Hello family! It is a great Monday morning in Ventura! I love Ventura. It is the best city ever. I love going and seeing other parts of the mission but it is always super rewarding to come back home to Ventura. Today we are going hiking in Ojai, a little town connected to Ventura. Super excited.
This week was great. We had an exchange with the sisters in Simi Valley. Mom, I know you have questions on how all this works so I will explain. What happens is there is 12 companionships on sisters in the mission. So we go visit them. I go with one of them and Sister Dalton will go with the other sister. If the sisters are close enough to Ventura one comes here and one of us goes to their area. I travel if its spanish and sister Dalton travels if its english sisters. So it doesnt really matter if they are old or no we do it with everyone. Since Simi Valley is pretty close Sister Vandenhazel came with me in Ventura. That was an adventure because it was my first time staying in my area without Sister Dalton and I got us around pretty well. WOO HOO. Im learning.
So lets see...oh a precious tender mercy of the Lord. So I think last week i told you that we went and visited the former Elder Finkle in the hospital (he had a heart attack and worked for the mission for 13 years) and as we got their the Assistants were there too. We skipped dinner so we could see him and we were pretty starving. The assistants told us that they had apples and oranges in the car that they would give to us. Well as we were leaving the hospital Sister Dalton and myself started talking to this man in spanish and the assistants left. So later that night we had a meeting with President at the mission home, so we went and the assistants were leaving. So as we leave we are driving the car when I notice there are apples on our windshield. So nice.
Cool thing that happened this week. We were in an appointment with Bruce and he just keeps getting confused between the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ so we were trying to explain that as well as our lesson which was on obedience and prayer. Now we have been trying to get Bruce really studying the Book of Mormon, he was doing well a few weeks ago and then it dropped off again. Now side note....Bruce is this 84 year old man who is super active in all these clubs and he LOVES speech writting. He is part of toastmasters club. So as we were about to invite him to read the Book of Mormon a very clear thought came into my head to invite him to write a speech about a chapter in the Book of Mormon. So we invited him to do it and he was so excited. I know that the spirit guided me and I am so grateful for it because I have no idea how Bruce will get excited to read the Book of Mormon but the Lord knows.
Chris Star!! She is so elect. Now remember how she came to church last week? Well we had an appointment with her this week and it was amazing!!!!! It started out super awkward but once we got into the lesson it was amazing. She told us that she felt that the Lord told her to get baptized but she has been searching this last year on where to go!!!! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. She is just so open and prepared. She brought up the scripture in John 15:16 and was really confused if that meant she wasnt saved. We werent able to jump ahead and explain that because we want to give her milk before meat and start from the begininning of the restoration until the end but I know she will totally understand it when we explain authority.
Michelle. So the other day we had just been praying our guts out for people to find and as we were walking/knocking we saw Michelle. We talked to her and taught her the full restoration. She also committed to be baptized. Its hard to just teach the full restoration on the door step but you could just see her countence brighten and in her prayer she was so sincere about asking if the 14th of April was the day she should be baptized. She is in her 20s and lives at home so we are really hopeful that when we come back we will be able to teach the whole family as well.
It has been a really great week. I just love being a missionary and testifying of Jesus Christ. I love that everyone I talk to I have the calling to invite them to come unto Christ. That is not something you really get to do all your life. Stop every person and talk to them about the good news of the gospel. Once you get a taste of that you never want to go back!
I am so glad to hear all is well at home. Chrissy also emailed me and it just seems like things are trucking on and going great! Love you! Be good!
P.s. Mom I feel like you and my companions mom would really get along haha.
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