Another Week in Paradise!

It has been another week in Paradise. It is always sunny and has not rained. It is crazy that I have been out for three months now. Time is flying by. I am doing great. We are always so busy. It is so good to be finally done with my 12 week training. However my trainer, Elder Moon is going to be transferred. It is sad to see him go. He was my first companion out in the field. I wish him the best of luck. We found out Saturday night or what we call stoop night. On stoop night you basically have a good time and party until you get the transfer call. Your district leader calls you and lets you know if you are going to be transferred. He does not tell you where or who your new companion is. Elder Moon though I would be the one to be transferred when we got the call. He was shocked to find out he was going to be transferred instead. I will get a new companion on Tuesday at the transfer meeting. Transfer meetings are crazy. President Kendrick calls your name, has you stand up. Then he tells you who your new companion is, and where you are going. Luckily I will still be staying at the Andersons here in the Cardiff Ward.

I now have to train and teach my new companion about the area and the investigators. I am kind of nervous. I hope I don’t drop the ball. The Cardiff ward has been booming with baptisms and I hope my new companion and I can keep it up. We have two planned already, and potentially one more.

 The Cano’s are doing well. Theo and Cole are not progressing right now. Elder Moon and I taught them about the 10 Commandments and keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. We have invited them to read the Book of Mormon and come to church for a couple of weeks now. They still have not done either one. So their baptismal date will have to be pushed back. It is sad to push the baptismal dates back, but we want to make sure they will be ready.

Lee Bulluni one of investigators has made lots of progress this week. It all started off last Sunday when she said she had completed the entire Book of Mormon. She read it in less than one month. Crazy! Then on Tuesday, we went with her to a bible study that the Del Mar Stake puts on, called Sisters in Scriptures. She loved it! Lee said it was the best bible study she had ever been to. While she was sitting there she said a light went on in her head. She finally got everything we had been teaching her it finally made sense. She loved it so much that she said, she will go every week from now on, and come to church.  Each week they have a question of the week.  Next week’s question that they will discuss is “What does it mean to be born again?” This is perfect because Lee considers herself to be a Born Again Christian. She is interested in seeing what exactly Mormons believe it means. They discussed it a little bit about the question and that being born again means being baptized. We thought that it would be perfect for her to go to a baptism to see one for herself. We invited her to a Baptism the Lacosta Elders, Elder Pendergast and Elder Hancock, had on Saturday. She we called her to make sure that she was going. Lee told us that she had been praying about being baptized and she asked if she could be baptized without having a testimony of Joseph Smith. She didn’t know if she was ready. It was great to hear that she wanted to be baptized, and that she was willing to follow the example of Jesus Christ. We had to explain to her that the baptism was not for her it was for someone else. We told her that we just wanted to her to come to see what it is like. Lee said she would be with her mother for the week end but she would try to make it. She did not make it to the baptism or church this last weekend. However we now know that she has the desire to be baptized and what her concerns are so we can help her overcome them. So we should be setting another baptismal date soon.

Andrew Miller the older brother of Moises and Rohit, the two boys we baptized in July has been struggling lately. He said he has no friends at school and that Elder Moon and I are his only friends. This is because he started a really bad rumor about himself to gain attention. The rumor back fired on him, and no one likes him. He has been suffering from depression, and fighting a lot with his mother and brothers. His mother Elvira could not take it anymore, and thought he would hurt himself or someone else. So she took to a mental hospital. He spent all of last weekend there. Hopefully he will get better. We are doing everything we can to help him through this and to get him some more friends.

We picked up a new investigator this week named Scott. We had been going by Scott’s house for a couple of weeks. Every time we have gone over he has said he was busy. On Saturday he let us in and said he would give us 4 minutes to give him a quick summary of what we believe. He wanted a quick message to see if he would want to investigate any further. We taught him the Plan of Salvation. It took about 7 minutes but that was because he asked us questions. It went well and he seemed interested. Scott said we could come by again and give him another short lesson.

I hope we continue to be just as productive as we have been.

Love and Miss all of you.

Elder Jaden Paget