DODGE BALL - STRIPLING WARRIOR STYLE

The Battlefield

President Felix and the zone leaders

President Felix (King Ammon)  and Bishop Quezada

I GOT MY VISA!!

Hola!!

So this is the biggest news of the week... I GOT MY VISA!!!! BOOYAH! I am super excited but I am also super sad, I've loved my time here in the "Great California Ventura Mission" and hope to come back someday! I have met so many nice people and they all have been so loving! And they all have been EXTREMELY patient with my Spanish! SO this week in my final week in Oxnard, in California and in the USA!!! I'm going to try to make it the best one! 

But this last week was fun! Lot of success and lots of fun time with the people here and the missionaries as well!

Our investigator was bashing me and Elder Davidson about the Word of Wisdom and stuff, we sadly didn't take our time in the lesson and listen to the spirit. In times like that it's really easy to pull out scriptures and tell them how they are wrong and be all up in their face! But they aren't going to have good memories about this church! I've learned that you always have to teach with love and patience! She then started to ask how we can even know which church is true, and it was a PERFECT set up to teach the Restoration, but sadly she had to go. WE WERE SO CLOSE! We also had another lady who is a less active and has pretty much denied all help from anyone in the ward and even heavenly help, but she still lets up come over and talk to her so hopefully she will progress.

Dragon Fruit

One of our less actives actually gave us some DRAGON FRUIT!!  Very cool fruit!! We also saw something on top of someones house... as we got closer we found out that it was a DINOSAUR! This was late at night and I could only get a picture of the shadow but it was super sweet, they were going all out for their Halloween decorations!

T-Rex on the Roof

Well I love you all and hope that you all have a lovely Halloween!!

Love, Elder Ward

P.S. Why does dad always have the best Halloween costumes? (No offense to  everyone else)

LOVE YOU ALL

Hola! So Pretty sure this week was a little less Eventful as the last sadly but still a lot happened!

This week I got to do my first service project and it was super fun/also scary. We cleaned up this lady's backyard that isn't able to because she is in a wheel chair. As we were cleaning we found these gross bugs that I have never seen before. In spanish they are called Ninos de la tierra.  I wish I had a picture of them but I  forgot my camera that day. They are pretty much giant ants that have zebra butts, haha look them up.

Ninos de la Tierra

This past week we had dinner at one of my investigators homes.  Her family is awesome but sadly the father of the house said that they love that we have devoted our time as missionaries to the Lord and they respect us but they don't want the gospel and they are happy the way they are right now. I Just wanted to explode because I know they need this gospel so much!! Everyone does!!!! Me and Elder Davidson will keep trying but sadly we will probably have to stop teaching them soon.

I went on my second exchange with my Zone leader on Saturday and it was super fun! We rode bikes around our area a lot and tried to find some people to teach and we did, he seemed extremely interested and so did his son surprisingly! So hopefully we will be able to change his life with the Gospel!

I cannot believe that I only have 2 more weeks in my first transfer, it seems like I got to California yesterday! But we will see if I go to Argentina this next transfer. I know for sure that I will go to Argentina at the same time as my transfers but I do not know which transfer I will go, So that keeps the work even that more interesting! Hopefully I can stay at least one more transfer in Oxnard because the people here are so awesome! 

 Love you all and thank you so much for the love and support of serving a mission! 

Elder Ward

FUN AND EXCITING WEEK

Elder Davidson in our apartment

Hola!

This week was a very fun and exciting week! Lots of stuff happened! 

This week I went on my first exchange with my District Leader Elder Sorensen. He is an awesome Elder and loves his mission so much! When I was with him I really gained a fire to do better as a missionary because I realized how awesome the Elders in my district are and I wanted to be more like them! Luckily I got to start out with such a great district that likes to work hard and also have fun!

The Oxnard District - Elder Davidson, Elder Sorensen, Hermana Brown, ME, Elder Barlow, Hermana Winn

This week we extended 3 baptismal invitations to 2 of our investigators and someone we found while tracting and all of them said yes! Who knows what will happen after that and if they will even get baptized but it made me so excited because they are all such amazing people and it makes me happy that they are reaching out and making decisions that give new opportunities to grow in the Gospel! One is super cool because she owns a custom Pinata shop and always gives us free candy! She also said she would knit a beanie or a scarf for me for free! She is such an awesome lady and luckily I think that her testimony of the gospel is growing, little by little. Another wants to wait for the rest of his family to think about baptism because he wants all of them to join the church. So if his whole family gets Baptized that would be 5 new converts right there! That would definitely be a miracle for me in my 1st transfer in the Mission field!

Thanks Dad for the letter! I freaking loved reading it. And I could surprisingly understand all of the Spanish you wrote in it!

So this has been a really good week! Thanks to everyone for their prayers because I can definitely feel them! Love you all so much!!

Elder Ward

Oh and go watch meet the Mormons.. IT'S AMAZING!!!

THE LIFE OF ELDER WARD

OK Well here we go!

The contents of my 1st package - Thanks Mom!!  I literally flipped!  My comp didn't understand why this cereal is so great....Oh, but it is that GREAT!

 So this week has been a good week. I met a ton of new people this week and was super excited to share the gospel with them! I forgot my weekly notes so this letter might not be the longest. We have a new investigator and he is literally a real life, fast and furious car racer. His car has 800 HP and has two huge tanks with NOS in it. Sadly I can't get a ride in it on the mission so I will have to say what's up after the mission. But he has actually been investigating the church for 12 YEARS!!! Super crazy, so I hope we finally get through to him and get him and his family baptized. 

In other good news I also had my first General Conference in the mission field!! 

Here's a quick little tender mercy of The Lord, up until the first talk the whole thing was in Spanish, which would have been terrible because I cannot understand hardly ANY Spanish, but right before the first talk, the audio cut out during the song and it flicked over to English. I was so happy and glad that it switched over or I wouldn't have gotten anything out of conference. But I had a ton of personal revelation and a lot of things that I felt applied to me.  I am very grateful for that.

This week was Elder Davidson's birthday, so we had some fun parties!! So yeah, that has very roughly been the life of Elder Ward the past week! 

Love you all!