December 1st 2014

Hey Mom! 

The only like big thing was Thanksgiving. For thanksgiving we made cookies for all of our members and for some reason we had these cool little gift boxes in the apartment so we put them inside with a little thank you note shirt and we gave them to our members. It took a long time and it was a lot of work but it was fun and the members loved it! We had dinner with the Moya family. It was fun. Just them and us and some turkey. It was fun!

On Friday we had dinner with our ward mission leader. They got me cake and we had leftovers and it was a lot of fun. He also got me some fancy cologne for my birthday. I forgot to take a picture of it. But it was a lot of fun and I'm super grateful for the Torriz family and all they do for us missionaries. They are like our parents away from home!

But other than that nothing much else happened. We are just doing our work and trying to be obedient and help people! I know this church is true and I'm so grateful for all the blessings I have received from it and I know that the Lord is at the head and is leading us!

I hope everyone has a good rest of the week and has lots of missionary experiences!

Love yall and miss ya!

Elder Zachary Gore!

November 24th, 2014

Zachary’s birthday is on Friday.  I asked him if the 7 years of being teenager went by fast and told him that he is going to blink and be 30!

Hey mom!!!

Yeah it’s super weird that I'm almost 20!!!!! BLEEEEHH!!!

And yeah it’s flown by in some ways. But in others it’s taken forever. 

30!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! DONT SAY THAT!!!

As for the week it’s been pretty good. On Tuesday I was asked to dedicate a family’s new car. That was a rather interesting experience. I wasn't sure how to do it. I've heard of blessing and dedicating homes, apartments, chapels, and proselyting areas, but I had never heard of blessing a car. I was thinking to myself, can I/should I use the priesthood to bless it? or should I just sort of do it like a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to bless it. I did the latter and basically said a prayer and it was good. But it was kind of weird cause I'd never done that before.

We also had super cool lesson with an investigator named Luis on Tuesday. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon with him and explained that it was the truest book that existed on the earth and he was like "whoa". The spirit was super, super strong and he said we had piqued his interest and that he was excited to learn more! We are excited for our next lesson with him tomorrow!

Also we have a family in the ward that has horses and we went to their house on Friday and helped them wash them. It was super fun!

Saturday we had our missionary ward correlation meeting and after it our ward mission leader took us with him to give a blessing to a friend of his. So we went and we gave it to her and on our way towards the elevator, someone said "Hey Elders!" so we turned and this guy walked over and said he was in the Thermal Ward in Coachella and that his dad was in the hospital and so we asked if he'd like us to visit him and he said for sure because he had been about to try to get a hold of the missionaries to come when he saw us. So we went and it was Hermano H. from the Thermal Ward and we recognized each other and it was cool. We gave him a blessing and left. It’s just another witness that God is mindful of everyone and takes us places so that we can be where He needs us. 

That was about the week. My pictures are of the district right after our last district meeting. Us cleaning the horse, including me spraying Elder R. with the hose. I feel bad about that because the water was really, really cold. And then our ward mission leader got us Elotes. It’s a piece of corn on a stick, or you can get it in a cup and they cover it in mayonnaise and cheese, and chili and stuff. I've had them; they are alright, but not my favorite food. But yep pictures of everyone happily eating. Except for Elder R. who doesn't smile. 

But that’s my week!!! I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving!!!!

I love yall!!!

-Elder Zachary Gore!

November 17, 2014

Hey Mom!!!

So this week has been pretty good. A little rough because we didn't have bikes until Saturday. But I’ll talk about that in a minute.

So basically starting Wednesday Morning (transfer day). We got up I finished packing and we got picked up. We got to the Mission Home and we loaded our stuff into the mission Jeep and drove out to our apartment. Unfortunately the jeep doesn't have that big of a trunk. Soooo we had to make a total of 3 trips for all the elders that were in the car. It was so long we spent close to an hour and a half in the car to haul everything but then we got done and we could relax for a few minutes. Now the fun thing was that we didn't have an area. Because what happened is that 6 months ago they closed the area and combined it with the sisters and other elders area. So we came in and we had no area book, no bikes (I was told to leave it in the apartment in Redlands, and Elder Rodriguez was told to leave it at the Mission Office) and no area. So we unpacked and walked around a bit. We had dinner with the other Elders at the Espindolas home. They are a really cool family way up in the other elders area, but they are ward missionaries so we'll be working with them a lot. Then after that we just walked around near where we lived and talked to people and tried to find the members that were around.

 

Elder Rodriquez and Elder Gore

Thursday we "weekly planned". As in we basically just sort of made an action plan for how we were going to meet all the members and find the formers. We had made some plans but everything fell through with the couple of people we did have the phone numbers of. So we basically did the same thing as Wednesday. Well minus walking an hour to the other elders apartment so we could get the other area book and some records.

Friday was the same. But the ward had its Thanksgiving party so we got to go and we met a bunch of the members. We also met the Bishop (I don't know how to spell his name) and the sister missionaries in the ward, and like basically everyone. It was pretty fun and the food was pretty good. Also nobody in my district, well not my district, I'm just a regular missionary again!!!!, but nobody is from Utah!!! Actually 4 of us are from the East Coast!!! There is me from Virginia, Elder Rodriguez(Comp) from Florida, Hermana Clark is from Georgia, and Hemana Jimenez is from New Jersey. Then we have Elder Jewell from Ohio and Elder Baer (yes I’m back with Baer and he is District leader) is from Colorado!!!!

 

Elders Gore, Rodriguez, Jewell and Baer

Saturday we got our bikes!!!! YAY!!!!! So we went out and started working and we had dinner with Hno. Toriz he is our Ward Mission Leader. That was super fun. Cause it was also his daughters 8th Birthday Party. So guess who showed up!!! Elder.. I mean Edgar Renovato!!! He's dating a girl in Rialto 3rd ward who is related to Hno. Toriz. So he was there and it was super weird but it was awesome to see him!

Sunday we had church. Church was good. We went to ward council, the ward wants to go all out with missionary work. So we are excited for that! Also we went to a baptism of Hno Toriz's daughter, because Elder Rodriguez had to play the piano. And they put me in charge of the movie we played after and ugh. The computer went crazy while I was putting it on and I was like No No NO!!! But I fixed it and everything was good. There were so many people at the baptism though!! It was insane!!! Pedro from San B came along with the Elders from San B. So I saw Elder Morris and Allen again and I found out that Pedro is getting Baptized on the 30th of November!!! I'm so excited!!! I love that kid!!!!

But yeah. Everything is good now. We have our bikes, we have an area. We have really good members and some really good potentials and investigators that just got turned over to us. So we are excited!!!

But yeah that’s about it!!

I hope you all have a great day and week!

I love yall!!!! bye!!!