December 4, 2019...

Returned with Honor...

Jarom returned from his mission on Wednesday, December 4th. It was a miracle as his original flight from Burbank was delayed. Without any communication I could tell he probably not make his connecting flight in Salt Lake City. We received an email later that day that said his flight was delayed and he wouldn't be getting into Calgary until 11:30pm. They gave me his flight details from Delta which was super confusing. They had him checked into his original flights from Burbank to Salt Lake to LAX to Calgary and now a new flight from Burbank to Salt Lake to Seattle to Calgary. So confusing! Then, the Salt Lake flight was delayed to Seattle and it looked like he was going to miss his connecting flight in Seattle. Agghh! I messaged him on Messanger earlier in the day and asked if he was going to Seattle?

We decided to go to Calgary to be at the airport just in case Jarom somehow made the original flight and came in at 9:45pm. Chances were though he was stuck in Seattle. When we got to Calgary I got a message on Messenger saying he wasn't flying to Seattle he was flying to Calgary. BUT WHERE FROM????

I noticed the little camera had a green light so I tried to Facetime him right then! He answered and all he said was, "See you soon!" and disconnected! Soon? How soon? Soon today? Soon is a relative term when you've been away for two years! I thought what if he's here right now. We called over to my parents who had checked in to a nearby hotel and told them they better come over just in case he was in Calgary.

There was another family waiting for their missionary. They were the Laytons from Calgary. I recognized Jarom's companion Elder Pilling from pictures and we introduced ourselves. I told him we had no idea what was going on. Elder Pilling was also friends with Elder Layton so he would watch him come in anyways. We thought we'd watch Elder Layton come in and then maybe go to Tim Horton's for a bit to wait until 11:30pm

Well, Russ was at the other end of the arrival area and we hear, KATHY!!!! HE’S HERE!!!!! As he comes running full tilt through the crowd with crazy eyes! Lol! Russ hurdles over a small brick barrier. I threw my phone at my Mom to take a picture I turned around and there he was. Jessa took my phone from my Mom and got a quick video just in time.

It was truly a miracle. He said he ran his hardest in Salt Lake and was the third last on his plane. Even his luggage made it. He was the only missionary in his group to make his connection. Ahh! Crazy wonderful time!


We are so happy to have him home!

 

 

 

November 25, 2019...

Hey hey it's been another good week! It feel like I wrote this email like 14hrs ago these last couple weeks are flying by! This week we sat down with each companionship in the zone and set some goals for the upcoming month, this is always a cool experience because we really get to know each companionships people and we come up with more ways to help them progress. There are some good things happening here in the zone right now, more people are accepting baptismal dates and starting to work towards baptism.

 Lots of our missionaries are starting to really see the Lord's hand in there everyday life. I've definitely come to know that we are being watched over and guided each and every day but it is easy to miss if you aren't in the spirit of gratitude, being thankful for all that we receive. Especially with this week being American Thanksgiving I am grateful for a bunch of things but as my mission seems to be winding down it is the first thing that comes to mind. My life will be forever changed by these two years I have spent here in California. I have truly come to know my Savior and I have gained a new perspective on life, a eternal perspective and this eternal perspective gives me a vision for the person I want to be when I get home as well as the person I want to be for the rest of my life. Thank you so much for all the love and support I have received from each of you and I've been out here! I'm gonna hit it hard this last week but I'll see you soon! ✌🏼

And for anyone that is curious my homecoming talk will be on the 8th of December at 10am and your more than welcome to come, I'd love to see you there.

Correction my homecoming will be on December 15th at 10am now, sorry for the confusion.

November 18, 2019...

Hey everybody it's been a fun week sorry I don't have a lot of time but we went on exchanges with Elders Limb and Nesmith they are great Elders and we met a bunch of cool people while we were out and about. I was also able to go see some members from agoura that I got to know at the start of my mission. 

We also went to an Emma gym and I met Bas Rutten...(look him up he was on here comes the boom) He's a homie.

Finally, I saw this video of the nativity, and the spirit was tangible. I've never had a clearer visual of the birth and story of Christ in my life. Y'all should check it out on chuchojesuschrist.org it's called the Christ Child.

 

We also had a cool experience, we were trying to navigate some back roads out in the boonies of our area trying to find a member, we eventually got to this member's house but we came to find out that the member no longer lives there... but the people that do let us teach them. Their names are Maria and Moses and they are super cool, we are going to teach them tonight!

Anyways it was an awesome week full of fun miracles I hope you all have a good week I'll ttyl!

November 11, 2019...

Hey everybody I don't have time for a super long email unfortunately but it has been a good week we had MLC where we got together and we talked all about our mission and how we can make it better. We also had a guest speaker from the area presidency he talked to us lots about memorizing scripture. Now I haven't been able to put a lot of time into it but I got a bunch more scriptures memorized now.

We were also able to go on exchanges this week with the assistants, went with Elder Woolsey and we had a good time! We found a bunch of cool people to teach and saw some people I used to teach. We also took a pic of a huge black widow that I squashed! Anyways we are still teaching Don, he us doing well and came to church on Sunday, we are still looking for lots more people to teach I'll tell y'all about it next week.✌🏼

November 4th, 2019...

This week was pretty crazy! We got evacuated because of the Easy Fire, it was pretty close to Moorpark and actually affected some of our members land. Thank goodness no major losses. We spent some time in Oxnard as we were waiting out the fires. 

 

We also taught one of our new friends named Don this week, Don is super cool. He is Jewish but really has a sincere desire to find more truth. He came to church yesterday and the ward did great at fellowshipping him. We are going to be doing service for him on Wednesday which should be fun.

 

We also had some stake meetings this week, unfortunately they did not go super well. It was a good thing however that how they went was not in our control, we have learned a lot this weekend and I think I should leave it at that.😂

 

Anyways I'm super excited to have pretty much a full week of normal missionary work ahead of me. I will talk to you all later have a good week.

 

 

 

October 28, 2019...

Hey everyone it's been a awesome week, I'm getting settled here into Moorpark me and Elder Miller are getting everything set up for this transfer. We are playing catch up right now with the zone goals but we'll have this zone running good in no time, we got some of the best missionaries!

This week we also had a bunch of the missionaries from Simi Valley stay with us because they were evacuated due to smoke. We also had a trunk or treat this week and we taught seminary this morning, then we went on a hike for Pday. Sorry my email is short today here's some pics of the hike me saying goodbye to Elder Pilling and maybe something else.

 

 

 

October 21, 2019...

Hey everyone it's that time again, it's time for transfers! Another 6 weeks has past here in Oxnard and tomorrow morning I will be moving back to Moorpark to finish the remainder of my mission there! I will be back in the Campus Canyon ward which was one of my favorite wards, but I will also have Walnut Canyon ward as well which I know is another great ward. My new companion will be Elder Miller, he's a hard working elder so it should be a good one.

This last week has been crazy as a zone we have been praying for lots and lots of miracles and well, we got em this last week - we had 6 more people be committed to baptism out of nowhere! That doubled the amount of people progressing towards baptism in November in one week! It was cool to see when we really work on increasing our faith and understanding that hope isn't just wishful thinking, its expecting things to happen and going out and making them happen, it's crazy to see what the Lord blesses you with! I have truly come to know that Hope is a confident expectation of the blessing we are promised as we are obedient to what God has asked of us, I know that the missionaries qualified for the blessing they saw this last week, they walked out of the apartment everyday expecting that they would be blessed.

 

This ward has definitely been the hardest one to say goodbye to that I have been in yet. So I'm sad to say goodbye but I'll be back in a few weeks for some baptisms hopefully!

 

P1. All of the missionaries in the ward and our old ward mission leader Bro. Spiers

P2. Jeff, one of our recent converts

P3.Jakari and Honest (Recent converts on the left) Gunner and Michael, Michael has a baptismal date in December that we are working towards.

P4. Bella and Mackenzie, we have been teaching Bella for three weeks now and she'll have a baptismal date by the end of the night.

P5. Another one like p3

P6. Me and Bro. Walea, we work out with him every other morning he's our personal trainer!

P7. Ward mission leader and his family the Liporada's!