The weather here in Camarillo is supposedly the 2nd best weather in the world. It is pretty nice. 72 degrees with a cool breeze almost all the time. The people here are pretty wealthy. Houses are expensive. Our apartment (2 bed, 2 bath) is about $1,900 per month! The members are so great. Their families remind me of ours when I was little. They feed us almost every day!
I didn't expect adjusting to such an area would be so hard. For the last 6 months, I have been in training and learning the rules, or I have been training and teaching. Now, I am a junior companion to an elder who's has been out for 1 year and a month. It's a new area with names that he knows all about and streets that he knows like the back of his hand. I came here and now I have to "catch up".
We only have one progressing investigator. Her name is Stephanie. She is 16 years old. She is doing great! She understands and thinks about everything she's been taught. The only problem is that her parents won't let her be baptized. They did just say that she couldn't get baptized until November, so that is a step in the right direction. We will just keep it up.
Everything is going well, though. We just had dinner with the Hays who had invited the Bishop and his wife from an Oxnard ward. They were good friends. The neat thing about it was that the ward this bishop is from has eliminated tracting. President Felix is "trying this out" with that ward. The bishop told us all the miracles and activity and support that came from the missionaries having to use members. The work bloomed so much that they now have 8 missionaries in that ward! As he spoke about the whole idea, I felt an impression to do something called 100% Accountability. This means that we visit every member on our directory and make sure they have Home Teachers, confirm the information we have on them, and see if we can do any service for them. The impression/vision I had was visiting every member, asking for service opportunities, ask for people to go teach, and most important, set up a time that we can come teach their family from Preach my Gospel (the teaching manual for missionaries). This prompting was very clear to me. After our little lesson with them, we left (Duh. . . ). I love it when his personality comes out in his writing.
I brought up what I thought we should do to Elder Leavitt in the car. He, too, had received the same impression. Both of us felt it! Elder Leavitt said he was worried that I wouldn't be on board with what he thought we should do. I also was hoping that Elder Leavitt wouldn't shut me down or not be motivated. Thankfully, and divinely, we received the same witness and we are both exited about doing this with the ward. Our only problem now is the Bishop. . . We will see what he says this week. We are so excited, especially after reading Preach My Gospel Chapter 9 under The Importance of Members. PMG describes exactly what we want to do.
Keep up the good work. Combat bad/discouraging thoughts with gratitude. Be the change you want to see in the world. Show by your example how to be like Jesus in 2015. Don't forget to read you scriptures and pray every day NO MATTER WHAT!
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