October 28, 2024 - 62nd Email - We drove a lot

Hey

This week was long

We did a lot of driving

But lowkey i really liked driving a lot it was a nice change of pace and stuff its pretty relaxing

But yeah we went to borrego springs three times this week (we usually only go once) and one of them was just on the way to ranchita

So like borrego is about a half hour from our house and then ranchita is a whole other half hour from there

Its all the way up the mountain so the weather is way cooler up there

We went there on wednesday cuz we were helping a member chop some wood to prepare for the winter (it snows up there) and we got through a lot but the member got wiped out so we quit after like a half hour but we chopped about a months worth of wood

Then we planted a cactus

And then we changed a wheel on a wheelbarrow

And then we had some teriyaki chicken and some ramen and lemme just tell you that stuff was way good

We also went and visited the english branch president who also lives in ranchita and bro has a TON of land his land covers tons of hills and a huge campsite you can see the salton sea and mexico from his house on a good day ill post pics of the views

Uhhh idk what else we did this week

Some guy yelled at us for knocking on his door too late and some other junk

Friday we went to borrego springs again because we went to the spanish branch presidents house to have dinner and it was really good we had a fun conversation

And then saturday we went back because there was an activity at the church building where the dudes made chili and had a competition and then we played some board games

Sunday we had church like always some friends that said they would come didnt end up coming which is sad but we had a good day overall had a good conversation about church history with a recent convert and explained some stuff

The sisters all over the mission had a conference specifically for them (elders conference when) so we had a zone council (where we meet as a zone) just for the elders so that was interesting (that was tuesday)

So we basically had to drive a long ways on tuesday, wednesday, friday, and saturday (and today i guess cuz pday)

Alright thats basically it zone conference is this week so thats exciting

Have a good week peace

Pictures:

-the sky

-the sky again

-the ground

-me and elder mejia

-ranchita

October 21, 2024 - 61st Email - There are like no speed limits here

 Hola

We out here in da sticks

(The two branches we cover probably have a total average attendance of 20 they're not branches theyre sticks)

But theyre actually super fun the english branch is just full of either super sweet old people or super cranky old people and the sweet ones are really fun and the cranky ones are mostly just funny to watch

Like on wednesday the whole state of california was doing earthquake drills and wards all over the stake did a quick checkup on everybody making sure they have 72 hour food kits and in the branch council chat they all got in an argument on how the checkup was supposed to be conducted and it was really funny

Anyway

Monday after pday we did a last minute exchange wit da zone leaders becuz they had to exchange with everybody before wednesday and i went to indio and went to an fhe so i got to see a bunch of epic people i served around and played games wit them

Tuesday we ate dinner with a younger dude in the branch and it was chill we probably hung out too long lol

Honestly like we havent done a whole buncha crazy stuff

We've had some hecka long drives

Like we went to borrego springs on saturday and sunday (we went to their church)

It's a really pretty drive i mean its a lot of dirt and sand but every once in a while you see lots of cool canyons

Plus on saturday there was a big festival in the middle of borrego springs where there was music and lots of kiosks for random things like politics to dinosaur bones to mexican food so we hung out there for a second to public contact

Thursday we had zone council and then we did an exchange with some missionaries in the district

I went with the greenie elder curtis (he is cool) and we had to go back to his apartment after zone council so he could get stuff to exchange that night with the zone leaders (which is in palm desert) then we got gas, got a car wash, and then an hermana in the branch dropped food for us off at the church and we did some service for somebody so we didnt end up getting home until about 4

But the rest of the day was good we had english class

Yeah lowkey not much else happened i guess on sunday when we went to borrego we had to leave a half hour early to go to a baptism in indio (we also had to eat lunch) because indio is about an hour and a half drive from borrego and we stopped to check up on the spanish branch because we passed by the bingo center right as they finished up so that was cool the baptism in indio was also hype because i saw more people i hadnt seen in a while

Basically the work here because we cover both branches ends up being a lot of spanish work, a lot of spanish service, and a lot of english service, so not much room in the way of english work (like teaching people and junk) but we making it work somehow

Also passed by an inactive member's house and he was playing call of duty with his friend from up in cathedral city and his friend said he wanted to check out the salton sea but he got too close and got stuck in quicksand and he got out pretty easily but he said his legs were really gross after (the salton sea is pretty disgusting) so know i am keeping a safe distance from the water

Aight bye

Pics

-sky

-exchange

-sunset

Next time we go to borrego ill try to get some canyon pictures

October 14th, 2024 - 60th Email - I got banished

This week was insane

Honestly I have no idea where to even start with this week

I guess first things first I got transfered to salton sea which is actually back in the palm desert zone, ive been here since thursday

Ive been on exchanges in this area which is crazy cuz i served in indio and actually im in indio rn writing this email

Its just wild visiting places ive already been to before

Also another thing thats crazy is we have the same amount of sisters as elders in my zone now theres 10 elders and 10 sisters (which is nuts) which means fewer exchanges

My companion is elder mejia and hes from el salvador but lived in texas for like 10 years

Plus they used to have english missionaries too but they just got rid of them which is kinda depressing lowkey idk why they did that but now its just us two in a house thats 40 minutes away from any other missionaries so we kinda just chillin on our own and we cover the english branch too so im like a half english missionary or something but we have to switch off what unit we attend each week cuz the spanish branch meets in a senior center bingo hall in salton city and english has a teeny tiny building way out in borrego springs

We went to borrego springs yesterday and it is weird theres like absolutely nothing there and then all of a sudden theres a downtown area and trailer parks and normal houses and gated communities its just a weird place

Salton city is weird too theres absolutely nothing there 

We're lucky we have a family dollar and dollar general next to a gas station with a taco bell and jack in the box but theres not even a mcdonalds or a walmart within a 40 minute radius

We do tons of driving tho probably like an hour on average is just driving

What was really crazy tho was the drive from san bernardino down here, it was an hour 40 minutes

I really like long drives tho (theyre kinda nice breaks) so its chillin

It was really sad to leave san bernardino i really loved my time there and the ward was really great, the zone was awesome, and the friends i made there were really really good so ill be back for sure (although its pretty dangerous there lol)

Pretty much the whole mission was totally upended tho so many areas were opened or whitewashed because 23 new missionaries came in last transfer

Also funny story so we were going to set up english class and we found out we lost the keys to the church (L) and so we ran around trying to find an open door and elder pizarro went to open a door and it opened and then he ran inside and it closed before i got there and i tried opening it and it was locked so i had to run around the building again to where elder pizarro was going to let everybody in and he was confused like "why didnt you go in back there" and i was like "it was locked" and he was like "wait wut" it was pretty funny

Monday evening we did a cool noche de hogar with the ward, so i did get to see most everyone before i left

Wednesday was when we found out i was leaving but honestly we could tell i was out because i had been there for a while so i just packed that morning and we said bye to everyone it was sad

Uhhhh what else

Oh yeah so saturday was thanks day again

We tracted from 9 am to 9 pm but it ended up not being like that

We tracted all morning, basically because the houses were all so spread apart in the places we went we would knock 1 or 2 houses then hop in the truck and start driving again it was lowkey funny

Then after lunch we went tracting with a member up in salton sea shores (a little bit north of where we live, the houses are more compact there) and we just knocked doors with her but her dogs followed her and she has like 10 dogs and so they kinda got in the way of knocking every door and they tried to get in fights with literally every other dog they saw and people thought we were giving away the dogs and we were just like "nah they just followin us lol" and honestly most people just didnt answer the door

Also it was cool cuz i actually had met her parents before, when i served in indio i was at her dad's baptism

Plus on saturday an hermano from the indio ward that i served with was called as a high councilor in the salton sea branch so i saw him and it was chill

Also the branch president and his wife know my parents really well because the branch president served his mission in puerto rico and served in my moms ward when she was 12 and his wife grew up in the same town as her so thats pretty wild

Anyway saturday evening was goofy so after dinner a member of the english ward told us hed go tracting with us down in ocotillo wells

Which was a 40 minute drive away (theres a theme here with stuff being 40 minutes away)

So we drive down and we get there and hes like yeah theres an rv park over here

So we pull up and knock one door and the guy said "ayo so basically this is a weekend place where people pull up just for a couple days"

So we're like "dang ok" and then look around a bit more and theres like no permanent residence areas at all so we totally wasted our time but its okay we just drove back and then we have to set up the bingo hall for church every week which honestly is kinda fun

Sunday like 10 people were at church (it's a teeny branch but its chill) and we taught the youth (2 people) and we didnt really teach a whole lot we basically just talked the whole time

Also there was a baptism the week before and one of the kids that got baptized accidentally had his records put into the wrong branch so we had to like cancel the baptism form and completely redo it it was pretty goofy

Then we drove to borrego springs yesterday and that was pretty much our entire evening, the drive is super pretty, and its funny because the road changes completely once you cross the county line between imperial and san diego (now i can say ive been to san diego county and every county in the mission)

But yeah im super excited to be in this area and stuff so its cool

We also have a cool keyboard in our houses thats like some kinda organ but its built like a keyboard which is sick

And honestly more than anything

Im just happy we have our own washer/dryer again

I was tired of going to another apartment to do our laundry so this is great

Also we be eating super healthy

(Not me eating in n out twice, taco bell, and chipotle in like three days)

Ok bye im outta here

Pictures!

-in front of our house

-our house

-me and elder mejia (bro is tall)

-cool view

-chickens

October 7th, 2024 - 59th Email - I miss watching tv

Hey

So we chillin this week it was purdy good

Last week of the transfer which is nuts this transfer has really flown by (like an airplane) (a really fast one to be exact)

So most of the week was spent hyping friends up for general conference and accidentally telling 90% of them that it started at 10 am when it actually started at 9 am (an error we didnt realize until like thursday lol)

Idk why we told people it started at 10 am im more used to it starting at noon than anything

Yknow whats the most crazy tho

I only have 1 more general conference left on the mission

Which is insane

Anyway overall general conference was really good

1st session on saturday we forgot to go with members so we just watched it at home

2nd sesh we watched it with some members that we called last minute

And they fed us some BOMB food, had a tamale, and some quesadillas and some beans i dont normally like beans and i really still dont like beans that much but i ate it anyway

Also they gave us this drink that lowkey tasted like carbonated kool aid and honestly i thought it was strawberry fanta or something it wasnt that bad and then we finished and the hermano showed us that their son had bought them black raspberry sparkling water

Now ima be honest

I hate sparkling water

But that stuff was gas for sparkling water like

When i say it wasnt half bad ive never had sparkling water in my life taste just not half bad i have a vendetta against sparkling water

And it had no sugar so it was healthy or something unless it had a bunch of aspartane

But anyway

3rd session we watched at home again lol

Sunday we watched both sessions at the church with friends so that was fun i think they enjoyed it (at least they said they did but they were definitely asleep for like two talks) but they paid attention to pres nelson so thats good

Ngl im gonna have to watch some of those sessions again myself because i watched 3 of them in spanish and a lot of stuff didnt really register but from what i could tell the talks were really good

I liked elder gong's one about dad jokes that was funny

Okay the rest of the week we did stuff too at least i think we did its all just a blur

We had a farewell activity for the son of an hermana in the ward who was moving to guatemala to get married to this lady and they were gonna live there until she legally could move to the us and it ended up being a huge activity involving our ward and the ysa with good food and some fun activities involving blowing cups off a table or popping balloons by sitting on them

One of the ysa elders took his balloon and tried to jump on the chair it was hecka fancy at least until he totally missed the chair and fell on the floor he was fine so it was absolutely hilarious and the balloon flew off so he had to do it again lol

Tuesday there was a baptism in the ysa ward it was weird that it was on tuesday but it was a good baptism

Wednesday we exchanged with some english elders it was super fun

We spent the entire morning doing service for the housing coordinator missionaries, we were furnishing a house for new senior missionaries coming in so we built beds and set up couches and stuff it was fun and then we went to cafe rio alwaus a w and then got some chik fil a ice cream

Then the elder i was with had to go to the mission office to talk to the mission nurse after and it took like two hours so we were at the mission office until like 2:30 then we got home finally showered and left the apartment at like 3:30 and then had a dinner appointment at 4 so we really didnt end up getting to work until like 5 but it was still super fun

Elder pizarro went to a bike area, then somehow finagled a car from the hermanas, and then proceeded to not give the car back all night and left the hermanas on bike lol

Friday we deep cleaned our apartment thats always fun so yes we do clean our home (sometimes)

Did a quick exchange with the zls last night too for funsies and just knocked doors all night and then visited one of their members

Yeah mostly just a lot of visits and nothing too crazy, wild this is the last pday of the transfer but im excited to find out what happens on wednesday! I think im leaving san bernardino so definitely will be posting on facebook if i get moved so stay tuned for that

Thats really it, i guess i also know how to make dynamite now and i learned a lot from the fly in the saturday afternoon session

Just kidding I liked when elder kearon talked about how reverence and it kinda reminded me of a primary song that i forget the name but it says "reverence is more than just quitely sitting its thinking of Father above" i forget the rest of the words but its a cool song and just tells us to pay attention because we supposed to be learning and stuff

This week has been really hot too it got over 100 still so pray it cools down a bit

Anyway peace out talk to you next week (maybe from a different city)

Pictures!

A couple from the exchange with elder taylor