Week 70 Christmas

Holy cow fam! There goes Christmas!

It was pretty sick this week. LIterally. Elder Phillips got pretty sick so he was down for the count a day or two there but we still had a good week.

I got a pimpin fur coat from the #thriftshop 

We spent a lot of time with members this week (obvi) and we didnt get in with a ton of gators but we tried our hardest. We had a ton of fun over the Christmas weekend, probably a little to much for missionaries. IT sorta reminds me of a poster in our apartment that says "missionaries. All work no play." but then someone changed it a long time ago to "missionaries. all work know play." haha classic. But we still teachin and rule abidin. 

I miss the snow so much. We all went to a mall yesterday (like all the elders in upland) and this car had come down from the mountains and had snow on it so we all had a snowball fight in the parking lot. It was pimpin. 

Going to the mall trunks the heck out of me. even more so than skypin the fam. (sorry fam) but yea, it was chill.

Love ya!

Elder Ockey

Week 70

We had a great talk with Gage on Sunday. He is doing well and looks good. No letter on Monday so we will post some photos.

Every week the elders volunteer at the local thrift store. Gage found this sweet fur coat for those chilly Cali mornings.

Week 69

Why, hello there!

This week was interesting. Il be honest not enough interesting stuff went on to write a whole lot about but I promise it was still awesome.

Elder Phillips and I walked over 22000 steps one day. That was cool. average is around 6000 with 10000 being an active person. So we active in spreadin the gospel! 

We didnt have a whole lot of success with investigators this week but we did see a lot of lost or less active members and invited them to church and our ward Christmas party.

BTW the christmas party was pretty bomb. It was Polar Express themed. We did a ton of service helpin out the members so now the missionaries are tight with the ward which is super good in progressing the work.

We went out with a few members and met a punch of families with a lot of potential. They are all less-active or part-member so we have a lot going for us.  So thats cool

Merry Christmas!

<3

Elder Ockey

Week 68

greetins my homies!

so transfers happened. Elder Solomon left me to move allll the waayyy over to upland 5th haha! He is Elder Tophams comp now. SO I will see him literally three out of seven days a week.

My new comp is Elder Phillips, he has been out for 6 months and spent all 6 in Rancho Park, my greenie area! crazy. Should be super fun.

Well this week was great! The best in upland so far. We got two new gators and taught both of em with a member present because they are part-member fams! #ChurchisTrue

Elder Richins and I went on exchanges in our area on wednesday. It was super awesome. We taught a ton and freakin killed it. We ate dinner with a super cool fam that had the smallest/softest puppy I have ever seen! it was super submissive too which was legit.

We were just sorta walkin around when I saw this sick tag on a wall. Little do they know that missionaries are fishers of men. Boom

But pretty basic week. I feel lazy and dont want to type a lot. But hey, I attached two pics so that makes up for it.

I love you all!

Elder Ockey

Week 67

wassup familia?

This week was super chill. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of work done (for Upland :P)

The creche festival (as of this year called the "Christmas Nativity Art and Music Festival") was super fun. We helped set up and we were there every night handing out cards and pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon. It was super successful. The whole church was filled with nativity scenes and a ton of people came. It was a struggle trying to distinguish members from non-members so there were a few awkward contacts but it was all trill. It was super fun. We got a lot of referrals and a few real promising potentials from it. Sadly I took no pictures but just imagine Christmas spirit throwing up all over the cultural hall and the chapel and such.

Other than that we had a successful week. We taught our gator FLoranette, she keeps saying that our message is true and anything from God is true, and then tells us we shouldnt teach out of anything but the Bible... Sigh... we are working on it. She just wont pray! 

We got two new gators. Shawn is a cool dude, the sisters tracted into him and passed him off to us. We talked with him a little bit but didnt teach a full lesson but he is super open and wants us to come by often.

Our other new gator we sorta picked up last night, he is the son of a member in our ward who is super cool. We had dinner with her last night and she said her son had taken lessons previously from missionaries and we are gonna pick them back up. 

So overall a pretty good week in Upland. Its starting to get not hot so thats nice.

GEtting real close to Christmas so that crazzyyy.

Luv ya

Elder Ockey

Me and elder Manfull. He came out at my year mark. so chill

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

Week 61

To whom it may concern,

this week was aight. We had a stop smoking lesson with Jeremy and threw out all his tobacco products. He almost kept his vape pen but we talked him into letting us take it, but he wont let us throw it out so now we have a vape pen in our house and house inspections this friday haha that will be fun.

We had two exchanges this week. Wednesday I stayed here with Elder Tuiha'a. We got some good work done, he is a good biker so its a nice break from having to stop every block and wait for my comp to catch up 😪

Thursday a missionary that went home a while ago took us out to lunch. Its so weird having friends come back, we just talked a lot about boring missionary gossip. That night after dark we were going to a family in the far end of our area and my Cooke totally got lost. I turned off the street and waited a few feet down for him, and it looked like he turned down the road but I guess he didnt haha. I ended up just talking to some random peeps asking for their phone so I could call Cooke. It all ended up okay haha. He blames me though and he got angry when I told him he needs to bike faster. *sigh* I mean I love my companion and I totally tolerate him...........

But then we did exchanges on Saturday with GreenTree, I went over there with Elder Memmott. We tried a lot of people but didnt really get any lessons in. A lot of contact established with formers and potentials though which was good.

We had a primary program on sunday so I totally checked out, not that I dont check out any other sacrament meeting haha. In my defense Elder Bednar did tell us that Sacrament talks are stupid and boring.

The weirdest thing happened yesterday. The sky suddenly got covered in this weird dark fluffy stuff and the sky started to cry! I wonder what that is. I feel like Ive experienced that once before long ago.

Elder Ockey

Week 60

I missed a few things last email...

Okay so Jeremy bore his testimony in church which was super cool. He is a really smart guy he just has a weird though pattern because he fried his brain with heroin and meth. But his testimony was super good. the members kept telling him how inspired they felt because of him.

We found a few wind scorpions INSIDE our house! ug I couldn’t sleep they are so sicky-sick gross ew I hate them. We put one in a jar and cooked it on the stove as punishment.

Man so Wednesday was Elder Laniers birthday and the dinner we went to threw him a surprise party. it was pretty awesome. To bad it poisoned me hardcore and I was throwing up all the next day. Pretty awful. It was msotly just water though because I was sooooooo thirsty. So we were in all day Thursday.

Friday we weekly planned and such, the boring stuff.

Saturday we had a really good lesson with Jeremy, he was super down and by the time we left he seemed way happier. I kept crashin hardcore, I hadnt gotten a lot of sleep from throwing up all night but I was done by Saturday night.

#blessed 🙏🙌

Sunday was chill, our wardmates didnt come to church because elder Gibbons has pinkeye but pretty much all of our investigators came which was sweet. Yadira even brought her bf who is she said was anti so thats cool. He watched the primary practice for their program and it seemed like his heart softened a lot. 

but yea

thats it

love you

Elder Ockey

Week 59

Okay, monday was Columbus Day so all the libraries were closed. The only real important days that occured where Canadian Thanksgiving and Maryns b-day. Happy Birthday!

Well we also didn't have any time yesterday to email and I really dont have time today either. 

So a quick highlight runover...

We did service pretty much every day which was a nice change. We helped some members move, another member paint, a different member we helped load a trailer.

We helped B. Davies weed his yard which is massive, so we took a fence down in the middle and drug a big peice of mesh/fence behind the truck and tore everything up haha. I stood on it and got a ton of sand in my shoes.

We were supposed to have a stop smoking lesson with Jeremy yesterday but it fell through. 

We had some really good teaching appts with Yadira, the lady who came to church randomly. 

not much else honestly. I could go into detail but I got shafted for time, and this keyboard sucks. haha

Elder Ockey

Week 58

Hellllooo.

THis week was kinda long.

Monday was chill though, we went to Dan's house. He is a recent

convert in the Santa Fe ward that pretty much everyone in the desert

knows about because he is a freakin baller. We played horseshoes and

darts, shot some things. It was fun.

Tuesday we biked around the area a bit, trying to find people out and

about. suprise, there wasnt. Our area is pretty dead and it can bear

down pretty hard sometimes. I cant remember if I got a flat on tuesday

or wednesday, but I got one. I just traded tires for the week with a

spare bike in the garage. THere are these crazy devilish little thorns

called goat heads that are freakin e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e aand they stick

in your tire. if you leave them in they plug thier own hole but you

end up with 5-15 of these suckers in your tire.

Wednesday we saw Jeremy. He was doing pretty good. COnsidering all the

problems he has the lesson went really well. We got a solid baptismal

date with him and are going to help him stop smoking... among other

things

Thursday we had to bike to squash for friends because our ride had an

appt. after we got home both of Elder Cookes tires were flat and we

didnt have enough spares to change them out so we walked the rest of

the week. We saw the woman and her kids who came to church on sunday.

We took bro Casino with us, he is super cool, super spiritual guy. THe

lesson went pretty well and bro Casino invited her to watch General

Conference with his family.

Friday... nothing really happened

This weekend was obviously GenConf. It was interesting how most of the

lessons were back to the basics. Missionary work and repentance seemed

like a common theme. I personally have a hard time focusing unless

there are a lot of stories or they are really in-your-face throw down.

I liked Hollands talk in the Priesthood session about how much we suck

at hometeaching haha. Got me kinda pumped to do it back at home.

Have  a good week!

Elder Ockey

Week 57

Hello hello!

So this last week was probably our best week for teaching this transfer. Also transfers happened today. I stayed in Mojave River and I got Elder Cooke as a comp. I served around him in Ontario and in VIctorville so I have known him for a while. Should be a lot of fun.

A few worth while/entertaining things happened last week while teaching which was nice. This one guy who we had stopped by before but was never home finally was present. We talked to him for a while and had a good talk about baptism and priesthood authority. His philosophy was that if he got baptized into every single religion then he would eventually hit the mark on one of them haha. We told him that there was a much easier way to do it and told him to pray about the Book of Mormon.

Crazy thing happened. A family moved in to the house across the street from Bishop and they are a part-member/less-active family. the real crazy thing is he approuached bishop and asked for us to come over! super legit. We have stopped by with our EQP and talked with them. Sadly they didnt make it to church but we will keep going over.

I heard a super awful punny joke this week.

A termite that has no teeth goes into a pub. He goes to the waiter and asks, "is the bartender here?"  is the bar....tender here...... wow

At church a family that nobody knew came. they told us after sacrament that they just had the feeling that they needed to become mormon. pretty cool, we have a lesson set up with them for thursday. the problem is they arent married....

but yea,

Elder Ockey

Week 56

What up my peeps!?

SO this week was pretty slow again in terms of teaching, but its mostly because we had 1093149081 meetings and I wanted to die they were all so long. well not really that many but enough to take up 3 full days.

Elder DUbe came to the mission. he is in the quorom of the seventy. also sort of on topic, dang! general conference is so close! But anyway he was really funny actually, telling us stories about the 12 and such.  we did a lot of role plays... I despise roleplays, though I admit they can be useful. I remember actually a few of my questions were answered, but sorry I dont really remember.

We went on exchanges this week. I went into GreenTree with elder Reese and Tuiha'a. Super weird being in a trio. We didnt really do much. THey are both pretty run down from their other comp who makes them bike everywhere in their car area. I was super tempted to talk them into visiting a few Samoans haha there are a bunch in their boundaries that are super cool. 

Man I gotta move on. 

Well temple trip on thursday. Also found out that there will be a 5 week transfer... to be immediately followed by another 7 week transfer......

PCE Fam,

Elder Ockey

Week 55

What up fam!

This week was pretty basic teaching wise. Sorry just in a bike area full of old people. We honestly only see like 3 people actually outside their house every day, and they are usually super crabby.

We had to drop one of our investigators, they were falling behind on their rent so they started selling their prescription morphine to hoodrats. So... thats a thing.

Boltz and Shaffer came back through the mission which was cool. They took Waters and I to dinner. Waters was Boltz' comp right before me. Visits from dead missionaries trunk me out more than visits from fam and friends

Friday we went ultra chaffa. Sumshady and Jarvis from VV came with us to lunch. THen we 'weekly planned' then we went to bro Davies. Haha I feel bad for wasting the day but it was a lot of fun at the same time.

Saturday and Thursday are the days we killed it, well at least for a bike area. We got a lot of lessons and a few new gators but nothing to exciting.

Well thats actually pretty much it. Good week, coulda had more exciting stuff happen though.

Elder Ockey

Week 54

Bonjouro!

This week was pretty fun. I cannot say it enough how weird it still is for me to only be in one ward, the work is a lot slower and you have a lot of spare time to contact or... tract (wah wahhhh)

Fear not, for though my emails me be short and bland it is not because I am bored or depressed or anything. Its because everyone in this area is soooo boring to write about! or its so absurd I cant even put it into words. But I am enjoying myself. Just not a lot to write. Also I misplaced my planner so I dont remember anything from this last week. Ill make up for it in pics!

We were going to sleep on the roof one night but E. Olsen wussied out. So we all went back inside to sleep... around midnight haha.

Nothing exciting in terms of teaching happened. Maybe this week.

We do service for a farm called "Squash 4 Friends" and they let us take produce home. so we took a bunch of armenian cucumbers. Hopefully Elder Badoni will send the picture sometime today. We got a lot. And they are all massive.

I killed a crow with a pellet gun. Gross.

And pictures from burning our shirts a while ago for our year mark.

Week 53

Hey! sorry I took a few pics but I left the camera at home. soooo. you will have them soonish.

Monday we didnt do a whole lot. Our zone is super small and everyone just wants to play dungeons and dragons so we ditch Waters' comp with those nerds and we veg at home and play cards or shoot things. okay to be clear because its probably confusing. Elder Waters and Elder Olsen are our house mates. Elder Gibbons and Elder Lanier are our ward mates. so yea. But we bought some pellet guns can shoot at crows and squirrels when we get bored. I killed a crow but the pic is on my cam. sorry fam.

Tuesday was pretty basic. The house-mates are ultra low on miles so they couldnt drop us off at home right away. its kinda sucked. because of that we didnt get a lot of work done.

Wednesday was our best day of the week. We went to a part-member/less-active fam and talked with them. Blake was just ordained a deacon and his friend was at his house, he said he wanted to learn more and come to church! it was pretty sick. (spoiler, he didnt come to church)  We saw quite a few other people though.

Thursday we totally got shafted and had to fill in for another companionship and do service. Its fun to do service but we had a good morning planned.

*sigh* anyway, we had an effective rest of the day in terms of biking a butt-load and seeing nobody. not so effective in terms of people letting us in.

Friday was hump day! whoooo! Elder Waters came out at the same time as me so we both burned a shirt friday night, as per tradition.  Other than that we weekly planned and saw Bro Davies.

Saturday was pretty good. We took our WML with us to a few lessons that went fairly well. We saw Jeremy and I feel like I should go a little more in depth about his whole situation but that would be a long email about schizophrenics and murder threats to his family. You just gotta know that he says crazy dark stuff and you dont know if you should laugh or call the cops. but he comes to church so thats cool.

Sunday was chill. Bro Spilsbury (PM fam from wednesday) came to church but that was it in terms of gators. Dinner was good, they said if we swing by later this week they will give us a bunch of stuff from their garden. Score! lower my p-day costs haha.

but yea fam... thats about it. Still super weird transition from covering two wards at a time for a year to... this haha. its awesome though.

Elder Ockey

Hump Week

Hey fam! This week was cool, but not temperature wise hahahaha.... its freakin hot. CRayyyy I hit a year on friday! Dont worry Ill be back to party soon enough.

Monday we just lazied around and cleaned the house a bunch.

Tuesday was pretty cray, we went into district meeting with perfectly blue skies. and two hours later walked outside to orange skies. pic attached. BLue Cut fire or watever in the end burned 37000 acres so far and 82000 people have been evacuated.  Missionaries who were supposed to be up in the desert were stuck down the hill all week because of the fire. Some missionaries were evacuated as well. Pretty rad. we biked around a bit but nobody was home.

Okay side tangent. In all of my areas thus far I have covered two wardsa at once, so we never really had spare time. Now we are on bike, and we only cover half of a ward. It is a way different atmosphere of missionary work, everything is done differently. Especially planning. Also the metric butt-tonne of smoke in the air probs filled my lungs with ash it was a struggle.

Im giving up on the day-by-day email for today fam, bear with me.
Our ward is pretty awesome. We calculated the average age of our ward. 61. We have an investigator that is the epitome of desert folk. and now a quote from our lesson with Jeremy, Parental Discretion is Advised "How am I not gonna get stoned on Christmas...@$*%! I always get flamed on Christmas."  Haha hes golden. Its a lot of fun teachin these weird white people. 
Hehe 

okay so our ward-mates dont live with us but we eat dinner with them at members homes. And they look super young, like, 14 years old baby face. So we would talk about it with our house-mates all the time and eventually they got called out twice at church, it was funny. Once in gospel doctrine it was said, "I thought you had to be 18 to come out on a mission." then the Bishops wife at dinner that evening, "Okay serve the kids first, which include you two elders because you look 14." haha get WRECKED.  I lost my mind it was hilarious. I dont know how anyone could take them seriously. Ill nab a pic of them at some point.

Well, thats all folks! See you on the flipped flop! 

Elder Ockey

New Address

18887 Yucca Street 

Hesperia California

92345

Week 51

I got transferred. Elder Thelander is staying and training in the Samoan ward and I am now in Hesperia. Specifically the Mojave River Ward. We are on bike, lol workin off all that Samoan food right away. dang its gonna be hot for a few weeks... 😓 

I moved from the second nicest place in the mission to the nicest place. We live in what is called the 'Mojave Mansion' but it aint much to look at really. Still #blessed with washers and dryers. IM gonna miss all those clowns at the Adelanto house though. You have way to much fun living with other missionaries. Elder Olsen, who I went on exchanges with is in the house. Also Elder Water who I replaced in Samoan. #partyhouse

Not much to report on the week. I was pretty stressed about transfers, just because I loved the area so much. We worked up till friday when we got my packing call in the morning and from there we just said goodbye to people and I packed. Jeez you accumulate a ton of garbage when you stay somewhere for so long. I didnt actually know where I was going until last night though.

I took a picture of my face next to the hole in the wall haha. I promise never to do it again we were just being delinquents.

I would send a ton of pics because Im sure at least a hundred were taken yesterday at sacrament meeting but people still need to send them to me. 

I think its sort of a good thing I got moved. Becoming way to casual with everyone haha. Leaving Ontario I was all like "later suckaz!" but leaving Samoan/Adelanto Im all sad because everyone is super cool over there. 😔

But Ill get over it. Im excited. 

Apparently it gets cold soon, just not soon enough.....

Love ya!

Elder Ockey

Gage’s new address

18887 Yucca Street 

Hesperia California

92345

wedel shumway and I are inseperable. but now we are seperated....

Week 50

heyooo! Well now its week six.  (of transfers)  Ive been in the Samoan/Adelanto wards for 6 months now. I am expecting to leave but I have a tiny glimmer of hope.

"If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." 

Mark 9:23

Haha probs one of the only times I will insert a scripture into my email.

I told you all about Monday.

Tuesday we went up into Adelanto foa little bit. Its the first time in a while I had been up there, we just always happened to have exchanges whenever we went the last few times haha. It was good. Still ghetto up here lol. We saw a good number of people. 

Wednesday was good. Saw another few in Adelanto before heading over to some polys. We taught Levi (the 11 year old we found on sunday) the restoration and it went really well. Headed over to AppleValley and read with the Samasoni's. I get excited about how excited they are to read the Book of Mormon its super cool. I just wish they could get sundays off :(

Thursday morning we saw Jordan, also in AppleValley (goodbye miles) and really got to him, at least in my mind, with the intro to the Book of Mormon. Helped him realize why its important and such. Did the same sorta thing with this ghetto guy in Adelanto. Its funny because he will ask us sometimes just to pray with us because he is "about to do a bad thing" haha

Friday was a failiure on multiple fronts. no one home or anything. But Ill tell you about something siiiick that happened this week but I dont remember what day. So we just got a little impatient with the member missionary work in the Samoan ward, because ya know, we cant tract into Samoans in most cases. We talked to a family who used to own a shop that sold island supplies and got a tonne of refferals! Dont ask why we didnt think about it before, we just assumed that missionaries had asked in the past. Moral of the story. dont assume things

Saturday we saw Levi again, taught the Plan of Salvation which I thought was going to be a little touchy because his parent have both passed away in the past 4 years. It wasnt super touchy but I didnt/dont like the way we taught it. Ug it sucks when you know all the doctrine and you can teach it all but for whatever reason it isnt going the way you want it.

Sunday was super interesting. Went to church. Super packed. The Faalogos showed up with Levi which was awesome. Classes and such yadayada. 

Okay.

No judge zone.

If you gonna judge dont read further.

*sigh*

Okay so we were super bored Sunday night at the house. 4 missionaries aged 19-20, in a house. without supervision. Bored. So we were dumb and for whatever reason we started choking eachother out haha. Super weird to write about. But long story short. I was choked out a little long. Passed out. Smashed a hole in the wall with my face. Awesome. No damage. No concussion. Don't worry mom I'm fine geez. Don't judge me I'm just a stupid young adult. It was so weird though. I totally dreamt for what seemed like a whole night in the period of standing up to falling to the ground so to me right now Sunday seems like two days ago haha.  But now my face is all cut up and there is a hole in our study room.  Ill probably send pics at some point.  Im serious mom dont worry geez I totally know your reaction right now lol

Bye!

Elder Ockey

Week 49

Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! This week was hecka long! but not all in a bad way, just another pretty basic week. Ill get right into it....

Tuesday we saw Lance, we havent been able to see his wife as often because she works a lot during the day but Lance loves to read from the BofM! Its super cool, we go over and he said he wants to start from the beginning so we read a chapter with him then he asked if we could keep reading. Ended up reading 6ish chapters haha its awesome. We had a mini FHE with the Saveas, we were super pressed for time so I felt bad but it went pretty well, cant even remember what we taught. Its gonna be awk cuz tonight we are going over to talk about temples and temple work (mostly baptisms for the dead) specifically because it gets on the AoG pastors nerves haha. Sis Savea told us to do it though so its okay.

Wednesday was pretty basic, a few lessons, a few promises about people coming to church. A few promises about coming to church shattered on Sunday.

Thursday was the same sort of thing, we seem to be getting a lot of progress with our less actives by going through the "Addiction Recovery Program" booklet with them, so thats nice.

Friday: Also

(haha I just sort of referenced the facsimiles in Abraham just then)

SAturday I went on exchanges into Silverlakes with Elder Olsen. TBH I hate exchanges. they suck. But this wasnt too bad. Just basic work.

Highlights: 

Planned service 10-12, actual service 10-2:30 wtheck

Walking around Hook Park and getting shut down in a contacting situation because they wanted to find someone to fight

thats about it..... yea

Sunday was good, we drove around to peoples houses and no one wanted to come to church smh. after church we found a new gator for Samoan ward though! he is the 11 year old nephew of some semi actives in our ward. Long story short, he and his 16 year old sister living there permanently now because of a sensitive situation. The 16 year old has been baptized and the 11 year old wants to be. siiiick!

Today was crazy. I am emailing hecka late because we went to wrightwood and hiked the gold mine again, but this time with pretty much all the missionaries in the zone. So Shumway, Thelander, Wedel and I all went trailblazing/straight-up rock climbing but the mountain. It was intense, almost legit died about 3 times it was hecka fun. Working on getting pictures form everyone right now. Then we went to this random bus graveyard and tried to tow the hood of a bus behind a truck and get pulled #fail

So we went back to the big dirt hill in Adelanto and biffed it super hard on the big Wheel again. idk if I wrote about it before but we have done it before. but this time was better.

Now i'm all scraped up and bloody and tired and dirty. But I had a lot of fun.

Have a good week!

Elder Ockey