Elder Shields in Carlsbad, CA

So this is my first week with a new trainee. I went and picked him up on Tuesday night. His name is Elder Snyder and he is from Ogden Utah. He's a pretty cool guy! He's a little shy tho and a little apprehensive to talk to people but I'm gonna get him broken out of his shell in no time! A lot changed in the zone, I got a new district leader and a new zone leader, two areas got whitewashed and there was like five other people getting transferred out. It's gonna be a lot of fun getting to know all the new missionaries!  We got to teach Shaelee this week, we taught her at the Jamchis house, it was pretty sweet. We really need to talk to the parents tho to find out where they are at on letting her be baptized and all that good stuff.  Bridgette's kid is having surgery this week so we won't be able to meet with her, but plz keep her in your prayers, we definitely are and we are doing whatever we can to help her during this hard time!! Thanksgiving was so fun!...

So transfers are this week I am staying in French Valley, and I got a call on Friday and I found out that I will be training! I have to go down to Vista tomorrow night to pick up my greenie, I will send pics and stuff for that next week!  Got to go to Mormon Battalion this week which was super fun! They do a little tour and we got to learn all the history of the Mormon Battalion and then we did a little devotional in one of the rooms in the buildings, it was super cool to see how big of a role the Mormons played in the history of the country!  For Zone Conference unfortunately L Whitney Clayton got reassigned at the last second, so we got Elder Taniela B Wakolo and his wife. It was super good tho! I learned a ton about some of the patterns that are used in our church and we talked a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Atonement of Jesus Christ and about the saving ordinances in our church and why they are necessary, it was sweet.  No good news from Bridget and...

Definitely felt the prayers this week, because we had a super solid lesson with Bridget on Tuesday! It was good to finally get into contact with her again. Since it had been so long since we met with her we just read the Book of Mormon with her. She had some concerns about why bad things happen to good people, which is always a really tough subject, she was especially fired up about it because of all the shootings in Texas and Vegas and other places. We shared the scripture Alma 60:13 with her and she immediately expressed that she felt a lot better about it! Matt Bradshaw was at the lesson with us. Since he is a RM and doesn't have a job yet and isn't going to school, all he wants to do is go out and work with us, he even went tracting with us on Thursday. I enjoyed it a lot.  Went on two exchanges this week, one with Elder Taylor, who is the same mission age as me, and one with Elder Phillips, who is going home in 8 days. It was a really good experience to go out with Elder...

Hello, so all day P day was straight up so baller!!! Got a sweet deal on bowling cuz we went in the middle of the day and there was like 30 of us so we got a group deal, and then we got to just go to the church building eat Hawaiian food that was catered to us because of a member in the Murrieta stake, and play ping pong and basketball and just to whatever. I only watched some of the Saratov Approach, because I was much more interested in playing around the world or dynamite haha.  So we taught Shaelee again and she said that if it is okay with her parents that she would want to be baptized!! but the mom isn't too thrilled about it she was pretty cold to us after that and she cancelled our appointment with them for this upcoming week, so from now on when working with them we just need to take it very slow, but it's good to know that that is something that Shaelee wants for sure.  We have an appointment with Bridget on Tuesday, and plzzz pray that it doesn't fall through...

So gonna be honest, this week was pretty rough. We weren't able to get in contact with Bridget again, the guy Richard we talked to last week hasn't responded to anything either. And tho we had a really solid lesson with Shaelee and her fam, she ended up not coming to church, again. It is really hard when I know that what we have to share will make these people happier, but they just won't listen or act on what we say when we ask them to do something! ugh oh well.  There was some fun things that happened tho. I went on exchanges with Elder Draper, who is my District leader and that was a lot of fun! He serves in a biking area so I got to take my bike over there and use it for the first time on my mission! It was so freaking tiring! I was like dead by the end of the day, but it was really nice just to have a change of pace, and I got to see just how easy we have it over in French Valley with a car haha.  We also had the Harvest Festival (fancy way to say Halloween party) ...

First off, my P day next week will be on Tuesday because we are going to do an all day P day on Halloween, which I'm stoked for it's gonna be so fun!  Pretty solid week, we were finally able to start teaching Shaelee, and her family is super chill even tho they are really less active they are super open to everything. Hope that this will lead us to be able to rekindle what got them baptized in the first place.  Sister Bradshaw got in contact with Bridget and she will be coming to the Harvest Festival on Tuesday which will be an awesome way to get her better fellowshipped into the ward!! that being said, the Harvest Festival is on Tuesday and we normally teach her on Tuesday, so we most likely won't do a lesson with her this week, and she is out of town next week! so that will make it like a full month that we haven't taught her! UGHUGH. oh well, hopefully the Harvest Festival will be a good experience for her.  Had a cool experience! Me and Elder Mann were just ou...

Hello Everyone!  Transfers were this last week and I'm chillin' another 6 weeks with Elder Mann in French Valley! Our zone leader Elder Eddins just got made an AP so that was pretty cool! Our district is staying the same other than that. Our zone got huge tho, we got some visa waiters and the Spanish branch has two sets of missionaries now. I'll send a pic of the new zone.  Bummer this week Bridget cancelled on us and didn't show up to church :( We are worried about her. But we won't lose hope! She is ready for the gospel and we aren't going to give up on her! One of the sisters in the ward (Sister Bradshaw) offered to go over and see how she was doing today and just make sure everything was okay with her. Hoping she gets in contact with her.  Good news with Shaelee tho!! The Bishop got in contact with her mom and she is okay with us coming over and teaching her! We are trying to find a time to go over and meet the fam and start teaching.  Me and Elder M...