#38 交流 jiāoliú (exchanges)

Hello all! It's me again, I know your not too surprised by that fact, but anyway. It's been a pretty awesome week here in Newbury Park, it's still nice, expensive, and prideful. But we make it work, despite the opposition we were able to extend a baptismal date to our friend Natisse and she accepted! We have had a lot going on this week, we had three exchanges plus a zone blitz. Which in total means I have spent almost more time without my companion than with him this week. I have come to gain an appreciation for all the wonderful missionaries in this zone, they are all working so hard and have such wonderful testimonies. These exchanges have also lead me to some realizations regarding activity within the church, if I have shared these before I apologize, but it's important. Therefore repetition. 

With my companion being on his last transfer, we have been talking a lot about how one stays active in the church and continues onward after a mission. A talk that has been on our minds lately is Elder Dunns talk about being 1% better daily. By doing the small and simple things daily we garuntee that we stay spirituality fit and in condition. The flip side however is also true, when we STOP doing the small things and drop daily habits, our muscles start to spirituality atrophy. And when trials come we find ourselves lacking the spiritual muscle to make it through. 

We recently met with a member of the ward who within the first 10 minutes had given us all of the reasons for his inactivity. His reasons were, through his eyes, valid. It became clear to us throughout the duration of the lesson that this wonderful brother had let simple "problems" overtake his spiritual life and atrophy his testimony.

It was a reminder to me to stay spiritually fit and do the small and simple things daily to stay spiritually fit. I would like to give you 3 things to do to stay spiritually fit.

1. Read scriptures daily

2. Pray at least twice a day 

3. Go. To. Church.

These three things will ensure that your testimony at least stays in condition. But you must do it because you want to, it is very possible to do the right things for the wrong reasons. 

Funny story: So I spent a lot of time in the Agoura area this week. So for those who don't know or have never been, Agoura is a very very Jewish area. Not a bad thing, but it makes contacting sort of difficult. So me and Elder Cantrell contacted this very nice Jewish man who told us how friendly everyone was and so on. Afterwards E. Cantrell turned to me and says: "There are nice Jewish people here? I haven't met them". That was kind of funny. 

Lots of pictures this week:

1,2 The Newbury park district 

3. The Zone Blitz!

4,5. Exchanges w/ E. Cantrell

6,7. Exchanges w/ E. Kelsey

8. Zone blitz w/ E. Rawlings 

9. Exchanges w/ E. Simon