January 18, 2016
This week was a lot better from last week. El Niño is doing
a number here in Oakland though! We really need this rain, because it was
looking pretty yellow and really sad out in the hills. So we are really being
blessed right now. For like the past 2-3 weeks it's been raining pretty
consistently at least every other day, so it's been fun! Puddle jumping and
walking in the rain. But y'all would be surprised how many people actually link
this rain to be from God. I think it's funny how often people neglect the
things the Lord does unless it's really needed. Like this rain, since Cali has
been in a drought for so long the people thank God for the rain. But, if Cali
hadn't been in a drought for so long, no one would've ever thought anything of
the rain. IDK just an observation of mine. But nevertheless, since people DO
connect the rain with God it provides easy opportunities to talk about God and
introduce the restored gospel!
Since being out here, I have started to realize how much the
Lord is in EVERYTHING, I am very grateful for that because without God where
would I be? Who knows. But I am here now and through the Grace of God we have
the victory!
1 Cor. 15:57 But thanks be to God, which
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Woot woot! Amen hallelujah? Am I right ;) haha jk.
Sorry. But for real though.
This week was pretty BOMB! We got to see a lot of our
investigators and I got to go across the BAY! Woot woot!
Tuesday we went one exchanges with the ZL. Elder Arrington
came over to East Oakland, and Elder Lui went to East Oakland to speak Spanish
with Elder Fuge. Nothing too great happened, we just had a lot of stopping by people’s
houses and talking to people and setting up appointments. We did talk to a few
people on the street that have some awesome potential!
Wednesday: We had Zone Conference we had in in Pacifica
which is across the bay! So we got to go across the bay bridge and stuff! I
took some awesome videos but they are long and my email won't allow me to send
videos sorry! But the Zone Conference was good, the talked a lot about housekeeping
stuff and taught us basic principles of missionary work. They also changed up
the accountability so that ZL can get to bed earlier. So it was good! Then
later that night we taught an awesome family! K**, P***p and E**! K** and P**
are married and Errol is the uncle living with them! We taught the part of the
Restoration! They had a lot of questions but in the end accepted to read and
pray about the Book of Mormon. It was cool because E**l
is training P** how to be a Pastor. But now, they are seriously
considering the Mormon Church! So we are excited to start meeting with them!
Thursday: We taught A**, who is a recent convert. She is
just as super sweet and sentimental person. We taught the last half of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. She of course accepted it all and asked some really
great questions. Whenever we mention God's Love, she always starts crying and
it's just super spiritual because you really can just tell how much knowing
that God loves her, means to her. If that makes sense. She is an amazing
person. We also got to meet for the first time a less active family! The W***.
Dang. They are hilarious. We went just to start reading the Book of Mormon with
them and we did, but then Sis. Williams just starts cracking all these
hilarious jokes. And she is a loud-but-fun African American woman, so that of
course means a good time! She was just funny and super up front about how she
thought about everything and how she presented was just super amusing. She
knows the church is true and her Grandsons do too, but sometimes they just
don't have the desire. Which is very frustrating.
Friday: We had weekly planning! Woot Woot! But the good
stuff happened after! So we taught 2 of our investigators! P*** and Lucia! P***'s
lesson was for sure one of a kind. So we come in to his house and sit down and
start talking to him, see how he is doing ect. We could tell something wasn't
right with P***e really quickly. But we say a prayer and we get started. We
start with our lesson and start reading the B.O.M with him, and right when we
open the book he starts just laughing his head off for like 5 minutes straight,
so then we realized. So Elder Lui and I start laughing, which was probably not
too good. But yeah super hard lesson. Mostly because P***wasn't too into it.
Then we decided to stop by a 'gator who we never had met, L**, and she let us
in! We got to know her! Basically she said she knew the church was
true! So we invited her to be baptized, she said she wanted to when she felt
ready. UGh! Worst answer ever! So we brought up, the Brother of Jared who
presented stone to the Lord, then related the stones to her about picking a
baptismal date. She said she liked that idea! So hopefully we can put her on
date!
Saturday was kinda just blah.
Sunday: The same, but we did walk in the rain a lot. because
we are super diligent :D
Love you all!
I have some pictures, but I don't have a cord for the
camera! Sorry!
-Elder Meier
Actually, I have been trying very hard to
focus on the spirit this week. Literally just pausing and trying to listen,
like Samuel, in Sam. 3:10. and seriously it works wonders! For example... We
put a 3 + year investigator on date and Elder Lui did it! Seriously it was
awesome! We were so stoked! We had been praying so hard for R** to be on date
and now she is committed! We have been trying to plan effectively but also
generally so that we could be the tools of the Spirit, and that lesson truly
was a testimony for me. We had a good lesson plan, and we stuck to it …kinda.
But we went in to the lesson with the determination to listen to the spirit and
say what it wants us to say. So we did! The lesson went 1,000,000 times better
than we thought (obvi) seriously. It was sooo sick everything is much easier
if we just listen to the Spirit and teach to needs rather than the needs of
the teaching record. But now the trick is getting her to church 😬 Sorry if that didn't make any sense, but it made sense
to me.
