Elder Jon Daniel: "Mom its the God guys!!" 5-26-15

YES!!!! Congrats Walter and Katlyn!!!!!!!!!!!!! Proud of you guys! Welcome to the big leagues! I loved all the pictures of you guys. yall are all look'n good. haha. Im pretty jealous of Jeffery's beard by the way. I bet it was fun having the family over and celebrating. I hope everyone had a great time!

President Kendrick has started a new revolution in the mission. He is chopping the number of cars in the mission in half and creating a new policy where the cars left in the mission will only be used for administrative purposes, (meetings, pday,.. etc.). So EVERYONE is on foot or on bike. Elder Ballard said that is you talk to more people you will baptize more. So that's the culture that we are instituting now. Its been fun starting this new policy. I went on exchanges with one of the assistants this last week and was able to help him turn in a few of the cars. So I was actually able to drive a car by myself for the first time in 2 years, it was a little weird, but fun. Im using brother Bogart's bike now, since I sold mine thinking that I would use it for the rest of my mission, but I was wrong. PK decided to make these next three weeks interesting, haha.

On a random note, we contacted a Catholic guy and he gave me a Rosary. Its pretty sweet looking actually, haha.

We started teaching a guy named David last night. Super tall guy, he is like 6'8 and has curly reddish hair, kind of looks like Napolean Dynamite, haha. We just randomly ran into him on the street last week while he was riding his bike and started talking to him. Turns out that he was good friends with a kid in the ward who just got back from Utah State. So we were able to set up a lesson and bring him with us. We taught him the restoration and it went pretty well. We are teaching him again this Sunday so we will see how that goes.

Diana, our investigator from Russia, is still good for next Saturday for her baptism and she is super excited. We took her to a baptism in Carlsbad so she could see what its like and she loved it!

Liz's baptism was Sunday in Murrieta. She was in my last area, Elder Polatis and I met her at an activity that her friend invited her to and we started teaching her. So proud of her, I will send pictures next week hopefully!

I went on exchanges with Elder Willes this week as well. I used to live with him in a 4 man in Oceanside, so it was just like old times. I was in his area and he is still kind of new. We ended up doing service for one of their investigators, an older lady whose back was all messed up and helped her with her laundry, washing it and folding it.. Ive done a lot of things on my mission, but have never done that before, it was kind of weird.. I guess there is a first time for everything. We taught her in between loads and I was trying to get a feel for how she was progressing. Come to find out she refuses to really learn more about the church and doesn't really believe much of it, at all. Shes pretty comfortable with her church, but still likes having the elders over. So after that whole ordeal I gave him some counsel on that whole situation, bless his heart. Doing service for people is great, especially if they aren't members, but if theyre just using you to do their dirty work and your just wasting your time, then that's not okay. Our purpose it to help others come unto Christ, not fold their underwear for them.. Some other cool stuff that happened on the exchange, we saw a Lynx from someone's back yard overlooking one of the Lagoons in our area and we met Mitt Romneys real estate agent, he lives in the La Costa Ward.

Im starting to feel just like I did a few weeks before left for California. I came to the realization that life as I knew it would be over in a few short weeks and it would never be the same again. I feel the exact same way now.

The church is true, I know that for a fact. This gospel is bigger than we think.

I love you all,

-Elder Daniel