Finding Joy in the Journey

Missionary work in Fremont! Sister Kim and I have been working hard trying to figure out how to get new investigators. We tried to find more opportunities to serve and we were kind of successful. We helped a member with their backyard and we went to the food bank twice this week. This past week we've had the chance to meet with some more less active members of the ward and we had a great time with them. About every week we go and visit with Sister White--she is a wonderful retired African American woman, almost 82,  and has great grandchildren. Sometimes we wonder if she really is a member of the church or if she is Baptist, but she has a heart of gold and she just wants to do the right thing. When we go over to her home we read the Book of Mormon with her and this week we read 1 Nephi 16--it's the chapter where Nephi breaks his bow. She felt the Spirit as we read and she loved the doctrine that is taught in the last verse of the chapter: 

And it came to pass that the Lord was with us, yea, even the voice of the Lord came and did speak many words unto them, and did chasten them exceedingly; and after they were chastened by the voice of the Lord they did turn away their anger, and did repent of their sins, insomuch that the Lord did bless us again with food, that we did not perish

It is beautiful that even after all of their complaining and murmuring that Heavenly Father has a perfect ability to forgive--He didn't hold a grudge against them in the slightest because He blessed them with food. Repentance is such a wonderful miracle. 

We had a mormon.org miracle yesterday. Sister Kim and I were riding our bikes to church and on our way we passed a mother with her young daughter dressed up in their Sunday best walking to church. I was wondering where they were going because the only church close to where they were was our church. It turns out that was where they were going. She walked in the door and told a member that it was her first time here and so they introduced us to her. She has friends that are members of the church and she wanted to see what it was like, so she found it on mormon.org and came to church! She told us that she is looking for a church with structure and a place that focuses on families. She also feels that religion is something that you should take seriously. I had to smile inside because you can find all of those thing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Unfortunately she couldn't stay for all of sacrament meeting because her daughter had more energy than she was comfortable with, but she said that she wants to try it out another time. I hope and pray that we get to see her again! It was a testimony to me that Heavenly Father really is preparing people to hear about the restored gospel, we just need to find them or they just need to find us!

I found a scripture this week that I really like. I was studying about rejoicing and having joy and I came across this phrase in Ecclesiastes 2:10 -- "I withheld not my heart from any joy". I really like that because it is a choice to have joy and to be grateful. 

Gratitude...It Makes the Sun Shine

In a bicycle area now!

Missionary work...takes a lot of diligence. If you were to look and my planner you would see that it has about three ways that we spend our time: contacting people at the park, visiting with people that are less active, and dinner appointments with members. We usually spend about an hour every day or every other day going to the park and hand out pass-along cards while trying to talk with people. Sometimes we have good conversations with people and hopefully plant a good seed. 

In the California San Jose mission we don't go tracting (knocking on people's doors) so we have to do everything else we can think of to find people. There are a lot of gated communities here so knocking on people's doors probably wouldn't be a very effective way of finding people anyways. This mission is starting a pilot program called "Just Serve". I think there is going to be a website where people can post service opportunities and then the missionaries (and other people as well) will do so many hours of service each week. I don't think that the website is up yet and we don't have a very clear idea of how it is all going to work, but the idea is that we get out in the community and do service. I think it's a good idea. Sister Kim and I spend two hours a week at the food bank near by and help bagging food. It has been a lot of fun because we get to interact with people there and hopefully they get to see that we're just normal people...at least I try to be normal.

This week Sister Kim and I were trying to think of how we can jump start missionary work here in Fremont through members. Our idea was to teach members how to make their own family or personal mission plan so that they can have a missionary goal to work towards. You can't achieve a goal that you haven't set, so we want to help them set goals. We created a document that talks about how you could make a family mission plan. We plan on teaching families in the ward so that they can get excited about missionary work because sharing the gospel is one of the greatest things you can do!

I read President Monson's October 2010 General Conference talk--The Divine Gift of Gratitude--this week and it completely changed my attitude about what I'm doing here in Fremont. I realized that, like the Savior with the seven loaves and few fishes, I need to be grateful for the things that are going well and focus less on what isn't. This past week someone posed the question, "If all that you had today is what you thanked Heavenly Father for then what would you have?" Heavenly Father has blessed me with an abundance of blessings! There are so many tender mercies that happen each day that show His love for me--and it is usually through the kindness of other people. In his talk President Monson said, "We can lift ourselves and others as well when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thoughts and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues."

Sister Kim and I visit a number of less active people and families in the ward to teach them the missionary lessons or to give them some spiritual input. Yesterday after church we visited with Charlotte and John (I'm using different names). Brother Ocon from the ward also happened to be there visiting John and he helped us out quite a bit with teaching. Charlotte is in her late 80s or early 90s and John is her son. Charlotte is Danish and I think "stern" is a good way to describe her. She was baptized a number of years ago but she didn't believe the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so now she is agnostic. Yesterday we went over and she had questioned about how we could believe that there is a big man on the throne up there that just orders us around. We told her, in many words and analogies, that Heavenly Father doesn't order us around or make us do anything and we explained the entire plan of salvation. She said that what we were explaining made sense to her, I thought that was incredible because I was expecting her to reject every word we said. If Charlotte is honestly seeking to know the truth, then she will come around. That is the wonderful thing about the Spirit--it always testifies of truth. 

Another Week in Fremont

Another week in Fremont! Do you remember the young man that I told you about last week that we went and taught? Well, he came to church this week! AND he brought his father with him! It was my first time going to church with an investigator and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I kept a prayer in my heart that they would be able to feel the Spirit and recognize the power of the priesthood. The members in the Central Park Ward were great, almost everyone came and introduced themselves and let them know that they were welcome at church. The ward mission leader -- Brother Kalff -- was great and sat with us and helped explain to them what was going on and being a great friend. They had something that they needed to do so they couldn't stay longer than Sacrament meeting, but I'm so happy that they came. Last night this young man gave us a call and told us that he enjoyed coming to church. That was so great to hear. 

This past week Sister Kim and I also attended ward council, where the leaders of the organizations in the ward meet to discuss how we can help people build their own testimonies and become rooted in the gospel. It was a really neat experience for me to see how a ward works to care for people that we have stewardship over. I realized that church is not just an opportunity for me to strengthen my own testimony, but it is also an opportunity for me to serve others by helping them to feel God's love for them and to build their own testimonies. Before my mission I never went to church with that mindset and it helped me to realized the importance of gathering together often (Alma 6:6). Heavenly Father really does look out for His children through us. 

Sister Kim and I also attended the ASL class that the ASL Elders do on Thursdays. California School for the Deaf and Blind is here in Fremont so there is a Deaf Branch that meets in the same building as us, that is why there are ASL Elders assigned to this area. But anyways, I learned how to sign the alphabet in ASL and how to count to ten. I thought it was going to be much more difficult to learn the alphabet, but I picked it up pretty fast. ASL is a very animated language.

Transfers are this Wednesday in this mission and Sister Kim and I are going to be staying here in Fremont. I'm glad because that means that I really get to know the people here and to build up the church in this area. It is much more difficult than it sounds. We spend a lot of our time trying to visit less active members in the ward to see if they are interested to build their testimonies again and meeting with people who are striving to increase their activity. Yesterday we met with two women that are quite inactive so we shared the Plan of Salvation with them. It opened their eyes again to the beauty of God's love and how He is so loving and merciful. One of them got excited to read the Book of Mormon again and we're going to visit them again next week and share the Restoration with them.

Transfers...

Hello from Fremont, CA! If it's cold where you are, then you can be jealous of the amazing weather that we have here. I got transferred from the Temple Square Mission to the California San Jose Mission and so far it has been great! Fremont is the only area in the San Jose mission where sisters are on bikes so I have been getting my share of exercise so far--it has been really  nice. On my first day here I got a flat tire. The members in this area are great, though, because Brother and Sister Wheeler came right away to rescue us and help us get the tire fixed. It was amazing! They are such a wonderful couple and they even took us out for lunch at a Chinese buffet. It was very kind of them. 

My companion is Sister Kim from South Korea and she is a great missionary. I'm senior to her in terms of the number of transfers I've been on my companion, but I would be lost out here without her. We're keeping our schedule full and contacting as many people as we can. This past Saturday we went to the lake here and walked all the way around it (I think it is about a 2 mile walk) and tried to talk with people and hand out pass-along cards. We handed out over 200 pass-along cards so I hope that something comes of it. The park is a popular contacting spot for missionaries here so some people told us that they already had a pass-along card. I definitely want to improve on engaging people in conversations, though. 

We had dinner at the ward mission leader's home the first night I was here--Brother and Sister Kalff. They are a wonderful couple and Brother Kalff is actively involved in his calling, which is great. They fed us a wonderful, and organic, dinner and I learned a lot about how I can help as a missionary here in Fremont. 

The next day we tried to contact some potential investigators that we found in the area book. We tried to contact them by actually going to their homes and knocking on their doors--a new approach for me, but quite fun. We tried to contact someone named "Grandma" so we went to the address and knocked on the door. I don't know how we got that potential, but Grandma wasn't interested. We were on our way back to our bikes and the front door opened again and a man came out and told us that he was interested to learn more about the church and so we set up a return appointment for the next day. We went back and our prayers were answered because he was there and we taught him the first lesson. It was a new experience for me because I've never taught the first lesson without the backdrop of Temple Square or having so much time. I think it was a pretty good lesson. We taught him how to pray and invited him to pray both morning and night. He said that he would. We also invited him to be baptized and he said that if he comes to know that this is true, then yes. So we're going back to visit him tomorrow and see how that goes!

Something else that we do here is visiting people that are less-active, that we don't see at church very often. It is so great to get to know these people and to come to love them. We have such a great message of hope to share--that Heavenly Father reaches out to us, His children, and helps us be happy and return to live with Him again