Mission Conference

I'll start off by telling everyone why I didn’t email yesterday. We had a surprise mission conference with Elder Richards of the 70. Basically what happened is last Thursday Elder Richards called President Van Cott and told him he would be in the area to visit some family and he wanted to meet with all the missionaries and do some training. So um yeah that was basically what happened. We realized that the church is the only organization that could have set something like this up in 3 days. Pres called the AP's (Assistants to the President) and they called the Zone Leaders and then the Zone Leaders called the District Leaders who then called the missionaries in their districts and everyone found out about the meeting by Saturday and all the rides and stuff were figured out on Saturday and basically everything just ran nice and smooth and everyone was there on time. It was awesome. But also crazy because if we had had a mission wide Christmas party/social/get-together thing then we wouldn't have been able to have this meeting with Elder Richards.  It was kind of not fun not having a party but we got something even better then it so we are all pretty happy. Because what he talked about was simple teaching, and that is what President Van Cott is about to start with us now. We have gone over obedience and now it’s simple teaching. After that well I don't know but it was super cool how much we learned that day. I forgot my notes at home but I’ll write about it next week. After the meeting we had to go to the DI (I'm not sure what it stands for but it’s like Deseret Industries or something. They have clothes and books and it’s owned by the church. I've never been to one it was well like a thrift shop. so yeah cool I guess) so that we could pick up a table and chairs for the hermanas apartment and so we spent like a whole like 2 hours doing that and then we had dinner and lessons. So now it’s P-Day and I'm emailing you.

Starting back at Christmas. Elder Cebreros was sick so we really didn't do anything that day. Just sort of laid around and practiced the uke and I read some scriptures and Elder C slept like literally the whole day. So yeah it was a lot of fun. I loved seeing my family!

At the Bishops house on Christmas Eve

The Bishop has a tradition of giving the missionaries pj bottoms for Christmas

Thursday and Friday basically nothing happened. Nobody was home and if they were they had guests and didn't really want us over. But Saturday was pretty good. We had a good amount of lessons and I taught quite a bit and my Spanish is getting better. Slowly but surely. I have this problem, I'm not out spoken. I love talking to people but I'm soft spoken and not really interesting to people and so basically even when I talk to people in English I just get ignored pretty often. So I don't really talk very much, to anyone.  It’s kind of interesting because I get to look at every situation from a 3rd person non-participant and I think some people think I don't want to talk or participate. I do. I really, really do! I just have no idea what to say to people and when I do know what I want to say I don't know how to say it and my companion seems like he gets frustrated when I turn and ask him how to say something. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is it was a pretty good day.

 Sunday was just sort of any other Sunday. I went to ward council. Understood most of what was going on and talked a bit about the people we are working with and then sacrament meeting and then classes. It was good. Oh!!! We did have a baptism. 2 boys that Elder Molesworth and Elder Barrus taught were baptized and they were like super, super pumped for it.

And that's my week :)

I had a really cool experience but I don't have time to type it because I have to leave in about 5 minutes but I’ll write it in a letter to my family tonight and maybe they can type it onto the blog for me!

But something I learned at the mission conference. Is that Nephi thought about his children long before he was married and we were told that we should do that now. Because even though none of us missionaries have kids we will and it’s a motivator. What kind of parent do I want to be? How do I want my example to affect my kids? What do I need to do in order to become the parent they need? That is one of the reasons why President Van Cott stresses so much on obedience. Because if we break rules here on the mission that are designed to keep us safe what rules will we think are not important after we leave. What might we do and who might we affect. So just remember and keep in mind when you are about to make a choice my youthful friends of my generation. How will that affect your kids and would you be proud to tell them that was something you did?

Well that's it for now. We have to head to dinner because we have to be our houses tonight at 7 :( so I hope everyone has a fun New Year!!!!! :)

I love you and miss you all!

Elder Zachary Gore

Moving day

I'm sorry but I don't really have an email for today.

We had to move today to the old apartments we were living at because the Hermanas felt unsafe so I have no time because we still have to go shopping before dinner.

Also can you send my mail through the mission office from now on? and ask everyone to send it there too? We could move again and I'd rather have the mail at the right place.

The mission knows about the problem with the post office so every week they send someone down to bring us all our mail. So please, please do that! Thank you :)

I got all the packages today and I'm super super excited to open them and Elder Cebreros is too!!! :)

For Christmas when I get back we are going to make Tamalis!!

 

Making Tamalis

We sing at everything! I had a solo on Sunday during the Christmas program and everyone after said I had the voice of an angel >.< Nooooooo I don't!

  

California Snow!  (bubbles)

  I can't wait to skype with you on Wednesday!

 Love,

Elder Gore

(More photos will be added under the photos section)

Not  a whole lot happened this week as far as lessons. But we had a good week so I don't really feel too bad about it. So to start off we had transfers and as I'm sure everyone has noticed. I'm staying in Coachella! Yay!!! Hermana Santiago and Elder Harline were transferred and that was sad. But Hermana Deroche's MTC Companion, Hermana Wong is now Hermana Thomas's companion and Hermanas Wallor and Deroche are companions. That puts 3 of the first 5 Mexico MTC missionaries in my District and the other 2 are in the Palm Desert B Zone (Hermana Howe), and in Fontana (Elder Moore). I really want us 5 to all be in the same district.. no same ward someday. That would be super cool!!!!

The Zone before transfers last week

I got a package from Carolin!!!! It’s full of awesome German Chocolate!!! It’s super super awesome!  

 
So Shout Out To Carolin!!!!

We had a really cool experience this week that led to a new investigator. We were going through the area book and organizing the people into categories and then we went out to start finding. We went to the first house looking for a Cynthia and we knock on the door and nobody answers. So we knock again, and still nothing.  We are about to leave when this guy walks up and turns the door handle then knocks and rings on the same door. We look at him for a second kind of stunned and then we ask if this is his house and he says yes and his brother opens the door and the guy asks if we want to come in. So we are like well yeah for sure. So we go in and we are talking. Sharing a bit about what we do as missionaries and he stops us and says he has something he wants to show us and he (sorry his name is Victor as we have found out in our talking) Victor goes into another room for a few minutes and then when he comes back out he has a bunch of books. He hands each one of them to us and says this is a Catholic Bible and this is a Jehovah's Witness Bible and he had 3 copies of the Book of Mormon and we are just like whoa... And so we start talking to him and we realize that he is super prepared. He has been searching and searching and trying to learn and find the truth. We shared a bit more and asked if we could come back the next day and we asked him to 2 Nephi 31. We went back the next day and read the chapter again (again because  he had actually read it!!!) and then we taught him about the Gospel Of Christ and we invited him to be baptized and he accepted!!!! His baptism is set for Jan. 12!! Its soooo exciting!! That's the last time we were able to meet with him so far but we are hoping for tonight or tomorrow! Please keep him in your prayers!

On Saturday we went down to Thermal and helped a brother of the ward fix up his house. We put floor boards down and ripped up tile. We even started putting the wood panel flooring in! It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. When we got done we went to the church building and we traded our Corolla in for a new Chevy Cruz! It’s blue and super cool, fast, maneuverable, and has a pretty nice sound system. It has 4000 miles on it. So like basically if something happens to the car it’s my fault. But don't worry! I'm taking great car of it and we are keeping it nice and clean :)

 I hope you guys all have fun and make good choices! Remember the reason for the season!

Have a great Week!

Love you all!,

Elder Zachary Gore :)

Transfer Week...I am staying in Indio!

This week we did a lot of searching and trying new things so that we can get some more people to teach, which is hard because nobody works in Coachella so most of their friends either live out in Indio or Thermal or the other side of Coachella which we don't cover. And well a lot of the people here are members of another church, but not really practicing. A lot of them don't go to church or really do the things they say they believe, they are following tradition and they don't really want to listen to us. They say they already have their religion and they don't want to listen to what we have to say. We are just asking people to listen and then decide. So it’s kind of hard but we are working on it. On the bright side we had a really exciting thing come out of all this searching.

We decided we needed to try something new. So we decided to go Area Booking. The Area Book is a binder where we keep all our records about the area we are working in. It has the ward list, map of the area, and some other things. The "Progress Record" which is where we record who we are teaching each week, what they were taught, what they need. We have the "Teaching Record" which is where we record what we teach people on an individual level. It has space for notes and info about the people and past appointments. So Area Booking is this: when we go into the Potential or Former Investigator Section and we pick some of the people and go visit them. So that's what we did. The first house we went to we made contact with the lady on the record and we talked to her for about 20 mins. We testified and taught and the Spirit was there with us and we invited her to pray to know if the Book of Mormon (which she had read already) was true. And we promised her that if she prayed sincerely and with a real desire to know the truth that she would receive that confirmation, that feeling of peace and comfort and warmth, from the Holy Spirit. We put it into her hands. We invited and that's all we can really do. So we'll see what happens when we go back this week.

 This former investigator happened to live across the street from a less active member of our ward that we had never met. We saw as we were leaving the formers house, the family going into their own house so we decided to go and knock the door and we did and we met the grandpa and we found out that his daughter, the member, gets off at work around 6 so we are definitely going to go back and visit them this week.

 And finally the last like really exciting thing is... (Drum Roll Please) We have a new investigator!! So a girl named Julie in our ward had like a "Gospel Party" and she invited a bunch of her non-member friends over and all the missionaries and we just hung out and talked and played like group games. I think I've already talked about it. But one of the kids there was named Abraham. (Ah-bram(bram rhythms with ham))(For if you want to say it like we do) He is about 17 and he is a really cool kid. But he is the only one that had any questions about the church and what missionaries are and so we went over and talked to him and had a lesson. It was mostly a get to know him because we didn't really have much prepared. Something that morning had messed with our study times. But the lesson was good. It’s tough because well I've never taught any of the lessons before. Because we just haven’t had any investigators this whole time we've been here. Well other then Juan. But really I've had no practice. So that was really throwing me off. Because Elder C said I was in charge and I'm like "...fine". I had no idea what I was doing but we managed to get through it. Hopefully I'll get better as I muddle my way through.

We did a bike day and that was pretty good. I was dying. I'm so out of shape, 30 minutes really isn't enough time, and there isn't really a way to do much cardio. But I'm going to keep working at it and see if I can get myself back into shape. The funny part is I still haven't gained any weight. I'm just getting weaker.

Yesterday we all came back to the house after dinner because one of the 4 of us wanted a blessing. To help him have energy and focus. And then another of us asked for one too for similar things. And we all ended up receiving blessings, I had been feeling I needed one for a little while and this was a good opportunity. But the Spirit and the peace and energy we felt in our apartment was just incredible. I don't have words to describe it. It was like a great burning in my chest and I just felt at peace and I felt comfort and it was exactly what I needed to hear to help me. Now we are all crazy energized and ready to have a really good strong transfer and we feel like we are doing the things we are supposed to so we are happy.

 Well that's the email for the week. I hope everyone has a good week and is successful in their endeavors. Make good choices! Remember who you are and that you have a purpose. Your Heavenly Father Loves You and wants You to be Happy. Read the Book Of Mormon Everyday and through its pages you will be able to feel the Love and Guidance from your Heavenly Father. Pray every Morning and Night and you will be able to have the Spirit and know what You and supposed to Accomplish. I Know this Church is True and that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet et of God. I Know that through him the Church that Jesus Christ Established while He was on Earth was Restored again to the Earth with all the same Power and Authority. I Know that the Book Of Mormon is True and that through Studying it we can Draw Nearer to God. I Know that I have a Purpose and that Heavenly Father has a Plan For Me and because of that I Don't have to Worry. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Brother, Our Savior, and Our Redeemer. Amen.

Have A Blast in the SNOW!!!!!

Love,

Elder Zachary Gore