Your Serve

This week was full of miracles and lots of amazing events. We were able to pick up 8 new investigators this week. The Lord is really pouring out blessings to us. It’s truly amazing to see! I love being a part of this work. I think it is fantastic. I feel like we are getting to be better friends with the ward and they are trusting us with a lot more now. We were able to speak in church and we received a few referrals after the meeting from it. The signs are good. Things are going to be getting crazy here.

Spiritual: One of the more unusual parts of the California San Jose mission is the fact that we do a lot of service. Oh it is so much fun to be a missionary and ride up on your bike to someone who you know is not looking forward to talking to you and bracing himself for the religious confrontation that is about to occur and then ask him if we can serve him and see the reaction on his face go from being hostile to confused. I love it. We do a lot of service here. Roughly ten hours a week. A lot of this service can come from planned regular service but around here there are not too many places for us to go and give service in our area. To achieve our goal we often times will go pick up trash on the streets or we will help active members with service projects. I really didn’t have a super strong love for service before I came here but doing so much service has really helped change my mentality about it. I love service! You just feel good. This week we got a call from a member to help him move some wood chips out of his back yard and onto the curb. There were a lot of wood chips. We went in with an open mind and a willing heart and low and behold miracles started to happen. The neighbor across the street started to venture out and he wanted some chips for mulch so we were able to go spread them for him and strike up a religious conversation with him. It didn’t produce much fruit other than the fact that we are now his friends and he knows that we are approachable. Then his next door neighbor poked his head over the fence and started to talk to us. He asked if we could come over the next day and help him with some stuff. OH YEAH!!! We went over and helped him go through some old WW2 relics and look for a few special pieces. He really just wanted someone to talk to and we were there to be a friend. We are going to invite him to an emergency preparedness fireside tomorrow night. We are so excited about it! That is missionary work right there. Even though we were not wearing ties and we were sweating like pigs while hauling wood chips, the Lord was with us and He gave us an opportunity to not just talk about what we believe, but to show it. One of the sayings that I use in the mission is "Just because you sit in a garage and drink gasoline, doesn’t make you a Cadillac." The same applies to church goers. You need to get out of your seat and do something good. That is what true Christianity is all about. This church is built on the premise that we help each other out. We are Disciples of Christlike Action. This blesses us and the people we serve. If you want to see if I am right, try it! Results speak for themselves.

Funny: The funny contacts we have in this area are really choice. The highlight of the week was the man with the huge beard and who was a little portly who saw us coming on bikes and just took off running. He was sprinting away from us as fast as he could. Unfortunately we were on bikes so it was a pretty easy catch. He was not interested.

Where I am at: Things in this area are awesome. I am loving the work and miracles are flowing like butter on my toast. Things are going great and I really can’t complain. We are teaching a lot of people and finding more every day. I love you all! You are in my thoughts and prayers.