Week 39

Well, today is transfer Monday and I am staying in the Samoan ward! I get to kill Elder Boltz in 6 weeks haha. Its good though, he is a hard worker and he isnt trunky. Though we tease him a lot.

Monday we had our zone BBQ which actually went really well for how little planning went in. Granted someone did have to run to the store and buy charcoal but it all worked out. It was a lot of fun. We taught a lesson to the Samasoni family with our elders quorum president which went really well.

Tuesday was district meeting which was basic, ya know. But afterwards we went to the doctor because my toe was all ingrown and nasty. I had one earlier in my mission but I fixed it with home remedies but this one didnt work out. 

Wednesday Elder Ward came to our area. (I served with elder Ward in Ontario as well) and we had a good day, taught a lot of people in Ghettolanto. Finished it off with the first of many grad parties to come. (so many parties😧) They just force all this food upon you its a struggggllllleeee but its awesome! 

Thursday and Friday were not so good,although we were invited to more partays! However, we had a lot of appointments fall through. Oh, and we were still 6ish away from our 100 lesson goal for the transfer. Oh! Elder Loveless found some nasty short-shorts at this homeless shelter we do service at and he put them on when we got home #nast (it is up to my family's discretion as to whether or not they include the picture)

Saturday we got enough lessons to be at 98/100, nothing out of the ordinary or that can be explained in less than 3 paragraphs haha #SamoanDrama

Sunday we got our last two lessons in to reach our goal #score #allIdoiswin #allIdoisteach

Sorry, not a whole lot more happened but I get to spend another 6 weeks in Samoan/Adelanto ward #blessed

get ready for some nasty toe pics! (sorry fam thats all I got)

pcenluv

Elder Ockey

Week 38

Heyoo! 

This week was good, it was hecka hot out here in the desert. IDK how hot it got but everyone was telling me it is still gonna get hotter. #desertprobs

Shout-out to my father, his birthday is today!🎊🎉🎂🎉🎊

Happy Birthday Dad!  Get him something nice for me haha

Monday was cool, we went to teach an FHE lesson at the Savea's (we skyped from there) they have a family living with them who are preachers for AoG so we had an inter-faith FHE lesson. It went a lot smoother than we expected. We are hopefully gonna get a weekly thing going on there.

Tuesday was zone meeting. It was good until we got the bombshell that the Nonu fam moved down the hill. Its a bummer but the fam they were living with still wants us to visit. Technically they are in the Tongan ward but hey, you cant refuse polys lol.

Wednesday was super hot. It was crayyyyy. TBH it was probs only 30 Celsius but I was dying! We taught Patricia Payne. Long story for an inside joke coming up. Everyone in the Samoan ward watches WWE and we thought Patricia Payne would be a good name for someone in WWE haha. 

Thursday we had a killer day set up but, of course, everything fell through. We ended up helping a lot of people out with service though.

Friday we got a few good lessons in during the morning and then we helped our WML out with fixing up his backyard. Some other things happened but I cant remember what.

Saturday was food filled. I think in total we had 5 dinners, but two were dropped off so technically we only had 3 but saying we had 5 makes it seem impressive. #helpme #samoanprobs

We weekly planned on saturday because we had so much stuff to do on friday (even though I cant remember what it was) But we still got some good lessons in.

Sunday was sunday. Not much else to say.

Today should be nice. We have a zone BBQ planned so we will see how well a bunch of 18-21 year olds can plan a BBQ in less than 24 hours.

pce and luv

Elder Ockey

Week 37 Mothers Day

🎊Happy Mothers Day 🎉

This week was pretty cool. A lot of things happened, I'll get right into it!

Monday we went up to Wrightwood (just the house) and we went hiking. It isnt very long but there is a gold mine at the end that we explored. it was pretty sick. The pictures inside the mine didn't turn out kosher though so we got some outside. It was super legit. We only explored about half of it though, gotta go back sometime. We also got to teach the Samasoni's, our afakasi part member fam in AppleValley.

Tuesday I gave a training in D-meet about praying with faith. I think it went well idk haha. We taught a lesson in Adelanto to the Mcquire family, (LA parents non-memebr kids) and everytime we go over it seems like there are more children. Their house is just a gathering spot for all the "hood-rat children" as E. Boltz puts it haha. Its cool though because they are all listening and interested.

Wednesday, the only thing that stood out was we pretty much got verbally molested by a medically LA member of Adelanto. She always says that missionaries are like her grandchildren and such but then this time as she shook my hand for a little to long she looked me in the eyes and said "I want to hug you so bad I can taste it." And then we planned to never go back #creepyfactor100000

Thursday we had a lesson with Lance in the morning so we had to leave early. AV is about 35 minutes from our house #thestruggle #everywhereisourarea  But then we were also able to teach Iris. Then we swung by the homeless shelter to help unload a truck. Pretty busy morning. We taught a few other people that afternoon.

Friday we weekly planned and had a super good day lined up. Then Satan worked his magic and nobody was home. It was alright though because we went to the funeral of our LA families father, who went to AoG. There was only 4 other members there other than us, the rest were JW, AoG, or 7th day. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. They all raised their hands in the air and kept shoutin "amen!" and "Praise the Lord!" then they did this weird chant at the beginning of every speaker. It was super funny, tried my hardest not to burst out laughing the whole time.

Saturday I went into the La Paz ward with E. Guerra. It was a weird exchange because we had service planned as a zone from 5am-1pm. We went to the huge salt flats (I think its salt?) where people drive hecka fast and we cleared some bushes off the side. It was super fun. To bad tiwi has a 90mph limit #killjoy  But then we pretty much just went to a spanish Mothers Day party and exchanged back. It was fun haha

Sunday we had no meeting before church so we tried by our gators to see if they were coming to church. Long story short, they didnt. A lot of them were down the hill so hopefully they went down there. We got to skype the fam after church though. It was super weird because it seems like I just skyped 'em a few weeks ago #missiontime 

But yea, crazy week. also I forgot my camera cord at home. The one time I actually have pictures to send home......😩 

Hope you all have a bless'ed week!

Elder Ockey

Week 36

Finally a picture! just one though haha, sorry folks. Today we are going on a hike in Wrightwood so we will have more pics for next week. This week was really good, nothing super out of the ordinary but we got a lot of work done.

Tuesday we were able to get into some families that have been away/sick/not opening their door to us. We taught some good lessons. Nothing super noteworthy.

Wednesday we finally got in with Lance! he is a lost-less-active Samoan member who lives in Applevalley. He is super cool, he works pretty much ere'day so we are giving up part of our p-day to see him. His wife isnt a member and she is palagi so hopefully we can get her feelin the spirit! We saw the Nonu family as well and, as we double checked on Sunday, the wife's records are lost so we are going through the lessons again for rebaptism.

Thursday we all didnt wake up on time for excercise because we were all feeling kind of bad. Elder Wilding was completely out so Elder Boltz and Loveless went on splits to service and some lessons. We had dinner in Victorville and then went to see a few LA's.

Friday was super long! We taught one of our new Samoan investigators the Plan of Salvation, its funny because she has a ton of energy and goes of on rants but its cool because it all applies... sorta haha.

We weekly planned and then we saw the Nonu's again, trying to get those lessons done asap. We went to the hospital in Applevalley to give a blessing. That was my first blessing in a hospital... ug I hate hospitals they are so creepy. It was cool though, he was a Samoan member who is blind and I always say to him, "It was nice to see you brother Sopoaga!" and he sort of pauses and is like, "it was nice to... hear you (chuckle)" I dont know if he thinks its funny or not but I keep forgetting haha. But out dinner was good, the fam just watched Big Hero 6 the whole time so it was a struggle to start any conversation. #missionaryprobs #dontwatchtvwhenyouhavetheeldersoverfordinner

Saturday we had service planned for an hour in the morning with a family in the Adelanto ward, but then of course it took 3 hours instead. It was funny because they kept bickering so we told them they needed a reality tv show and it would be bigger than keeping up with the Kardashians #gettingtoknowtheGrahams other than that Saturday was super slow.

Sunday was really good. Samoan ward was complete opposite of last week. the entire chapel was filled, like crammed in tightly. it was legit. We had dinner, and I forgot all the Samoan eating rules I was so hungry from the fast, ended up eating 3 full plates of rice, meat, and other starchy foods, and that was before dessert #samoanwardprobs. It was cool though becuase they had their 18 year old son who is graduating walk us out to our car (that sounds hecka weird typing it out but watev) and we had this super long talk outside their house about serving a mission because he is really unsure. I hope he does #CalgaryCanadaMission

but that was my week. I hope it was entertaining enough for you all. ALso crazy that Mothers Day is this sunday. Seems like last week I skyped for Christmas. crazy.  <3

Elder Ockey

(thats our backyard, someone got taken out by the cops right on the other side of that wall my first week here)