WK 15 - Sego Lily

What just happened? I was finally getting used to missionary life and then *boom* we're a trio and *boom* nearly the whole zone changed. It's kind of strange to be in the same area teaching the same people but the missionaries around you are so different. I like it though, It has kept things interesting. This will be a good group and I'm a little sad I'll be leaving it. 

Speaking of that our third companion is Elder Fowers! He's from a small town in Idaho called Rupert and he loves golf and cars. He's been out for almost eight months so I'm the baby of the tripanionship. Teaching and contacting in a trio is a bit harder because there's another Elder who wants to speak, so there's been some adjustment but for the most part it's been a blast.

The highlight of our week was meeting with Richard! He finished "Lehi in the Desert" and told us that the only logical conclusion after reading Hugh Nibley's words of wisdom is that 1st Nephi is historically accurate, and the Book of Mormon is true. We're going to try and put him on date this week so please pray for him!

We had a meeting with Christian where he sat us down and started going through a SEGO LILY (trademarked) bible study slide show "designed for members of the LDS faith." Really it was just an attempt to get us to contradict ourselves, but luckily we were prepared. Because of it we actually had an opportunity to teach a lot about the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was there and we could see the gears turning in his head so it ended up being a productive lesson.

Some other cool things: we push broomed a thousand pounds of sand into a putting green for service. I had a milestone on Sunday because I attended my first ever Elder's Quorum meeting. We've done a lot of driving for transfers, errands, and more to come so we'll rack up the miles. I stepped up my food game and made some pasta salad. And today we played a round of Frisbee golf which is a fantastic game.

Have a great week! My next regards will come from halfway across the world, ten hours ahead.

ጤና ይስጥልኝ

May God give you health

Elder Miles

Pasta Salad

Fat tie Friday

Thor meme we found in a Primary room

The view featuring Elder Kok

Frisbee golf

WK 14 - ETHIOPIA BOUND

Yes. Indeed. I got the call on Tuesday. I will be heading to Ethiopia on April 30th! That's much sooner than I expected and I'm positively pumped out of my mind. Buttttt it was kind of a slap in the face to my Amharic so I've been GRINDING the language this past week. I realized it's ok though because I'll spend nearly 24 total hours ( :( ) on a plane for that trip so there will be plenty of time to review, right?

Other exciting changes: today is the last week of the transfer, so last night we got the word on what our area is going to look like for the week and a half I'm still here. Elder Hawkins and I are staying here in Simi Valley, but another Elder will be joining us to form a trio! That way when I leave, him and Elder Hawkins will just shrink to a normal sized companionship. But for now we will be repping the tri-pan.

We had a mission tour this week with Elder Whiting of the seventy, and he met with the whole mission for an hour over Zoom on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When Elder Whiting wasn't making fun of us, he was dropping straight doctrine. I learned a lot from him, and one of those things will be my spiritual thought:

He talked about having a Nephi attitude versus having a Laman and Lemuel attitude which is a pretty standard thought but the application is great! Do we complain about our circumstances, or do we take what we've been given and run with it? Instead of saying I'll wait until it's better to try, say how can I try to make it better. What can we do to make the most of the situation? That is how we show faith in God's plan for us, and as we do so he will lead us to what he needs us to accomplish. That is why we are where we are.

Teaching this week has been up and down: we grabbed in-n-out shakes with our friend Christian this week and headed to a park to discuss the Book of Mormon and after some chit-chat he jumped straight into bashing. So RIP Christian. We started teaching a man named Tyler this week too, but he has a very similar background to Christian so I'm afraid it'll take the same route. We were so sure Raymond and Theresa were going to come to church on Sunday but they ended up feeling sick. Richard and Nick are progressing slowly but are doing well as usual.

Love you all! Have a good week!

ጤና ይስጥልኝ

May God give you health

Elder Miles

A little bit of preparation day Amharic practice

WK 13 - Lawn Ornaments

Random Simi fact: for some reason people here just love leaving home appliances out on their yard. I've seen three separate houses in this last week with toilets just chilling on the grass out front. There have been several with sinks and some mini-fridges too. I'm probably missing something but it's definitely been a pattern.

Stake Conference was yesterday and that was phenomenal because 1. the speakers were great and 2. that's the most people I've seen attend a church meeting in person in a year! It made me so happy. I'd just like to say that God truly directs this church and the saints!

Three of our friends are progressing well! We gave Richard a book called "Lehi in the Desert" by Hugh Nibley (who is fire btw) that will hopefully address some of his concerns about the Book of Mormon. He was so excited to get it! And then Nick is doing great as well! We had a great lesson with him reading 3rd Nephi and his family testified to him about the blessings of baptism. We watched a new convert devotional run by President Carter with him yesterday and we're hoping he enjoyed it.

We've been teaching this couple, Raymond and Theresa, and they've been through some hard things in their lives and especially recently Raymond has had some major health issues. They always try to have a positive attitude and focus on spiritual things despite their challenges and it's honestly really inspiring. They've got a lot of questions about the purpose of life and why bad things happen, so it's been great to help them understand parts of the Plan of Salvation. We invited them to watch Stake Conference and not only did they persevere through bad audio, but Theresa TOOK NOTES. That's more than I did. We're excited to see what they thought.

Spiritual thought: this one comes from Hank Smith (who is also fire). Experiences outweigh opinions! Remember your personal spiritual experiences and don't let people's opinions of the church ruin them. That's like someone telling a blind man that he's not really blind. Who would know better here?

ጤና ይስጥልኝ

May God give you health

Elder Miles

Cor(e)y Street

WK 12 - Meat and the Priesthood

Can I just say General Conference while out on a mission is the best? It was definitely the highlight of the week. One session we watched with Richard, a much older gentleman we're currently teaching who is honestly more knowledgeable about church doctrine and history than a lot of members. His wife is a member and he loves thinking deep about religious topics so he loved it. Elder Holland is his favorite speaker, and when he was announced to go next Richard started oohing and aahing with excitement. It warmed my heart haha he is the sweetest man.

The other sessions we watched as a district and that was a party. For the Priesthood session we picked up one of those group meal deals from a barbeque place here in Simi and so just before listening to some fine talks we pounded some ribs and tritip with the Zone Leaders. For the Sunday afternoon session I whipped up some homemade lemonade with some lemons given to us by a member and it turned out pretty good. So overall a 10/10 experience except I ate way too much sugar because I kept telling myself I could eat one more brownie since I need to put on some pounds for Ethiopia.

Some other random little things that happened: almost witnessed a member get arrested, had a super awkward member visit, met a man in a trailer park who was high as a kite but wanted a Book of Mormon, and I spent a night running our area (with a lot of forgetting things and getting lost) with one of the ZLs. 

President Nelson's talk Sunday morning on faith was fantastic! There was so much good insight in it that I couldn't even write it down fast enough, so I'm excited to be able to go back through and read it. But he truly is a prophet of God. He can tell us exactly what is best for the members of the church right now and I know his message was inspired. Faith really is so important; there's a reason it's the first principle of the Gospel. I know if we find ways to truly apply what he taught then we will see that faith grow. 

Plus 20 new temples? That was crazy. I was hoping for an Addis Ababa one to be announced, but there's still time.

ጤና ይስጥልኝ

May God give you health

Elder Miles

He is risen! One of the members here has this outside their house.

The streets ✌

Abomination lemon

The zone squad

My absolute favorite missionary meme (shoutout to Elder Suarez for getting it to me)