July 21st, 2025 - 99th Email - Hanging in there

 hey

So we at that point i guess

One week left and i really dont remember too much about what happened last week but here we go i gotta try for my beloved fans out there who desperately wait for another email from me every week and eagerly anticipate every entry

So i have a week left on my mission, guess ill get that out of the way right away, yes its weird, yes im excited, i will not divulge whether or not i am trunky but overall im extremely grateful for the great opportunity ive had to serve a mission and change so many people's lives. I cant really put to words perfectly how special this little rundown corner of california is to me but just trust me bro this place is slept on you got all these epic street mexican food trucks what more can you ask for (and lowkey those things make BANK)

Ill probably go into more detail on that kinda thing next week when i do my final email but yeah

So what actually happened this week lowkey forgrot again

So uh

Monday we were chillin we went over to this guy's apartment and found him in the parking lot putting junk in his car with a friend so we chatted it up and we found another dude watering his garden idk if that guys actually interested havent had contact since

Tuesday we exchanged with the colton english elders. They live back in my old apartment from last transfer after some apartment switches. Hung out with elder johnson for the day, really funny guy lol we did run out of gas but its ok the only issue is we dont have a gas card in our truck so we just had to make it to the gas station and wait for ploeger and johnson's companion mcphie to come save us but we got some slushies in the meantime (w circle k)

Met a lady knocking doors that only spoke english but she was seventh day adventist and it was funny there was some pretty crazy stuff she was saying and complaining how other churches dont believe in it and we were like "actually we completely agree with you" except for the whole sabbath is saturday thing but hey what started out as a bash turned into a 40 minute scripture study on her porch and she was like "yknow i sometimes get heated but thats not what the Lord wants" and we actually had like a surprisingly argument-less discussion it was lowkey weird how nice she became to us

All of our friends flaked on english class  

Uh wednesday we did stuff

Jk we did a zone service activity over in the san bernardino zone (my old area) where we piled boxes in big stacks (i knew my tetris skills would come in play somehow) and yknow those big metal crates they show in movies in ports well this place had those for some reason to store childrens books and they had some missionaries sort those out and you know me those things dont have air conditioning it was lowkey better just to work outside on the box piles even if it was a little dirtier and it was actually a lot of fun

Got this lady named Alma on date for baptism apparently she went straight to the book of alma in the book of mormon (no surprise) and already read like 10 chapters of it (big surprise) so that was really cool

Dude we had this WILD drama with some of our friends this week i gotta explain it at the end now you got somethin to be excited for but basically we had these formerly homeless friends we were teaching and we almost got through all the lessons with them and they were staying in a member's front lawn in a tent for a couple weeks the drama didnt happen until sunday i just saw we had a lesson with them on wednesday and it reminded me of this

Thursday we had interviews! My second-to-last interview because i get one last final one before i dip but it was really good and i really like president oligschlaeger and hes working on making this mission the best it can be

We also exchanged and i went to the english/samoan area with elder jones but we did not samoan work sadly but we did run into a couple cool dudes and had dinner with the stake patriarch

We also knocked the door of a lady whp after we left texted us saying she wanted to get baptized so things are lookin up for shore

Uhhhh friday we chilled and talked to a returning member about getting his son baptized

We visited like 4 part member families that day lol our entire teaching pool is just part members

Gave a lady named daniela a blessing shes struggling a lot with pretty personal stuff

Exchanged again with the rialto english/samoan later saturday evening but i stayed in the area (im getting burnt out on exchanges...) it was pretty chill i taught a lesson by myself in spanish (elder jones doesnt speak spanish)

Committed a guy to church who didnt end up coming to church (classic)

We've also been putting a huge focus on the temple with our families, we want to help em all grow closer together and hopefuly all get sealed at some point but the first step is for everyone to get baptized lol

Church was chill had lots of people pull up last minute without notifying us and then a family moved into the rialto 4th ward (my last ward) and we had to go help move them in but they were a half hour later than originally planned (we got there late too...) so we couldnt actually help because we had a dinner appointment but it was cool to see all the members i know

Then we just visited all our friends that evening that didnt come to church, was a pretty long evening not gonna lie

But yeah! Second to last week done. Pretty nuts. One more to go, talk to you guys next week!

Pictures!

-cool sunset

-elder jones had a big leaf

-this doormat clearly says homer