Elder Jon Daniel: Foreign in the Mainland 5-4-15

Kent is back already!!? Holy crap I’m on death row!!!!! It’s hard to believe summer is pretty much already here. Stake conference sounded like it went great, I can’t wait to hear the Birmingham mission president speak. He sounds like a stud. Sounds like y’all got a lot of excited busy stuff happening.

I’ve noticed that there is a crazy amount of cultural diversity here in Del Mar. The main ethnicities here are Asian, Persian, Hispanic, and people from Norway, Sweden and Finland. The other day we actually contacted a Chinese couple, with a bit of a language barrier, and then literally right after that we tracked into a guy from Finland. (Whose ex-wife was actually lds we found out.) We also had dinner with a family from the ward who invited their neighbors over who are from Sweden and we shared a short message on Christ. They had a little daughter who only spoke German it was pretty cool. There is a recent convert in the ward who we shared a message with at the church her name is Sister Lee and every time we get her to read from the Book of Mormon she only reads it in Mandarin, it’s pretty awesome. I remember right before I left for my mission Jeffery and I were hanging out with Nick Openshaw about to go skate and I was talking to his parents about my mission in Southern California. They asked me what language I was speaking and I told them English speaking. And they said " haha, no you’re not, you’re gonna be speaking whatever they're speak’n down there bud." In my head I was thinking pshh, okay whatever, but I am now eating my words, or thoughts. I forgot to mention that in the Del Mar ward they actually have a Farsi Speaking group, it’s one of two in the state of California and one of three in the world, and it’s pretty amazing to see how the gospel will flood the earth. He will always find a way to do so.

We have been teaching Chris and Gloria, some recent converts of a few months, and their son Doug who is on date to be baptized. They were actually found by some other missionaries who contacted them in our complex while they were moving in and now they’re members of the church. You seriously never know who is ready to hear the gospel. We are working with Doug right now, he is fifteen, is very engrossed in video games, and is super quite, so he can be tough to read sometimes, but we are trying to figure out ways to get him out of his shell. We have a baptism for two young kids this weekend Alex and Daniel. They are from a part member family, their mom is a member and the dad is not. They are both so bright and super excited to be baptized. I’m so stoked for these kids.

We offered a lady help the other day as we were contacting and we ended up helping her and her boyfriend move out of their apartment. She didn’t seem too interested and was moving to Panesquitos which is in the San Diego Mission so we were kind of discouraged, but at around 5 o’clock we got a call from her telling us that she had a change of plans and needed help pretty bad because she had no one to help her move everything back into the house. So we went back and helped her move everything back into her living room. Now she has sparked an interest in what were all about and wants to meet up some time for a lesson, freak ya! And she wants to take us out to dinner which is pretty sweet too, I will never deny free food.

We were about to leave the church parking lot one day around 3 o’clock and a kid on a skateboard came rolling up to us, as he got closer we found out that it was one of our recent converts named Jesse just getting out of school. He asked us for a ride, but on one condition, which was for us to teach him and for him to invite a friend to our next lesson. So we gave him a lift to his place and taught him the story of Nephi's bow in his garage. If you want to see the epitome of a young kid who has the fire of the gospel in his eyes its Jesse, I’ve never met a young man like him in my life. He is such a stud. He’s fourteen and is the only member of his family, but you would think he had been a member his whole life. He has already decided that he is going on a mission too, he will kill it wherever he goes.

We taught Dale Parson's inactive brother in law the other day (Dale Parson does a lot of famous paintings for the church). We were going through our ward list looking for people we hadn't met or didn’t know (lost sheep) and we found him. He doesn't really have any interest in the church anymore, but super nice guy. He is works for the BSA so I was able to talk to him about my eagle and other scouting stuff.

I was able to bare my testimony at church yesterday. It feels so good when you get down from the pulpit, a quick shot of dopamine just shoots all throughout your body, haha. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s most important in life and how we find true joy. I talked about how the way to true joy and happiness is through serving others and forgetting about yourself. Matt 10:39 "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." It is truly the antidote for anything they got going on in our lives. Make someone’s day, do something nice for someone, the little things matter most.

I love you all,

-Elder Daniel

Del Mar District