Californian A-Venturas: Forty-third Week in the Field

Hola Everyone!

I've loved being able to stay here in Oxnard for another transfer. So many miracles are happening and everything is going great!

We're struggling a little with the Galvan Family right now. They're all still really sweet and want to keep learning more about the gospel, but their mom is even more busy than ever, so she's hardly ever home when we stop by. Same with Brian, the oldest brother. We feel like he's avoiding us and doesn't want to see us. He's usually home when we go over, but he'll hide in his room or the kitchen and won't talk to us. He's also pretty busy with school and sports as well. Tomorrow, we're going over with the young men's president and the rest of the young men to visit him and hopefully get him some better fellowship to have the desire to come back to church. Every time we go over, we still teach the kids, but we're not really getting anywhere with the rest of the family. Michael, the 12-year-old, has taken charge of the family a lot of the time and when we stopped by this week, he looked really tired. We're working on trying to get some more member help in there so the dynamic in the home will be a little better. This past Sunday, Hermana Galvan wasn't supposed to work, so she could come to church with the kids, but we didn't see any of them there yesterday. We're going to follow up with them tonight when we stop by for family home evening.

Rosa is still recovering from surgery, so she's really tired all the time. Every time we go over, we're only able to share a few little things and bear our testimonies before we leave. We're starting to think that she's starting to loose interest and that's why she's making up the excuse that every time time we go over she's tired, but we don't know that for sure, so we're going to keep holding on and see if the recovery gets better.

This past week we had an interesting experience with Vivian. Normally, she's really excited about learning whatever we had planned to teach her, but this week was a little different. We started out teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, but as we got towards the end, she started asking us questions that were pretty random to come up at the time that they did. One example was that she asked us if we believed in the concept of "el nino de Dios," but we'd never heard of that term before, so we explained that politely and respectfully. After we said that, she got really quiet and didn't really want to say anything else. The same thing happened with a few other questions she asked. We think she's getting anti pressure from her family and that's why she's all of sudden asking these questions. She also asked us if we could come with her to her church so that her mom would allow her to come to ours, but we respectfully explained that we couldn't. She got offended and told us that no body was in charge of us and we could do what we wanted. She then wouldn't let us finish the lesson and when her family got home, they pretty much told us to leave. We tried everything we could to bring it back by briefly re-teaching the Restoration and bearing our testimonies, but there was still a lot of tension when we left. She did, however, tell us that we could come back later this week and talk to her more, so that's a good sign.

This week we were able to stop by to see Gladys and Kassy (two of our investigators with baptismal dates) and to be able to talk to their mom and see if she would let us teach them. Lupe (their mom) said we could! We were also able to bring a member with us who hit it off really well with Lupe. They had a lot in common and she opened up a lot more after they got to know each other better. Lupe said that she couldn't commit completely to coming to church or doing other things we asked at the beginning because she was raised Catholic, but in the end she accepted the same baptismal date (May 10th) as her daughters! We're really excited to continue teaching all of them as a family. I know that as they're all learning together, the progress with be a lot more rapid because they'll see that strength that the gospel gives them.

We haven't been able to meet with Tobias this week again due to his work schedule or other scheduling conflicts. He used to be so solid and great at progressing towards baptism, but lately he's been pulling back. It's hard because we can't meet with him to ask him what's wrong though. He also hasn't been able to come to church for the past two weeks as well.

We were also able to see Fransisco, a less active that lives in our area. We haven't been able to see him for some time, but when we stopped by his house, he had just gotten home. It was a miracle! He asked us how we were doing, but then he asked us what we wanted to share with him that day. We decided to share 1 Nephi 3:7 and talk about how God will always provide a way for us to come to church even when it seems difficult. As we were talking, he told us that he doesn't really believe that there is one true church out there and that they all have truth in them. We asked him if he had ever prayed about it and he told us that he never had, but that he would! We told him that we'd follow up with him this coming week and that he would receive an answer.

Yesterday, for church, we were able to go to the new/old building!! It's so pretty!! The chapel has a bunch of stained glass behind the pulpit, the primary room has gorgeous exposed beams in the ceiling, and the whole building just has a really cool antique feeling to it. The chapel reminds me of the chapel from the Kirtland or Nauvoo temple. The outside even looks like the Kirtland temple. I'll send a pic. It was really neat to be able to see the reactions of all the members who attended this building before. It was like coming home to them. On top of the new building excitement, we had ward conference, so all the stake leaders were there so the chapel was packed.

Thanks for all the love and support that I've gotten from all of you!

Con amor,

Hermana Halliday

Also, HAPPY EARLY EASTER EVERYONE!