Hey everyone!
Wow, what a
week it has been out here in Santa Ana. It just zooms by so quickly now. I
can't believe that we are now into August, so nuts! We are seeing a lot of cool
things going on out here in the mission. Sounds like everyone back home is doing
well, too. That is good to hear. I love seeing the pictures of the camping
trips and all that. I hope that everyone can stay safe out there!
So this week
we had something a little different happen. We had Mission Council this week.
Basically that is when all the zone leaders and the sister trainer leaders get
together and we council about things that are going on in the mission.
President Bowen addresses us, and the assistants to the president introduce us
to what we will be trained on this next coming month as a mission. It was a
really neat experience. We learned about something called the "Righteous
Routines". It is something that the brethren came out with a while ago. So
it's nothing new, but it's something that President Bowen feels like we need to
focus on. Which is basically that we center everything we do on our
investigators. A scripture I loved about it was D&C 11:21. Which tells us
to seek His word before we declare it. Then our tongues shall be loosed. It was
a good relation to the fact that we must study for our investigators before we
try to go out and teach them something. How can the spirit direct you to tell
them something that you don't already know? So it was a really good training on
how we must focus our personal, companion, and language study as well as our
planning and teaching on the investigators and their doubts. If we can do that,
then the spirit is able to guide us to their needs. They are edified and we are
edified and we can rejoice together as it says in section 50. So it was really
good. Then we had the privilege of teaching the training we received to the
zone. They really loved it and it really was something our zone needed to hear.
Funny, every mission council I've gone to or training we received I feel like
it directly goes with what we need. Spirit really does guide.
So we had an
interesting experience on Wednesday and Thursday. This man named Miguel came to
church a while ago. We thought he was an investigator of another companionship.
That didn't turn out to be the case. So we went and talked to him. Another
missionary recognized him from a different ward. I guess this man has been
trying to get money from the church to pay his rent and get him some food. I
guess he claims he had an accident at work and was on disability and trying to
go to court to get some money from the accident. He isn't a citizen. I guess he
thinks he is going to win the case and in order to win the case he can’t work
at all. So he just moved to our area and asked if he could talk to the bishop about
getting some help. He went to church and began to talk to the bishop about
getting help. I guess what it boils down to is that he really doesn't want to
work, but he wants money to pay for everything. The bishop went over to his
home to see what his conditions are like. The bishop said they only rented one
room out of an apartment. They have six kids. The dad is about 55 and the mom
is about 22.... yeah, not kidding. They are from Guatemala. The bishop saw what
was going on. He told us how he saw the kids and they really need help. So the
bishop is giving them material to be able to work and gain a living. So that
way they can live. They have six kids. It was so crazy to see. Sadly the dad is
a little lazy and is trying to get money out of us without doing anything on
his part. So our bishop is going to give them food for two weeks, and then help
them try to get back on their feet again. We went over to teach them about the
gospel. Neither he nor she was really receptive. We hope that we can help them
with the gospel. It was one of the craziest situations I have seen out here. I
hope we can get the gospel in their hearts and they can act on it. They'd be so
blessed if they did.
We had a cool
experience the other day too. We were walking to a member’s home from our car
after we parked it. We turned around and walked back to the car because we had
forgotten a Book of Mormon. Then a lady yelled at us and stopped us on the
street. She was a lady we had contacted on the street a while back. She was
wearing a back brace and two knee braces at the time. This time she wasn't. She
told us that we had healed her with our prayers we left her with. She couldn't
walk around or do anything for 7 years. Now she was twisting and twirling
around. She saw us and said. "If they come back I’m going to talk to
them." She says she wants to listen to us. We passed her to the English
missionaries we have in the area. It was awesome.
We are still
teaching Gilberto. He is progressing pretty well. We are hoping to get him to
church and get him a good friend in the church as well. We are also teaching a
part member family. It’s the husband of a wife who is a member of the church.
Missionaries have been teaching him for the longest of time now. He is super
Catholic. He was relating to us yesterday how he used to organized camps and
stuff like that when he was out in Guerrero, Mexico. He is a really nice guy
who has already read the Book of Mormon once completely. In fact, when his wife
doesn't understand a scripture he is usually able to interpret it really well.
So he's pretty cool. Hope to get him as well.
We are
continuing to see good things over here. I love it here and I know that the
church is true! Keep it up and I love you all so much.
Elder Dallin M. Ollerton
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