Feeding, Feeding, and Feeding! Homeless count, Mission Prep Class, and Senior Zone Conference

 This week turned out to be a FEEDING week!  Most of the day Tuesday & Wednesday, we were preparing and feeding approximately 50 Missionaries - Tuesday, it was the new Missionaries that had started their Missions recently, and Wednesday, lunch was for the young Missionary Zone and District Leaders and their companions!  Debbie made her family "sloppy joe" recipe to the delight of the Missionaries and her tasty Sand Lake Cookies and "puppy chow" (Chocolate covered rice-Chex).  Elder & Sister Stringham also contributed a pasta salad & vegetable tray, along with brownies.  We rounded it out with Costco crispy potato chips!

We were pretty exhausted after finishing cleaning up, but happy to be of service!

Tuesday night found us at institute again, helping with grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for the students.  Brother McKay led another great discussion pulling some study material from Elder Nelson's book "Heart of the Matter".  He emphasized that we all need to "begin with the end in mind" as we make decisions in our life.  If we want to live with God & our Family in the eternities, we can't live a telestial life now; we must make the choices that will lead us to the place in Heaven that we want!  President Nelson taught that there are 3 major truths that we must remember:

1. Each of us is going to die,

2.  Because of Jesus Christ, each of us is going to be resurrected, and

3.Each of us will have a personal interview with the Savior during which we will be judged!

Knowing these 3 inevitable facts, how does that influence our choices today?

Brother McKay reminded the students that even though they are single today, they are in a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, and that when they obtain an eternal marriage, the covenant relationship extends to their companion as well, making it a 3 way covenant relationship.  They are not alone!

Debbie loves to keep busy, so she signed us up as volunteers for San Diego County, who asked for people to go survey the "unsheltered" (homeless) in the area, something they do once a year.  We thought it might be unique & adventurous to do.  So our instructions were to go between 4am-8am to an area that they would assign us and first, count the number of homeless, and second, coax them to take a survey giving us their name, social security number, and other personal information, following which we would give them a $ 10 gift certificate and a new pair of socks!  Yes, I was a little skeptical that a homeless person trying to get some sleep outside, in the dark, would be willing to take this survey, so early in the morning, but undaunted, we tried to follow our instructions.  When we received our map of the area to search, it happened to be right where our Chapel is located and a fairly affluent area of homes in Chula Vista, although it did cover a "discovery park".  So we started driving driving around all the subdivisions in this area, mostly looking for suspect cars that might have a body sleeping in them.  Well, there were too many nice cars like Tesla's, Maserati's, BMW's, Mercedes, and nice Trucks parked in front of these nice homes and not any homeless tents in their yards, so we were getting a little discouraged!

So after finishing the houses in the affluent subdivisions, we drove to the discovery park & thought that maybe we would find a beat up looking car that might have someone sleeping in it on the street next to the park that was not in front of someone's house.  We drove slowly up the street & low and behold, we found an older car that seemed to have a body inside, so we parked our car about 30 feet behind the suspect car & got out of our car, slowing walking up when suddenly, a lady opened her door & jumped out of her car with a barking dog & screamed out at us, yelling "what do you want!!" and "get out of here!"  We tried to tell her we were taking a survey from the county, but she continued to yell and scream at us!  We quickly backed away & said we were leaving!!  Well, so much for our homeless survey!  At least we were able to report 1 "unsheltered" person in our whole area back to the county.

We felt bad for the homeless lady sleeping in her car.

We finally took time to sample a Filipino restaurant and their food, since we have a big Filipino population out here - it was delicious and reminded me a bit like Asian/Chinese food.

The YSA's continue to amaze me with their energy and variety of things they like to do.  Friday night was their activity night, and they brought in some pies for their "pie eating" contest.  First to get through the pies would win!  Some were a little reluctant to try, but after a little coaxing, they relented!  Debbie & I got to be the videographers!

We had our Senior Mission Zone Conference that captured our attention on Friday.  We love hanging out with the approximate 15 Senior Missionary couples in our Mission.  We had great messages from our Mission Leaders, with Sister Merritt sharing one of the touching stories of forgiveness found in Elder Anderson's book "The Divine Gift of Forgiveness" reminding us that all of us can access the Saviors cleansing power through His atonement.  President Merritt shared with us about the power of Love that Jesus Christ offers us and with His example of always turning outward in helping others.  Each of the Senior Missionary couples had an opportunity to share with the group some of the little miracles that we have experienced on our Missions, and it turned out to be some tender moments!

Our Missionary Preparation class on Sunday went well.  We talked about the Role of The Book of Mormon in the conversion process and how it is the Keystone of our religion.  We taught the students that "The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is the most powerful resource in conversion".  It is the keystone of our religion, and a compelling evidence that God called Joseph Smith as a prophet and restored the gospel of Jesus Christ through him.  As Missionaries, we must have confidence that the Holy Ghost will testify of the truth to anyone who reads and ponders the Book of Mormon and asks God if it is true with a sincere heart, real intent, and faith in Christ.  We had a fun time with the students doing some role playing with an approach introducing the Book of Mormon to "friends".

Have a great week!