Gonna Need Bigger Pants

*Note from Ammon's mom: Ammon gave us his Christmas list and asked for more ties. His were all in his missing carry on and he is getting a little tired of the limited ones he has inherited. So if you were already thinking of sending him a package, he would be grateful for a little more variety in his wardrobe choices. 

This has really been an awesome week and the time continuum is starting to get messed up. It seems like this week has really flown by. It’s really starting to wig me out to see how fast time is going. It’s CRAZY!!

Spiritual: This week was an interesting week full of miracles. The most surprising thing that happened was the fact that we went to Catholic Church!! It was good! I’m definitely not going to convert though. They wouldn't let me take communion. It was a very strange experience. We went there because one of our investigators is very involved with the church and his dad is actually fairly high up in the clergy there. We wanted to see what the change would be for him to convert and he wanted us to see what it was like. So we went! We were really nervous walking through the doors and worried that we might damage the church reputation but it ended well. The crazy part was when we were sitting there in the congregation and I paused and I started to get really worried. I was feeling the Spirit!! It was super strange!! I was internally freaking out. How could this be?? I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the right church, but I was feeling the Spirit in a different church! Once I started getting more comfortable there I noticed that the Spirit was in fact there, but it was very different. It didn't feel whole or complete. Something was missing and something was just different. I also noticed that once the church was done, I felt chaotic inside, not calm and peaceful and as drained as I did when I usually go to church. When I got home I prayed about what I had felt and I realized that what I was feeling was indeed the Spirit, but the fact that I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Joseph Smith is a prophet will overcome any doubts or bad feelings that will come my way. I know that this church is true and nothing will change that. As president Uchtdorf says, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your Faith."  

Funny: This week besides going to Catholic Church, we also got the chance to teach a street contact we had made. Our boy, Chris, was sitting there shooting hoops and we saw him, pulled a U turn and went over to talk to him. We had met him several times before and one time given him food. He is about six foot and black. We are also about 80% sure he is a drug dealer. We ended up teaching him the first two lessons while sitting there in the park shooting hoops. He got really into it. We ended up feeding him lunch at a burger place down the road and while there he paused for a moment and said; "Now you boys are my friends. I don’t have very many friends round here, but you boys are my real friends. Most people call me their friend, but I ain’t their friend, not even their acquaintance. You boys, you are my friends. If anyone comes and starts messin’ with you, man I am on them. So fast." Oh Chris. So don’t worry, we are being protected by the Heavens, and the drug lords. Things are great. haha 

Where I am at: Thanksgiving is coming up and boy howdy we are going to have a lot of food that day! We are super excited for it! We have breakfast, lunch, first, second and third dinners all scheduled. Wow. I might need some new pants mom. haha The largest miracle this week happened at church. Not the Catholic Church, but the Mormon one. haha I was sitting next to Robert, Laura our recent convert’s ex-boyfriend, and he started asking about Brendan and Bryan. I told him that they were being baptized on the 7th. He said "Cool. Hey, can I be baptized with them?" "YES!!!!" It was awesome! Right out of nowhere he wants to be baptized! We are so excited for him! He is down to half a cigarette a day and is really prepared and ready to make the covenant. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! That means we will have three baptisms that day. The Lord is truly blessing us with prepared people. It’s seriously nothing we are doing but being obedient and working hard and the Lord does the converting. All is well here in paradise and Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat. Don’t worry, we will eat it on Thursday. :) I love you all! Thanks for the wonderful letters! This week has been full of them! I love it.

November 18, 2013

This week has been an awesome week with a lot of planning and a lot of preparation. 

Spiritual: This week we taught Brendan and Bryan, two thirteen year old twins. They are the younger brothers of Laura, our recent convert. We went over to their hotel this week to just check up on them Saturday night to make sure they were coming to church. When we got there, there was a weird spirit that was there. There were a lot of bad feelings in the family and not a very happy place at all. We sat back and observed for a while. The Spirit then inspired us to not be dormant any more. We had to do something. They were being horrible to their sister and we just couldn't handle it. We called them out on it and committed them to be nice this week and had a super powerful lesson on why family is important. We had an awesome lesson. It was so spiritual not because we were in a church, or because it was a calm peaceful place, but because they really needed this message. We ended and were walking away feeling uplifted and like we had done a ton of good, even though we were next to the pool sitting at this glass table in the freezing cold. We had taken the umbrella out of the table to teach as well. When we were walking away we heard this huge smash and we looked back to see our investigators standing over this broken pile of glass. They had tried to put the umbrella back and had broken this table! The next second they were both gone. I have never seen anyone jump a fence so quickly. They disappeared just like true "hood rats." Sigh. In the end it was a good time to teach about repentance and we left on a good note. It’s crazy the background some people come from, but everyone needs the gospel. This church is not a perfect place for only perfect people; it’s a hospital for the humble. 

 Funny: This week was also Zone Conference! It was incredible to hear all of the senior couples talk about proper care of vacuum cleaners and teach us once again how to care for our bikes. Tehehe. During zone conference we also have the car check where they make sure you are keeping the car clean. We have a full time car now and we make sure sure sure it is way clean. The night before the conference we were backing out of the apartment and for some strange reason, Elder Kerby missed and the right side mirror got hit by a large pole. Awkward zone conference for sure. haha 

 Where I am at: This week we have got a ton of new investigators. One of the more notable ones is Abram, our maintenance man. We needed our pilot light lit so we called him over and we started talking to him. (I know it’s an evil, tricky way to force someone to listen to you but we had him trapped so what else were we going to do??) At the end of the visit he turned to us and said that our heater was officially broken. Dang. It’s getting cold. But, he invited us over to his house so he could learn more!!! I am okay with the cold if it means someone is going to join the church. We are planning on a lot of things breaking over the next little while so he will just happen to come by. :) Our other miracle this week was a 17 year old boy named Matt. He is a super devout Catholic and his dad is fairly high up in his parish. We had met with him for a while, and we just barely this week decided to pick back up with him. We were asking him about his church and he told us that he hadn't been to mass in over a month. WOW. He said that he just keeps telling his dad that he has homework or something like that. We invited him to church and we have extremely high hopes for him in the near future. It’s so cool how the gospel makes a serious impact on people. I know the reason these two individuals want to come closer to Christ is because of the truthfulness of the gospel and the spirit prompting them in the right direction. I am so excited for them!! We set a zone goal of having 20 baptisms before Christmas. It’s amazing how the Lord is blessing us to actually accomplish this goal we set in faith. It’s going to happen. As you can tell the work is really picking up and miracles are starting to flood in. The Lord blesses us for righteous obedience.  

Baptisms!

What an exciting week this has been. Lots of things going on and tons of blessings have happened. It’s been a definite season of rewards and looking forward to the future in the work in this area.

 Spiritual: Wow! Good heavens- it happened. Two baptisms this week! So cool! The first was Gavin who is 10 years old with a slight learning disability. He is the cutest kid you can imagine. As we have been teaching him we have been helping his older brother prepare for his mission. He is turning in his papers here soon. Such a great family! This is my home away from home family and I really love them so much. Gavin’s baptism was an amazingly powerful experience. His brother got the chance to baptize him and unfortunately had to do it three times due to the hand popping up. We really love Gavin and his family a ton. That baptism was not too stressful except for the fact that, out of the blue, the brother conducting the meeting called on me to give a talk and testimony. That’s why I took improv!! I loved it! The Spirit was super strong and absolutely powerful. The second baptism that day was much more of an adventure. Laura finally got baptized! But it was not without trial and tribulation. Two days before the baptism we got a call from one of the members saying that not only did Laura’s family not have a home, but Laura was out on the street with nowhere to live. It was a crazy couple of days with lots of prayers and anxiety. Finally things got sorted out temporarily and she found a place to stay. The members were so incredible jumping in at a moment’s notice and helping her out. There are still temporal things that we have to figure out for her to find a place permanently to stay but it was truly a miracle that she did get baptized. It was amazing. The devil tried so hard to stop her from making this promise with God, but she despite a place to stay, a supportive family, temptations from the word of wisdom, and many more struggles was able to get baptized. The Spirit that was there was incredible. There was an incredible peace that came into the room after she was baptized and she after was calm, happy and finally at peace. There will be opposition that comes our way, boulders in our path and many more metaphoric hindrances to our goal, but the important thing to realize is that God will provide a way for the righteous desires of our hearts to be fulfilled. 

 Funny: This week was also exchanges. I went with Elder Irvine and we went to visit this less active. Turns out he wasn’t home. So we took a small walk around the block just seeing what we could see. We saw this man putting a Bunch of tequila into this cooler. He had a ton of alcohol. So what did we do? We talked to him about it! Our first comment was "Wow! That’s quite a stash you have there!" After proceeding to talk about his horrendous alcohol consumption habits, we progressed to talking about the gospel. I don’t think anything will come of it, but we definitely planted a seed. So now whenever he is drinking alcohol from his stash he will think of the missionaries talking to him about his drinking patterns. The key is just opening your mouth. God will put things to say into your mouth, the key is for you to open it. 

Where I am at: This ward is amazing. We have quite the diverse economic population here. We have some of the wealthiest people in the world, but also some of the people that need extreme financial help. It’s such a blessing. The ward council is awesome at identifying those who need help then progressing to help them. I do NOT want to leave this area! It’s such a good place! The work is really taking off! We have investigators coming out of the woodwork and things are really looking up. We will probably have two more baptisms by the end of the month. Things are going great! We have a Car!!!!! Our prayers were answered and we have a car. It doesn’t have a ton of miles left before its retired, but it’s got four tires and moves. We are very blessed. The weather here is getting colder. It’s starting to turn into winter. It’s crazy! The other night it got down to 40 degrees! That’s Cold!! haha Okay, yeah, Elder Black has been acclimatized. I love you all and am really loving it here! Thanks for your prayers and love.

Halloween treats

Good week. It was a little spooky just because it was Halloween and all.  In fact, we had a little trick instead of a treat come our way. 

Funny: This week we did a lot of work with the less active list. We tried to go visit all of the people on the list and we made some serious headway. It was an excellent week for visits. We did some amazing works. One of the funnier visits went like this: Elder Kerby and I went up to the door of Brother Turner. We knocked ( this was a fellow that we have been trying to visit for a long long time) and finally some old lady came to the door. We asked if Brother Turner was there. She paused for a moment and then replied that he had been dead for the past two years. Oh dear. We were a little taken aback to say the least. We then wished her our condolences and went on our way feeling bad for the grief that we had caused. We felt like we had just reopened a nasty paper cut and poured lemon juice on it. We were feeling bad for ourselves till about an hour later we got a call from Brother Larson who asked us what we knew about a "Brother Turner." “Brother Turner?” I asked, "Brother Turner is DEAD." "Oh. “He responded. "Well, I just left a loaf of warm homemade bread on his porch.” “I don’t think he will be needing it anytime soon.” I replied. I didn't feel that bad anymore. The Halloween spirit was abound for sure! haha

Spiritual: This week was rough on my companion. He was sick the end of Monday night, Tuesday night, all Wednesday and all Thursday. It was really difficult for him to endure this. He is a real go getter and being sick was super hard for him. On Monday night I was reading in the living room and I got the feeling to go into the room where he was. I went in and he was just in a rough place. The devil had been getting to him and he was not feeling well, mentally and physically. I sat down and talked to him for a while. It was different from a regular investigator because he was my good friend and I felt that I could actually do some good. We had quite a long discussion about why this illness had come to him and in the end I gave him a blessing. It was a sweet sweet experience and a powerful one. It got worse for him because while he was sick I went on exchanges with the Chinese elders because their companion was sick as well! (Yes another day in Chinese makes for a long day.) haha I loved the food though! The next day we made contact with a ton of less actives! I was wondering why the Lord would put him in this place where he had to just watch as all these miracles took place. I believe one of the reasons is that he got to really pray and ponder the word of the Lord and now he has come out of it with an intense vision of what the work in this ward can be. The Lord gives us trials for a reason. (That reason might have been that I needed to see if I knew the area enough and was able to do the work on my own) The Lord will bless you in your times of trial and affliction if you turn to him instead of wallowing in your grief. 

Where I am at: I survived the plague!!!! YAY! The work here is going super well! Laura who is 19 has a baptism date on the 9th and she is so solid! She prays every day and reads her scriptures and is just so happy about the gospel. We just started teaching her two younger brothers who are twins and are getting into gang things. Not good. We are confident that the gospel can help them in their life. Today also celebrates my two moth mark in the mission field! Yay! Happy day! According to elder Pak, the elder that is on his last transfer, I am as green as can be. It’s okay. But it’s also not easy being green. My orange trick has come in handy so so so many times! I did it for the stake president, the zone, and a lot of families. I guess i am getting the nickname of the Black Orange again. haha

Things are really going well. There are a lot of technical things that I need to work on but I am really doing well. I have a direction, know where I am going, and am running to the end goal. I love you all and the season here is beautiful! It made me laugh that on Halloween my companion was sick and I got to go to a really wealthy member’s house in Ruby Hill and eat candy. I got the treat and he got the trick. 

I love you all!

October 28, 2013

Spiritual: This week was awesomely spiritual! It started out with a baptism on Saturday for a lady named Dawn. She wasn't actually our baptism, she was in the Pleasanton 3rd ward and she is super solid. She has cancer and was really struggling for a long time with it and she found the church and her cancer is now in remission. She was so happy to join the church it was really inspiring. The service was very powerful and it was interesting to see how important it is to fully live the law of consecration and give everything away, including your pride, and invite people to a spiritual event you are having. She invited a ton of non-members and there are some very good opportunities in store. The next best spiritual part of my week was Sunday. Holy cow it was so cool! We had a missionary homecoming during Sacrament meeting and we had a less-active member there. The less-active, Alex, is a super cool guy! He is 33 and not married but absolutely loaded! He is rich, buff, ballroom dancer, funny, and just overall a stud. Every time we leave his house we sit in the car and say "Why in the world is he not married??" Super cool guy. He hadn't been to church in a long time and one day we just decided to drop by and invite him. He said yes and came! It was amazing. That night we went to the outgoing fireside for departing missionaries. Wow. These elders have grown so much! It was a contradiction of emotions. It was super intimidating to see so many strong powerful missionaries who were departing super solid in the church, and to know that I will grow to that level if I keep trying and pushing forward, but it also made me realize that two years is really short time to do that in and how little time we actually have and to not waste a moment of it. All in all it was an amazing week.

Funny: This week has been the "Best Week of My Companion’s Mission" as he calls it. He has gone through the ringer and I have had the chance to sit back, chuckle and really serve him and love him with my whole heart. He went to the doctor this week and found out he had excema. It was super funny to be sitting in with my companion while he had to have an examination by a female doctor. hahaha. Last night was a long night for him as well. The plague has hit and he has the stomach flu. I have loved helping him and enjoyed completely making him feel good. I love it. We had a good laugh about our predicament and then moved on. Last night as well the sisters called. They had mixed ammonia and bleach and had created a hazardous gas and had to evacuate the apartment. Oh it was so funny. 

Where I am at: The transfers didn’t change much. There was one sister who is getting transferred from our whole zone. The boundary changes are easy as well. We are still going to be in P2 but we will help P3 as much as needed with anyone that the sisters can’t teach. The sisters are now strictly P3 and will help out in P2. The P3 elders were moved to cover P4 and the P1-4 sisters are now over P1 only. It was a pretty anticlimactic change. It was very nice. Rather dramatic still, but anticlimactic. I feel awesome. I feel like I know my way around the area and have a pretty good hold on how things work. I am really doing very well. We have had a lot of success in finding out what less-actives live in our ward. It’s been a fun little week. My companion and I get along really well. We have figured out what makes each other tick. It’s all going much better. Life is grand! The more I am out here the more I realize how simple the gospel really is but how important that simplicity is. For example, the statement that the church is true is probably the most uttered statement in the church, yet is the foundation for a solid testimony and for a lifelong commitment to live the gospel. It’s incredible how important that is- to a whole people, i.e. Pleasanton, or to a person. i.e.: elder Black. I Know the Church is True. I love it and I live it. 

Visit to the Oakland Temple Visitor's Center

Preface: We got a paper letter from Ammon on Saturday and the following is my answer to part of his letter, and his response: 

My tee hee moment for you today is about your last letter home. Emma was reading it aloud to Caleb and Micah yesterday morning and they all started laughing really loud and calling out “Mom! Mom!” I went in and they said that they could not believe that you said that your mission is hot sisters. I quickly corrected them “40%! 40%!” It made a lot more sense that way, but I thought it was hilarious the other way.

Lock your heart Elder.

Love, Mom

Okay, not going to lie. That 40% is pretty funny. My heart is locked. For sure and for certain! Don’t worry at all!

Spiritual: The highlight of the week would have to be the temple tour we were able to take with not just one, two or even three investigators, but a whole four investigators! It was awesome! The Oakland Temple Visitor’s Center was amazing. There was such a good feeling there and the Spirit was really strong. We watched the Restoration movie and walked around the center. The Spirit was so strong there and there was a good feeling in the air! Robert has gone from 2-3 pack of cigarettes a day to 1 cigarette a day in just short of a week! We are so excited for them to get baptized!

Funny: My companion and I decided to have a  "s’mores night." We took a night when we were feeling a little down and we just had s’mores! It was pretty fun. As I am sitting here I also noticed on the keyboard some graffiti from some hooligans who wrote their names on the library keyboard. Coincidentally, these happen to be the same names as our investigators that have an upcoming baptismal date. So I ask, coincidence?

Where I am at: Things are going well here. Our big focus these past few weeks has been the Rescue and cleaning up the ward list. There are so many members here and so few of them go to church so we have been trying really hard to get them to come to church. There have been a few surprises and a few doors slammed in our faces but for the most part we are finding a lot of people who have kind of  slipped through the cracks. The big gossip in the Pleasanton zone is that there are going to be some crazy drastic changes coming up in this next week. President Watkins wants Elders and Sisters in each ward and right now there are p2 elders, p2-3 sisters, p3 elders and p1-4 sisters. We don’t know for certain, but the plan is that either Elder Kerby and I will just take on p3 as well and the now p3 elders will take on p1-4, or the companionships will be split up so as to not whitewash any of the wards. So Elder Kerby would be transferred to p1-4 with the other p3 elder and I will stay in p2 with an elder from p3. We will find out by Saturday and no matter what it should be interesting! I love the work and have come to realize more and more that the reason I am here is the invite others to come unto Christ. Some come out here with the purpose of baptizing and running. Every day I learn how instrumental Christ and his Atonement are in my life and how much I want others to come experience that. I found a talent I possess. That is to love; to be kind and just love. It is my job to love these people as much as I possibly can and it’s the Spirits job to teach and testify of truth. Although we work hand in hand, both things are instrumental to becoming converted.

This week has really been uneventful. Sorry about that. Things between my companion and I are good, but I feel a bit overshadowed. It’s tough, but I have complete faith in the Savior and I think that is why I am going through this; to build my faith even more and to become proficient at leaning unto the Lord. I always knew my biggest challenge would be companions and I pray for love every day and I have found it but it’s still hard. I am doing well otherwise, and I feel very close to the Lord and really want to get as close as I can. Don’t get me wrong, I completely love love love it here and no matter what happens with the area changes I will be happy. I love you all and can feel your prayers and love. Thank you so much for the letters and the love. Keep Christ close. Don’t worry about me too much though. It’s more of a pride issue but I love how humble I have become! I can’t wait to become even more submissive to the Lord! Love you all so much!

Chinese Exchanges

Hi family!

Funny: Okay so this week has contained a lot of really exhilarating experiences followed by a lot of really unfortunate events. On Thursday I had the chance to go on exchanges with the zone leaders! It was awesome! The problem came when I realized that they spoke Chinese. Oh goodness. It was a funny funny day. I taught the craziest English class I have ever been in. It consisted of a whole bunch of old Chinese ladies yelling at me and me having no clue what they were saying. So so so funny. They would say things like "fash" and I would say "No, fast." They would reply with "Fashed." Me: " No, FAST." Them: "FASHED FASHED FASHED." Me: Okay, let's move on. Haha, it was super fun! We next met with this old man whose name was Hung Bo Bo. He has a total of six teeth and doesn't speak a word of English. Oh it was so funny. Firstly, when we walked in he had a pineapple sitting on the table next to him and his wife started to take it away but he yelled at her and she brought it back. Some dialogue happened and after I asked what happened and they had said that he wanted us to pray for this pineapple. So that's just what we did! We prayed for that pineapple and then cut it up and his wife made it into a drink full of banana and pineapple. That's it. It was a little hard to get down to say the least. It was a funny funny day and a rather long lesson. haha

Spiritual: This week was way spiritual because it was fast Sunday. We began with a zone fast Saturday night and it was super powerful. They had me and two other elders and a sister bear our testimonies. I didn't quite know what to say because I was just feeling rather alone and rather distant from everyone and everything. I bore my testimony about how Jesus is my friend and it was so powerful. I felt so loved and so close to our Heavenly Father throughout the whole experience. It was amazing. Another experience was that we got the chance to teach a lady named Carmen who has a crazy rough family situation at home and doesn't speak any English. We had to teach her through a translator and when we taught the first lesson she really felt the Spirit and we could tell that the things that we said went completely over her head. The Spirit was the one that really was doing the teaching. It was very powerful to give her the knowledge that she is loved even when her life is falling down around her. 

Where I am at: Things are going well here in Pleasanton and I am coming up on the end of my first transfer. We just got a new Chinese elder in our zone and it feels so so so good not to be the new one round here. I still have a lot to learn but things are going well. This morning we got up at a brutal 5:00 and went on a sunrise hike to the top of a mountain. Its a California mountain so its really just a large hill. :) It was really fun to have a testimony meeting at the top and cry repentance (literally) to all of Pleasanton. We sang some hymns at the top and had a great time with each other. 

Things are going well here for the most part. we have interviews with President Watkins tomorrow and I need a haircut! haha I am getting along okay with my companion but its hard because we have such different personalities and such different styles of life. He likes to argue and I do not. Things are okay. It's hard because I know enough to want to do things a different way but don't have the experience to back up my ideas so I end up getting rejected a lot. I feel like things are getting better though. Just pray for me to have a more humble heart. Our lessons have decreased to about 26 this week due to a lot of cancellations but we can get that back up for sure! I know my stuff and really want to show it now!  I appreciate all of your prayers and your love. I feel it very strongly out here. I am getting better at all aspects of the lifestyle here and I am very humbled by all that God has trusted me with. Right now I think God wants me to develop a much more personal relationship with him and he is giving me the opportunity to do so. I love you all so much! Things bug me here but I kinda just let it go by. Learn now so I can help someone with this same problem. Love you all!