2-3-14

Hey guys, how is everyone?

That’s awesome that your house is rented out already! You guys didn’t get stuck in the storms that they had did you? A member showed me how the highways looked over there and they looked absolutely atrocious. Like 1500 cars stacked up or something like that. Other than that sounds like you guys are all keeping on nicely. That’s so tight that Elder L is in all y’alls area before he "dies" (means going home, haha.) He actually sent me a letter a couple days ago.

 I’m kind of running short on time again this week, so I apologize if this email is short, again. This week has been a bit rough. Mindy and Jason dropped us. It’s been hard because he knows it’s true, he's felt it. He just has these pointless doubts that keep messing things up. We’re going to try our best to get them back, hopefully we can. They need the gospel in their life and for their family, everyone does. Everyone needs this gospel, not just a few lucky people. That’s why we do what we do. I take this gospel for granted so much, we don’t truly understood how precious it is.

Yesterday at church we had a general authority come and address us, Elder Saban. He told us a lot of things that were pretty profound. He said that what if all of this was true? Do you know what that means if it is? And isn’t worth finding out? He also said to never let someone tell you who you are or what to believe in. He said Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest, and he placed third. Never let anyone tell you what to believe in or who you are. It’s only between you and the Lord.

Well I love you all,

Stay warm, stay strong, stay true, and look out for each other while I’m away, alright? Will you do that for me?

-Elder Daniel

1-27-14

Hey guys, how yall' doin!!

First off sorry if I don’t write much, we had to give a blessing and just got done with that so I don’t have too much time. This week has been a good one though. So I am not getting transferred and I will be staying in Murrieta for another 'go round'. So at least another 6 weeks until the middle of March. That means at the end of that I will have been here for 6 months! I have been marooned in Murrieta, haha. It's all good though, I like it here and I love living at the Smedley's, the people, the members, and the mountains. And like I was saying last week, I was scared I was going to leave when all the sparks started to fly here. So I'm staying and things are really starting to pick up. We taught Mindy and Jason again last week, we taught them the Plan of Salvation. Mindy had a ton of questions which was awesome. It’s funny though, Jason helps us out with the lessons a ton helping explain things and helping us teach, but he's not a member. He'll come around I can feel it, he has a testimony, he's just not quite ready to come back just yet, but well guide him. Both of them and all of their kids came to church on Sunday too, which was amazing! So things all looking up there. We also were able to teach Robert our first solid lesson with him about the Restoration. We asked him about baptism and he said that’s something he would definitely love to do, so this Tuesday were going to give him a tour of the church and try to set a date with him there. We received 4 referrals this week and contacted all of them and will be meeting with a few of them next week. Yesterday at church we helped bless the sacrament and one of the priests had to redo the prayer about 10 times, not exaggerating, haha. Anyway at the end of the meeting Bishop Nordstrom got up and told about how redoing the prayer is exactly how the Atonement works. We are imperfect and we knew when we came here we were going to make mistakes and screw up sometimes, pretty bad too, haha. But no matter how many times we mess up we have been given the opportunity to become perfect through our Savior. He paid the price so that we could change, to be happy, to gain strength and control, and to gain a fullness of joy in the presence of our Father in Heaven. I love this quote that I found that talks about the Atonement.

"Time and time again He saves,

Forgiving my mistakes,
Seventy times seven times-
However long it takes."

Stay true, stay strong, and look out for each other while I’m away, alright?

Never forget that you have a Savior who loves you, he is always there for you with open arms ready to receive you, no matter what, and he will give you strength. All you have to do is turn to him, it’s that simple.

I pray for you guys all the time, I love all of you, with my whole heart

-Elder Daniel

1-21-14

Hellooooooo Everybody!!!!

Anthony is 6.. What did I tell you guys about growing up too fast while I'm away!!!

Sorry if you guys were expecting an email yesterday, the libraries were closed due to Martin Luther King Day so our P-day is today. This week has been swell. We taught Mindy and her husband Jason again on Thursday and focused on prayer and on the scriptures. They are progressing, just very slowly, we are all on different levels and I'm alright with that. I just don’t want to get transferred out of Murrieta right after we found these awesome people! Transfer calls are actually this Saturday, so I'll let ya’ll know if I’m leaving or not next week. We did service at the horse ranch again yesterday and last we did some more service at the sports park sanding gates around a swimming pool and repainting them. Next week will be torture because, guess what? We get to sand the fences around the skate park and repaint them! haha. Should be fun. We have been getting to know the members of our ward a lot better too. We stopped by one of the members of our ward and found out she has cancer, so we’ve been talking with her a lot and boosting her spirits, trying to help her through it and put a smile on her face. Last night the primary president, Sister Baak, invited her friend over for dinner and she brought her whole family with her too, there was about 10 of them plus the whole Baak family. We just happened to be there too, so we gave a short little spiritual message using the scriptures. It was awesome! The spirit was super strong and we planted a seed with that whole family. Sister Baak is amazing, if it weren’t for her we would have starved multiple times because she feeds us when we don’t have any families scheduled for dinner, she would seriously feed us every night and be okay with it, but not only that she’s an awesome member missionary. I could go into further detail but for the sake of time I'll just leave it at that, if there were more members like her the world would be a better place.

Well my time has been come to an end here.

Stay strong, stay true, and look after one another while I'm gone, alright?

I love you all,

-Elder Daniel

-Went on our Santa Rosa Plateau hike we do once every transfer this morning.

-More from our adventure.

 

-Caught Brother Smedley off guard

-A tree blooming in Brother Smedley's yard and it was 80 degrees when I took this last week.. sorry guys, haha

My first time driving in 7 months, oh how I miss the Cougar

1-13-14

Hey Everybody!!

I got the picture of Walter and my boy Elder Lealiiee, where did you guys see him at?! Looks like he's doing work where ever he's at. 

 

 

 

 

 

This week has been pretty awesome! So we taught Mindy the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Wednesday and her husband joined in too. We found out that her husband actually used to be a member and was baptized by someone in one of the wards in our building. So now were working on getting both of them into activity and helping build their faith and testimonies stronger and stronger. We still haven't been able to meet with Robert, his family is all sick with the flu :/ But we've had a ton of success with talking to people on the street. On Tuesday we ran into a guy named Mosiah.. yeah like from the Book of Mormon, haha, we started talking to him and we found out he's a music producer, he writes music, and he raps. He travels to different parts of the world for work and he was back visiting his family for the holidays. So we ended up teaching him the whole first lesson on his front porch right after we talked to him. It was so awesome!! We gave him a copy of the BOM and told him there was a book in it with the same name as his, so he was super stoked about that and told us he would definitely read it. We also gave out about 6 other Books of Mormon to other people on the street and had similar contacts like Mosiah. We’ve also been helping a bunch of members get set up with their family history. One member we helped was Joe Scott who is only a convert of about 7 years, is in his 70's and always tells us stories about when he was a kid in New York and New Jersey, let me tell ya, this old man has been around the block a time or two, haha. Anyway there was nothing on his family tree because he and his wife are the only members of their family. After a few hours we helped him find a bunch of his relatives from back in the 1800's from Naples and Catania Italy, it was so cool. He has never been to the temple either and now he's got a ton of names he can take when he goes. So it has been a good week. I hope everything back down south is in order and things are starting to warm up a bit. 

Well guys, stay strong, stay true, and look out for each other while I'm away, alright?

I love you all,
-Elder Daniel

 

Walter! I found a picture of you in the Ensign!! Your famous man!!! haha

 

 

 

 

1-6-14 Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!!!

Where did 2013 go?! It was a great year, lots of great things happened, the only thing that stinks about it is it went by waaaaay too fast. As of now I'm still in Murrieta, it is the farthest north our mission goes and borders the Riverside Mission. I’m half way through my 3rd transfer here, and a transfer cycle is 6 weeks, so I’ve almost been here for 4 months now. I’m thinking I’m leaving the area after this transfer. I've been here for a little bit. Thanks for all the Christmas gifts you guys!! It was so great to see all of yall!! You guys are growing up way too stink'n fast!! 

Things are starting to pick up here a little bit since the holidays are winding down. We actually picked up a new investigator this week while we were on exchanges, her name is Mindy and she seems super solid. I've been thinking a lot about the work here. I’ve felt like my entire mission I’ve been working so hard teaching people and helping them to progress towards baptism only to be transferred out of my area or we've had no one to teach and have been working super hard with members or through talking to people on the street and not have any results from our efforts of finding people. And It is been a little discouraging, but then I remembered what you told me about your visiting teacher in New Jersey who helped you find your way back to the church. I realized that if it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have grown up in the church, I probably wouldn't have met all the amazing people in my life that I have, I probably wouldn’t have learned all the things I know now, I definitely wouldn't have been an eagle scout, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today and I probably wouldn’t be serving a mission right now writing you this email from southern California. I remembered some very specific revelation I received while I was at the MTC. I was praying very hard to know why I had made this decision in my life and why I was there, I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into. I received a very clear impression that I was here to bless the lives of others, to help them, to bring them back, to help them find their Savior, to ease them of their pain. No matter how unprepared or inadequate I felt. I realized it is not all about baptizing people, but it is about helping others come back to their Savior, whether that be through helping investigators, recent converts, less actives, or whoever it may be. I have the amazing opportunity to influence future generations, just like your visiting teacher in New Jersey did for us. 

I hope everything back home is going smoothly. Jeffery said it was getting pretty nippy down there, heard you guys are having weather in the single digits. Stay warm ya hear!!

Alright, Well I love all you guys, stay strong, stay true, and look out for each other while I’m gone okay?

-Elder Daniel

Page 11 in the white handbook says elders need to shave everyday...)