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| The Best Mission in the World! |
I hope everyone was able to have a wonderful time with the family and friends to celebrated such
a wonderful holiday. We had a great one over here across the pond! It was a little different not having all the traditional stuff but hey, it was still a wonderful and memorable day! Hope everyone else's was too! Leading up to the new year now, I have been able to reflect on this year and I've sketched out some goals I want to achieve for this coming year, one specific one being reading the four standard works (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price) Just one of the many few I wish to achieve while out on the mission during my "Black Year" (full year in the mission field) so we shall see how I do by the time this time of year comes again!
Tuesday: December 22nd, 2015
We were on exchanges today with the Woodley elders and Elder Baum and I had quite the day. So to keep it short, we basically had a ton of rejection while we were out contacting and knocking but the coolest thing happened. Ready? So we were leaving this area we knocked and we saw the bus drive by and so of course we missed it... So we waited about 10 minutes for the next one to come around and then we headed into town. However, the bus driver needed a break so he pulled over to a stop and we waited again for 10 minutes. Then we get a text from a recent convert who needed a visit and so when we finally got back into town we started walking his way and here is where the miracle happened. As we were walking, we were randomly talking about oceans and then a man named Jason came up to us and asked if he could talk to us. Well... Of course! He mentioned he has an impression to talk to us when he couldn't even see our name tags (it was pitch black and we were wearing big jackets because of the rain) but he listened to it and stopped us. So he went through and explained his life story with great emotion and tears. I don't want to exploit all the details but he basically was an atheist his whole life and the last week and half, he has been able to find God in his life and came to know that God is real! He said he wanted to have this wonderful feeling of peace and love he has felt forever and so we taught him and extended a baptismal date on the street! He gladly accepted with tears in his eyes and it was seriously the coolest experience I have had on my mission so far. It just comes to show that our Father in Heaven knows exactly where he needs us when one of his children is trying to find the way to light in this dark and dreary world.
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| Spoiled Little Missionaries... |
Wednesday: December 23rd, 2015
We had district meeting in the morning and then we were at the temple the rest of the day with Scott and we also had to pick up everyone's Christmas packages and letters.
Thursday: December 24th, 2015
Christmas Eve didn't even feel like Christmas Eve... We literally drove for 11 hours today delivering packages to the zone and the Nyman's (Oxford Senior Couple) had us over for dinner and that was well needed because we didn't get to eat all day until that point! It was fun playing Santa Clause for the first time!:)
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| Christmas Morning! |
Now this... It didn't feel like Christmas whatsoever! It was really strange to see that it was Christmas and I knew it was Christmas, but it just didn't feel the same being away from home. It was still a very great day though! We had a visit with the Bakers and then Tammy. We were spoiled with gifts... I might need an extra suitcase just for my Christmas stuff! Haha. But after we got to Skype home for the first time and that was amazing. It was super nice to see the family and talk face to face. Crazy how it has already been 6 months! What the...! That is seriously crazy!
Saturday: December 26th, 2015
So the 26th is actually a holiday in England. They call it Boxing Day (I don't know much about it so you might want to look it up if you want to know what it is) so we had two more dinner appointments today and then we had to make a video for the Assistants for Training a New District Leader. Umm... Let's just say we were very special during the making of the video... It took us about 30 tries to get it all right without messing up... It was a very funny night.
Sunday: December 27th, 2015
Today we only had one hour of church for some reason but it gave us time to do some Sunday proselyting for once! We headed into a new area we haven't worked yet and the results were very promising. We were talking to one guy who was very interested named Steven and as we finished talking to him, a guy named Brian just rolled up on his bike and said, "hey you want to take down my number and we can setup a time to meet?" Uhhhhhh.... Sure? YES! It was crazy! We just walked off after and were speechless that something like that happened. Funny part is we were on the road we didn't mean to go to so we contacted for a bit on that road before driving to the correct road and that's
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| Dinner with the Nymans, Danny, Emily, and Joseph |
So as you can see, there were a lot of wonderful Christmas miracles this week and it really was amazing to have such amazing gifts given to us by our Father in Heaven. I hope that everyone will have a wonderful and safe New Years! Can you believe it is already 2016?!?!?
Love you all and be safe!
-Elder Rivera
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