Brian

January 4, 2011
Sunday: I am 20!!! Wow, I am old. That is crazy. I am not a teenager. I am 2 decades old. Craziness. In the evening [a member family] had a birthday party for me. They decorated and made me a cake and everything. It was super nice. Then we came home and ate more food! Thanks for the pizza.

January 11, 2011
Friday: Leadership Training!! I love leadership training. We woke up super early and then we drove over to Vista, I played piano. The training was really good, we just practiced, practiced, practiced. I love it, such a spiritual experience. It is 100% focused on the spirit and you receive SO much revelation and inspiration and excitement.
Saturday: More leadership training! In the afternoon we practiced finding by the spirit and so the zone leaders were all given situations and we were supposed to be real characters and the missionaries were going to contact us. It was super fun. We dressed up and had props and everything and it was really fun.

January 18, 2011
Wednesday: We went to district meeting and then we had a few appointments fall through which was too bad. But then in the afternoon we had to go to the library and take an online mission survey for the mission department. Then we are also being instructed to go on to the new mormon.org and learn about it more, so that we can help members use it too. It is basically this huge social networking site, and I don’t know if you guys have heard the success that it is having in our mission and the world. Truly it is miraculous! The amount of referrals that missionaries are getting are higher than ever because of this website.

January 25, 2011
Sunday: We started with Cinnamon Roll Sunday and then we had ward correlation and then ward council. Then…[an investigator family] came!!! This was the second week in a row for them, and it is SOO exciting! Way spiritual experience, when one of my recent converts actually blessed the sacrament. The Spirit was so strong for me, and I couldn’t help but cry. It was definitely a tender mercy from our Heavenly Father, telling me that he is proud of the work that I am doing. In Sacrament Meeting I actually performed. I sang “I Know that my Redeemer Lives”. My companion, Elder Kidd, played piano and it was an arrangement that we wrote on Saturday, and it turned out SOO GOOD!!! The Spirit was so strong and wow…it was great. Cool story: one of the other missionary’s investigators was there and she felt the Spirit while I was singing and started bawling and it was the first time she had felt the Spirit, and then that night she accepted a baptismal date. It was one of the most spiritual performances of my mission. Also, the most spiritual Sacrament Meeting that I can ever remember. It was great.

12/7/2010

Lunes:  Not much happened during the day until the evening when we ate dinner with Los Salvador and then we went to this big noche de hogar that we arranged.  We had it in the bishop’s home and we invited all those that were investigating and those that had been baptized within the year to come.  It got started an hour late, but it was a good success.  We were pretty happy.

12/14/2010

Miercoles: In the afternoon we went and checked up on this former investigator and we had a sweet lesson with him.  He had a lot of unanswered questions from former missionaries, and we were explaining about the true church of Christ and then the First Vision.  The most powerful/spiritual First Vision moments of my mission.  He was crying and then afterwards we were silent for about 2 minutes.  Really sweet.

12/21/2010

Friday:  It started raining hard on Friday and it has not stopped once since.  There is SO much water and thank goodness we have a car.  We have been soaked the last 4 days, and tomorrow it is supposed to rain too.

Sunday:   We saw so many miracles.  In sacrament meeting, we didn’t have any investigators…but Elder Kidd and I sang a song, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, and Hna. Yturralde played piano.  It was beautiful and it sounded really good, REALLY strong spirit.  I also gave the opening prayer.  So afterwards in gospel principles there was this guy that was just sitting there dressed in shirt and tie that looked familiar.  We started talking to him, and turns out he isn’t a member but has come to the ward like 4 times.  No one knew that he wasn’t a member!?!?  And he is in our area.  Practically is a member already, has a friend in Encinitas who is a member.  We are going to spend Christmas Eve with them, and the qoute was that “I am going to work hard, to get my wife involved in this!”  And he has never actually spoken to missionaries before!  So great!  We got home after church so happy.  We ate dinner with a member family, Los Salvador, and we are going to be over there for Christmas calls and such.  They are an awesome family.  Great day, and miracles continue.

12/28/2010

Friday:  Christmas Eve!!  We went at 9:30 to pick up Elders and then we drove them to Vista for the party.  We had all the packages divided up and we gave them all out to our zones.  There were a lot of them.  Then we practiced for the talent show for a little bit and then mingled with everyone.  We had lunch catered by some members for free and it was delicious.  Then we gave President Cook a present from our zone.  Last week when we were at the library the librarian said that they were going to be throwing out their collection of the encyclopedia of mormonism, but that if we wanted them, we could have them.  So we took them and then we got them all signed and gave them to President.  he LOVED them.  P.S.  This is the one that Grandpa Walker is in.   Then I also played piano for the devotional.  It was super good, and then at 6 we left.  During the devotional I received some intense revelation, that the Lord is going to place in our path someone who is very ready to recieve the gospel.  So Elder Kidd and I have to go find him now.  We got our transfer calls, and I am staying again with Elder Kidd here in Escondido!  So it will be 9 months and counting of being here in Escondido.  Crazy.  When we got home, we went over to Los Madrigal and we ate dinner with them.  They are an investigator family, and actually it was the first time that we visited them.  Super nice.  Super ready.  We ate Pozole and tamales, and it was really good.  We picked them up as new investigators and we had a sweet lesson!!!

click on a photo to see them all in a gallery

11-2-2010

Miercoles:  Multi zone conference with Elder Zwick!!  It was held in San Clemente, so we got to go on a little roadtrip and it was so fun!  We had to leave pretty early in the morning, but it was fun.  The conference started at nine, but we had to be there at 8.  E. Zwick and his wife met every missionary personally.  While he was meeting everyone, I played piano and it was like for 50 minutes.  Long time.  The conference was so good, and in the middle I played a special musical number, “I Stand All Amazed/Nearer My God to Thee”.  It was really spiritual and it was one of my better arrangements I would have to say.  Way spiritual conference, and I learned a ton.

11-9-2010

Viernes:  Weekly planning as usual and then we went down to Samuel and taught him.  After that we went around and did some stuff in Central but a lot fell through.  Then we took the lonely bike trail back home and we think we were being prowled by a pack of coyotes.

Oh yeah to answer some questions.  Elder Carey’s mission famous “Cinnamon Roll Sunday”.  It really isn’t anything that special just every Sunday I make cinnamon rolls for my companions.  I either make Rhodes Rolls or I just get the Pillsbury, it kind of depends on what I feel like.  So the tradition is wake up and blast Mo Tab and then cook the cinnamon rolls and eat them.  I have done it my whole mission and it is pretty famous now.  In fact the other Elder’s that I live with have adopted it and we enjoy lots of cinnamon rolls.

11-16-2010

I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED!!  Craziness, I was shocked when I found out.  We found out Saturday night that both Elder Colby and I are being whitewashed out of the area.  Even bigger news….I AM GONNA BE A ZONE LEADER!!  What the heck. I feel like I just barely got here to Oceanside, and now I am leaving.  Pretty sad really, especially right before the holidays and everything.  But it is for the best.  I have learned so much here in Oceanside and from all the experiences.  I can definitely say that I have grown a lot as a missionary and I am ready for new and exciting challenges.

11-23-2010

Wow, this has been a whirlwind week.  Alright so the results are…..I am in ESCONDIDO!!!  AGAIN!!  I am in the exact same ward I was in 3 months ago, but I am in a different area.  Some new zones got created, and so my companion and I are both serving for the first time ever, as zone leaders in a spanish area.  So that is super exciting.  It was a shock when he said at transfers that I was going to the Escondido 3rd Ward again.  Wow.  Crazy.

Lunes:  So we got up early in the morning and got ready to go to Zone Conference!!  Yeah, the first week that we are zone leaders, and we have to get a zone conference together.  We gave our training on inspired lesson plans and it pretty much rocked.

10-5-2010

Viernes:  Crazy day!!  So in the morning I got food poisoning, AGAIN!  Boo.  This is the 4th time on my mission.  Sabado:  General Conference!!!  Woot!  It was at the stake center in Carlsbad. … took us over there and the first session didn’t have translation, so I had to translate it.  Whew, that was hard.  Live translation is tricky, especially conference talks because they use such big words.  But I had done a lot of practicing before, so it wasn’t too bad.  And a temple in TIJUANA!!!!!  All the members were freakin’ out!!  It was so exciting!  This is soooo good for the church down here.  We pretty much partied at the stake center all day and watched them all in Spanish.  Gotta love conference.  It was interesting because there are a TON of general authorities that record their own translations.  It was really surprising.

10-12-2010

Sabado:  Still on exchanges.  In the morning we went down to the ocean and taught … a part member family.  We are teaching … who is the husband, and he has a date for the 1st of January.  Then we taught … and then we exchanged back.  Elder Colby and I went over to … a 9 yr old son of a member and we set a date with him for the 13th as well.  We came home early because Elder Colby was really sick and then we had BUNK BEDS!!!!  Hallelujah, we finally have beds and we aren’t sleeping on the floor.  It took 7 weeks, but they came.  YAY!!

10-19-2010

Jueves:  In the morning a TON of things fell through.  And I had some bike problems, so I had to fork out another $70 on bicycle repairs.  Boo.  I got some new tires, and some other work done, and it runs a lot better now.  Then after that we went to this less active, and we gave her a blessing, and then she gave us 6 referrals!!!!  Sweetness.  Viernes:  …we went to one of our focus-15 people, …, because her husband isn’t a member.  After that I got a flat, so I had to repair it and then we did the long bike ride home from the ocean.   Sabado:  In the morning we biked down to visit …  It has been really rainy and stormy since about Thursday (still rainy and stormy today), and so we got really wet riding down.

10-26-2010

Tuesday:  RAIN!!!  Holy cow.  After I wrote ya’ll we went to Carlsbad for interviews.  Big news:  So I talked to President about school, and coming home early to get into school, and he agrees with me, and we have it planned for me to come home in the November transfer next year instead of the January.  So that means that I am only going to have one Christmas away, and only one birthday, but probably two Thanksgivings, but we will see.  So yep.  LOTS OF RAIN!