Elder Shields in Carlsbad, CA

Hey! Had a very busy week this week. We had trainer follow up on Tuesday, and we had a mission wide talent show on Friday. Both of which ended at 4 in Vista so we had to drive in traffic for like 2 hours to get home both times, it was pretty awful! But the talent show was way fun!! I got to meet a lot of people and see a lot of random talents, one Elder got really good at saying words backwards so we would give him words and phrases and he would tell us them backwards, super random, but cool. I got to accompany two singers which was a lot of fun!! I also had to accompany someone on Thursday night so I got to play the piano a lot this week which is awesome since I don't get to play nearly as much as I used too. And I missed it way more than I thought I would.  Completed Christmas Countdown We did a lot of service for the neighbors of one of the members in our ward (the Phippens), we helped them move, and Sister Phippen sent a whole bunch of pics I'm pretty sure so that ...

Hello everyone how are you!?!?!? So this week we were not able to meet with Richard and his family, it is unfortunate but they really aren't as interested as we had originally thought. We will continue to stop by and serve them the best we can and teach them when available.   We did have a solid lesson with Shaelee again this week, her mom sat in with us during the lesson. She expressed some of her concerns with the church, one of them being why the Prophet and the Apostles and the Seventy are treated like celebrities. She thinks that we should all be equal (which we are). We were able to resolve most of her concerns, but there is still a long way to go to get that family active again and getting Shaelee baptized.   This week was zone conference! And while zone conference goes on our cars get inspected by other missionaries, so when the Escondido zone conference was going on on Tuesday, me and Elder Snyder got to go and help inspect the cars. It was pretty borin...

Hey what is up everybody!! This week was pretty good! We spent a lot of time this week inviting people to the Nativity that happened over this weekend. We went around to a lot of less actives, former investigators and part member families with cookies and an invitation to the Nativity. The cookies was an idea from one of the members in the ward (sister Bradshaw) and she provided us with cookie dough as well which was super clutch. And people were a lot more friendly to us when we had cookies in our hand hahah.  Also got into a super bad Bible bash this week, it was just with some guy who was doing some work out in the front lawn. It just started out us asking him if he needed help with anything, and 45 minutes later the guy was reciting all these scriptures on the trinity while I told him to explain Acts 7:55-56 if the trinity was true. I was so mad from bashing that I just turned to Elder Snyder and said we were leaving and left without saying anything else to the guy. It w...

Hello everyone!! This week was really good! Me and Elder Snyder have been getting along really well!! He has started to be a little more talkative now that he isn't a total deer in the headlights like he was when he first got off the plane haha.   We got to go to the temple this week!! That was so much fun I had the best time ever! I have really started to appreciate the temple since I've been out here because we go so few times. I don't think I took full advantage of just how nice we have have it in Utah to have 5 temples within 40 min of my house. I should've been going way more often!! But as much as I have missed going to the temple, I know that it is not my main purpose as a missionary. I am here to do the work of the living, not the work of the dead (someone told me that so don't quote me on it haha).   Unfortunately, we really haven't gotten anywhere with any of our investigators this week, had a lot of cancellations. But we have started working with ...

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...