Week 72

I just realized I open pretty much every email with the same thing so I changed it up this time.

Happy Birthday mom!🎂 I love you!

(what the heck all the party emojis are gone!  imagine all sorts of gift emojis and such inserted here)

This week went great, although a few of our appointments fell through we were able to meet with most of them. 

We established contact with a less active member who wants to become active again. the cool thing is his wife isnt a member and she wanted him to give her a blessing and thats what made him want to come back. so he can raise his fam with the priesthood and such so thats awesome.

We started to work with a family that is also part member, the mom is the longest running member but they all go to a different church, she is caught up on the verse in revelations 22:18. its so hard with people who just refuse to listen to the spirit and just try to understand everything temporally its so annoying, we could totally explain that that verse specifically says "this book" as in the book of revelations but noooooo. oh well. 

we helped a member in our ward with some service, he is a certified 'arborist' so he cuts trees. we helped him trim another members tree for service which was legit. hes got a pimpin wood chipper.

It actually got super hot here this week. I wore a short sleeve pretty much everyday. ug it was awful. I was sweaty and everything. are you all jelly yet? it started to rain this weekend and it hasnt stopped since... cali in a drought my butt. There was some crazy thunder last night at 3. it set off all the cars in the area and rattled our windows. it was scary. I wish it would snow instead.

sorry fam i dont have any pics

weve got another packed week this week. Its all good work but I feel like its boring to read about unless something crayyyz happens.

well, cya later

Elder Ockey

Week 71

Happy New Year! Its 2017 homies and my black-hole year is over.

We had a pretty interesting week. We helped a bunch of lesbian hoarders clean out there nasty house which smelt like a dirty litter box and now the sisters are going to start teaching them! its pretty funny. 

We did a lot of service this week and tried to get a lot of teaching done as well but it didnt work out. But an awesome miracle. We tried by a ton of peeps places, less actives, gators, formers, you name it. And we have more set appointments for this upcoming week than I have had ever in Upland! freakin awesome. I am so pumped for this upcoming week. 

New years was about normal. We were gonna eat with the spanish elders because we didnt have a dinner but we got a last minute phone call from some members so we took the spanish elders with us there. It was pretty nice.

Today we went on a hike which was pretty sweet, not as good as the gold mine in Wrightwood though so thats to bad. It was super icy and we almost died pretty much 100 times on our way down but its nbd. The library comps are super slow so I only have one pic from it for this week. unless a miracle happens.

Well, Ill let you know next week if all these appointments go through, which they will but Ill let you know how many we baptize on the freakin spot.

pce and love

Elder Ockey

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