Thoughts

This week Elder Pilling got up at 4 am, drove around, and taught around. 

Well it's been a wonderful week here in Oxnard. Been busy and good and I have had good reflection. Where I'm at, Elder Drury and I work with all the zone leaders so it's been insightful to see it all happen and how it happens. As we've worked this week we've had some pretty cool spiritual experiences and I thought about my letters lately and they have been pretty weak. Loved Thousand Oaks but we had less amazing experiences and it was pretty repetitive so my emails were as well. But now it's go time with 200,000 people to talk to. Literally that's how many people are in Oxnard and we cover half so 100,000 is a lot more than the TO ward. 

What I'm saying is these emails will be better.  The Lord is good and the world is bad. You know one thing I know is the mission is only as good as its missionary's commitment. Same with the world, there's some pretty weak commitment out there. One of my favourite scriptures is, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." that's it folks. Not to mention in the next verse it reads... Well I'm just going to copy and paste:

"13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

Just  wonderful isn't it? 

Well let's get into the war zone of Elder Drury and Elder Pilling, and this will be out of order but on Saturday we had a spectacular day. One particular event went like this:

Elder Pilling and Elder Drury were walking on a street, an older Hispanic man was parked up on the sidewalk tossing things Into his backyard. The missionaries stopped and asked him how his weekend was and if they could help. The man stopped and started to chat. Next thing that happened was this man put his whole trust in the missionaries and asked how he can have faith in Jesus Christ. The man, whose name was John, wanted to have faith but had never understood it. The missionaries were able to testify of Christ and use the scriptures and experiences to help John know what to do. It was good. 

You know there was something about this man. He was so eager to talk about Christ, I had just never experienced it before. He's such a good soul. 

On another occasion we sat down with Joe, another Hispanic man (yes our ward has like 2 white people in it) and he too was eager to get himself into religion and having a relationship with God. He knows it's what he wants for himself. We taught all about priesthood authority and how it is the keys to the kingdom. Imagine your life without it. Not good. 

To end, Saturday we held a bball activity at the church right at 8:30. 2 recent converts were there as well as 2 non- members. We played some good half court and I learned I am still completely terrible and useless at basketball.  Following the game we had such a cool lesson, Joey and Paki were intrigued with God's priesthood authority and was also desiring to attend church. The recent convert testified that the priesthood has helped him lead his family. Paki desired that as well as he feels he has been under achieving as a father. It was so tender. 

Day ending we had wonderful lessons, conversations, and testifying. That's what this is all about. I turned to Elder Drury one point this week and just said, "I really do love talking to people" you can learn so much and be so happy. I love being able to smile and have another person smile back. Life is so good and when you combine it with a sweet testimony, life is all the better. I know Christ lives. This is more than a resorted church, it is His church. "...Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." I know the fruits of the spirit are real. 

To close I have been pondering a lot about the World. 

1. TV Should be banned 

2. Movies banned as well

3. Social media should be... Used extremely limited. 

4. Time is running out. 

This is the greatest cause, the greatest work, and the greatest challenge. This is it! There is literally no time to do anything but self-sustaining things (work, family time, farm, donkeys etc) and repentance. That's what I believe anyway, especially since repentance includes so much. 

Love you all. Peanut butter dip. 

Elder Pilling