Week #40 - Santa Rosa, California - July 27, 2020

Hey all,

So, it's been a busy day, plus I'm bad at weekly's, so I'm going to be be real quick.

The hermanas in our district had a baptism this week, but because the governor of California shut down all our counties again, they weren't able to do the baptism at the church. So we had the baptism at the next best place - one of the beaches in North Cali, but it also happened to be pretty cold that day! And the water was freezing. My comp was asked to baptize her, so we went with the hermanas, and it was actually pretty cool to witness. But my poor comp was shaking in the water, since the water was so cold, but it was a neat experience.

I had a pretty out-of-world experience earlier this week. So there's this lady and her daughter that we've been teaching, I mentioned it in one of my other emails (look at the July 13 post) and they're really awesome to teach! They've practically read the whole BOM and we only gave it to them like a month ago. The mother has already set a baptismal date last week, but the daughter is more hesitant to take that leap. This last Tuesday though, we had a really cool lesson and toward the end, they started telling us about their past. While they were doing this I started to feel really strange. It's very difficult to explain what happened, but my mind just opened, and I feel like could kind of see and feel exactly what they were thinking and why they were thinking it. I've never felt anything like it before. We were asking the daughter about baptism again, and she was still very hesitant, so I decided to tell her the story of a convert that I taught in Peru and how I saw his desire to change, and how it was so powerful to me. She stopped me in the middle of my story and told me: "The way you're talking to me right now, is convincing me. There's like magic in your words or something." We knew she was feeling the spirit and needless to say, my comps and I set a baptismal date for her that day, and we're all super excited for her!

I don't have much else to say, so have a good week. And here's some cute pics...

Elder Dyal

 The daughter of our investigator

 Going to the beach for the baptism

 The Elders and Hermanas

 In our masks

 The ocean baptism

 I am one with the earth!

 On the beach

With the Hermanas

Week #39 - Santa Rosa, California - July 20, 2020

 Something is taller than Elder Dyal!

 Our "Book of Mormon" investigator

 The other roommate 'trio' that lives in the apartment --

Elder Anderson, Elder Tobias, and Elder Smithson

 A way of finding investigators

Cleaning out our mission cars

Our horde of gatorade

Week #38 - Santa Rosa, California - July 13, 2020

Hey guys,

Yo, it's been a while since I sent a weekly, or really responded to emails in general. But yes, I'm alive. There's been a lot happening since I last sent an email. I wasn't able to write last week cause we were really busy. We spent p-day on the beach. Probably the windiest beach I've ever been to. We're not allowed to swim but it was still a lot of fun. We found a washed up jellyfish on the shore so that was cool.

There was this lady who referred herself to the missionaries because she wanted to learn how to pray. We video-called her and told her about the Book of Mormon and dropped it off at her house with a chapter to read in it. It took a while to get back into contact with her because she works all the time and is super busy. But a few days later we went by her house and talked to her in person along with her daughter. She told us she had been reading the Book of Mormon everyday and showed us where she was. She had started from the beginning of the book and was in 1 Nephi 17 or something! She said the book was super great but it was a bit confusing to her, so she reads the chapters multiple times. She told us about Lehi's vision and 100% understood it! She had already accepted the book as the word of God. I've never seen that happen so quickly! But even crazier, we went by her house again a week later because we could never get into contact with her. She let us in her house and apologized, but said she brings the book to her work and reads it during her break. She was in the Book of Jarom. Me and my companions had a hard time responding because we were all visibly astounded! No other investigator has ever read that much in such a short amount of time. She related the book to all the crazy things that were happening today, and her daughter wanted a book in English, so we gave her one as well.

So that’s one thing that happens a lot in this area - The parents only speak to us in Spanish, but they understand English. And the kids speak to us only in English, so it's back and forth, and we all get a little confused sometimes. It hurts my brain!

I went on an exchange to a ‘bike area’, so that was the first time I felt like a REAL missionary as we rode bikes around Santa Rosa. But it was also an English area so I had a really hard time teaching because I wasn’t use to teaching in English. It felt so weird. But we met some guy named Andrew that went on and on about ‘the illuminati’ and other conspiracies. The missionaries I was with told me that’s kind of what they get in this area. Maybe that’s just California, I don't know yet. Haven’t been here long enough.

Today is actually transfers but there weren't any changes with my companions. I am still with Elder Hakanson and Elder Wells. But one of the other Elders that live in our apartment was just called as a 3rd AP, so we're all super excited for him. We have 2 sets of trio missionaries in our apartment. 6 missionaries total! It’s crazy!

I'm gonna be honest, I have a hard time writing emails because I have no idea what to say, so I have a ton of pictures to end it.

Elder Dyal

 Elder Wells and Elder Dyal

 Elder Dyal and Elder Hakanson

 In the church foyer

 Riding a bike on exchanges

 Found a raccoon

 (Alex's spirit animal, LOL!)

 With an investigator

 Riding to the beach on P-day

 California Beach!

 With Elder Hale on the beach
(He was Scott Cherry's companion in the Peru Iquitos Mission)

 Having fun on the beach with the district

 Now, onto a service project

 Whoa! A machete!

 Service project and working hard

Week #37 - Santa Rosa, California - July 6, 2020

  Elder Hakanson, Elder Wells and Elder Dyal in their apartment

Baked some bread

Week #36 - Santa Rosa, California - June 29, 2020

So I did the math and I realized that a couple days ago I just finished 1/3 of my mission. I gotta be honest, it's been pretty wild with all this stuff that's going on! So today was the last day that my current mission president will be here. He leaves tomorrow. And the new one just came in, President Puffer, so it's been pretty crazy. But we're all super excited to meet the new guy.

So this week has been pretty interesting. Last P-Day my companion tried to do a front flip, but he landed on it weird and messed up his hand. His entire hand was pretty swollen for a couple of days so we went to urgent care and he straight up broke his middle finger. So now he's been wearing this stupid looking cast around, and he's probably going to have to get surgery on his birthday that is coming up. So we've all been making fun of him this last week. Besides that, we’re really starting to get the ball moving around here! We’ve been able to have a lot of in-person lessons lately. And I finally feel like I finally understand subjunctive in Spanish now too, so I sound a lot better when I talk.

There was this family that we planned on meeting in a park a couple days ago to teach, but we couldn't find them anywhere. So we started talking to people in the park. Then out of the blue, a couple of homeless people walked up to us and they were actually super genuine with some questions they had. They told us that they used to be members but they had a really bad set of cards the last few years, and they'd been praying and seeing miracles in their life that have helped them on a day-to-day basis. They didn’t know where an LDS church was so they asked if they could maybe get in contact with the bishop. So we were able to help them contact him. I would've been feeling sketch about the whole situation but I just had a feeling we were probably an answer to their prayers.

So we'll see how the next few weeks go. We all feel there's going to be big, big changes with the new president. And we're also getting like 35 more missionaries. So I'll keep everyone updated.

Elder Dyal

 Elders with some investigators

 Elder Hakanson, Elder Dyal, Elder Wells

 Chillin' up at the church building

BEFORE a haricut

AFTER a haircut 

Elder Hakanson's broken finger

Week #35 - Santa Rosa, California - June 22, 2020

 This is a transfer week -- New companion, Elder Wells

Elder Hakanson stays his other companion

 A selfie in his apartment

Interesting notice that Elder Dyal found in a Santa Rosa park

Elder Dyal's new companion, Elder Wells

Week #34 - Santa Rosa, California - June 15, 2020

Hey guys,

So we had transfers today, after only 4 weeks. I've been here for 3 weeks so it's been pretty crazy. There has just been so many new reassigned missionaries coming into this mission. My mission president wants to get transfers back on a 6 week schedule so they should be normal after this. I'm still in the same area (in Sonoma, basically in Santa Rosa), but I moved apartments for some reason. Now I'm living with 5 other guys and a new companion. I'm still in a missionary trio. Since there are so many missionaries now its pretty insane with the housing situation, but most of you probably know that.

So, another think is my Facebook got hacked! So that's fun. I'm back to just sitting around doing nothing cause I can't go Facebook finding. But a couple sisters that live nearby asked us to go to the church and help with getting to know someone they were teaching. This was actually the first face-to-face missionary work I've done since Peru. It looks like things are starting to slowly get back to normal; California is still a little slow with opening up here. 

I have a new mission President that will be arriving at the end of June (Pres and Sis Puffer) and everyone's a little anxious to meet him. I was still in the process of getting to know my current mission president here, but its all cool. I really hope things get back to normal cause I'm kinda losing my mind. But I'm still amazed by how beautiful northern Cali is. I hope that doesn't get old.

Elder Dyal

 The scenery next to the church building

A church member gave me this Cali hat