Heaven Sent

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