Hermana Mission

HEY HEY HEY GANG!!! I hope you're all have had a great week!

Well the weather is still the same here. I was talking with another Elder. We were talking about how the mission feels like a time warp and how you totally just lose sense of time. How it all feels like a blur. He's like "yes especially here in California, the weather is always the same. You don't know when seasons change/pass." you don't have the weather to tell you what time of year it is, so it just feels like a big "time trap". (that's a good movie, go watch it).

Well, I burned a pair of pants this week to celebrate 18 months being on a mission. Which is tradition by the way. If you don't know, at 6 months (for Elders) you burn a tie, at a year, you burn a shirt, 18 months, pants, and 24 months, a suit. If I was an Hermana I'de be home right now. Kinda wild!

Anyway, enough about that.

So covid it's back in California. The restrictions went back to how they were exactly a year ago. Probably a little more lax but pretty much the same. So meetings this week have been over Zoom. Lessons have been over zoom or with masks. We still go out and talk to people outside though luckily. They just took most of the fun parts of our missionary work. It hasn't been too bad though. Unless you were one of the missionaries in our zone who got sick and actually were quarintined for 2 weeks. You would think by 2022 the world would calm down, but I guess that's Cali for ya.

We had a lot of lessons set up this week, but lots of people canceling or just not being at their house when they said they would. 

We stopped teaching this one family we were working with. He was telling us he can't come to church because of work. And if he doesn't work. He can't get food to provide for his family. So he's said. "should I put God before my family?" which is kind of a tough question. But if you think about it, church is only 1-2 hours A WEEK the rest of the week is open. And he's right. Your family is extremely important. But I'll tell you all what I told him.

"I promise that if you do all you can to make just a little time for God and do all you can possibly do to follow God's comandments, he dost ask for a lot, I promise you that God will provide for you and your family." We don't always know how He will provide. And ya it may be scary, but if we put our faith in Him that he will provide, He will not let us down. You can apply this to coming to church, or paying tithing, or any other commandment. 

We had a really cool miracle the other day. So we were out on the streets of Oxnard. We started teaching to this dude. We find out he is the nephew of a really solid memer in the ward. This kid is an inactive member. We set up a visit with him. Then a day or two later, we find him again on the street whith his girlfriend. We invite her to join us for the lesson that we had set up for the next day. So the next day we go to the church where we are meeting this member and his GF. While we're waiting in the church parking lot, we start taking to this 20 year old just hanging out in the church parking lot. He tells us he is a recent convert in the English ward. He's way cool! So the other member and his GF get there. We ask this recent convert if he wants to join in on the lesson with us. He said yes. So we go in to the church and have this really good spanglish lesson. The recent convert doesn't speak Spanish. The inactive speaks a little English but the non member girlfriend speaks both. This recent convert just testifies to her and says all the right things! He was AMAZING!! The girlfriend says she's open and willing to listen. So we started teaching her. MIRACLES!!

We started teaching some other people too, but not as cool as Brenda. (the gf)

We had a good lesson with the Lazaro fam. As we drove up to their RV, we saw him vaping outside. So we're like OK, well teach the word of Wisdom. So we do. They say they don't drink or smoke or anything. Armando (the dad) says he used to smoke, but got off of it by vaping. We congratulated him on getting off cigarrettes. Then told him we can't vape eather. He's like "ok. I'll give this stuff back to my friend". And that's that. We're planning to put them on date this week. Pray for them.

Dang this email got long fast!

Well I love and miss you all MUCHO!!

Elder Felsted