11/2/2015 About a month and a half ago, a young man came to our ward, and no one had ever seen him. we talked to him and he said he just wanted to check out the church because all his friends are Mormon and he was going to Chico state this year, and he just got our of high school. He was a golden investigator, but we had to give him to the YSA ward missionaries because he is young, and that's how it goes in Chico because there is so many college kids, we pass off all our golden investigators to the YSA missionaries. But Adam, the kid I was talking about, decided he like 5th ward better than YSA, so the YSA missionaries handed him back off to us! And so hopefully he will get baptized really soon, so that is super exciting. So we had a Chili cook off in ward, and that was pretty fun. It was for sure not as good as our old wards chili cook offs. And we had this chili that was called the Carolina Reaper chili, it's the hottest pepper in the world! A jalapeño is 15,000 scovilles, which is measurement for spice, a habanero pepper is 200,000, and a Carolina reaper is 1.3 million. So I was scared to try it, but it wasn't as hot as I thought it was going to be. I think they didn't pet very much spice in it so they wouldn't kill anyone hAha, but it was fun.
11/9/2015 This week was pretty good. Luckily we have gotten TONS of rain. Even right now it's raining pretty hard. We really need it. I don't know if I told you, but this year is supposed to be El Niño, and that means we get huge rain storms all winter. And it's finally cooled down so I can actually sleep! So this week we did a ton of service. Earlier this week, we helped a man move a 32 foot long metal dragon to his house. Yes I meant to say dragon haha. I will send pictures. It was pretty hard. The. We helped a recent convert of ours move out. I love him and his family, but their house was so bad. We got over there and nothing was packed and it was all gross clutter EVERYWHERE. and it was cockroach infested so it was nasty. they moved into a pretty nice apartment though,must hopefully they will keep it nice. We actually had this guys wife on date to be baptized last week but we haven't met with her enough so hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks. And we helped rake leaves at an old cemetery. It took a long time but it was fun. Then we helped our annoying ward mission leader move out.
11/16/2015 So Transfers are the 24th. There's a pretty big chance Elder Ross will be leaving. He's been in Chico for a long time. I've even been here for a long time! So I will most likely be getting a new companion soon. Earlier this week, we went to this indoor apartment complex and were visiting some less active members, and this lady stopped us and asked if we were Mormon. We said we were and she told us to meet her at her apartment in a few minutes. So we visited someone and then went to her apartment and she talked to us for a while. She is awesome and she wants to start the lessons! So that's really exciting. I Wish more people would stop us and ask us to visit them! Makes it a lot easier! But most people just avoid us like the plague. So earlier this week, we came home and there were tons of cop cars in front of a house a couple houses down from us. We hurried inside, and I guess there was an armed robbery and the guy ran back to his home and the cops shot and killed him. There was also a different armed robbery near our house. Chico is great! So this last P day, we were playing ultimate frisbee and Elder Fa, a big Polynesia elder chucked the frisbee and I was trying to block it and he accidentally threw it into my mouth so that felt good. It busted my lip open and my teeth felt loose after that and my lip was pretty swollen. Im all good now though! We also gave a lot of blessings this week. We gave one at the hospital to a guy who just had surgery on his spine. And to several people who have just been stressed out. So we have this golden investigator who came to church on his own, and he's attending Chico state, he's only 18, and we've been giving him the lessons. We invited him to the YSA ward but he likes our ward better. He walks over 2 miles on Sunday just to go to church. And that is so cool because most investigators that have a car and live closer than he does have stupid excuses! He is awesome and he just wants to know for sure if he should be baptized. Pretty exciting! And we have a lady who really wants to be baptized, but she is living with her boyfriend so they have to get married before she can be baptized. So we are waiting on them. So it's been a pretty good week. So earlier his week a lady came up to us and started talking with us. She was nice, but started asking us if we knew that Joseph Smith did mushrooms to have the visions. It made me realize how much people say about Joseph Smith. So I guess Joseph did shrooms, alcohol, smoked weed, was a pedophile, was a murderer, a rapist, a con artist, has schizophrenia, and all sorts of things. I've heard people say all these things about him. It's so stupid how people make up all these things and as soon as someone hears it, they believe it, but once they hear the truth, they deny it. It makes me sad. We have been working with a lady and she won't pray about the church and that's why she doesn't know if it's true! People have to pray about it! Why not ask God? He is all knowing so who better then to ask? I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and restored the church on the Earth today. My testimony can't be shaken by these people. I've seen too much good come out of the church for it to be false. I've seen people turn their life completely around because of the gospel. Their lives are so much better with it, and I know my life wouldn't be the same. I just want you guys to know I have a testimony of the church and I hope you guys are all working to grow yours!
11/23/2015 This week was alright. I'm finally getting a new companion on Tuesday. His name is Elder Chandler. This week was a little slow for missionary work. Elder Ross has been going around saying goodbyes. We gave like a billion blessings this week though. One lady asked for a blessing because she was getting a 5 bypass surgery! That's crazy I've never heard of 5! We went on exchanges this week and we went to a place called the Jesus Center to feed homeless people. It was fun, but there are some WEIRDOS that came in. And we had stake conference yesterday as well! It was on keeping the sabbath day holy! And that's pretty much it! We had some good lessons this week but nothing report worthy!
11/30/2015 Well honestly this week was slow, it was a holiday week and transfers and I was sick so not a whole lot got done. We mostly just went around introducing ourselves to ward members and stuff. One member we visited told us the story of how he killed someone with his bare hands because he was kidnapping his sister. So that was interesting. And the lady me and Ross baptized a while back, we went to visit her and she was taken off some medication, and she has skitzofrenia (no idea how to spell that) and all these scary brain things, and she was just yelling at us and crying and it was super hard to work with. So that was fun. And we met with and older member and she gave us a lot of referrals for less actives so that's exciting! We will have some more work to do. And remember when we helped move that giant metal pink dragon? We helped that same guy move a 2,000 pound safe. It was so freaking hard. We had to use a crow bar and wiggle it off the trainer on these wheeled Dolly's, and slowly push it into a store. Pretty sure this guy is a hoarder. He owns an antique store, but it's never open so I'm sure he just uses that as an excuse to keep all this pointless stuff.
12/7/2015 So anyways. This week was pretty good. Just kind of the usual stuff! We taught a lot of lessons! We had a Crèche festival at the stake center this week. It's where lots of people bring nativities and there are performers. We were able to watch the Christmas broadcast at the
crèche last night too. It was good! The Pasowistys are getting sealed in Arizona. I have to tell you their story! It's kind of long but it's so cool! So Nate, the guy, grew up in the church in Canada, but he fell away for a long time. He met his wife in Canada, who was a non member. He started working for Vivint solar company, and he got moved to Chico California. They were pretty sad to leave Canada. So Jeff Beck, another awesome guy in our ward, works at Vivint too. And he told Nate about a referral to a lady who was in the ward, because Nate goes door to door trying to sell it. So he went to this ladies house, and they started talking. She asked him how many kids he had and he said two. One boy and one girl. And then she asked, if the boy was his biological son. She has never seen his kids! And it so happens that the son was not his biological son, so now Nate was like why would she ask that? It was an inspiredquestion for sure. And Then they started talking about church and how Nate was inactive. And during the conversation nates phone kept getting text messages in his pocket, and he just kept ignoring it. And
then he got a message that ringed way louder than all the other ones, so Nate checked it, and it was a message from his wife saying, "do you
think church would be good for us?" And that's while he was talking about church to the lady! And the lady saw the text and said, looks like a sign! And nudged him and said, I guess we will see you at church! And Nate said yes you will! So they started coming and Mel, nates wife, started the missionary discussions and she got baptized! And that was a year ago this month and now they are getting sealed! I thought it was such a cool story. Anyways I thought I would share thatbecause not a whole lot happened this week haha.
