Elder Shields in Carlsbad, CA

Hey guys!  So this week we got transfers. Elder Methvin will be leaving and I will be getting a new companion, his name is Elder Bytendorp. I don't know much about him other than he has a a weird name hah.  The Ducketts are still doing really well and look like they'll make their date of June 29th! We have another lesson with them tonight.  We are teaching a Chinese guy named Clark, we had a lesson with him this week. He really wants to do all he can to follow God and is excited to learn about our church. He is concerned about coming to church because his wife doesn't speak English. So we are getting all the info for a Mandarin speaking branch nearby.  President Thomas did a mass exit interview with all the missionaries going home this transfer and the transfer I leave. So I got to go to the mission office and get some good advice from him. It was mostly on marriage, dating, and finances. I got to see a lot of old companions at the meeting it was awesome!...

Hey Everyone!!  This week was another great one!  We have a super awesome part member family named the Ducketts that we are teaching. We lost contact with them during the week but we have a lesson with them tonight!  Sadly there was an Elder in the zone that went to the hospital this week. It was Elder Snyder my greenie! He crashed his bike super bad and broke his nose and his cheekbone. Just remember when you are riding your bike to use the handlebars😁😁  Zone conference and President interviews was this week. It was super sad because this is the last time that President will he doing zone conferences and interviews for us😢 very emotional time but we will need to support the Riverside mission President (President Hammon) when the change happens.  Love you all Elder Shields  Old Friends Elder Snyder Tmec Zone

Sorry it's been a minute  Biggest updates is that Phil Chute got baptized! Pur Bishop baptized him, it was cool to see an 80 year old accept the Gospel into their life! Love him so much  We got to go to the temple as a mission which was also awesome. A member in our ward (Brother Klecker) took us and it was a blast!  Had a special MLC which we had so we could do a training do for the zone on member work. Something the area presidency wanted us to focus on. We gave the training this past Tuesday.  Transfers were this Tuesday and I will be staying in Temecula Creek with Elder Methvin. We will also be covering the Redhawk ward in addition to the Temecula Creek ward this transfer.   Love you   Elder Shields

Hey everyone!!  This week was great! Highlight was definitely that Phil, someone we are teaching, is on date for May 18th. He is so awesome! He came to church again this week and he loved it!  We also are going to start teaching a part member family named the Ducketts. They have come to church for the past two weeks. And the wife and daughter who are non members have really liked it so far!  We also got to go to the temple with the Dalphins. They were some of my coverts in Oceanside and they got sealed in the temple! So cool. I love them. I don't have pics of that right now but I will soon.  Love you all, Elder Shields  Ducati Bowling Lizard Tmec Zone DeLuz

Last week  4/8/2019 Hey everyone how are you?  We got transfers this week and I will be heading off to Temecula again!! I will be in the Temecula Creek ward this time around, and I will be companions with Elder Methvin, I really don't know him well at all I have not served around him before.  This week was also General Conference!! And I loved all of it! I would say some of the stand out talks to me was the talk on the immediate blessings of the Lord by Elder McKay, Elder Anderson's remarks on the eye of faith, and the talk by Elder Villar on spiritual gifts.  We watched conference with Chris and April on Sunday afternoon and they really loved it, Chris is doing well, he is still unable to go long times without coffee but he has gone days without it and I know he will be able to quit so before to long!!  Love you all  Elder Shields  With Elder Medina This week  4/15/2019 First week in Temecula had been awesome. Elder Me...

Hey everyone!  Sorry I didn't send an email last week! I'll write for both weeks today.  The miracle for last week is the reason for the Spanish email title. So for a baptism in the Spanish branch in Fallbrook the Elders asked me and Elder Medina to do a presentation in Spanish. Easy for Elder Medina because he's fluent. But I am less fluent so I just learned the first vision in Spanish to recite. Then later that night we had a lesson with a part member family. They ended up speaking better Spanish than English so Elder Medina taught them in Spanish and I got to use the first vision in the lesson! They went to church as well for the first time!  Went on lots of exchanges in the last two weeks. 4 to be exact. We also had President interviews last week.  This week we had MLC with all the District Leaders there as well. It was awesome. We trained on how to follow up better with missionaries and how to have Christ like confrontations.  Tanya bore her testi...

This week was an interesting one. We as a zone had to clean out all the things in each missionaries apartment that had signatures from past missionaries. To get rid of the "traditions of the fathers." Me and Elder Medina had to get all the missionaries their supplies provided by the mission to get rid of everything and we then had to inspect 12 apartments to make sure they did it right. That took a long time Haha.  We also had zone conference. The whole of it was focused on repentance. Teaching it and doing it ourselves. It was great!  We also had to watch a video series called the safety zone. Which is a bunch of safety videos that teach us just that, how to be safe. Since in missions around the world there have been some missionaries who have died in accidents they required all missionaries to watch these. It took about 4 hours...  Tanya and Jason are doing well. We had a good lesson with them and we showed them the new Rome temple. And Chris is still working on q...

Hello.  We had a police raid in our apartment complex on Wednesday morning so that was interesting. Walked back in after a run and heard the cops banging on someone's door and yelling "open up!" Hopefully no drug deals are going on in Bonsall.  April got her temple recommend this week so we should hopefully be going to the temple with her soon! And Chris is improving on quitting coffee!  Also went on exchanges with Elder Haslam in the Vista 5th ward. When we got back to the apartment at the end of the day he had lost the keys Haha. So we just went to a taco shop by their apartment complex and got some late night tacos before the other Elders picked us up it was sweet!  Love you all  Elder Shields

Hey everyone!!  So this week was great!! first week of the transfer so we had a zone welcoming meeting where we introduce the focus for the zone this transfer. Me and Elder Medina decided to have the topic be do the little things right. The doctrine we used to support it was Alma 37:6-7, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass". When we do the little things right every day through our obedience's it will make a powerful difference for good in the future, same if we make little disobedience's each day it will be a powerful diffrerece for evil.  Chris came to church for the first time on Sunday!! That was awesome! and at church we had this choir from Maple Mountain Choir in Utah perform for us because they were on a field trip there. They did super good! one of the songs was in Russian so that was weird though haha.  Love you all so much  Elder Shields! Frog... Rainbow... Sunset...

So we got our transfer doctrine and I will be staying another transfer in Fallbrook with Elder Medina. I am so happy to be able to stay I love it here!  We had MLC and it was a blast. Talked about the new rule allowing us to be in contact with our family over the phone weekly and a few others. April and Juno are still so awesome I love them. We are continuing to work with Chris to help him follow in April and Junos footsteps. Have a great week love you  Elder Shields  Mission Leadership Conference

Super awesome week!!  Highlight was for sure that April and Juno got baptized on Saturday!! It was a super awesome experience! I got to baptize April and Elder Medina got to baptize Juno. They were confirmed on Sunday by the missionaries who first taught them like 10 years ago. They have kept in touch with them for the whole time and they came down from Las Vegas and Salt Lake to be there for the confirmation.  We also had another zone conference with Elder Klebingot there. That was super awesome as well. His instruction was incredible! He is also extremely savage and told us just everything how it is. When we did role plays if we did bad he wasn't afraid to say exactly what was bad about it, but he did offer a lot of good helps because he was so honest it was great!!  We also went to the temple it was great!  love you all hope your week was great!  Elder Shields April and Juno's Baptism

Hey how are you all!!?  This week was awesome!! We did a lot of exchanges this week, three to be exact. First one was with the Vista 9th Elders. I was with Elder Jensen in Fallbrook. It was awesome we picked up two new people to teach, Anthony and Felix.  Next exchange was with the Assistants. We both worked in their area which was way fun! I was with Elder Kiehl who was one of the Zone Leaders in Escondido. We also found two new people for them to teach.  Last exchange was with Elder Van Dyke in his area, Vista 5th. Super awesome guy, he is from Salt Lake as well, he went to east high school and his brother plays for the basketball team at the U.  April Juno and Chris were out of town so we didn't meet with them but we have an appointment with them tonight! Not much progress made with others we are teaching.   Love you all so much!   Elder Shields 18 months down - burning of the pants! Shields and Medina

Hey!!!  Excited for the cookies, thanks!  One thing I should say that I forgot to mention last week is that due to the mission realignment, the transfer cycle for the mission will change. I will for sure be coming home a week earlier, on August 6th. But, if I get transferred to Murrieta or Temecula and finish my mission in the Riverside mission it will move up another week, so July 30. And,  if I finish in Del Mar which will be the San Diego mission it will move up yet another week, so July 23. Craziness! Sorry I should've mentioned that, I totally forgot, I don't know if that changes my homecoming or anything.  I won't know what mission I finish in until about May.  So I guess I'll just put you on hold about my release date until then haha.  We had an awesome zone conference this week. Had a lot of cool discussion on adversity and opposition. How it is an essential part of the plan of salvation.  We had an awesome lesson with April, Juno and C...

Hey everyone!  Awesome week this week.  We had some good progress with April and Juno they are still looking good for their date on Feb 16. Love them so much they are awesome!! Chris is struggling with the Word of Wisdom but we think he will he able to quit coffee.  We got to make a video this week for zone conference. We did some role plays to show missionaries how to best put people on date for baptism. It was super fun. It was us, the assistants and the zone leaders in the Carlsbad stake. I will send it out when it is finished all the way.  We played ultimate frisbee for Pday today and it was sick! Got super bad turf burn diving for stuff but haha oh well.  Not much else love you all! Elder Shields

Hey everyone what is up? This week was a super awesome week! We had a zone welcome meeting to start it off to get the new zone introduced to each other. We also introduced our theme as a zone which is being one in Christ. Unity was something we spoke a lot on. We used a section from the talk One in Christ from the past conference by Elder Soares. We were able to find a few new people to teach this week! Jose and Adella is a couple with young kids we started teaching and April and Chris is another couple. April and Chris have a daughter named Juno who is about 10 who we are teaching with them. April has a lot of family that are members and has taken lessons in the past before and has come close to baptism but has never made it. We have been trying to get in contact with her for a while and we finally were able to! She has a really strong desire to be baptized and also for the rest her family to be as well! April and Juno came to church but Chris couldn't because if work unfortun...

Hi everyone!!  So I found out that Elder Norman will be getting transferred to Murrieta and my new companion will be Elder Medina! I am excited I know Elder Medina and he is a great guy and an awesome missionary. I am excited!  We got to give a blessing to Tanya this week which was super awesome she loved it! We had a few solid lessons with them but Jason is still not progressing very well.  Me and Elder Norman got sick this week so that wasn't very fun. We are pretty sure we got it from a guy named Brandon that we did service for last week. Bummer but we got through it.  Have an awesome week!  Elder Shields  The Milnes Sister Romigs Dying Pics