Week Forty-eight:  Interviews and Zone Conference [June 25,2018]

Hi Everyone!

Good things are happening here in Atascadero. Here's a run-down of my week. 

We got to teach Fred the word of wisdom, which is one of the things that will be more difficult for him. He wants to follow this commandment and has asked if he could get a blessing to help him do so. We're planning on doing that this week. 

For service this week we helped a potential named Ginny put some sand into a wheelbarrow and move it. We also helped Lynn cut down a tree and put up a shed. 

Thursday was really inspiring. In the morning I had my interviews with President which really motivated me to focus on my purpose as a missionary. We also talked about how both of our year marks are coming up soon! In the evening we had our zone conference. During the last portion members from the ward council came and we had a powerful meeting on the impact member missionary work has. The Spirit was definitely present the entire day. 

We're trying to get better at utilizing Facebook in our proselyting, so Friday morning we worked with the other Atascadero Elders to make a video to introduce ourselves. You can check them out on Facebook. The one I'm in is on my companion's page (Kason Mills) and the one I filmed is on Kyle Horman's page. I don't particularly enjoy watching the one I'm in, but maybe you'll like it. 

Saturday we were able to teach the Restoration twice! The first one was with a potential named Andy. He was a little apprehensive about our message, but he did invite us back and he accepted a Book of Mormon. The other one was with Mikaela and she absorbed what we said like a sponge.

Yesterday was our ward conference. There were lots of good talks given and afterwards there was a "munch and mingle" I also got to see Cowboy Larry (remember him?). 

I remember before the mission that everyone told me that I would have perfect weather year round and that they were jealous. You don't have to be jealous anymore. This week got in the 100's 

Also my 11 month mark is tomorrow! It's crazy how fast the time goes. 

Not a ton happened this week, but I still enjoyed it. Hope all of you have a marvelous week! 

Until next time, 

Elder Jason Riches 

https://www.facebook.com/kason.mills/videos/1753423874774559/?t=0

Week Forty-seven:  Bible Study [June 18, 2018]

Hi Everyone!

This week was pretty different. We didn't meet with some of the usual people like Judy or Jeff and Heidi but it was still good. 

We had our third lesson with Fred on the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end we talked a bit about baptism and he told us he knows what he needs to do to get to that point and he's very willing. The only hold-up with him right now is that he's really busy with work and it conflicts with coming to church. Keep him in your prayers that he'll be able to find a way to come. 

Our new investigator Karen invited us to come to her Bible study with some of her friends. Usually these are a bad idea when you're a missionary, because people try to Bible bash with you a lot. We prayed a lot about whether or not we should go and We ultimately came to the conclusion that we should. The people there were pretty nice; however, the pastor who was leading the discussion seemed to be dropping a few things that he wanted us to argue on (the Bible is it, don't rely on the works of men, etc), but we mostly kept silent. Karen actually gave him more trouble than we did. At one point he was talking about how when we die we go either directly to heaven or hell and she asked "I thought there was some sort of waiting period where we would go until the resurrection."  Also when we were talking about if baptism was necessary he said no and we shared John 3:5. One of the people there said how she used to think baptism wasn't necessary, but now she's not sure. We were invited back and we'll probably go. I'm sure the pastor will come with some ammo so we'll have to be careful. 

Some  other cool things happened. We had some people call us over and wanted us to share a scripture from "our Bible" with them and pray with them and one of them really wanted us to come back. 

There's also a potential named Andy who we've talked with a few times. At the end of our last talk with him we asked if we could set up a teaching appointment and he said he enjoyed our talks and would be looking forward to it! We also helped some members move two pianos! 

As always things are looking up for this area and I'm excited to see where everything goes. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic week

Until Next time, 

Elder Jason Riches

Week Forty-six:  A Week Full of Lessons and Three New Investigators...Sort Of [June 10,2018]

Hi Everyone! 

This week has been awesome. We've definitely been able to see the Lord's hand in our work! 

Elder Horman, who covers the other side of Atascadero is training a new missionary named Elder Bounous. It's been fun being around them and seeing what I may have looked like when I first got out here. He's doing really well though. 

On Wednesday we got to teach two lessons. The first one was with Judy teaching her about tithing. She's doing really well and paid tithing for the first time a few weeks ago. We also taught Fred the plan of salvation. After that he's officially a new investigator! 

Friday we got to meet the new district. It's crazy to think that I've been in this district since the very end of January. It's completely different from when I first got here. We tried by a few people after that. One guy said that he would have us arrested if we came back again. I'm not sure what he could arrest us on, but we probably won't be going back. After that we went by a potential to set up an appointment with her. Once we did that our area book app made her a new investigator even though it doesn't feel like she is. 

We were finally able to see Heidi this week. We didn't have a long conversation because she is super busy with work and stuff which has made it harder and harder to meet. It was a good conversation though. 

Remember how last week I talked about how we talked to a potential named Erika, but her son was more interested? His name is Jackson and we were able to teach him the restoration and he seems pretty interested. He told us how he could see himself going down this path! He was also a new investigator! 

On Sunday we got blessings from the bishop to help us in our work. That evening we had some cool experiences. We tried by a potential we met last week, but she wasn't home. We decided to go by another potential we met a while ago and we were able to talk with her for a bit. She asked where the church was and talked about coming next week. We also saw another potential we found a week ago and gave him a Restoration pamphlet. As we were walking to the next place we had planned we noticed that the light was on at the one potential we originally planned to go by. We decided to try again and it was a good thing we did. She's the one that we gave the plan of salvation pamphlet to last week. We ended up teaching her the plan of salvation and she really enjoyed it! She would be a new investigator too if we were able to get a return appointment. She did tell us to stop by whenever and she was really happy when we gave her a Book of Mormon!

I'm really happy that I was able to stay here and see all the miracles I have seen this last week! It'll be exciting to see what happens next! 

As always, I hope you have a great week and until next time! 

Elder Jason Riches

Week Forty-five:  Here I'll Stay [June 4, 2018]

Hi Everyone! 

This week has been great! Here's what happened. 

A  few weeks ago some members told us about a former investigator that they've seen a few times. We were able to meet him and this last Tuesday we were able to teach him and get to know him better. His name is Fred and he's pretty cool. He promised his wife (who was LDS) that he would get baptized and sealed to her before she died. We taught him the restoration and he agreed with it all. He even said that he believed that if there was one true church, he believed it would be ours. We have an appointment with him this week too so we're both exited to see how that goes. 

When we did service for Lynn this week we were able to tell him how the missionary program works and what we do as missionaries. We're hoping to bring up some more stuff this next time. We also had our lesson with Judy on continuing to learn and serve in the church. 

We got the chance to teach our now new investigator named Karen...sort of. We didn't really have an outlined lesson, it was mostly just answering questions she has about the church. Fortunately her questions are out of curiosity and not trying to prove us wrong. It'll be interesting to see how our next lesson goes. 

We've also been trying to meet with more members of the ward that we don't know. Some of the less actives we've met seem pretty open. 

We were able to get a few more potentials that sound interested. One of them we checked into and we gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet. It was a good choice since she just had someone close to her pass away. Another person was someone we had talked with last week named Erika. We ended up talking with her son more and he seemed really interested. Yesterday we went by a born again preacher who we talked with a while ago to see if he knew where someone lived. As he was bearing his testimony to us I felt that I should share a scripture with him and give him a Book of Mormon, which he accepted and said he would read from it. He seems to be pretty spiritually sensitive so we're hoping that the Spirit will speak to him as he reads. Finally we talked with someone who was working on his truck. He was really nice and said that if we ever needed anything that we could come by (he mentioned laundry too, who does that?!?). 

After a few weeks we were finally able to meet with Jeff. They've both been super busy these past few weeks and went on vacation as well. He still seems pretty on track with everything, but we'll probably have to go at a slower pace with Heidi. 

As for what will happen for transfers... I will be staying here with Elder Mills. This is the first time that I've had a companion for more that two transfers. After all the miracles we've seen as well I'm exited to see how it all plays out next transfer! 

Have a great week! 

Elder Jason Riches

Dinner at the Bergmann's 

Week Forty-four:  Zone Conference and Stuff [May 28, 2018]

Hi Everyone! 

It's been a pretty good week. Here's what's happened. 

Zone conference was this week. Most of it was about how to work with members better. There were many good ideas and I'm exited to get to try them out. There was also a fun experience during lunch. A few people at the table I was sitting at were doing a challenge to see if we could stuff a whole cupcake in our mouth. After most of us had done it one of the missionaries challenged a sister to get President Nakken to do it as well. She took a cupcake to him and we all watched eagerly from our table to see what he would do. Well she convinced him and everyone clapped and cheered as he did it! He saw that it was our table that encouraged it and had all of us go in front of everyone and do it again!

We taught Judy again on the temple and family history work. We've pretty much taught her everything that she would need to know before she goes to do baptisms for the dead. We'll see what her thoughts are as time goes on. We also met with Brooke and Byron who are some of our other investigators. They had just gotten back from a two week trip and we mostly talked about that. 

We taught a potential named Elaine the plan of salvation. At the end we talked about how to gain a testimony of what we had taught her would come by reading the Book of Mormon. She is very hesitant and said that when she has looked though it before she found some things that were red flags. She eventually agreed to pray and see if she should read it. Everything right now is up to her and the Lord. Keep her in your prayers that she will be able to get the right answer. 

On Saturday at about 1:00 we got a text from brother Bergmann (who's also in the bishopric) asking us if we could give a talk on Sunday. Overall I think I had about two hours to prepare for it. Apparently I did a good job though. One of the members even requested a copy! 

We found five new potentials this week, so not as good as last week but still not a bad number by any means. Nothing new with Jeff and Heidi. We tried by a few times and they weren't there. There cars were gone which makes me think they are out of town. 

It's the last week of the transfer so we're hoping all goes well. Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Jason Riches

Week Forty-three:  10 New Potentials [May 21, 2018]

Hi Everyone! 

This week has been a great week for finding! 

On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Horman. While on exchanges we were able to get 8 new potential investigators in his area. One of them let us in and we were able to teach her the restoration and the plan of salvation. While we taught the plan of salvation she kept saying "Why have I never heard this before?" She seems super solid and I'm exited to hear how it goes with her in the future. We also got two less active referrals from our dinner appointment. After a very successful day of finding it inspired me to make finding more of a priority. 

Throughout this week we have been knocking on more doors and making more of an effort to talk with everyone we see. As of yesterday we've been able to find 10 new potentials in our area. One of them who we found walking around had a lot of questions and we were able to teach her the restoration. She asked for a Book of Mormon and was very open to us coming back! This week we've been able to see the hand of the Lord in our finding efforts. It feels that either these people have been lead to us or we've been lead to them. I think the biggest thing we've changed is our attitude towards finding and showed the Lord we were more willing to do what he wants us to do. 

Aside from that we were able to have another lesson with Judy on the temple and family history. Her temple trip will be a little further off than we originally thought since she wants to learn more about the temple before she gets a temple recommend. I'll keep you posted on how things go. 

Aside from those things not a bunch happened. We talked twice with a potential named Cathy we found a while back and got to know her better. We also did more service for Lynn and unexpected service for a less active getting him some gas for his lawn mower. We weren't able to meet with Jeff and Heidi again since Saturday was his son's birthday and Sunday they weren't home. 

That's basically it for this week! Hopefully you had a great week as well! 

Until next time, 

Elder Jason Riches 

Week Forty-two:  Small and Simple Miracles [May 14, 2018]

Hi Everyone, 

This week was pretty good. Here are the highlights

We had an appointment fall through so we were walking, not really knowing what to do, when two people across the street asked us if we wanted to come and play soccer with them. I recognized them as people we'd seen before (their mom/aunt is an investigator), and seeing an opportunity to share the gospel we accepted their invitation. After the game we shared a message with them. One of them started to interrogate us with Bible questions and gave us a challenge to find out what one of the verses in Romans means. We took him up on that. Even though it seems like he just wants to argue, we wonder if any of the others are interested. We'll find out more as time goes on. 

We stopped by one of our potentials that we had found a week prior only to talk with her son Chase. He says he believes in a higher power, but doesn't exactly know what that higher power is. We talked with him about the Book of Mormon and he said that he would definitely read it since he wants answers. We're looking forward to seeing how that all goes. 

Things are picking up a bit with Lynn. This week when we were doing service for him he asked us a few questions about the church. We'll see if we can bring some more things up with him next week. I'll let you all know how that goes. 

Things are really going well with Judy. She really enjoys doing family history work and it's cool to see the Spirit of Elijah in her. There's a very good chance that she'll be able to go to get her temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead tomorrow! After that all we need to do is get her some names to take and arrange the trip! It been very exciting to see her progress. She keeps saying how now that she's a member she wants to be a good example to her kids. 

A nice little tender mercy happened Friday. After district meeting we had an appointment that we needed to get to. Because of time we wouldn't have time to get lunch before we needed to go. The other elders gave us a ride back to our apartment so we could grab our car and on the doorstep was a package from home and in it were some gift cards to Subway which was by our appointment! We had a good lesson with the less active/Part-Member family on the small and simple things and then were able to have lunch. It was a small little miracle, but a cool one that I'm grateful for. Thanks mom for making it possible!

We are planning on starting up a family mission plan for the members of our ward and we tested it out with some members who have told us to come by whenever. At first they couldn't think of anyone, but they then started to talk about someone who was a former investigator. Apparently they've seen him a few times and says he misses the missionaries coming by. It sounds like he's a hard one to catch, but they gave us some information that could be helpful. 

I had exchanges with Elder Cannon Saturday. We had a pretty fun time with each other. We stopped by quite a few people with not a ton of luck. We were walking a lot and we were getting pretty thirsty so we went to ask some members for water. They ended up inviting us in and talked to us for a while. We ended up hearing of someone who might be interested and I ended up giving her a blessing of comfort. It was a cool experience. 

We didn't meet with Jeff and Heidi this week. We saw Jeff leaving to run some errands on Saturday and he texted us later and said that he'd see us at church. After sacrament meeting We noticed Heidi sitting in the back and went to talk with her. Apparently they were running pretty late and Jeff didn't want to go that late, but Heidi didn't mind and came by herself! 

The best part of the week was being able to Skype home for Mother's Day. Just like the last time it was fun being able to see everyone's faces and hear from each of them. It's definitely a blessing that we have the technology available to do that!

That's my week. Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day and hope you have a great week this week! 

Until next week, 

Elder Jason Riches