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