Fremont

This week has been one of the best weeks of my mission. Its feels so good to spread my wings and really let loose and go all out in missionary work. It’s been a great week. We found 5 new investigators and talked to everyone we saw. It was awesome. It’s really great to go and serve with everything you have. It’s been a great week. Elder Cusworth is an amazing missionary! Seriously, one of the best missionaries I have ever worked with. He is humble, hardworking and culturally attuned. He is from Thousand Oaks California and is a great missionary. 

Spiritual: This week we have had a goal to talk to everyone we see. Fremont is very diverse. As in very very diverse. It’s the largest melting pot I have ever seen. It could well be called Little India. So many different languages and cultures. It’s not uncommon to see people in Turbans and robes walking down the street. I have a few goals for Fremont and one of them is to find the best curry recipe that I can. :) We were biking down the street after a meeting at the church and we stopped to talk to a little old Pilipino woman who was pushing her shopping cart down the street. She was so prepared. She told us how she was going from church to church and seeking the truth. She just didn’t know where to find it. Well, we knew where it was so we started talking to her about it. As we were talking to her two other guys rode up and said "Hey! Are you Mormons?" we replied "Ya! How are you doing today?" “Man, Things are good. Do you have something for us to read? We are on our way to our program, but we are trying to come closer to God!" One book of Mormon, prayer, invitation and return appointment later and they were off. We finished talking to the Pilipino woman and had a really good lesson with her. I am amazed how following Preach My Gospel when it says to talk with everyone, results in miracles. I am so happy to be in Fremont. It broke my heart to leave the Almaden Ward, but I am excited to see what new adventures the Lord has in store for me here in Fremont. 

Funny: We did some service this week at the American Cancer Society on Wednesday. It was quite a funny adventure. We happened to show up right on the 50th year anniversary celebration. It was great fun. Lots of food and tons of people to talk to. We also met Mr. Mayor of Fremont. It was an unusual service day, but it was a good service day. 

Where I am at: Elder Cusworth is a great companion. I am so happy to be with him. He has a heart of gold and is willing to work hard. Our big push with the zone is to help everyone open their mouths and share the gospel. Talk to everyone we meet. It’s been a spiritual highlight to put that principle into action and see the blessings that have come from doing that. Things are wonderful here. I have truly entered Zion. :) I love you all! Be ready for some cool miracle stories to come! 

Interesting fact: Ammon is now serving in what is probably his last area, Fremont, California. Fremont was actually his dad's first area when serving in the Oakland Mission many years ago.

Keeping Commandments

This week has been really busy. We have played the part of Santa all week where we go out and handed out all of the Ipads to the missionaries. We were the most loved missionaries in the mission this week. :) It was a fun week but it was hard for us to find time to do a ton of missionary work. We did get to interact with a lot of missionaries. It was a really fun week. :)

Spiritual: I want to share a very interesting perspective this week. This comes from President Rob Davis who was the police chief in San Jose for many years. In his professional career right now he does consulting work around the nation for different police forces and he helps them improve their relations with communities that they serve. He spoke last night at the outgoing fireside and it was so powerful I wanted to share it with you. He told about how he was in Baltimore helping the police and citizen relationships before the riots started and he was there when things started going crazy. He commented that the world focuses on fixing the symptoms of the problem instead of hitting it at the core. He talked a lot about getting back to the basics. Problems in cities arise when there is a lack of father figures and a high word of wisdom problem rate. The solutions to problems like this that arise are found in the basics of the Gospel. A family teaching their children how to obey God and His commandments. Doing good to others and loving the way Jesus loves. I thought it was a beautiful and a very real perspective from someone that is very affected by this in his day job. There is peace in your personal life and in society at large when we follow the direction that God has given us. 

Where I am at: I am getting transferred on Tuesday. I am sad to be leaving Almaden. I spoke in Fast and Testimony meeting yesterday and said that I have 9 new sets of grandparents, and 30+ younger siblings and lots of best friends there. It was a special day. A great ward. I feel so loved there. I am ready to move on though. I am excited for my next adventure! I love you all!

It's a Simple Message

IPads are in. Wow. Anyway, things are going well. Its transfer planning this week so things are going to be crazy. We might not do much missionary work but we will do a lot of missionary things. We also have to roll out ipads to the zones as well. Crazy times. 

Spiritual: This gospel is a simple gospel. This past Thursday I got the wonderful opportunity to go on an exchange with Stanford. It was really neat. Everyone there was so trendy and it was a totally different experience than anything I had ever encountered. One of the people we were able to teach was a Chemistry Professor who was working at Stanford. She was very very smart and the missionary and I who were going in to teach her were a little apprehensive about teaching someone who was so smart. The spirit of the Lord confirmed to us though that all would be okay and that we knew enough. We walked into the lesson confident in the Lord and ready to do his work. We taught her about the book of Mormon and the spirit there was incredible. The thing that stuck out to me the most was that even though she had an advanced degree from a prestigious university, we still had to explain the why of the gospel very simply. She felt the spirit and we did as well. It was incredible. The Simple truths that the gospel has are so powerful to those that are educated as well as not educated. The Gospel is a Gospel for everyone. :) I love it. It’s true. 

Funniest comment said this week: "Wow! What a delightful ball of fluff you have! Oh my goodness! Did you know there is a dog in here? Rich people with Pomeranians. :) "

Where I am at: Almaden is going well! We had a surprise yesterday when Sam and Lori showed up to church! Yay! I love them. Still hard to meet with but nice all the same. Things are great. I am looking forward to a busy week. Lots of things to do but I am excited. I love feeling the spirit with me. I love you all! 

Car Wrecks and the Middle East

Happy Memorial Day! This past week has flown by. It’s crazy how fast time has started to go now. It seems like they days feel like hours and the weeks feel like days. The months just fly by. I love where I am at. Things are really starting to pick up here and we are excited for the future. Lots of tender mercies this week and we have really noticed the Hand of the Lord in our work a lot more. 

Spiritual: This week we had a wonderful visit with a less active family. This family is from the Middle East. They came to America and about 50 or so years ago they went to Utah for a tour. Later on when they came back to New York, the missionaries stopped by their home and shared the gospel with them. They ended up joining the church and were very happy about it. Eventually they moved to California and settled down. While here they got acquainted with a lot of their friends from the Middle East who do not speak English very well. This family felt really bad for their friends and so they started to drive them to the Iranian Christian Church so they could have a better sense of community and interact with their own language. This couple knows that the church is true but out of obligation to their people they go to another church. Our lesson with this couple was really funny as well as very profound. They are TALKERS. It was so cute! They sat and just told us story after story of them doing funny Middle Eastern things and how the American culture interacts with it. For example Majid was driving along going 120 mph and gets pulled over. "Oh officer, I so sorry. I thought it was in Kilometers!" He knew perfectly well it was in mph. Oh so funny. I love them. They sat and told us about some of the struggles that they are having. From the wife’s bouts with some nasty cancer to the struggles of their people. It was so sweet to hear them talk of the gospel and how they love it so much. They offered as well to have all their friends from the Iranian Christian church come and hear the lessons. We said that we could make that work and we are really excited to teach those people. They said they would arrange a meeting and we are really looking forward to meeting them all and teaching them. We are so excited! This gospel is true. It has the capacity to bless the lives of anyone in any circumstance. There is no place on this earth, no culture so diverse where the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot bless lives. We saw it in the lives of these humble people and I see it in my life every day. 

Funny: We were going to a baptism in Fremont on Saturday when we got a call from president. He was going down to a baptism in Prunedale and when he went to change lanes, a motor cycle smashed into his car! President had a flat tire and was in need of some help. His Jack bent and he was on the side of the road. It was really fun to be able to run to the rescue to help him out. We grabbed a spare jack and took off. Poor president. He wasn't happy. Can’t blame him. That car was brand new. Not even a month old. Everyone was okay, the vehicles were only going about 10 mph. Thankfully no one was hurt and everyone was okay. We had to take away his driving privileges though and make Sister Mella the designated driver from now on. :)

Where I am at: We are planning to start up the Farsi group here in the Almaden Ward. We just need Farsi baptisms to start it up. We are planning on just changing venues for Majid and his people. We are way excited. We also found two new investigators last night at dinner and we are going to the visitor’s center at the temple on Saturday with them. Things are going so well here. We just got a new Ward Mission Leader who is young and fresh and full of great Ideas on how to get the work really going. I am so happy to be here. Ipads are coming this week so it will be a huge change in how missionary work happens. Be ready. It’s going to be amazing. I love you all. I am so happy to be here. I feel the spirit every day and am so grateful to be serving my Savior to the best of my ability. I love you all! 

Faith=Happy

This week we worked our tails off. We had a couple of ZTM Meetings and we had a little bit of office stuff, namely picking president up from the airport, but other than that it was a week of work. We saw some miracles and learned a lot. The Lord’s work has got to be done with His spirit, His way or it’s not His work. When we try to interject our own ideas without asking for his help, usually it just goes south. Just a little excerpt of what we learned this week. 

Spiritual: Recently in the mission the whole focus has been around baptisms. We have focused on finding, teaching and now baptizing. It’s been a huge deal. Since we are committed to carry that culture throughout the mission, we decided that we needed to baptize. It’s been like a hunger that has been growing. We have started salivating just thinking about white clothes. We actually had a sit down talk and just said that we needed to baptize this transfer. We feel that the Lord will support this goal and we felt like it was the right thing to do. So we started to work. We visited a ton of part member families but minimal teaching opportunities arose. We visited a ton of former investigators but again minimal teaching opportunities. There were a couple of gems we found in a couple return appointments, but this was not the miracle we were looking for. This started to really get under our skin this week and we started letting this obsession drive us to negativity and unfortunately a lack of happiness. This all came out Saturday night when we play some basketball with a bunch of investigators and less active members. We got there and despite our efforts, not very many people showed up. I was pretty frustrated at that point. We went home and planned for the next day and I caught myself feeling dark and not filled with the spirit. It was depressing. While we were praying for the Lord to confirm our plans for the next day, the thought came to me that true faith is manifest in a positive outlook in the future. Faith in Jesus Christ is filled with light and with hope. It’s not an enduring, draining resistance, but a light excited view on what is happening next. It’s also not a gleeful fleeting, spasmodic happiness that is gone within a couple of days. This faith sustains us and lifts us to overcome trials and discouragement and to move on stronger. As soon as we changed our attitude to one of faith and hope, the next day we met with Sergio. The man who we gave the blessing to a couple weeks ago. He was so open and humble and expressed his love for God and the blessings he has received from Him. It was a testimony to me that faith in Jesus Christ, appropriate faith, has power. Jesus Christ has all power. He lives! He suffered so that He could help us! I Love Him. 

Funny: President and Sister Mella went to an Ipad training in SLC this week. They told him he had to go back to California by Thursday. So he got the latest possible flight into San Jose Thursday night. I don’t blame him! He looked so refreshed coming off that plane! We were there to greet him. We had a card that said "Glen and Elizabeth Mella" And I was holding a couple of leis so when they got off the plane we greeted them with a "Welcome Home! Aloha!" and then drove them back to the Home. I love them so much. :)

Where I am at: We are finding a lot more people to teach. We are working a lot more with the ward and trying to help them in their missionary efforts. Things are great here! We have a pretty free week so get ready for some more miracles coming next week! Just us and the work here. We are excited to keep it going. I love you all!

Tiger

It was good to talk to you this week! Really neat things are happening at home and away. It’s been fun to talk to you about what was going on and about where you all are at. It was a delight to me and it’s been such a blessing to have you as a constant line of support while I have been here. Thank you so much.

Spiritual: One of the blessings of serving in this capacity is being able to do exchanges with zone leaders and whomever the President feels we should exchange with. It’s been really fun to go out with missionaries and learn some of their best practices. This week I got the chance to go on an exchange with a very young zone leader. It was so much fun to learn from him and be with him. It made it even more cool because I was the one who picked him up from the airport his very first day! It was my first transfer as an assistant that he came into the mission. It was a special experience. We were going through and visiting part member families and we were walking toward this house when we saw an oriental couple walking their dog. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to Chinese people because they don't speak English, but this time something said that we needed to talk to them. We walked right by the house and started talking to this Asian couple about their dog and about his work. He said that he worked as a software engineer for Google and he had a coworker who was also a member. He had served a mission in Taiwan and had shared some of his beliefs with this man. The spirit was so strong! We shared about what missionaries do (teach the doctrine of Christ) and then invited him to learn more. There was a pause (this is when the spirit touched our hearts and his) and he said "yes." Oh the three most beautiful letters in the English language. It was amazing. We got his contact info and then sent him on his way. Later we passed him off to the Chinese elders to teach. Both he and his wife came to church yesterday and they are now praying and reading. We are so excited for him. And thus we see how a member’s example and courage to share his beliefs can result in a miracle. I love the spirit of missionary work. I love my Savior. I am so happy to serve Him.

Funny: Devon last night was happy to see us! After we had gotten our food we said "Devon! Message of the night: God Loves You!" Devon replied: "have a good night." Love Devon.

Where I am at: Almaden. Oh Almaden. I found out this week that it’s not pronounced almadin. It’s pronounced Alma-den. I love my mission! I love my companion! I am so happy to be where I am. I love it here and am so excited to see what else happens this week. Miracles abound! I love you all! Thank you so much for your support and love.

Waffles and Blessings

This was a great week here in Almaden. We have been trying to find more people to teach and things are going well. Elder Matthias and I got to be mission presidents for a day when president Mella went to a conference in Monterey. It was so fun to drive the Avalon and enjoy the mission. I am happy here and things are going great. We saw several miracles this past week from recent converts moving into the area to a powerful blessing with the Bishop. Things are great.

Spiritual: This week we have been really putting the petal to the metal when it comes to finding more people to teach. We have a lot of investigators that are good, but floating around. It’s hard to meet with them and hard as well to help them understand sacrifice and blessings.  We have started visiting all the part member families in the ward and seeing the level of interest. We went over yesterday to a family that had asked to stop having missionaries come over a while back. They were really burnt out with the church and needed a break. We went over there hoping for a glimmer of light and it came in full force. When we knocked on the door a woman came out that was a little stressed. We asked her if she was the person that was on our directory. She said she was and that she was a little stressed right now. We asked her why and she told us that her husband had been admitted to the ICU with a tear in his aorta and a mass on his Kidney. Yikes.  She said she was on her way there and we asked if he would like a blessing. She said yes and then we were off. We got the bishop to meet us there and then we went and gave him a blessing. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. He was sitting up in bed and looked happy. We talked to him and he told us that he was leaning on the Lord through this whole process. The blessing from the bishop was great and then we left. After the bishop told us what a changed man that man was from the first time he had met him. It sounded like a totally different person than who we had met. It was a testimony to me that the Lord uses his servants to do his work. Sometimes it takes a humbling experience to bring people to him. I am so grateful to be a part of this work.

Funny: In Almaden we drive the transfer van. A huge 8 passenger van that we use to move missionaries around. Because the mission presidents seminar was in Monterey President needed the van to shuttle mission presidents. In preparation the van was detail cleaned. It looked beautiful. So of course the next day as we were getting ready to go make waffles for some missionaries, the waffle batter spilled all over. Ha ha; it was a good example of how Murphy’s Law works. It came out just fine. Just one of those funny situations. :)

Where I am at: Things are great. I love my mission. I am happy to be here and serving in the way that I am. I love you all!