Week 18

Hey! I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Mine was pretty good, way different from at home but it was still good. This week was super slow, in terms of work I mean. We are told to proselyte as much as we can because everyone will be home which is true, but everyone just wants to be with their family.

Monday nothing really happened, dropped by our usual monday LA's and such.

Tuesday morning I woke up super sick which was no fun, we had d-meet then went to get some medicine. I slept a lot of the day so idk what E. Jennings did haha. WE still got to see a few people that night though.

Wednesday wasnt as bad. We had a few lessons with really promising investigators. Patrice has a son that became a member 10 years ago so she said she would come to our church for a full year starting January to see if it is right for her. She is already talking about how right it feels and who she would have baptize her so she wont need the whole year to figure it out. On an off note we saw an ice-cream truck out super late at night playing Christmas carol dubstep (super weird) and Santa was driving it! He waved to us haha.

Thursday we tried to contact a bunch of referrals we got but as per usual not a lot of people where home. We were able to stop by a few YSA's though which was good. We had Christmas eve dinner with the YSA branch counselor and his family. His son is less active and his daughter-in-law is investigating but the ward she is supposed to go to isnt very friendly so she goes to the YSA. We had a good time, they know how to talk haha. We were there for 3.5 hours talking (being talked to) about the Middle East current events haha.

Christmas! I want to start out by saying thanks to everyone who sent me stuff! We had a good time. 

Friday is weekly planning so we didn't feel as bad for staying in a little longer. We got to skype the fam which was cool. It was weird because it feels like I just saw them a few days before... but its been 4 months wtheck. We went and had dinner with our ward missionary leader and his family. They had Christmas movies playing so we low-key watched Christmas Story and Elf haha. ahhh we are so diso (disobedient for those unfamiliar with missionary lingo)

Saturday we were able to make up for not doing a lot on Christmas, we saw a lot of LA's in both wards which was nice, though I would rather teach investigators.

Sunday was pretty basic. We actually had an investigator show up at sacrament. It was weird because we kind of dropped him because he would always flake on appointments after we showed up. We are going to start meeting with him again though so we will see where it goes.

I hope everyone had/has a good week! 

Elder Ockey

Christmas Week

Its Christmas this week! Crazy, it seems like just a few days ago that I walked into the mtc in August! What the heck its so crazy.

Monday was a basic p-day, we set up a lesson at 1 for an investigator that we haven't seen in a long time so we ate out at mc-dees because we needed to eat fast and get there, then she called and cancelled so we ate McDonalds for no reason. sigh* I hate McDonalds.

Tuesday was cool I guess, I gave a training in d-meet about the BofM which was cool. We went to visit a LA that we meet with weekly then out of nowhere his girlfriend that we didnt know existed walks out of his house (we meet outside) and joined us for the lesson, so it was weird because we have never met or heard of her before. Really took us off guard, but hey, another person that we can invite to come unto Christ!

Wednesday we had exchanges, Elder Jennings became district leader this transfer so we do an exchange where we switch companions with every companionship in the district for a day. So wednesday Elder Bartlik came to our area with me, this is his last transfer and he is a really hard worker, but his favorite thing to do is tract which I dont find to be effective. Good thing we had our day chalked full of lessons, we got a lot of good preachin in so that was awesome.

Thursday was the Valley mission party (everyone not in the desert) which lasted 5 hours, it was cool but I imagine it will be a lot more awesome after I get moved around a bit and know more missionaries outside of our zone haha. We were able to meet witht he investigator that flaked on monday, Alejandra's mom was baptized a few years ago but never went to church so the spanish sisters are teaching her mom while we teach her. 

Friday we didnt get a lot of proselyting in because we had weekly planning, we invited Alejandra to a YSA party so we went with them to introduce her to everyone. Daisy was there as well, it was awesome to see how at the beginnig she was super shy and she pretty much ran the party activities on saturday. Shes more active than most of the members haha.

Saturday was another full day, we had to go get E. Jennings scriptures from the Tongan elders because they had them for some reason. E. Aso has a flashlight with a tazer on it so we ended up tazing ourselves haha. We practiced one more time for our singing as a zone that night, then we had to prep for Daisy's baptism which took a while, man those fonts fill up so slowly. Also funny story, we went out to eat some food and E. Jennings got a fortune cookie that said he would witness a miracle that day (Baptism!) We had a really good turnout as well. Most of the actives and a lot of less actives came which was awesome! Then after the baptism we went to go sing as a zone at this Christmas event they have on a main street, they had a bunch of professional choirs and stuff but we had the spirit haha. But it went fairly well.

Sunday was cool, YSA sacrament was full because of Daisy's confirmation, she is officially a member now! Thats so cool!

Anyway that was my week, I got a few pics as well.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Elder Ockey

1. me and the christmas tie and our tree (we have more stuff under it now)

2. at the baptism. Left to right. Eduardo (branch mission leader), E. Ockey, Daisy, Azhley (Daisy's friend), E. Jennings

3. exchange day! we found a concrete turtle in the middle of an apartment comlex

Week 16

Hey so kind of a normal week this week. Daisy is getting baptized next Saturday so that's awesome. We also found a few new promising investigators from referrals so we should be picking up the pace overall which is exciting.

Monday was you classic p-day. We went to costco again with the ZL's and we saw a ton of members again. One of them offered to buy our stuff but we kindly said no because we aren't really supposed to let them, but then when we were in line she walked in front of us and told the cashier that she was paying for us which is awesome. I love to see the kindness and charity of our members. It really is true how people can tell us apart by the way we act. She then offered to buy us lunch at costco but then there was a different member that told her that she got us covered for lunch so score x2! it was awesome. Also in the parking lot we saw a car with a license plate that said 'LDS Jedi Knight'"so we took a picture with it haha.

Tuesday was zone meeting which is a little longer than dmeet, E. Jennings and I had a training on ward councils and how we can try our hardest to make them effective but its up to the council members as to whether or not they are (because a lot of the time they get off topic). This particular zone meeting lasted 5 hours because a bunch of Tongan members showed up with a huge feast for us. It was awesome but then we had to practice singing. All the missionaries in the zone (stake) are singing at this big christmas event called "Christmas on Euclid" next saturday. Man next week is gonna be busy.

Wednesday was kind of crazy, we had no set lessons until later at night so we just tried by a bunch of less actives and such, we ended up at this house with an old Mexican grandma who could barely speak english. She gave us this awesome corn-hotchoclate-drink called pinole because she thought we were cold (it was 25 degrees) but she shared her conversion story and told us that we needed to help out her grandson because he is a less active YSA, so hopefully we can go back. As we were driving round we witnessed this crazy police takedown which was cool because it was totally out of the shows were they are all standing behind their car doors with their guns out and then they sent their dog in to take the guy down. Pretty sweet.

Thursday was pretty basic, the most noteworth thin is a member took us to a nice steakhouse which is the sort of situation where its like "Oh you dont have to.." but we really wanted to go because its good food. Anyway it was really good and we got to talk to her friend about missionary work and temples.

Friday was super basic, teaching people and spreading the good word. thats about it.

Saturday some Jehovahs witnesses knocked on our door during studies. I answered the door without my name-tag on (whoops) and they started to talk with me about the Jesus picture in out window and trying to teach me about all sorts of weird JW stuff, then E. Jennings walks up to the door with his name-tag on and they were like, 'Oh! your Mormons!'and they just put their pamphlets away haha. We actually ended up trading one of our Christmas pass-along cards for one of their magazines. There is some super wierd stuff in their haha.

We actually had another run in with police when we were contacting a referral they knocked on their door and questioned the guy's son. Super awesome because they obviously had some contact with missionaries because they called us 'Elders' and said they trusted us and such it was cool. As we were leaving one of them said, 

"You could go anywhere in the world, Germany, Italy, France.... and you came to Montclair."

"You poor souls" 

probably one of the funniest encounters I have had so far on my mission. 

Sunday was super basic as well.

Overall a fun week with a few boring days but, oh well.

Hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Ockey

People in the picture from top to bottom:

E. Wiginton

E. Ockey

E. Robbins 

Week 15

So this was the first week of transfer three, as of this transfer I am the comp that Elder Jennings will ever be with for more than 2 transfers (he only has 2 left after this one. It was a pretty slow week so this may not be super entertaining but here goes.

Monday was basic p-day, we went to Costco and saw a tonne of members there which was cool. Nothing really happened, p-day activities and YSA fhe.

Tuesday we had a lesson cancel on us so we had extra time for dinner with a member who we never get to see, he took us to get vietnamese food and I am pretty sure we left the mission boundaries... whoops. anyway we ended up stuck in traffic and we were 40 minutes late for our lesson with Daisy but she said it was okay, our branch mission leader Eduardo was there and they just talked about baptism and stuff until we got there, btw she changed her date to December 19th which is awesome!

Wednesday we had service and then we went to look up referals on the computers in our apt complex when they closed the office because of the shooting in San Bernadino (its like 30-50 minutes away) and we were told by the ZL's to stay inside unless we have set appointments so we watched Joseph the King of Dreams or whatever its called. Pretty much the worst soundtrack to a movie ever but at least it isnt the District tv show haha.

Thursday we didn't have any appointments really so we tried to contact lost LA's and ended up trying to help some random dude with his car, long story short he is crazy, I honestly dont even know how I would put it into words but he pretty much explained LDS missionary work to us and then asked us if we were JW's soooooo, yea.

Friday was weekly planning so its always a drag, but we got to teach a LA who is really struggling with understanding doctrine, its gonna be a struggle to help them out. Their first language is spanish but they cant read spanish, and their second language is english and they can barely read english, so we are really trying to teach simply. Its a great learning opportunity for us though, I guess.

Saturday was pretty basic apart from the fact that we had brekkie with Santa! but yea there was a ward party in the morning and we went because #freefood also there was a lot of LA's that we were able to see which was nice.

Sunday was another basic YSA awkward testimony Sunday, I don't even want to talk about it haha. But we were able to watch the Christmas devotional and then we had dinner at the Chase's house with the whole branch which was cool.

That's pretty much my week.

Give my love to the Bishops.

Love you guys!

Elder Ockey

Week 14

Transfers today! I am staying same area same comp which is cool. The YSA is fun but also a struggle, low numbers and super needy but we make it happen.

Our address is:

910 W Phillips St

Apt #179

Ontario California

91762

How do they say it? Charity is the pure love of Christ? haha

This week was supposed to be good but it ended up being a little sub-par.

Last monday was pretty normal, week 6 pday you dont really buy anything because you may get transfers so we just played b-ball at the church pretty much all day. When we got back we found out a uhaul destroyed a carport in front of our apt, classic california drivers. I guess I'll use this as an opportunity to describe some things I have seen drivers do here for the past 3 months. 1. Drive through a stop sign with hazard lights on (I guess that makes it okay?) 2. At a light, be in the left turning lane, but go straight and cut off everyone else. 3. Buy a dumpy civic or similar car, slam it to the ground, install super loud muffler. Do nothin else so your car is super loud but super slow. 4. Join the 89% and by a mustang, literally we see 50 mustangs a day, I used to count. But yea, California.

Tuesday was basic d-meet day except Pres. Hobbs came to another districts meeting and was talking with everyone. Once he left you could see the relief on everyones face haha, kind of nerve racking like he is gonna call someone out for something. We tried to contact a bunch of refereals through knocking and also calling, they each answered but then hang up right away when we said missionaries #thestruggleisreal

Food bank wednesday! Doing service is always nice, we get to help out all these people, but at the same time it amazes me. All these people are begging for food and getting it for free but they complain when they get something they dont want, and then they just throw it in the trash. Honestly I lose a bunch of faith in humanity every food bank day. E. Hatch (one of our ward mates) accidently cut open a can of cranberry juice and it sprayed is white shirt, so now its all pink. We also had a lesson with Eunice and all her crazy little kids, we were really looking forward to it because we didnt meet her last week. She cancelled last minute though. :(

Turkey day! We had a ward turkey bowl in the morning but it ended up missionaries outnumbering ward members but we still had a lot of fun. Also a non-member from a part  member fam showed up which was awesome! WE only had one dinner which I am thankfull for, the tongan elders had 3 in 3 hours haha. We ended up staying at dinner a lot longer than we planned. We are encouraged to proselyte on thanksgiving but from the few people we tried and from E. Jennings experience it seems like although most people are home, they would rather spend time with their fams than listen to us preach. 

Friday we got to meet with Jason, who we havent seen in a long time. Turns out he got anti-ed super hard, he had notes and notes on how Joseph smith made the church to get rich and he stole from people and killed a bunch of people at Carthage jail. Wtheck Jason you showed so much promise! This got us worried because we had rescheduled with Eunice and her kids for friday but when we walked up to the door we saw the lights turn off and no-body answered. Hopefully we can get in this week, they are such a cool fam.

We had a Tongan member recently move into Ontario with his family who just got back from his mission in Samoa. Anyway he signed up for dinner Friday and said he would drop us off food. we were just expecting some sandwiches or something but then he drops off this huge feast which was awesome! Shout-out to Ean even though he doesn't know this exists, your the coolest!

Saturday we were supposed to do exchanges with the tongan elders because E. Aso's comp doesnt like seafood and my comp doesnt like seafood and we both really wanted seafood. Sadly that didnt end up happening. This transfer though for sure... maybe haha. We said goodbye to Jorge (the investigator I taught my very first lesson to... in spanish) because he was going back to Mexico that night. Other than that we saw a few investorgators and tried by Eunice again, same thing. I hope she wasnt anti-ed.

Sunday was your basic YSA sacrament, because we had so many people last week obviously we only had like 8 people this week. dang, just come to church you lazy people!

Tell the Remingtons and everyone else I miss those awesome thanksgivings.

Anyway, all is good here, staying another month and a bit. Crazy how fast this is going.

Elder Ockey

Week 13

Ah transfer calls this saturday! This is going by so fast I can't believe it.  It seems like only a week ago that we got the last ones, this is going crazy fast for me. I kinda hope that I get transfered, even though there are some really good people here it gets old with the same people not putting effort into changing. 

So after emailing monday and zone activity a bunch of us tried (or in my case, re-tried) the gallon challenge, I didnt get as far as before because I ate a bunch of oatmeal during the activity which ended up giving it a nice consistency in the church planters haha, gross.

Tuesday was our district meeting but P. Hobbs came at the end to show us the new church Christmas video that is getting released on the 29th, hooray for missionary privileged. Its a really cool video and will be super helpful. Anyway he ended up being about 45 minutes late so I tried to get the zone singing Christmas carols but they all complained because it wasn't even thanksgiving yet, they eventually succumbed to my charm and sang along though haha.

Wednesday was super slow, we went to the food bank again and on our way home one of our appointments cancelled which is always a bummer but we had time to meet with a lot of YSA less-actives which is good.

Thursday was the start of a crazy end of a week. First we helped a member of the high council move and the fed us lunch (free lunch? check) and we were running late to meet a LA from the family ward who lives right next to a referral who we have been trying to contact. As we were walking up to the LA's house the referral, whos name is Chiquita (or 'little girl' in Spanish, weird) was in her driveway. We talked to her and said we would stop by after we met with our LA. So we meet with him and end up taking him and his little daughter to teach Chiquita. Now Lance (the LA) is a super cool guy and his little girl has a learning disability so she can't talk really well and is usually all over the place. Once we got inside Chiquitas house Lance started stroking his daughters hair to keep her calm because it was pretty creepy in there, we were teaching by the light of her tv alone. Anyway the tv says that it will turn of due to inactivity but Chiquita doesn't see it say that, and as soon as it turns off she flips out and tells Lance to leave. It turns out she thought he hypnotized his daughter into turning the tv off using demons. And that's only one thing that made her appear super whack. Anyway, long story short we aren't going back haha.

Friday pretty basic in the morning with weekly planning and meeting a few YSA's here and there. We got to go back to the snack shack that night though which was awesome again! some other elders got one of the workers super interested. The funniest thing happened when we were leaving though, one of the security guards who opened the gate for us asked what 3 things where in the ark of the covenant. We got the stone tablets and the rod of Aaron but we couldn't remember the last thing.So the security guard gives us a hint of, "a jar of...?" and Elder Aso (this silly ole' Tongan Elder) shouts "Pickles!" Needless to say we all broke out laughing and offered him a BofM. And the answer is a jar of manna if you were wondering.

Saturday was full of meetings which is cool and tiring at the same time, we are able to really coordinate our efforts but it also drains your energy for the day. We had two meetings with the family ward and one with the YSA branch, which I like more because its more personal because there are less people. We met at the Pres. Chase's house and ended up talking about the temple, eventually the topic of those wierd temple recommend covers with pictures of the temple. E. Jennings showed his from Palmyra which as a hidden First Vision painted into the trees. Pres. CHase then sarcastically takes his from the Redlands temple and starts going off jokingly, "ohh man there are angels all around the temple and hidden pictures.." then he just pauses and shouts 'Ahhhhh! Joseph Smith! First Vision!' Turns out there was a hidden first vision in the Redlands temple picture as well. Probably a lot funnier if you know Pres Chase but it made my week haha.

Sunday was the usuall, apart from the fact that we had, like, 60 peeps at YSA sacrament meeting instead of the usual 20. It was super awesome, lots of LA's and RC's. Even more amazing is most of them stayed longer than sacrament meeting! A really good Sunday overall.

The tongan fam that we have been meeting with has a little girl a few months older than Sarafina and they kept offering me to hold her yesterday, such a struggle she is so cute. but we cant :'( 

Anyway, that was my week. I guess we will see if I am staying or going next week.

Later Fam! ilu all!

Elder Ockey

Week 12

SO this week seemed super long when it was happening but now that it is over looking back it went by in a breeze. Super weird the way time flows on the miss.

Anyway, Monday night we had FHE with the YSA branch which is always interesting, we had an investigator there who has a baptismal date but its set for January (I think I already said this) but she made a super spiritual comment on something I cant remember but then it got all silent and then one sister from the ward just shouts "Gurl we need to dunk you already!" it was super funny/awkward but it was all good. 

Tuesday was zone meeting so that took up most of the day, it was pretty fun though because one of the trainings was a competition that I don't want to get into details about because it was super missionary-y and complicated but obvi our team won because my trainer E. Jennings knows his scriptures like the back of his freakishly small hand.

Wednesday was awesome at first because we went to the food bank again. Its gotten to the point where all the missionaries just walk out with bags of food because they force it upon us, I guess a ton of it goes bad so all the volunteers take a bunch home. It's super convenient because we get all this canned fruit, oh which reminds me, E. Jennings taught me this sick trick where you eat all the fruit then you freeze the juice in a bowl and eat it with a spoon and its like this peach juice popsicle thing. Super good. Later on Wednesday though we had a lesson with Joyce again because her baptism was set up for this upcoming Saturday (the 21st) and we only had one lesson left. Then she drops this bombshell were her dad wont let her get baptized so that kinda sucks. We haven't seen her since and are trying to meet with the whole fam to see whats up.

Thursday was super slow, we just knocked LA doors until we were able to meet with the Gonzalez fam. They are the ones with 6 kids under 11 years old. Anyway we had a super good lesson and the mom said she feels calm and has noticed a change in the kids since we started teaching them but they still haven't come to church... #thestruggleisreal

Friday is supposed to be our weekly planning day but we actually ended up doing 7 hours of service and getting fed a ton of food. In the morning we helped brother Christensen with his patio some more and he fed us lunch. We were eating out when the Paris attacks happened which was super crazy. 

In between lunch and our next service project we only had time to meet with one person so proselyting-wise we thought it would be a bad day. Our service at night was we ran a snack shack at a high-school football game because the people who ran it were pretty much all LDS. But we ended up talking to a bunch of people about the church and some other elders got a few potentials from that night.

Saturday was cool because we have a referral we were trying to contact for a while and she actually ended up contacting us which is unheard of so that was cool, we will hopefully see her this week. We also got to meet with a YSA eternigator who keeps making the excuse of school to not see us (we all know that he doesn't actually have that much work) but he is super stubborn and skeptical about everything. Hopefully we can make some progress.

Sunday was cool because we had an experience with one of our main focus investigators. Daisy (the investigator who came to FHE) set the date back way far because her dad doesn't know she is taking the lessons and she is scared he wouldn't like it (her mom knows) but then this Sunday her dad asked her if she was going to a different church and planned to get baptized and he was ok with it which was cool! but then it ended up her mom didn't want her to be baptized so that was a weird flip-flop situation. It was cool (apart from the mother) because it was an answer to a fast that we all had included on fast Sunday. A senior couple in the family ward had their farewell yesterday, they are going to be welfare missionaries in Texas, canning peanut butter, which is kinda weird but also super cool. They were super nice to us though and always cracked jokes in ward council about how much everyone got off topic.

Its crazy that its pretty much been 3 months already, only one more p-day this transfer!

Its gone by crazy fast for me so far, already 3 months out? it seems like maybe 3 weeks ago you guys dropped me off. I think its because we are constantly working, when we have not-so-busy days its definetly slow. I hope I get transfered, low-key I want some adventure and I want to bike, but the YSA is also fun and all the YSA missionaries need cars so its kind of a double edged sword thing.

Dang I miss all of the friends and fam from calgary. Also the snow, its definitely feeling better here but I really need to see some snow.  

I love all you guys, have a good week!

Elder Ockey

Week 11

I'll jump right into this week because I am running out of ideas for introductions!

Monday after we emailed we went to the chiropractor who is a counselor in the YSA ward. E. Jennings has had back pain for a while so he got his back all cracked and such and his neck as well. Then Bro Francis (the chiropractor) asked me if I wanted to have it done so I figured why not. IT was super weird, there was one point where it felt like he was gonna snap my neck but it just made a really loud pop. It felt soooo good after though. 

Tuesday we met a LA family for lunch in hopes of teaching them an FHE lesson as well but it ended up just being a meal so that was funny. But they are the ones with the little kid named Bup and he was all over the place crazy it was hilarious. There was one point where he stole my sunglasses and said they made everything look green, his dad was all like, "you color blind aint nothing green!" haha classic. We taught the second last lesson to an investigator that day as well, her baptism date is for the 21st so that good.

Wednesday was pretty basic teaching wise, we visited a lot of LA's in the family ward. On our way to one address a chihuahua ran out into the road and we heard the owner scream super loud (we had our windows open) and we just burst out laughing. I promise the dog is okay though.

Our Thursday was crazy busy, we met with pretty much every single one of our progressing investigators so we had continuous lessons from 2:30 until 8:00 so we were super hungry afterward. President Chase, who is the president of the YSA branch, is the best flippin missionary I've met. He came with us to our 7-8 lesson and pretty much taught the whole thing. He pulls people aside every time we bring them to church (less active or investigator) and puts them on the spot its awesome.

Friday was super uneventful because of weekly planning, but we were able to meet with a few more people than we usually do on Fridays, nothing super exciting happened though.

Saturday was probably the worse day we have had so far. At least in the morning/afternoon because we had service (that part wasn't bad) helping a family move, and they actually had everything boxed up! #blessed. but then we had to try to rush to organize a ride to get an investigator to a baptism so they could see what they are like because the ride wee had cancelled. Long story short we spent3 hours calling and stopping at peoples housees begging for rides and we never got one. We ended up just showing her a video on baptism at her house instead... sigh... But the late evening/night was awesome! first of all we had a different investigator attend a different baptism, and on out way into the building we saw a meteor that qwas crazy bright white light that exploded into a green haze which was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. And then the baptism was awesome but it was in spanish so I didnt understand any of it and the font was filled up to high so water spilled everywhere. Our investigator loved it though and they committed to a baptismal date! but its in January... we are gonna work on that tomorrow.

Sunday was basic, every sunday is fast sunday for us because we go there at 8 and we get out around 4, but then we have a dinner at 5 so we go another hour without eating. the struggle is real. For priesthood though we had a branch counselor teach (not Bro Francis) but he was kinda crazy like, "buy food storage with cash so the government cant trace it," and, "THe US government is building concentration camps." Super weird, I think the lesson was supposed to be on the word of wisdom. We all got a good laugh in though which was nice.

Elder Ockey

Week 10

So jumping right into  things I was looking back on my emails and they are super jumbly so I decided to make a new years resolution to organize them better, then I thought 'New Years is super far away.' So its a daylight savings resolution haha.

So Mondays are pretty basic, we always go to the stake center with the ZL's to play some games but usually no one else comes unless its a zone activity but pretty much everyone was there this time. We had dinner at one of the YSA branch counselors homes, apparently one of their cousins is in a bunch of videos on mormon.org <http://mormon.org>  but I didn't really catch which ones because I was half asleep

Tuesday is when we have district meeting and I gave a training on referrals from church headquarters. I know being a missionary we are supposed to be humble but I killed it #NotReallyButKinda. We were able to meet with a YSA aged person who we aren't sure if they are an investigator or really lost Less-Active, like so lost that they don't even remember if they were baptized. But it was hilarious because when we went to leave she tried to hug E. Jennings and he totally rejected it by accident and gave her a handshake, he couldn't stop thinking about it all day. We had FHE that night with a Tongan family in the ward, they have a bunch of boys (the oldest is probably 10) and one baby girl. All the boys bore thier testimonies which was so funny. But whenever they sang a song the youngest who is probably 2 would say a prayer it was super funny, also his name is Bup sooo extra awesome.

Wednesday was super slow and not a lot happened but we were going to contact a LA YSA and we saw this yard decked out for Halloween so we looped back and took a pic.

Thursday we didn't get out of the house till super late because we kept getting calls and text or we were texting and calling about dropped appointments or organizing for a member to come to our lesson. It was all good though because we got to meet with the Gonzalez fam (the ones with 8 children all super young and rowdy). The mom told us about how she took them to a bunch of different churches trying to find one that was good for them and they were at one of those meetings were people shout in 'tongues' and fall on the ground and are shouting and just super weird haha (I totally want to go to one just to see what it is like). She said all of her kids were crying they were so scared. But one a super awesome note she said as we were leaving that she felt really good and hopeful for our church, mostly because her kids actually calmed down and listened a little into the lesson.

Fridays are our days to weekly plan so we didn't really get anything done at all which sucks but we got next week planned down nice and good.

On Halloween we met with Joyce (the fishy house smelly person) and set another baptism date (we have to keep pushing it back because she wont come to church!) but we are feeling good about it. We also went to a pass-off lesson with some other elders who found someone for our YSA branch but the investigator didn't show up which sucked because it was a 30 minute drive for us soooo, yea. Then, because it was Halloween we couldn't proselyte after 6 so we just went to the church and played b-ball with the ZL's all night and then watched the testaments... man that movie is so badly made.

But yea. then Sundays are super basic unless something surprising happens which didn't happen this week but oh well. 

PCE fam!

E. Ockey

Week 9

So this week was kind of slow and some weird things (as well as some cool things) happened. I guess starting with the cool, we got a bible referral and went to contact them, we had to try 3 or 4 times because nobody was home, then around 5 one night about 7 kids answered the door (all under 12) and were all super excited to see the bible. It turns out that the two oldest girls (11 and 7!) out of this family of 8 wanted to come closer to Christ. Crazy family though its hilarious, the two youngest are 5 year old twins who are just running around all over the place screamin haha. Their father isnt around so we are going to end up teaching the mom at first then hopefully get the kids involved if they can sit still for more than 3 seconds lol.

Saturday around two we visited an investigator from Ghana who is nearing the end of the discussions, but her family was cooking some really strong funky smelling fish, so after teaching the lesson we get into the car and realize that we smell super strongly of fish haha, so we go home and we had to wash all of our clothes and shower, then we got back into the car and it reeked! so we ended up trying to de-fish-smell all of our belongings until the ward halloween party that night, which was good because we got fed haha.

Honestly the biggest thing I got from mom's email (other than the zat's) was the food, all we get is pizza and store bought mexican! Its killing me, also my comp only likes cheeseburgers with only bun and meat so he wants to eat out alot. ew. 

I got a random package from the lds store with a pic of calgary temple was that you guys? its pretty sweet but idk were to hang it because I dont want to put a tack in it. 

Also I wrote down a bunch of artists and such I would like on my mp3 most of them are super boring.

Playlist:

Christmas (because im going to listen to christmas music year round and think about snow and cry)

-christmas music/hymns

-Last christmas by WHam please oh please I need that song

-trans siberian orchestra 

Motab

-pretty much everything motab just because maybe Ill eventualy be more obedient

Thats pretty much all that happened this week worth mentioning but I can attach pics now so I will describe those with a sentence or two. Most of them are from in the mtc because we dont really have the opportunity to take pics while in the car.

1. a picture of me and my mtc comp in front of a pic of missionaries who served in our mission in 1974

2. class at the mtc is super boring

3. Haha so this will sound weird but we had a bunch of spare time one day so we did a 'photo shoot' all the photos of me are on his camera though soooo

4. so now we are in cali and I was about to pick some of these cactus pears because they are so tasty and we saw this ole feller right before I stuck my hand in his house

5. Me and my trainer during weekly planning

6. Temple Trip! E. Dreher and E Nwobi and I were stuck in the back haha

Week 8

Ive been out for almost two months now, thats kind of crazy, 1/12ish of the way done! 

Transfer calls were on saturday, most of our zone is staying the same, my comp and I are staying in the family ward/YSA branch. This is the first time my comp has stayed somewhere for more than two transfers so I broke his 'curse' haha. 

I forgot my planner with all the wierd/awesome stuff that happened this week so its all gonna be a jumble and I'll probably miss a lot but I will try my best to get it all. First of all the only music we have is an efy cd that the sisters before us left in the apt so its all music about building confidence and wierd stuff like that, its awful but its all we have so we go all out singing it in wierd voices and such. This ended up being sort of awkward because I felt like having the window down after visiting an investigator and when we were singing we looked over and she was just looking at us laughing at the stop light, soooooo, super awkward. 

The temp has been sort of mild, only in the high twenties recently, but its supposed to cool down. I keep dropping hints in my letters to the President about seeing snow for Christmas haha. This week we sort of hit a wall, we ended up looking for an ice-cream truck for a full hour because it was so hot haha. Also instead of weekly planning we ground up a bunch of herbal sleeping pills and put it in cookies and fed them to our ward mates haha, we are super apostate. But then we saw this huge beetle on our prch which ended up being dead, but it was nasty huge like bigger than my thumb, not including the legs, so we incased it in jello and gave it to the ZL who was leaving as a memento to remember us. Wow as I write this down I realize how little missionary work we did that day, oh well. 

This week is super packed and promising so we are going to make up for that day of doing nothing. 

Yea thats about it that I can remember, I'll include more in next week I promise.

Elder Ockey

Week 7

Im gonna miss Canadian thanksgiving and the big american thanksgiving at the remingtons :(

I miss/love all of you guys!

So I dont have a whole tonne to email about since I just emailed last Wednesday. 

Maryn if youre cold when running cross country you just gotta run harder! I remember when we had cross country in school the harder you ran you either got warm or were to tired to feel cold!

Tell Jackson that he cant cut his hair till I get back that would be siiiick, then I get to shave it all off.

Yesterday E. Jennings and I and our ward mates E. Hirst and Nwobi were invited Christian's for some sort of Halloween/autumn party dealio, so that was sort of my Canadian Thanksgiving meal :). They had all of their kids and grandkids there so it was crazy haha. One of the grandkids really wants to move to Canada and was totally slamming Cali it was hilarious so I kept egging him on. Also Bro Christianson got some more spiders, he has a tonne of black widows its low-key sketchy. They are just chillin on the table. Also he said next time we go over for service we can hold his tarantula! Hopefully I will be able to upload pics by then and you guys can all see me flippin out haha.

A few days ago we were walking up to this door to contact a referral (who ended up not being there) but as we were walking along the sidewalk this homeless looking dude ran across the street to shake our hands and shouted "Hey! Happy Mormon Day!" haha its crazy all the people here.

We have this one less active that we visit on a weekly basis by his request. Its awesome because the last few weeks when we go its total role reversal and hes all like "I was reading in Matthew about hte end of days, would you like to read this verse?" and he has this notebook full of scriptures and stuff and he just ends up going into deep doctrine discussions it a good time.

We had invited an investigator to attend a baptism that the ZL's were having so that she could know what to expect (we are still trying to set a solid date with her) but she ended up flaking last second. This ended up being a good thing because the font was suuuuper low, like only knee deep and the person they were trying to baptize just fell backward instead of doing the chair squat so they had to try like 9 times before they got it to work. It was painful to watch haha.

Anyway transfer calls are this week and usually trainees and trainers arent split up but our mission has been getting more people the last few transfers than usual so they end up splitting up alot. I guess we will see what happens but I think that we will both end up staying together for another transfer.

Peace Fam ;)

Week 6

I actually remember most of what happened this week because I wrote it down!

We did some service earlier last week for brother Christianson, we were laying down a bunch of concrete blocks in his backyard. It was super hot but its good to get out of a white shirt and put on some shorts and a t-shirt. But the crazy thing is he offered us some water so we go inside and his counter is just fulled with jars filled with bugs. Straight up was kinda scary, he had some praying mantis' which we have seen around our apt as well, but he also had a bunch of black widows and brown widows. He told us that the pain from a bite is so intense that most people want to die soooo... Pretty much since then I check under my bed for spiders now because they are super common here.

We contacted a referral last Friday (with whom we have a return appointment today) but his son was watching Jurassic Park 2 during our lesson so I pretty much watched that whenever I wasn't talking haha it was the part when the big group of people show up on the island near the beginning. Man the struggle is real, we watch the district for entertainment :(

We volunteer at the food bank every week as well but this time was kind of different because we were there for 4 hours instead of 2, it was super busy and we restocked this fridge with apples and pears and that they said would go bad before they could give them all away so they told us to take some food with us, literally pushing it into our hands, and that's the short and simple story of how we stole food from a food bank.

On Sunday night we met with an investigator who struggles with smoking and we brought a member along named Bro Ledesma who is this super chill old dude. They started talking about working and how much things cost when they were younger, he then said that his got his first job when he was 25 after he was married because, 'no money no honey.' 

Our p-day is today this week because we went to the temple today, its outside of our mission which is kind of annoying because then we cant go as often but it was still sweet. I don't understand why they make us take p-day when we go to the temple because when you get out you can feel the spirit so strongly it would be awesome to teach but we aren't supposed to. 

We had exchanges on Monday which was kind of nice because my comp had started to get on my nerves a bit, I went with our DL Elder Nwobi, lets just say after 24 hours I was more than happy to be back with my assigned companion.

Love Elder Ockey

Slow Week 5

Wassup!

SO this week went by kinda slow and not a tonne happened so I guess I can share some things from previous weeks that I forgot to write about. The first week when my very first lesson was in Spanish we taught at the library and when we left someone asked us to jump his car so we went over to help him and he started it by doing something with the batter in the hood while all the doors were closed. So we are pretty sure we helped someone steal a car...... yea. This week we were approached by a black lady when we were walking to an appointment and she started asking us questions and telling us stuff like, 'why Mormon missionaries never knock on black peoples doors.' and 'The founder of our church also is the creator of Readers Digest.' It was funny and we were able to clear some stuff up and we are going to meet with her later this week. We stole more guava from a different tree this time. Its crazy all the fruit trees that arent on anyones property, we also got grapefruit and some oranges but are waiting a few days form them to get more ripe before we get more. So for the most part people have forgotten about our dinner until last minute so we usually get pizza or this mexican food called Juan Pollo but yesterday we had this great meal with this family, like shirmp and steak :) also my comp hates seafood so like wtheck. But the dad went to Korea on his mission and married a Korean, and their kids were there who are like 30's. But they just roasted each other all night it was hilarious. I would attempt to explain it but it would be lengthy and probably wouldn't make much sense. We had 3 investigators come to church which ended a 15 week dry spell for this area apparently, but because we cover two wards it was super hectic. Sorry guys it was kind of a slow week and not much happened. We watch the district for fun of that is any indicator of missionary life. *sigh*

Maryn thats sweet that you are doing cross country! we usually just sleep through our workout time because its only 30 min but sometimes we run. It gets super hot during the day though so we walk/run as little as possible when its not morning. I still dont have my bike but I think the ZL's will bring it to the zone activity later today. Our ZL's are awesome and we do zone activity every other Pday when you are only supposed to do it once per transfer. 

I didn't know mark walker was engaged? or maybe I did I cant really remember. Oh I found out that guy from Calgary in our ward is Steve Merril and he lived in Priddis and went to foothills stake so maybe you know him.

Week 4

What up fam and friends? 

This week went by kinda fast but so much stuff happened and I remembered to write it down so get ready to have your minds blown! I guess I'll start with our apostate activity... SO we share the Rancho Park ward with another companionship who lives in the same apt complex as us and one day when we parked our car (we were giving them a ride home from something) we noticed this Guava tree hanging over the fence of our complex and so we boosted up Elder Hirst from the other companionship because he is super short and he picked a bunch. We blended them up and were expecting to have some sort of guava juice that some members had made for us earlier but we just ended up with this nasty flavorless soup stuff, but guava are like 1.75$ here and we picked like 10, but it was just like an empty trailer park thing that the tree was growing in so it wasn't that bad. 

I met my first crazy person this week! He used to have a baptism date earlier this year but his brothers whispered weird beliefs in his ear and he reads weird things online. I wrote down a few things after we left so I wouldn't forget. First of all he has been reincarnated multiple times, he was the original eve and then he was Mary Magdalene, he remembers crying when Jesus was crucified. Then He was an Egyptian shape-shifting deity named Isis. Also Hitler was the Jesus for Catholics. But he believes that Heavenly Father is his spiritual father, but also some sort of Greek Goddess is his spiritual mother. Yea, kinda crazy. I didn't say a lot the whole lesson I was so confused haha.

Saturday night we had a dinner appointment with a YSA member Anthony Vasquez who took us to a taco place and bought one of every meat type. it was super cool, there was brain, tongue, stomach, throat and something else along with he normal chicken and prok and such. He wouldn't tell us which was which until we tried it so I just went for it, apparently stomach or intestine is pretty good. The throat was super greasy and chewy and was my least favorite. The Brain was like eating air it was so weird/awesome. But he took a pic and posted it on his insta account. (anthony.ldsdude89 if you want to see it)

I gave a talk yesterday in the YSA branch, there was like 20 people there and it was on charity. Everyone told me it went well but I was just psyched because I actually took up all the time I was allotted and didn't go super short lol.

Ive been sick all week, just a sore throat and a cough but it sucks because every morning a cough up a tonne of nasty grey mucus haha tmi I know but I'll share what I wish.

That pretty much my week, love you all.

Elder Ockey

First Week

So this week was crazy, flew in on Monday and spent the night at the AP's and most of Tuesday at the mission office. My trainer is Elder Jennings and we are in the Ontario area (which is in the valley), we cover a YSA branch and a family ward so we have dinner pretty much every night. Also the mission is kind of split into two areas, the desert and the valley. The desert is super hot and dry and the valley is super hot and wayyyy humid so its kind of unbearable. Our area is really big and since we cover two wards we pretty much drive everywhere, which is good because I would die biking here, and plus they haven't given me my bike yet anyway. 

On Tuesday we had a lesson pretty much right after we were paired off, and my first lesson as an English-speaking missionary was all in Spanish haha. It was honestly the most weird thing ever, we had a YSA ward mission leader Eduardo with us because we cant speak any Spanish but it was so awesome. Jorge (the guy we/Eduardo taught) speaks a little bit of English, and they had been teaching him for a while before I got here. But after we taught Jorge on Tuesday we went to the Cortes' which is a less active family in this totally sketch area, apparently just a few days before we went someone was shot across the street soooo, yea, can you guess what kind of area I'm in yet? Super ghetto houses/apartments, pretty sketchy walking around some areas at night (are you scared for me yet mom?). Our apt is pretty nice though, the A/C actually works! that's a rare thing here apparently, its so dang hot. 

On Friday we had a zone conference and Elder Falabella? of the 70 came to talk to us. It was a good talk about inviting whole families to lessons instead of just single investigators. There was a lot more than that but I cant remember most of it. We expected it to only go until 1 but it went until 4 so we had to reschedule a bunch of appointments we had. Also at Jorge's baptism it was super funny because we told a few people to bring light refreshments like finger food but everyone brought a full meal which was hilarious and turned out great because that was the one day we didn't have a dinner appointment.

This week has been such a blur. We mostly visited LARC's (less active/recent converts) this week because we also had to plan Jorge's baptism for Saturday. We spent literally all day Sunday at church because we cover two wards, we head over at 9 and don't get home till like 4 or 5 which honestly doesn't seem that long when I typed it out but I almost/I did fall asleep like 5 times every hour. Luckily no body called me out haha. 

There is a member in the Rancho Park ward from Calgary though, Brother Merryl? (I think his first name is Steve?) but he said he recognized my last name. also there are like 3 other missionaries from Calgary or Alberta here but I did't recognize their names. Last night we visited Jorge's house, he lives with his member aunt and uncle from the Rancho ward, and his sister is visiting from Mexico so she said she would be interested in listening in on the lessons, but she speaks even less English and Jorge, so the Spanish Elders are annoyed with us because all these Spanish speaking investigator want to be taught by us haha. But yea first week, I feel like I had more to write but I forgot it all so I should probably start writing it down. 

Love Elder Ockey

Arrival

So we are just supposed to email saying that we made it safe yesterday. My MTC comp is the one sitting on the floor beneath me in the yellow tie. Our P-days are on Monday so a week till you get a real email I guess. Its so hot here, even at night. There was 7 of us sleeping on the floor of the ap's apt last night which was much more comfortable than the MTC beds haha. love you guys!