A New Town a New Companion and a New Ward...I mean Branch!

I’m now in Yucaipa. I live in Banning and cover all of Banning and Cherry Valley, which is really big for an area for me, at least compared to Coachella. But it’s fun. We are on bikes - ok that’s not entirely true. We are supposed to be on bikes but my companion, Elder R, who by the way is hilarious, had an accident 3 months ago and broke his elbow.  It hasn't fully healed :/ So after 2 days of struggling through riding his bike we got told by the mission nurse that he can’t ride until after his doctor’s appointment this Wednesday. So the last 2 days we have been walking and man is that difficult. We were all white-washed in so we have no idea what is going on and who we can call. So on Friday since we didn't have dinner we walked to Little Caesars and then walked up to a family’s home who lived pretty far and it took us an hour to do the walk and then we got driven home and it took 3 minutes >.< Meeeeeh.  

Saturday was fun, too. We had one lesson with a family and spent 5.5 hours of the day walking and covered about 14 miles. That was awful. Though we had an adventure, the picture of the ditch with the Book of Mormon at the bottom was behind a shopping center and in between the center and the train tracks. We had a plan to try and cross the tracks and the freeway but there is a fence along the freeway so we just kept walking by the tracks. But we found this hole and we went around and we found the Book of Mormon and we thought about taking it but maybe whoever lived there was reading it so we didn't want to steal it from them.  My feet hurt and I have some blisters now. But it’s worth it. Doing the Lords work is always worth it!!

Church was interesting on Sunday because well, there are more than enough members to have a ward. It’s just not enough of them are active. And we want to help this branch be a ward. So that’s a big focus in this area. It was strange because we are in a stake center and only like 8 of the rows were filled. Maybe 50 or 60 people were actually there on time and then the other 30 showed up like 5 minutes before the sacrament. They had us introduce ourselves and everything. It was kind of nerve wracking. But everyone in the ward that goes to church loves the missionaries and is super excited to have elders in the branch.

We are super excited to work out here and help this branch grow.

I don’t have time to say anymore. And well nothing huge has happened. But I hope you will all pray for missionary experiences this week and I know if you do Heavenly Father will give them to you.

I hope you have a great week.

-Elder Gore