Week 66

Seasons greetings.

Its finally getting chipper out here. but its also supposed to warm up this week. I dont know what to think anymore.

this week was pretty good. I actually got some pictures so my fam wont be mad at me lol

We are still in a major finding phase. We tried some people in the records from early this year and found one person interested in taking the lessons. SHe said whenever the missionaries went over they would pray with her and then share a scripture and leave. apparently no mention of missionary purpose or restoration or anything. so we told her our purpose and taught a quick resto lesson. SHe said that it sounded like something important enough to investigate in and weare gonna go back on wednesday. SO hopefully we have at least one gator that isnt super flakey. Ive got high hopes and faith for this one. Her name is Floranette.

We had exchanges on Saturday. Elder Topham came to our area with me. We had a few meetings in the morning then we proselyted all day. we walked in parks and knocked on formers doors but we didnt really see anything promising.

The new Christmas initiative launched a few days ago. You guys should all share it with some people. That would be nice for the missionaries.

We have something called the"creche" festival coming up. THe upland stake organizes this festival where there are hundreds of nativity scenes and people come and look at them all weekend. We get to go and contact people so it should be a gator goldmine! we are supposed to sing in a missionary choir....hooray

Our push to work with members is going pretty well. We havent actually had dinner @ peoples houses this week though, a lot of people dropped food off. Darn satan tryna slow down the work. It aint happenin!

But yea, thats about it.

Love you all

Elder Ockey

Week 65

Hallo! 

Sorry fam this might be quick. I have a lot of things I gotta do and I have limited time to do so. (the struggle of being on bike)

I got my toe surgerized on again. that was fun. he put a ton of numbing stuff on it and legit almost pushed the dang needle all the way through my toe. it hurt.

SO we went about this week trying to get some gators. We tried so many things. Formers in the area book, potentials from other missionaries. tracting, park contacting, member referrals. Pretty much everything you could think of but we still only got a few flaky guys to teach. nobody new. It was honestly a pretty big bummer to me. Its hard to stay motivated when its like that.

But then we had zone conference on thursday. (side note. It was super fun to see all the missionaries I knew, moving from desert to valley there are a whole lot of new faces though)  However, the emphasis was working with ward and stake leaders. A few members of the mission presidency talked as well as a few from the Chino stake presidency and man that was probably one of the best meetings I have ever been in on the mission. It got me super pumped to work with the ward. SO many things we had gotten into the habit of doing wrong, such as asking for referrals as we walk out the door, almost as if it was a side note. Gosh so stupid! SO now we changin it up. We gonna kill it I can feel it. 

This is gonna be good.

Love

Elder Ockey

New Address

1333 West 11th Street Apartment 81

Upland California 91786

Week 64

Suuup fam!

estoy mucho caliente here in the valley. still in the low 30's high 20's. super sweaty going biking haha.

the ward is super chill. I had heard a lot about it from other missionary buds. a lot of people have served here. its super weird being around so many missionaries again. we are a lot more concentrated in the valley so we see everyone all the time its pretty nice.

we are pretty much at 0 investigators right now but we are going through our area book and looking at all of the records looking for some promising people to visit. we should have a really busy week.

this last week was chill. I got to know the area fairly well. Im emailing Elder Thelander who is saying he had the same situation with investigators when he was here. We will change that though 👍👏

we gonna baptize everyone!

but yea until then I dont have much to email about.

our area isnt that sketchy. there is abike path down the middle of our area and onone side is ghetto section 8 housing and the other side is super tall fence with razer wire to protect these industrial sites..... fun

but fo real its a lot of fun. It just needs to be a little colder.

SOrry fam no pics again. Im super bad at that. Ill work on it.

Love you all!

ELder Ockey

oh we gotta picture!

so We went and met THelander at Apollo Burgers friday before transfers so we all got a picture with us three homies (cuz are comps arent cool enough for us)

Week 63

whats up?...land

Im in Upland now. Got transfered down the hill (ew its so smoggy here) 

You would think the desert would be more sketchy but jeez I forgot how ghetto it is down here. We live right next to the walmart so we walked. Maybe took 3 minutes and I thought I was gonna get stabbed. Sick!

My new comp is Elder Solomon, never served around him before but I have heard about him. Im pretty pumped for a change. IT was getting real stagnant in Desparia.

Im in Upland 1st which was Elder Thelanders ward right before he came to me so I've heard about it, nothing but good. Too bad im still on bike :(... also I think ill need another ingrown toenail surgery :( x2

Its super weird, being exiled to the desert for so long I knew all the missionaries up there. But I dont know anyone down here its crayz.

We taught the law of Chastity to Yadira and Steve, turns out the situation is super complicated. Yadira is actually married to someone else, and she doesnt know where he lives. However, they both want to get married (after she gets divorced) and Steve wants to start taking the lessons! pretty sweet. 

But im super tired from packing and unpacking and there really isnt much else for me to say I guess. 

Peace!

Elder Ockey

Week 62

Hey fam! 

This week was pretty bland. Not a ton happened earlier in the week.

Our housemates went on exchanges and Elder Jenson came up here fro the day. He is from Taber so we talked all night about the differences between Canada and America, everyone else had no idea what we were talking about haha.

We had a super awkward lesson with Yadira and Victoria, we planned on teaching the Law of CHastity because she needs to be married before she can be baptized but we didnt feel it so we taught a few other commandments, the whole time it just had a super weird vibe though.

A member in our ward passed away which was pretty sad. We had just eaten dinner with him last SAturday and we had a super cool testimony meeting as out dinner message.

What was really sad was at the funeral you could totally tell which of his kids were less active. A few bore testimony of the Plan of Salvation while the rest were so distraught and didnt even close in the name of Jesus Christ...🤔

But that sort of leads me into yesterday. We ate at the Noels house and one of their kids had a friend over whos friend had just died as well (the Noels also had multiple deaths in their family this past few weeks). Brother Noel started talking to her about the Plan of Salvation and we just took off and taught her. The spirit was super strong it was awesome. It was kinda awk though because there was like 8 of us teaching just her lol. She said that it made sense to her and she would pray about it so we have a return appt.

Also Sunday was Stake Conference, which was a huge disappointment. Stake Conference is boring hehe.

I think thats about it peeps.

Pce

Elder Ockey