And Now...Time for the News

Well, summer vacation is finally at an end. And being excited about that seems really funny to me. But this last week has been very slow since everyone has been out of town trying to get that last vacation in before summer-time runs out.

But as of this last week I have finally been out on my mission for a full transfer cycle! In actual time I have been out for two months, but due to all that excitement of the missions changing this is the first time I have actually filled an entire Daily Planner from Week 1 too Week 6. Yay! But we all know that with the end of a transfer cycle comes the exciting transfer calls! So...drumroll please....I'm not going anywhere! I'm staying in Murrieta for the next six weeks, as is Elder Bird! But there are going to be a few changes in our area, the major one being that the area is being split in half(ish). We are getting another pair of Elders in the ward as of tomorrow, so next week I'll talk more about that.

In less exciting news. Elder Bird and I have spent much of this last week going through our Area Book (the binder that has all of the records of people the missionaries have contacted in the area and what they have been taught). We have really focused a lot of our efforts at trying to contact former and potential investigators...without much success...so far. But we still have high hopes that we will be able to get back in touch with someone in our area and teach them the Gospel! And personally it has been teaching me to have faith as we go and knock countless doors looking for these brothers and sisters. Because though I do not know if the door will open, or if the door opens I don't know if they will be interested, or even live there anymore, I still know to trust in God and as I work hard then He will bless me by leading me to someone who has been prepared to hear the Gospel.

In slightly more exciting news! The work with the ward here is about to skyrocket dramatically. This is due to a new(ish) strategy to do missionary work called the Ward Mission Plan, which, in a nutshell, is the auxillary presidents, the ward mission leader, and the bishopric prayerfully decided on some names of families that they believe can benefit from having the missionaries teach them. So once this gets rolling (which it is planned to start this week) we are going to have a lot more lessons and a lot more teaching opportunities coming our way!


Now time for some just plain funny news. The funny news I have is that one of the families here gave Elder Bird and I a couple tiny cantaloupes. These were fully ripe fruits, just, they were the size of oranges instead of the size of melons. But mine still tasted really good with my bowl of cereal for breakfast. Also, in the Community Service Project thing we are doing with the city of Murrieta, we have started to paint. After the first day of painting, my arm looked like a Smurf had sneezed on me (the paint is blue)!

Now for a bit of cool news. This last Sunday (yesterday) in Sacrament meeting we had what I am going to call a "Hymns Sacrament Meeting." What happened was that there were six speakers, and all of them told us what their favorite hymn was, why it was their favorite, and why the hymn has special significance to them. And then the congregation sung the hymn. It was awesome! The reasoning behind having this was that people always talk about how they wish special musical numbers could just keep going because of how much the hymn being performed is able to bring the Spirit into the meeting. And so, this meeting was basically a lot of special musical numbers. And it was fantastic! It really goes to show that what Doctrine and Covenants 25: 12 says is so true, "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads."

Well, that's pretty much all that happened this last week. Thank you for all your love and support!

Love,

Elder Wixom