Week #44 - Santa Rosa, California - August 24, 2020

 Only have pictures this week... Some are of the California wildfire smoke that hangs heavy in the air over Santa Rosa. Elder Dyal's mission is free of any danger from the current wildfires. This was also his last week in Santa Rosa before transfers.

Week #43 - Santa Rosa, California - August 17, 2020

What’s up? It’s Elder Dyal here. Well, let me just get straight into it. This week we haven’t really done anything because, well I try to do stuff. So, we had exchanges with zone leaders and I was leading the whole area with my group and was super embarrassed because the whole time we haven’t been able to get in contact with anyone… call and noone answered, going by people houses and they weren’t there. So that was fun, we just wasted a bunch of miles. Ummm, so let me think… So this week, this is what they whole week looked like basically. But one think is that our ward mission leader, we noticed he was looking super worn out, super tired and stressed, so we decided to throw him a cute little party where we wrote cute little notes, and snuck into his house and gave him a “heart attack” on his door. And we brought food, and he cried. Probably the best thing I’ve ever seen. But he’s literally the best ward mission leader I’ve ever seen. His name is Hermano Merando. He’s so amazing. Never seen anyone better than that, never seen anyone cuter than him.

But anyway, let me think what else happened this week…. Oh, yesterday on Sunday, we were able to have 7 lessons, which was nice because the rest of the week we had nothing. It was mostly with members because a lot of members don’t have the opportunity to take the sacrament, so we go over and give that to them, so that was nice. Also yesterday, Esperanza and Montserrat, who are the 2 investigators who dropped us after they read the entire Book of Mormon in a month, which was super freaking cool. Never seen anyone cooler than that! But they dropped us after reading about polygamy on the internet and then had a lot of doubts and decided they didn’t want to talk to us anymore. We decided we weren’t going to let her do that, so we made a bunch of brownies and went over to her house, a pretty bold move! We wrote some notes that apologized but that we could talk about it now if she has questions. It was kind of awkward after getting to her house because she opened the door and only had a towel on after getting out of the shower… And she was really caught off guard and freaks out. We were like, “Hey, here’s some brownies,” and we didn’t know what else to say. So we gave her the brownies with the notes and left within 30 seconds! But later she messages us and she’s like, “Hey guys, it was nice to see you. It’s not your fault and you’re always welcome at my house.” So that’s cool! We’re back in, WE’RE BACK IN! That’s nice.

Besides that, I’ve been trying so hard to just get lessons going, but it’s been a struggle. So I guess really, that’s our week. We did take some good pictures. I’ll add them below.

-Elder Dyal

Hermano Morando

Week #42 - Santa Rosa, California - August 10, 2020

Hey everyone,

So, one day on the mission of Elder Alex Dyal, the investigators he was teaching dropped HIM because of questions over polygamy. Depression soon hit because they were super amazing investigators, and that just kinda sucks. But he had the FATtest rebound week EVER.

No seriously, we found the coolest family ever; the mom is an inactive member and the rest of the family is AMAZING and is reading the BOM like crazy. We also found 3 other cholos who are super cool! So in total, we found 7 people to teach this week! 

The biggest tender mercy that lifted the depression of losing our investigators was some guys we met at a gas station. There was this guy on a motorized bicycle wearing a fish net and mobs by us and parks. We go up to him to talk and possibly get a picture with him. His friend comes up to us speaking Arabic but just the same 3 words over and over again. Then he tells us in his OWN words that he speaks: English, Italian, Arabic MEXICAN, Spanish, Hebrew, etc, etc. He asked us what was on the back of the dollar bill, we were like, "What?" He says, "Your mom". And then he paces around the gas station for no reason and comes back to us. Meanwhile his friend is karate chopping a sign and drop kicking cigarettes. We asked if we could get a picture with them and he was like "for 10 dollars." (We took one anyway.) We went back to our car as he mobs off on his bike, but his friend just sits down on our car. We had no idea what to do, but then he went, "I have to go to the bathroom" and he just walks away. (Picture attached)

Honestly, I really needed something that funny this week. Have a good week.

- Elder Dyal

 With the fishnet motorized biker that we talked to 

Week #41 - Santa Rosa, California - August 3, 2020

I'm not going to lie, this week has been super hard. Our people with Baptismal date were looking online and found some anti stuff, and told us they didn't want to talk anymore. It was a huge blow to us, and I've been specifically really depressed over it. I wish I had something good to say about this week to counter the depression, but I don't. It's all cool though, we're still pressing on.

 One thing that was kinda cool is everyone in our house realized that I will chug anything on a dare. So I've just mainly chugging a lot of high-fructose corn syrup crap that they give me, and it usually causes me a lot of physical pain a few hours later. I mean physical pain helps me forget my emotional pain so... it balances straight out.

 If I keep writing it'll be just more depression so I'll stop here. Don't worry though, I always joke about this kind of stuff, I'm not 100% serious.

 -Elder Dyal