

And then you know elder bryan also pulled up

Bro is from texas and he is the most stereotypical texan of all time

At the time of writing this he is wearing a coat with the texan flag on it and he has a texan flag over his bed and he said he was a literal cowboy before coming out on the mission

We working on spanish with him lol

The reason we in a trio rn is becuz elder mullins is actually finishing his mission mid transfer to make it on time for school so he's leaving us to fend for ourselves mid transfer so thats gonna be super fun

Im also district leader again so thats cool we have an epic messenger chat with a minecraft wallpaper

Our zone is a bunch of goobers and we have 3 greenies so its super fun

This week was cool we literally called everyone and their dogs and we're probably boutta do some deep cleaning in our area book this week (dropping a ton of people for sure)

We just got a ton of people not progressing rn that like us to come over and just dont do anything so we need to really reset expectations but the amount of people and referrals we got coming in makes it so we have to drop those people in favor of others who might progress more

So elder watson actually went home on tuesday (because he finished his mission) so elder taylor was a lone man in his area so we were kind of a half trio for tuesday and wednesday which was fun but he also just hopped over with another companionship whenever we were busy and he had a lesson in his area it ended up being really crazy and convoluted but we survived and thats what matters

And then transfers happened on thursday

But the funny thing was like

Elder mullins me and elder taylor werent going to transfers

So elder bryan and neville (elder taylor's new companion) didnt have a ride back

So they were told to hop in a rav and stuff 3 missionaries' worth of stuff in a rav4

So we were like

Bruh

We literally live like 2 seconds walk away from the mission office (exaggeration) why dont we just go over

So thats exactly what we did

We go to the mission office to get elder bryan and we tell him "ayo wassup throw your junk on our rav" so he did but there wasnt enough space to bring elder taylor and elder neville too with all the junk he had so we left them there and then we got back home and elder neville had actually grabbed a ride with the original elders he was supposed to hitch a ride with so elder taylor just ended up by himself at the mission office (well there were others but still) and then we had to go back and pick him up and elder mullins messaged the aps like "you know there were three missionaries worth of stuff in that one little rav" and they were like "yeah lol oops we didnt think about that"

We almost lost elder bryan a few things but its ok all is retrieved

Friday night I smashed my ring finger trying to pick up a 50 pound weight so my finger is bruised pretty bad but its not broken so we chillin it was probably pretty dang close tho still havent broken a bone in my life  it hurt so bad but its ok its better now and I can still play piano so thats good

Also on friday a member took us to a steakhouse called sizzlers and it was absolutely bussin it was insanely good that was seriously probably the best sirloin ive ever had in my life and ive had a good amount of steak in my life

We also gave a blessing to an Hermana in the ward with lung problems it was super sad so pray for her

Saturday we had breakfast with the zone at the stake presidents house we do that every transfer here and we had pretty good french toast

Sunday we had a good amount of people to church, plus a really good baptism of the Hermana's friends, that baptism has been a long time coming they literally got back from mexico doing family things saturday night to get baptized sunday they were determined and it was great very Spirit filled and all that fun stuff and then we saw a couple friends really start progressing that evening too

I also took a fat nap during lunch hour and it was probably the best nap ive had in a while

Today for our pday activity we played some water balloon volleyball where we had people hold towels to stop water balloons from hitting the ground and it was honestly the most jank game of all time i had no idea what I was doing but it was fun and we were all laughing about how jank it was

Anyway good week overall lots of fun and being in my first trio is actually so cool. We're all really different people but we learn a lot from each other and it's going pretty well.

Also in my district we do questions of the day in our district chat to make it fun and im lowkey out of ideas so if you have any of ideas please help a brotha out

Alright love yall have a good one que tenga buen día el español se está mejorando y puedo hablar mucho mejor que cuando comencé la misión

It's like literally so cool talking to people in spanish and its when you can start being funny in the other language it just becomes that much more fun

Learning spanish is like unlocking the latin america dlc pack and its insane

Ok bye lol also tomorrow I'll have 365 days left on the mission, dont hit a year out tho until august 14th so the halfway point is in like 10 days I think

Pictures!

-our schedule on tuesday, each green line between 1 and 2:30 is a contact whether in person, on the phone, or over text 

-my district chat rn

-the trio

-bro idk where the english elders got these medieval fits they were probably at a friend's house but it was such a tough pic I had to send it

July 15th , 2024 - 47th Email - Now everything is actually on fire

 Hey

This week blew by it was crazy

Transfers are already on thursday which is weird

Plus elder watson in my apartment finishes his mission on wednesday

So the group of people that are my age that went on their missions right out of high school are starting to finish, with some more groups leaving halfway through next transfer and the next one too so it's pretty crazy

Now what even happened this week

Just a lot of normal lessons idk

We also had a baptism for our buddy boy Marco yesterday, it was super cool, he tried to back out last minute but yknow we pushed him into the water (no we didnt)

It was actually really good bcuz before him a little girl got baptized but the hermano that baptized her did like an insanely professional job (like pristine quality baptism) and the room just went dead silent it was insane and then marco was like "yeah Im ready" so it was super cool we had to really keep encouraging him because he had already pushed off his baptism by two weeks and he did it so here we are

A lot went into getting him ready so yeah

My first baptism of one of my friends (that I went to) since december of last year! (I had some friends get baptized in both victorville and indio after I left :( but its ok)

It was actually funny because bro after sacrament meeting was like "dawg I need to go get something to eat i havent eaten breakfast" and so naturally I got worried because he was saying he was indecisive about his baptism but it was ok he was like "no dude chillax bro im just finna get a quesadilla from around the corner" so I was like "fine but be back by 12:30" and then he was actually back by 12:30 much to a member in the english ward's surprise who told us "yeah he aint comin back lol"

Oh yeah our english classes this week were insane

Like 20 people showed up on tuesday and we were like uhhh what we gon do becaude we didnt have enough of the english connect manuals but it was fire and we barely fit in the room but it was all ok

And then thursday fewer people showed up but it was all the solid people from tuesday and we had a crazy in depth lesson about english grammar when we normally just teach vocab and simple phrases but they just kept asking questions lol

And that day we also did an exchange until the english class it was quite fun it was with just some other elders in the zone (got permission from the zone leaders to do it just for fun) and yeah it was a pretty dope half day exchange

After we reexchanged for english class and did english class we had the best street tacos of all time (theres a ton of street taco stands, that stuff is authentic mexican food and it is GAS)

My parents also came to visit because thats allowed apparently

They were already in california so they drove over to san bernardino from orange county and we got more mexican food and it was really cool so thanks for the hugs mom and dad just another year until the next one lol it was sweet but I didnt cry im a pretty stoic guy

Did an exchange with the district leader on saturday too that was actually a fun exchange we had a super long lesson but it was ok cuz he kept asking a bunch of questions and then getting off topic but we think he learned something he had a really nice house too on the side of a hill

And while I was in the english area elder mullins went up to the mountains to find a spanish referral lol and I missed out on the epic views but its ok the guy they found is super hype and gonna come to english classes and we'll teach him then so we dont have to go up every time we want to talk to him

One last thing

I swear these members here think if they dont feed us then we just starve

Like we got a call from a member at like 8 pm asking us "have you eaten yet I know you dont have a lot of food in your apartment???"

It was pretty funny

But like

We have plenty of food in our apartment and if we dont have a member dinner we take an hour in our schedule to eat usually at 4 pm so its just funny how they always worry about us

Alright thats a good email I think

Philippians 4:13

Bye

Pictures!

-FIRE

-MORE FIRE

-cool sunset

-free 7/11 with elder jensen (they ran out of lids and straws so we used really thin straws from the coffee and hot chocolate section)

-parents

July 8th, 2024 - 46th Email - Chillin

 Hey

So theres not a whole lot that happened in the last three days but its enough to write about

Brought a recent convert to the temple on friday so that was super fun, he loved it and we just did baptisms and confirmations

It was funny cuz he baptized me but the first time i didnt bend my legs enough (he's short lol) and so i almost hit my head on the back side of the font (and to start off we were on the exact opposite side so i moved a lot lol) so that was a bonding moment he was struggling to get me back up since my legs came off the ground but that's ok we survived and he did a good job after that lol it was mostly my bad

But yeah he loved it and President and his wife were at the temple too (we ran into them outside after) and he was telling them how awesome of an experience it was

Go to the temple the Spirit is super strong there

Uhhhh it's been super hot in the mission lately, on saturday palm springs got to 124 degrees and on sunday the mission nurse guy was like "ayo so I know it be fast sunday but please dont be lackin in drinkin water" (paraphrasing) so that was fun it's not insanely hot up here it has yet to get above like 107 but we still baking fr

Our boy marco is tryna get baptized next week he's solid so we excited ngl he's a cool guy

Idk not a lot happened, some cool miracles with finding new people to teach (we got like 20 facebook referrals this weekend it was insane) so we just worked real hard

Also today for our zone activity we went up to the mountains to lake arrowhead it was pretty cool ill post pics it was a really pretty drive

Ok thats basically it lol I mean it was only three days

Write next week love yall

Pictures

-stuff from the mountains and lake arrowhead

-really red sun

-us at the temple

July 4th, 2024 - 45th Email -What the heck is a kilometer

Hey guys

Happy fourth of july its a pretty epic day

Because of the constitution we now have rights

But not only that

We got the whole day off because its dangerous to go out there with all them fireworks tonight

I mean they had fireworks going off during the day too but like

Bruh

Who be doin that because you cant even see them during the daytime

We be hearin fireworks goin off at like 11 am and its like dawg you literally spent a bunch of money on a glorified sound effect you coulda searched up on youtube with less time

But I digress

Today was great we had a zone barbecue

Also there was this random dude there that was chillin at the park he was like our age and pretty cool

We all pull up and start talkin to him and he says he was waiting for someone to fix his car and that he was just stationed in sam bernardino for the navy and he chills with hs the whole activity it was dope and we gave him a book of mormon by the end

I think it's so important for our friends to just see we're regular people and to have a nice conversation with em before we get into churchy stuff (had a good miracle with a new friend with that last week too, we talked for like a half hour until finally he asked us what we're all about)

Then we chilled at the church for a while and now we at home

We had a whole week and a half straight of working which honestly was a little brutal bit at the same time it went by super fast

Like we already at Thursday

And then we boutta have pday again on monday

I need to do something crazy this weekend or i'll have nothing to write about in my next email

Uhhhh so a ton happened (i mean a week and a half is a while) so to start off the family dollar right next to our apartment almost got robbed while we were in it I mean it wasnt anything crazy a dude just picked something up and was headed for the door when the worker lady was like "lol bruh whatchu doin" (paraphrased) and she just walked up to him and took the stuff outta his hands and then the guy just walked out the door frustrated (he was probably high)

Kind of a theme for this last little bit was we've been answering some important questions our friends have been having and it's actually kinda fun I enjoy it getting a little deeper (it's not like deep doctrine or anything, they're actually the kind of questions I'm glad our friends are having because it shows they're paying attention)

Or I guess it depends on the friend

Like the good questions side comes from our friend asking really good questions regarding the book of mormon and we're really getting him to understand it now

But this other friend we got is asking questions on like the gift of tongues and why people dont go up to the pulpit and break out in japanese (the example language he gave) and that question is a bit tougher to answer because in my mind im just thinking that that doesnt matter just focus on that we have a living prophet and so my brain is a little fried

And remember this is all in spanish so my brain is already doin double da work so we out here working really hard fr

Oh yeah cool little miracle

On saturday there was a ward activity that went from 5 pm and 9 pm

Youre probably wondering what the activity was

A 2 year old's birthday party

Anyway the entire ward and their moms were there (and probably a grandma or two) so it was kinda hard to get members to come out with us BUT we pull up to the party becuz free food duh but our friend's family just randomly pulled up too

We didnt even invite them idk how they knew about the party's existence but because they came it ended up being pretty epic gamer

On sunday the hermanas in the ward had four baptisms which was awesome that was huge

On top o dat

The mission got 100 baptisms in the month of june, so that was really quite awesome and epic and hype and cool and chillin

Also miraculous too

Friend of mine in indio got baptized too on sunday we were working with him for a long time and he just had some struggles so it was great to see he finally got baptized, sad I wasnt there but it's great anyway

I feel like a lot of my baptisms have people that were taught for a long time lol (he gad been taught since december) but really it's all about their timing and it was finally his time to get baptized he had worked really hard to get ready for it and he knew exactly what he was doing so that was the important part

Also something kinda crazy I think I mentioned we dont tract like at all

But the english elders do

And they send us people they run into that speak spanish

And we've had like five times where they tract into members

Which might seem like oh ok

But these members arent in our records

It's cuz they were baptized in their home country (usually nicaragua because they be havin lots of political problems down there) and in the process of moving here they just didnt have time for church anymore

They just tracted into a former elders quorum president and bishop

It's crazy, especially since they want to keep coming to church they just cant cuz of work

Also we have a friend we're teaching who while we're pumping gas just randomly calls us and goes "hey you got some friends here" (the english elders tracted into him) which was a MASSIVE W because we didnt actually know where this friend lived (and he had been taught for a while) so like we told the elders after they left to send us his apartment number lol

Oh yeah weird news

So we did a three way exchange on tuesday because elder mullins and elder watson had their zone leader + ap exchange so I went with elder taylor

And then apparently they discussed some things cuz on thursday morning president calls and makes elder mullins not zone leader and elder taylor zone leader instead lol

So we both normal missionaries now

Basically what they said was since elder mullins finishes halfway through next transfer and elder watson finishes this transfer they would have to put in two new zone leaders next transfer which would be a lot so they just quickly made the change

Good thing it was on thursday too because on wednesday elder mullins did a couple interviews in spanish and we wouldve needed to call the second counselor in the mission presidency to do a spanish interview if he wasnt able to

Ok that's basically it love yall

Send me emails pls im lonely out here

Pics

-fire toy car

-me and elder mullins through the side mirror (i like taking these kinds of pictures its funny)

-exchange with elder taylor