Faith in Every California Footstep: O Canada!

Hello all!

Another amazing week in the California Long Beach mission! The sun is starting to come out again, it was hiding for a little bit... I am seriously just so happy here. Since my 6 month mark I've had secret anxiety about leaving this place and taking off my nametag... I never want it to happen so I'm just going to pretend it won't for now!

Last Monday was a pretty good time! We had a district activity for Sister Allen's birthday (one of my stls). We went to a member’s house and made fried chicken with Elder Jones, played Mexican train, and played pingpong! After we were done that we went... ICE SKATING! It was awesome. I loved it. Later that evening we had stake FHE for investigators and less-active members. Maria, Karie, Gabe, and Mirian came! It was a great lesson given by our stake president, President Johnson, about prophets! I am so thankful for the leaders in our church that have been divinely called to help us learn and progress in the Gospel! Before we were going to head over there, we stopped by a potential investigator we had contacted the day before. His name is Steve, and he is really awesome. We started talking to him about his religious views, his relationship with God. I kid you not, as we are taking to him, he starts saying things like," I've done some research and it just seems to me like the Bible has been taken apart, translated and changed so many times by men, that it just can't be entirely correct," and "it seems like a little while after Christ died, God's word wasn't really on the earth anymore, there wasn't anyone to guide the people. You can see that just by looking at history..." My jaw almost dropped. He was basically teaching us the Restoration! It was so amazing to see someone God was preparing to receive His word.

It's funny how the more people you talk to, the more easily you can discern, in just a quick conversation, who is ready and who is not. We are to "find those that will receive [us]." Just yesterday, Sister Sherksnas and I had the opportunity to stop by some former investigators and potential investigators. We stopped by a man named Jerry, within 3 minutes Sister Sherksnas and I both had the spirit witness to us to bear our testimonies and move on. We have a very short time to serve. 18 months is a blink of the eye in eternity. We have started really prioritizing who we are spending that short amount of time with so we can be the most effective at fulfilling our purpose of "teaching repentance and baptizing converts."

We have been able to keep ourselves pretty busy this week, as usual! Beach ward is the Promised Land, I'm telling you. There is so much potential here, so many people being prepared! I am convinced though, that any area can be like that. You simply need to develop the FAITH to find those people :)

We also got to meet with a young girl named Megan that attends our ward. She is not a baptized member, her father won't let her be baptized. She is really sweet and we are going to start meeting with her so that when she turns 18 and is able to be baptized, the decision will be easy.

We also got to discuss getting some ward missionaries in ward cor and ward counsel! Yay! Oh yeah, we have no ward missionaries, it's a rough time.... but we make it work!

I was so happy to be able to watch the General Women's meeting this Saturday! Unfortunately, none of our investigators could attend, we got really close with Alisa, the YW president even went to go get her... but her dad wouldn't let her go. It was the quickest hour and 15 minutes of my life! It's crazy how fast time flies now... a day feels like 3 hours! Gotta make the most of it....

Sunday morning only Mandy came to church... Alisa is still struggling with her dad to let her attend our church... he's a born again Baptist so... it's hard. Gabe came to church though, of course! Even though his sister struggles sometimes, he gets up and gets himself to church! He's even stopped dressing like a gangster lol we got him a dress shirt and some ties last week, thanks to Brother Fitzpatrick and Elder Jones.

The church is true!

Sister Holt