SLOOOOOOOO

hey hey hows it hangin?

Biggest thing that happened this week was Surprise! I got transfered!!! 

Literally a shock to us all cause we thought hermana matson was leaving and i was staying. But nope, got the news i was packing my bags and heading to San Luis Obispo the next morning! 

Every time we have transfers i always say im getting rid of all my stuff and only keeping 1 dress to my name cause i have so much stuff. And then every time i somehow manage to accumulate more things!! 

My last day we were just about to start english class and i get a call from the recent convert in Simi Marcos (he was my first lesson and first baptism ever!) Him and another friend from simi came to Santa Paula english class to surprise me!! I was so so excited and it was the best and most fun class ever! I asked who told them i was moving tomorrow and they had no idea i was leaving they just thought itd be fun to come surprise me! It made my whole day!

Day of transfers we drove 2 and a half hours to santa maria and then another hour to SLO! And first thing my new companion Hermana Waite told me is that i would be speaking in church on sunday, off to a great start! SLO is a college town because Cal Poly State is here and its super weird to see people my own age all around. We also live in apartment where tons of other students live and ive come to learn that on weekends its pretty hard to sleep. 

We cover SLO and Morrobay which means sundays we have 2 churches. One in the morning and one in the evening. So i had to speak twice and this is my first time giving a talk in spanish. SLO is good! But its slow lol. We dont have enough people to be a branch so we just have a group here and only like 7 people total come to church. but im so excited to help it grow!

And we went to the english ward on sunday (3 sacrament meetings) because our friend viviana came to church!! Shes had a really rough go at life and a lot of people have misjudged her. She was reeeeeally scared to come to church because of bad past experiences with other churches so we've just been taking things slow and have been trying to warm her up to church for foreeeeever. But we finally got her to come and when we got there everyone was so nice to her and we found out one of our recent converts is like her super close family friend! She also told us that some of her friends have tried to talk her out of meeting with us but she said "those girls were kind to me from the very beginning. They never treated me any different and have never judged me and have loved me even when i didnt even love myself. And when i went to church i felt the same feeling from everyone else who talked to me. So no i wont stop meeting with them." And hermana waite and i were just in tears especially knowing how much shes grown and how far shes come with her trials. God is so aware of us and our feelings and our pains and sends us people or things to help us through 

Pensamiento espiritual 

K basically just I wanted to share my talk and im sorry its long but also im not sorry get over it 

It comes from some things i loved in a BYU devotional by John B. Bingham

He recounts an experience when he and his family traveled 5 hours to see the solar eclipse! It was a long day of travels and he was not very excited by the end of the drive. 

He thought “Is this really worth it? We could have watched this online!”

He says “We found a place to sit and squinted through our overpriced cardboard glasses as the partial eclipse began. Initially, I have to admit that I was pretty underwhelmed. But I watched and waited.

Suddenly the light around us began to change rapidly. The birds stopped chirping. The temperature dropped. The laughter, music, and talking all around us quieted. “It’s happening!” people started to say out loud. The darkness deepened. We took off our cardboard glasses and stared upward, looking directly at the sun that was not there.

It is hard to describe what we saw. But what is more difficult to express is how I felt. I got goosebumps and found myself getting choked up. I stood there in the quiet darkness with my wife, my kids, and hundreds of onlookers—our eyes fixed on the sky—and marveled in awe at this remarkable heavenly expression. For one minute and forty-five seconds we stared in silent, reverent wonder.

I experienced something during the eclipse that I did not anticipate: a spiritual surprise, an unexpected connection to the divine.

as we walked quietly back toward the car couple stopped us and asked, “What did you think?” The woman’s eyes were still wet with tears. “Wasn’t it awesome?” she asked.

Experiences with awe change us. They cause us to ask questions and move us to learn. 

It makes us feel God’s power and love—we mean everything to God.

Maybe it’s been a long time since you have felt that love or have felt God in your life. Life’s busyness, coupled with discouragement, depression, anxiety, isolation, grief, and a host of other factors, can make it difficult to experience or to remember when you have felt awe. At times it can be hard to believe that you’ll ever experience something remarkable again. During the solar eclipse, my moment of awe came after five hours of driving.”

He then goes on to recount a difficult time in his life when he drastically changed career and education paths and he and his family moved away from their families to a new state. He felt very lost and alone and didn't know if this was the right choice for him and his family. 

Brother Bingham said 

“I prayed for answers, but none seemed to come. What was I to do?

Perhaps some of you can relate to feeling such despair. Maybe you’re in a state of spiritual eclipse, where everything is dark and awe is absent. What can we do when God feels distant, even when we desperately need Him?”

He then shares the things we can do to pull us out of these spiritual holes

Number 1 is to “Act so that we can believe.

Not believe then act. Not act as if we believe. But act so that we can believe.

For some people, believing is simple. Their beliefs and actions are so intertwined that they don’t really see a difference. But for others of us—especially those of us who are trekking through our own wilderness or feeling estranged from God—acting takes every bit of faith we have.

In Texas, when everything seemed so hopeless to me, I dragged myself to sacrament meetings, fulfilled my callings, and kept praying for help—even though the heavens seemed closed. Those actions kept me in good places in the orbit of good people. They were my way of being faithful even though my path to future success felt tenuous. Rather than focusing on outcomes, which I mostly could not control, I spent time on inputs—the things I could control.

What is within your power right now? If you want to believe—in God, in the gospel, or in your future—act first, and then see what gets revealed.”

This part really touched me because i also went through a time of spiritual obscurity. I was in a really lonely place, but thought I was doing all the right things. I was going to church and reading my scriptures and saying my prayers but was not feeling better. I thought that it meant God wasn't there or didn't care enough about me to help me. What I later realized was that I was only going through the motions. My heart was not converted to the gospel. I was only doing those things to check the box. When I began to change my heart and desires I really did begin to gain strength through my trials. Looking back, I understood that God was always there with me and giving me strength I just didn't see it. I had to “tarry a little longer” and keep working. Just because sometimes it's not immediate doesnt mean it won't come. 

Just like in an eclipse there are times in our lives when maybe we can’t see the sun, but that does not change the fact that the sun is there. I know God is there. Always—even when we can’t see or feel the light of His love.

Pictures 

Bye Santa Paula 

Cali weather 

English class

Marcos and lupillo!

Ojai rules

Transfer train

Hermana Waite!!