2-10-14

Helloooooo Everybody!!!!!

Happy birthday Dad!! I sent you a letter so you should be getting it soon. I hope you guys are staying safe and warm over yonder. Y’all are going to have to whip out the Pathfinder and do what we did a couple years ago with the skim board, if it still works. I can’t remember what exactly was wrong with it when I left, I think the transmission or the brakes.. Or both. I can’t remember. Haha! That’s sweet that Walter got hooked up with the VBC, is he in concessions? Tell him to work hard and to not get discouraged about working there. That’s where Jeffery and I started. He'll learn a lot while he's there. So its tax season huh? I completely forgot that those existed, haha. All my files should be in my closet. I heard the Super Bowl was a blow out that Denver got destroyed by the Seahawks, but the half time show was good.. haha! Good year to miss it I guess. And that the Winter Olympics in Sochi have started. I’m still living with members so we hear them watching it occasionally, we hear brother Smedley yelling at the TV sometimes, and it’s hilarious. We actually watched Ephraim’s Rescue during New Year’s when we had to come in early. It was amazing, were all going to watch it when I get back. It did boost my spirits and give me strength getting a glimpse of what the saints had to go through back then and our heritage. I'm going to grow a beard like Ephraim when one day too, just wait.

SO, big news. Guess what? Who's got two thumbs and just got a baptism? This guy!!! So on Wednesday we got back from Zone training meeting and decided we should try by a referral that we got last week and weren’t able to meet with her until that day. I didn’t really think much of it because I haven’t had much success with referrals in the past. We took Brother Young with us because we needed another guy, and we got lucky because he's a cop and is usually busy, but he happened to not be doing anything that day. So we went over and met her, her name is Brehzia. We found out that she just moved here from Raleigh North Carolina and she had been taking the lessons for a good while now and she has been ready to be baptized for a while too. She has even helped 3 of her friends come to the church and they all have been baptized, how awesome is that!? So we asked her why she hadn’t been baptized yet and she said she was waiting for her uncle's birthday in September because he was someone who was special to her. She was pretty set on that day and so we asked her if there was any other day that she would be willing to do it and she said, " well the only other day would be today" It was the day her uncle passed away and the reason she would do it on that day would be so she would have something happy to look back on instead of sad. So we asked her "if we can get it arranged, would you want to do it today?" And she said “Absolutely" So after picking up my jaw off the floor as you can imagine we had a pretty hectic and busy rest of the day making a million phone calls, getting people to the baptism, getting as program together, filling the font, it was crazy!! haha. From knocking on her door to her standing in the water was only 3 hours. It all worked out absolutely perfect. The service was great for how short notice it was. There were at least 30 people there. We had her neighbor give an great talk, Brother Boaz, the guy I told you who was a composer, played a beautiful musical number, we had the zone leaders teach the restoration, and we had a few others bare super awesome testimonies. It was just perfect! I was one of the witnesses and I remember standing up there looking at her in the water with her eyes closed. And I felt something, this is why I’m here. 

I wish I had more time to tell you guys more, but I got to go.

I love you all, Stay strong, stay true, and look out for each other while I’m away, alright? This church is true, never forget it

-Elder Daniel

This is what it is all About!

More service at skate park!

 

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