The work is moving along for us. In general, with only working with members now, the number of total lessons has taken a hit- which was to be expected but we had more member present lessons this month of December than any other month since the creation of the zone. The percentage of member-present lessons to total number of lessons was over 40%, so we are on a steady incline. We have finally got a list of ALL the members in all of our areas, so now we can get to work on visiting everyone and really uniting the ward in la obra misional and keep track of it in the district. 

A few Mission Leadership Conferences ago with Brother Garmin, we were told that, "We are all going to be Primary Teachers someday... so we'd better start today."  That’s what it’s like teaching our investigator, L-- right now. We go slow, but he hangs on to every word. He's really fun to teach. He came to church again and is really on fire right now.

It was great to be with Elder Griffin for our 2nd Christmas in the mission!! He's a great example to me and has a burning testimony of Jesus Christ.  I opened all my presents a few days before Christmas... so I didn’t get to open squat on Christmas morning.  Everyone in the apartment made fun of me, and just thought it was the funniest thing.

Talking with you all on Christmas didn’t make me trunky or homesick, because this is precisely the place I need to be. I know this, because it is the refiner's fire and that is exactly what I need.  It has shaped me and is continually shaping me every single day.  I love my mission.  I have truly come to know the author and finisher of my faith.  I am trying to be more like Jesus Christ, and though I fail over and over and over and over again, I know he is with me every step of the way and it is all part of the great plan and part of my eternal progression on the quest to exaltation.  I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Doing service for Foodshare every week is awesome, and it’s even better when Elder Smoot is there sorting cans right next to you!  It is quite the party sorting cans and shooting the breeze, while all the other missionaries just think we are crazy hicks from little ole Brigham City!  It is incredible to be serving together in the same mission!  I have seen a huge change in him and it’s so cool.  I hope he sees the same change in me as well.

Love,

Elder Parrish

Mission Christmas Eve Activity

 

I'll keep this email short, because we are going to be talking soon.  Besides... a pictures worth a thousand words!  :)  

A beach baptism at sunset.

I LOVE this family!

The biggest waves I've ever seen!

Elder Parrish and Elder Griffen.

Elder Smoot was my photographer at the baptism.  We are both in Oxnard now!!  We never get to see each other, but since it was an English baptism, he got to come. :))  It was so sweet.  He is sitting next to me in the computer lab emailing right now too. :)))

Elder Parrish and Elder Smoot

This was the happiest day of my life!

We are doing really good. We had 11 member presents this week, most of which were with the youth, but after church yesterday we had a bunch of the adults come up to us and ask if they can come out with us this week, so we are super excited.   President Felix came and announced in Sacrament Meeting that were not allowed to knock doors, only find through members, and that the members have to step up.  I am really happy that I get to stay with Elder Griffin and have our area be the guinea pig of the mission for no more tracting. It’s gonna be sweet. 

Our investigator L--- is doing really well.  He is 33 years old, working in the fields here for the past few years all by himself. He is so childlike and humble. Reading is hard for him and he basically has zero education, so his comprehension is slower, but he is so anxious to learn. I love it. He came to the baptism of D--- on Friday and really liked it. L---- had never seen a baptism performed by immersion before, and the spirit was super strong. He went up to the edge of the font with all the little children during the ordinance and it was really cool to watch L---‘s face light up during it. D----l bore his testimony after the service like he did in Sacrament Meeting, and it was really powerful.  L---- told us that later that night he was thinking about the baptism and said a prayer, promising God that he would get baptized "adentro de 3 meses" !!  So we set a date with him for February 14th, and he wants us to come teach him every day. 

We had 2 investigators at church yesterday, a new investigator named C---, who actually has a granddaughter in the mission field, and the son of a part-member family named F----.  Unfortunately, F--- doesnt seem too interested after yesterday, but C--- is really excited to meet with us this week!

Elder Griffin and I are stoked to stay together this transfer.  We were companions exactly one year ago for the holidays back in Santa Barbara when we were both new missionaries, and it’s incredibly awesome to be experiencing a little de-ja-vu and do it all again!  We are a little more seasoned this time around and a whole lot more comfortable with our Spanish, so we really are loving every second!

I know how important the Spirit is as a missionary. Last night we were walking to go visit an investigator, and I was just thinking about the stories you always hear about people getting those super strong promptings that come 3 times to them, and then they act on it and some great big miracle happened.  Then, the scripture popped into my head, "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth," and so I said that to God in my head. I said, "This is kind of random, but if you have a prompting to send my way, then let me have it.. I’m ready." As we were waiting for the crosswalk so we could cross the street, I got the thought- “Don’t go to the apartment complex we were heading to.  Don’t do it.  Don’t cross the street.”  So I battled within myself for a couple seconds trying to decide whether or not that was an actual prompting or just me creating my own situation because of the thought process I was having... but right as the crosswalk light came on, I told Elder Griffin, "I don’t know why, but I got a feeling that maybe we shouldn’t go over there."  So we talked it out and decided of course we needed to follow that prompting. As I turned to walk back the way we came, Elder Griffin suggested we take the cross walk the other way, and walk back to the car from that way, so we did.  On the other side, we met and "Shared the Gift" with an awesome humble little family walking who agreed to let us come into their home and share a message about the true meaning of Christmas. Now that’s just a small little miracle, but it’s crazy how none of that would have happened if we crossed the street.  None of that would have happened if i didn’t ask God to give me a prompting.  At the same time, it wouldn’t have happened if I was by myself because I would have turned and walked the way we came, while Elder Griffin was guided to cross to the left and run into the family. Even though I had the best intentions of following what the spirit whispered to me, my companion took it and magnified it, and then came the miracle. Maybe nothing will ever happen out of that street contact, but we learned a little more about being led by the Spirit as we find and teach.

For service, we did 5 hours for Foodshare. Rather than lifting heavy boxes and doing manual labor like we usually do, they had us at a desk doing paperwork and organizing a bunch of their administrative stuff they are backed up on because of the holidays...... it was good, but if nothing else came of it, I learned yet again that I much prefer lifting heavy boxes than doing paperwork. 

I haven’t been able to play sports with members/investigators my entire mission... till last week they changed the rule. :):):) I literally cried tears of joy I was so happy.  We played soccer with the ward on Tuesday. 8 goals later, I scored, I got a big ole sweet black blister on my foot. It was totally worth it.

Love, Elder Parrish******

P.S.  You may remember me telling you about J and L T---- a few weeks ago.  They were the golden English family we found and referred over.  Well, they are getting baptized this Saturday and they asked me and Elder Griffin to be the ones to baptize them!  Pray for them this week! 

We had such an awesome week.  Elder Griffin and I had 10 lessons with members present, and in the zone we had a total of 30 this week.  Around 42% of our total number of lessons were taught with a member present this week, compared to 29% last week, 18% two weeks ago, and 9% at the beginning of the transfer.  We are really proud of the efforts the zone is making to involve the members more and keep raising that number.

One miracle we had with going out with members:  We took out a priest named David.  We tried going by a former investigator’s house, who we had a lesson with.  He actually gave us a referral of one of his neighbors who just moved in, named L----.  We contacted him using a He is the Gift pass-along card and set a return appointment for yesterday.  We took David with us again the for the appointment, and taught Lorenzo about the restoration.  We weren’t sure how into it he was, but after explaining the First Vision, Elder Griffin asked if he believed that God and Jesus Christ could appear to someone today and call him as a prophet.  Lorenzo said yes, and that he believed in miracles.  We talked a little after that about miracles, and he shared with us a dream he had a while ago. , In his dream an angel appeared to him and told him that the Lord was going to send someone to him that would give him “mas entendimiento” about the Bible and learn about his word.  Then he told us that he kind of shrugged off the dream as just a dream, but now he knows that it was true and that we were sent to him to give him the "mas entendimiento" that the angel talked about. We invited him to the Christmas devotional last night and he rode with David and his dad to watch it with us in Camarillo. It was all pretty awesome, especially for David, since it was his first time ever going out with the missionaries,  to have a sweet miracle like that. Now David wants to come out with us all the time :)

Elder Griffin is amazing.  He takes talking with everyone to heart.  We're seeing a lot of miracles and having so much success with the “He is the Gift” initiative. It is so effective!  Everyone wants to talk about Christmas!

I think about this past General Conference, and I can see the principle of accountability as an underlying topic in basically everything.  I have been pondering about the subject of accountability, and I loved the emphasis in MLC on us as leaders being accountable for our areas. I know that to 'Return and Report" is an eternal principle.  Every time we account for something, it influences our final return and report with Father in Heaven.  I like that. It makes me want to do my best in everything, even the small and insignificant things.  It makes me anxious to be more accountable.  It makes me want to be a better missionary, son, brother, future husband and father, neighbor, etc. it influences everything.

We had a really cool service project with Foodshare's can-drive at the collection on Friday.  Our whole zone and some of the English zone helped by making Christmas trees out of canned food.  We ended up helping with I believe 240 trees, all with over 600 cans each.  It was awesome.  Foodshare loves the LDS missionaries!   We had several opportunities to answer questions and share “He is the Gift.”  There were tons of newspapers and radio and photographer people.  Google it, maybe there will be a picture of me :)

I can’t believe Mitch is 22! I want to wrestle him, and play basketball and every other sport with him again.  I might be able to compete nowadays.

Love,

Elder Parrish

Two weeks ago, we got a referral from the mormon.org website. I’ve gotten like 50 of these throughout my mission, and have never gotten a single solid investigator out of so far, so we didn’t think too much about it... but of course we go to contact it anyway and turns out they lived just down the street from us. Their names are J--- and L--- with their two sons, ages 7 and 10.  We knock, the husband comes out, looks at us, and says, "My wife must have made an appointment with you guys.  Let me go get her."  They invite us in and we sit on the couch and start talking. They are Catholic, but have gone to several different churches looking for the truth.  She told us she has a friend who is an inactive member of the church, so they are already pretty familiar with the church, and that she managed to somehow borrow a copy of the Book of Mormon and start reading.  She said, "It just keeps pulling me back!  I can’t explain it, but I love it!"  She went on to explain how she has been praying and trying to contact the missionaries for several months now.  She always tries to flag them down on their bikes, but they always just waved and rode on by, eventually she found the website and put in all her info!  

We did some "how to begin teaching," just like Preach My Gospel says.  It was the best experience on how to begin teaching and establishing expectations I have had on my mission so far.  We explained how we like to begin and end each lesson with a prayer, suggesting that we would offer the opening, and we would like one of them to offer the closing. I prayed, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for letting us be here in the home of the ---- family. Please let us feel of your love as we talk about your gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  (One of the things we learned from the brethren from the missionary department who came to our Missionary Leadership Conference two weeks ago is how we should pray with investigators- so simply that they are 100% positive they will be able to offer it at the end.)  It was amazing how powerful the shortest prayer I’ve ever said was. We continued the lesson to answer their questions, explain the Book of Mormon, testify, and invite them to be baptized- which they anxiously accepted and invited us back last Friday for a BBQ.

The BBQ was awesome, and they are the funniest people in the world!  We were laughing our heads off.  We answered a lot more of their questions about what they had read from the first 10 or so chapters in the Book of Mormon and L--- told us she’s been praying all week and already knows this is what she needs to fill the missing gap in her life.  We taught about the restoration and they just soaked everything in. They committed to come to church (which was Stake Conference in Camarillo.) We went to set them with a baptismal date, and they said, "as soon as possible, just not this Sunday, because there's going to be so many people at Stake Conference!"   We set them for the 20th of December.  Because they speak English, we let them know how the English elders would be coming to teach them next time, and how we would introduce them tomorrow at church. Then L--- started crying, saying how she wants us to teach them because she prayed for months and months to be able to talk to us and we finally showed up at the perfect time and everything feels so RIGHT even though they have only talked to us once.  It was obviously bittersweet because this is seriously what I have been fasting and praying for my ENTIRE mission-to find teach and baptize a family that will undoubtedly be sealed in the temple.  We expressed our love for them as well and how much we enjoyed teaching them, but tried to explain that the other elders are awesome and how it was best if they continued to be taught by English elders.  Even though they were crying, she just agreed and said whatever it takes, we know this is where God wants us to be.

 Two days later they came to conference, and we introduced them to Elder Gregory and Elder Gerrard, and they set up an appointment for later in the week.  They loved Stake Conference, and are literally the most prepared and elect family in the world!!  It is so awesome and we are so excited for Elder Gregory and Elder Gerrard to teach and baptize them!   Now we just have to find someone like them that speaks Spanish!!

Love,

Elder Parrish

Area: We worked really hard this week, and spent a lot of time working in both of the Oxnard 6th Ward elders' areas. Its often quite confusing to me how Elder Griffin and i can go on a blitz with with elders in their area for just a couple hours, and between the 4 of us get like 4-5 other lessons, 10-15 declares, and some really promising potential investigators... and then the rest of the week the numbers suffer terribly and the majority of their weekly totals on Sunday came from that 2 hour blitz we did. Then in the time that Elder Griffin and I do dedicate to our own area (only like a day and a half this week) we see a lot of success and still manage to have some of the highest numbers in the zone.  It occupies my mind a lot of the time how that’s even possible.  I know that numbers are not what's important in the work of salvation, and we do have a couple brand new missionaries and first time trainers, as well as some who are struggling personally right now, so I am trying to wrap my head around it to understand what we can do better as leaders to help them.  However I do believe our zone goals will help and am excited to see as the we get better week by week, line upon line.  But I wish I was just Elder Holland, so I could bring down some hell-fire and make them all work harder.

Companion:  Elder Griffin and I are doing great.  Our personalities are really similar and we have a lot of fun in the work.   We try not to talk about wrestling too much.  One thing we have been working on to establish Zion in our companionship, (found in the Teach With Unity section in Preach My Gospel) is to testify of what the other has said, and praying for one another while the other is speaking.  Elder griffin is really good at doing this and it reminds me to do it as well.

Testimony:  So we were pretty down yesterday after none of our investigators came to church. Especially on in particular promised us every day this week she would be there... a feeling we're all too familiar with as missionaries.  We have like 9 people who are all soooo close, but for some reason there are these itty bitty things holding them back.  During sacrament, I looked into my bag, and pulled out a paper we had our ward mission leader print out for us that we were actually going to give to M--- when she came to church.  It was a poem called "The Race."  It’s about a little boy running a race.  He’s in the lead and all excited to make his dad proud, and then he trips.  But gets up because of the urgent look on his father's face, and even though he wants to quit, he gets up because he just doesn’t want to disappoint his dad.  Then he ends up falling a couple more times and he loses.   It’s a really good poem. Look it up.  (See Below)  I have read it a few times, but I decided to read it again for some reason during the sacrament.  I found comfort in it and I promised God to get up and keep running.  After Sacrament Meeting, I looked to the back of the room and there were our investigators V--- and M-- with 2 of their children who had snuck in without us noticing.  It felt so good.  And they had a great experience at church.  It was their 3rd time coming.  Even though I don’t always know why, I do know everything happens for a reason, and there is always next week.  Just like the Lord is always there with open arms every time I repent and renew my covenants during the sacrament, the Lord is always there for our investigators and will be welcoming them with open arms just the same when they walk into church next Sunday.

Service:  The FoodShare volunteer coordinator said in front of everyone, “There's something about these guys... after all my years of working with the LDS groups, I still can’t figure out what it is." One of these times, we are going to get the opportunity where we can answer that :)

Love,

Elder Parrish

Mission Leader Conference Nov. 2014

All the Zone Leaders

I've been eating my veggies every day, but for some reason I think I'm shrinking. 

  

Well, it’s been a year since Thatcher and I got to see each other last at a transfer meeting, because one of us would always go when the other stayed in their area. But finally now that I’m zone leader I get to go to all the transfers :) so we got to see each other on Tuesday and sat together and got to chat for quite a bit about everything!! Oh man, it was so much fun.  I got this strange feeling that we’re going to be companions someday doing zebra work. That would be so sweet. 

My new (old) companion is Elder Griffin again!  We were together last Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, so we are hoping we can pull a repeat! So far, it’s been so much fun!  We have been crazy busy with administrative stuff, and staying up late every night talking missionaries out of going home and all their other problems, but it’s awesome!  We had to come up with zone goals, which was quite the process trying to come up with good ones, but finally got it all settled and we are super excited.  We do 3 goals that all the missionaries will do this transfer, and 3 more that Elder Griffin and I will do personally, and others for how we will establish Zion in our companionship, etc.  

For one of them, all the missionaries will be accepting the invitation from Elder Neil L Andersen last conference to record the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith in their own voices, and listen to it a few times a week to obtain a more divine witness of the prophet Joseph.  Maddie and Marshall, you should do the same!  There you go, I planned next Monday’s FHE for you.

SEE: www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/joseph-smith?lang=eng

We went by to see our investigator, A---- on Tuesday, and followed up on his reading in the Book of Mormon.  He said yes he had read, so we asked if he prayed.  He said yes he prayed, so we asked if he got an answer.  He said yes he got an answer, and that he knows the Book of Mormon is true. Then just like that, our elated spirits came crashing down when he said he got an answer that its true, but then he had a second thought come to him... and he said nope I’m Catholic and can’t change... Man, if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that one... so we had a little bit of a heart to heart and bore our testimonies and came out of there with a return appointment for 2 days later. We went in, expounded on the apostasy and restoration, and what it truly means if the Book of Mormon is true, and recommitted him to read and pray. True conversion isn’t something I can teach these people. In fact, I can’t teach anything -the Spirit is the only true teacher.  I’m glad to hear that you have been studying Preach My Gospel.  I really know that it is the way we are supposed to teach.  By following the principles in Preach My Gospel, we can create an environment where spirit can communicate with spirit, and we are simply along for the ride.  Please pray for A---- We promised him that his first answer was indeed true and recommitted him to keep reading and praying and have a follow up appointment tomorrow!

Church was awesome, like always. It was the primary program. A couple from the Santa Barbara branch showed up.  You should have seen their faces when they saw Elder Griffin and I together again.  They were so confused. haha. He was our ward mission leader up there, so I gave him a hard time and squeezed out some referrals of people he knows here in the “nard.” (That’s what they call Oxnard).    Our investigator, M--- came to church! She’s golden.  Hopefully, she will be baptized soon.  Also, a less active family we’ve been working with came too.  Another less active guy we reactivated last transfer is doing really well and is now teaching the high priests and doing a lot of missionary work for us! He’s awesome.

OH AND GUESS WHAT!!  Y--, the little lady I baptized in Carpinteria recently got a calling in the Relief Society presidency!!  She has only been a member for 6 months! It’s tough a lot of times for me to be in California, and realize that stuff like this happens all the time in other missions besides Cali, but just her alone makes the whole thing worth it! :)

Love you all,

Elder Parrish.

Transfers are this week. Elder Bryson is awesome, but he is off to go be assistant to the mission president! I’m staying in Oxnard with Elder GRIFFIN!! He was my follow up trainer back in Santa Barbara. I’m pumped :)) Now we actually know Spanish and are going to do everything right we should have known back in SB. I loved Elder Bryson. We never had one disagreement the whole transfer. It was so much fun and hard work.

I’m so excited to stay in Oxnard. We are on the verge of so many good things. We are making a lot of progress with our investigator, A----. This week we were able to leave him commitments from the Book of Mormon, where as when we started it was only from the Bible, and then from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and now only the Book of Mormon. He is progressing great. We have 2 appointments set up with him this week, so we really need to get members there to help him really catch the fire and get him to attend the baptismal service in our district this weekend. We know it will open so many doors for A--- to realize this is where he needs to be.

The zone activity was a huge success! We planned it out like crazy. We conquered a bunch of cities and at the end we talked our President Felix and bishop into dressing up as Lamanites and then I owned everyone at dodgeball. It was the best :) This week we went to the Camino Del Sol park here in Oxnard with some sidewalk chalk and drew a giant Plan of Salvation diagram. We were able to have a couple good lessons as we walked people through, and even found a less active lady who wanted to start coming back to church! It was a great finding tool and we were super excited to go walk people through for a little bit each day and use it for the whole week, but then it rained the next day for the first time in six months and ruined our drawing. We need the rain, though, so it’s ok :) I’m really excited for this next transfer with Elder Griffin and the Zone and we are going to baptize in November!

Elder Bryson is the best. I’ve absolutely loved every minute of serving with and learning from him these short six weeks. His testimony is so strong and he can be so effective in everything he does. He has great mental strength and self discipline. He has a lot of life experiences at his young age, and because of it is very mature and spiritually mature as well. I know he’s going to be great in the Ventura Camarillo YSA with Elder Wallace and Elder Lee. He is very capable of doing anything the Lord asks of him.

I know that the Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He lives. I know the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of Jesus Christ's Gospel, and I know that Preach My Gospel is the way the Lord wants me to share it. This past week and especially this next transfer, I have goals to have more effective studies. I really want to give my best efforts to my investigators and really focus on receiving revelation for them in my morning studies. and simply enough, I know that really these 3 things: the Savior, the Book of Mormon, and Preach My Gospel are where I need to dedicate my studies and how I will learn God's will for my investigators.

For service this week, we did 2 hours for FoodShare! They love us and are starting to realize how dependable and effective we are! They have more and more things they are starting to trust us with.

Love, Elder Parrish******

Our investigators are all coming along slowly but surely. We just need to get them all coming to church more regularly so they can really progress more. A--- is a new investigator we have been working with.  He’s super laid back guy who has a very strong Catholic background and Virgin Mary statues and murals all over his home.  At first he was pretty firm with only wanting to study the Bible and was very willing to let us come over and read the Bible with him, but said he wasn’t open to the Book of Mormon at all.  Just 3 short weeks later, as we were having a Bible class, we were studying the baptism of Jesus Christ and also the atonement in Matthew.  We had the opportunity to bring up the Book of Mormon and testify of its divine witness of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was there, so we invited him to read it and committed him to baptism once he receives an answer that it’s true. It was awesome. He changed after that, and then asked us if we could start coming over 2 times a week instead of only once. It was really neat.

I was fortunate enough to go on exchanges with Elder Lee on Thursday, who is an Assistant to President. It was such an amazing day. We attended a powerful District meeting with Elder Sorensen and the 6th Ward district, and then had a really successful day after that. This was the first time I have really ever gotten to work or talk to Elder Lee, and it was a lot of fun.  I think Elder Lee is the most Christlike missionary ever. You can just tell everything he says and does reflects his conversion and commitment to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ. He's so effective in every aspect of the work and is a really great example to me and to the whole mission.

I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Sorensen on Saturday. He is a really good district leader and takes his assignment serious. He really loves and cares about his district. Elder Sorensen was my first companion when I was a district leader and Elder Bryson’s companion when he was a district leader before that, so he is very familiar with his responsibilities and just does a great job all around. For our goals on the exchange, we wanted to work on helping getting people to church. Lately, I been trying to be creative and get missionaries out of our complacent routines and come up with different ways of finding.  So we were trying to think "outside the box" way to get people to church, and we had the idea to make a flyer, just an invitation to come and worship with us this Sunday with the address of the church and a picture of Jesus Christ on it.  We passed them out to EVERYONE hoping that maybe one person would come to church from it. We got literally one million declarations out of it and a lot of people who said they would come. Even though nobody did, it was a lot of fun and it was good to get out of our normal routine way of declaring, and just walk up to people with an excited invitation to come to church with us tomorrow! We did get some return appointments and we felt really good about it at the end of the day.  I think with some more practice and experience we could really have some powerful lessons about church and the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy even in declare settings. Elder Sorensen is really good at testifying to everyone of Jesus Christ and of the restoration. His Spanish is so good.  He was good 6 months ago when I was his companion in Carpinteria, but I can’t believe how much he has improved since then. He has worked really hard on speaking Spanish all the time and I think he has far surpassed me with his language skills. I know my competitive spirit will start studying harder now because of it.

My companion, Elder Bryson is amazing.  I love picking his brain on all sorts of gospel subjects.  He always has a unique perspective on things I don’t think of.  We have worked really hard to prepare the zone activity today to reenact the stripling warriors with our mission president dressed as a Lamanite and we are really excited for it. (see more pix below)  I can’t believe it’s already week 6, it all goes so fast.

My testimony of the Atonement and of Grace have increased this week.  I love the definition of grace in the Bible Dictionary.  (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/grace?lang=eng&letter=g)  I love the enabling power of the atonement, and that it’s not just for the bad to become better, but also for those who are doing to do more. 

We did 9 hours of service this week.  The more we do, the more opportunities come up to do more!

Favorite scripture: Ephesians 6:12 "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, 

against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Love, Elder Parrish ******

The final battle of the scriptural journey.  The goal was to knock down the cardboard structure while not getting hit by the ball.  This was dodge ball at its finest.  

       

I went to the temple on Tuesday.  It was sweet.  We went with our bishop.  He drives like he's Travis Pastrana or something.  It was the best.  He was getting ticked because of all the traffic, so he decided to take a short cut through all the ritzy neighborhoods and we ended up going through Bel Air (I thought I saw the Fresh Prince) and Beverly Hills and all the other rich places and then down to Rodeo drive and all the other famous streets and stores that look just exactly the same as they do on the Playstation in the TonyHawk game.  I think he did it on purpose just so he could teach us how to be rich people.  

He was gonna take us to eat at the Belvedere Hotel or something like that, which I guess is the most ridiculous famous rich people place ever, but we didn’t have time (thank goodness).  He took us to the 4 Seasons Hotel in Westlake instead... parking lot full of Ferraris and Lamborghinis and we get valet parking and everything.  

Then we go sit down and I eat the best tasting small portioned meal I ever had with a bunch of disgustingly rich people who think they’re famous.  It was interesting, but really fun. I can’t decide if I want to be rich someday, or enjoy the simple things in life. Bishop’s awesome.

But anyways... the temple! I think the greatest thing the Temple symbolizes for me is Love.

Because God loves us, he’s given us our families. Because he loves us, he sent his son to die for us.  Because he loves us, he has given us prophets to teach us the gospel and show us how to be happy in our families. Because he loves us, he has given us a holy house of prayer where we can go to learn and be instructed. He’s given it to us as his children and he’s given it to us for our families, so that we can be united eternally and live with those we love forever.  I’m so grateful for my parents and family.  I know we will be together forever.   And I know if we truly love God, then we need to carry that love over into every aspect and relationship of our lives, especially as missionaries- our interactions with people may be the closest they will ever be to Jesus Christ, so nothing but the highest level of charity and love should be expected.  It’s so true that no one can assist in this work except he be full of love. 

We had a really successful Family Home Evening on Monday night with a few families that came and it went really well.  Elder Bryson and I taught the lesson on the importance of prophets and everybody really enjoyed it.  We managed to have it at the home of a less active member and 2 other active families came and 2 other less actives came as well, so it was a really good turn-out.  One of them was M----, who has been less active for the better part of the last year and we visited him about 3 weeks ago.  All we did was invite him to come back and that was all it took. He has come every week since, attended FHE, and told us to call him anytime to go to lessons!  There truly are our brothers and sister out there waiting to come back, and all they need is just a simple invitation and a warm smile at church.

We did 4 hours of service this week.  A lot of it was for FoodShare.  We planted trees and helped in the garden for a couple hours, and then we helped relabel at least a thousand boxes of frozen macaroni and cheese. It was great!

Love, Elder Parrish******

Mission Leaders Conference

And Breakfast

It sounds like you all are busy as always with church, sports, school and work. How grateful I am that I get to dedicate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to the Lord, and not have to worry about anything else!  It’s such a blessing!

 We had a crazy busy week with MLC and Zone meeting and exchanges, we really only had one full day to proselyte, but we still managed to have the same numbers for the week somehow. It’s crazy how much the Lord blesses us for all the time we spend helping out our zone, but it was super good and we saw a lot of miracles like always!

Our new investigator, R--- is really solid and we had an awesome first lesson with her reading Alma 32.  She related to the seed of faith perfectly because she works at a nonprofit farming organization and really appreciated the analogy of faith and the seed. She is totally a Mormon already, just doesn’t know it yet. :)  She seriously is so prepared. We had an amazing lesson with M---, as well, one of the best of my mission. One of our goals is to have the Holy Ghost as our senior companion, and I know that the whole lesson was definitely guided entirely by the Spirit.  We got right down to what her real need was and were able to teach and testify to her about the atonement.  We even shared with her the poem, "The Race" that Pres. Felix read in transfer meeting a few weeks ago about a boy who keeps falling down but gets up every time and finishes the race. It was really powerful and she finally just got it. Something clicked at the end, and she just had that ah-hah moment where she realized how much God loves her and how her relationship with her earthly father does not represent her relationship with her Heavenly Father and that she doesn’t need to be perfect before she can go to him and say sorry and ask for forgiveness. She learned that repentance is an everyday-all the time means to an end, not merely the end alone. It was really powerful. She will be baptized soon.

I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that his atonement was truly infinite, that He is the master potter and we need to turn our lives over to him to be refined, refined and refined again. I know that he isn’t concerned with why the lost sheep left the ninety and nine, but only concerned with bringing him back. I know that the key to our progression in this life is getting up one more time than we fall. Through him we can be changed permanently.

 I think I’ve said this before, but Elder Bryson really is a never ending fountain of knowledge.  We have a lot of really cool gospel discussions and I learn so much from him. He gets the Gospel. He understands that it is simple and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  We just need to follow the Spirit.  I really love and respect that. We have been talking a lot about the needs of our missionaries in the zone, and trying to come up with a zone activity to help us all use the atonement to get out of our complacency.

We offered 2 hours of service at FoodShare again this week and it was a lot of fun.  They were having an event of some sort, so we found out we were going to get to help set up tables and chairs.... we just looked at each other and smiled, because we knew that these people were about to learn how incredibly fast and efficient Mormons happen to be at setting up tables and chairs. :) 

I got to go on exchanges with Elder Juan Bautista, who I was comps with for a couple weeks back in Fillmore, and randomly we ran into one of our old investigators from Fillmore here in Oxnard! It was way cool and way funny how we were both together for it. 

Love, Elder Parrish******

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Mom, I got your package on Sunday after the other elders hid all my mail from me all week and I shed 2 little tears cuz everyone forgot about me on my birthday... It turns out Elder Bautista and Elder Santos just stole it all.  But it was pretty cool that all the apostles and prophets prepared all that and went through all the trouble of holding that special meeting just for me on my birthday. General Conference was great! And it’s even better when all those prepared and inspired messages get delivered to you on your birthday! It was really special. 

Ok, so I used Ether chapter 3 to prepare.  The brother of Jared climbs an exceedingly high mountain and moltens out of a rock 16 small stones, and he makes sure they were small and clear. Then he hikes with his stones to the top of the mountain and presents them before the Lord.  Because of his faith and all the work he put forth ahead of time, the Lord lights them up with his finger one by one and the veil is removed from his eyes and his faith is turned into knowledge, nothing doubting.

So I challenged myself to molten "16 questions" instead of stones, and I went through the work to make them simple and clear.  I pondered a lot and figuratively "climbed the mountain" to present them before the Lord at conference.  And wouldn’t ya know it, I must have done something right because all I can say is WOW!  I knew it would happen and it did. (I guess they call that faith)  I was amazed that after every session I was able to keep checking off questions and see as they were not only answered, but thoroughly talked about and explained. In some cases, there were even entire talks just expounding and exploring my questions down to every jot and tittle.  The Lord literally did light up my stones one - by – one, all 16.  A veil was removed from my eyes so I could see more clearly, and my testimony is growing line upon line into a more and more sure knowledge. I thank my Father in Heaven for the scriptures and for the ability we have to liken them unto ourselves. I can’t wait for the November Ensign, so I can study them deeper!

We have been working hard and seen a lot of miracles. Even with full days of interviews and General Conference weekend, we still managed to teach 15 other lessons and have good numbers. We set A--- with a baptismal date for the first of November and she is definitely so ready to make that covenant with Heavenly Father. Her only roadblock is that she has to work weekends and can’t make it regularly to church on Sunday.  The elders have fasted with her in the past so she could either get Sundays off or find a new job, but without any luck yet, so we are working really hard with our ward mission leader and bishop to try to find something for her. P-- and D----  have committed to marriage and baptism this month, and both came to Saturday afternoon session of conference and loved it! P-- says he hopes he can remember everything he learned, so we will definitely be reviewing the talks and counseling with him about what he needs to do for his family and future. They are brand new parents and struggling to make ends meet, but P-- desperately wants to come closer to God and find stability in his life. M---, who has a baptismal date for October 25, was so close to coming to conference. We went over between Sunday sessions and she was getting ready to come, so we set up a ride for a member to go pick her up and watch it at their house on TV, but turns out after they picked her up they decided the members decided they wanted to have a BBQ after conference, so they went to the store (Yes, on Sunday) to buy BBQ stuff.   As luck would have it, they spent 2 hours at the store and missed all of conference... so M--- didn’t actually get to see conference, but we did have a good lesson with her in the evening about keeping the Sabbath day holy :)

 Elder Bryson is so great. We are working hard and trying to do everything in our power to be obedient and do what the Lord wants done.  In between every session of conference, we were out teaching appointments and inviting people to come listen.  We skipped a few lunches and dinners this week just so we could teach more.  It’s great and we're lovin’ it.  We are striving to have the Holy Ghost as our senior companion and we definitely saw that in action this week.  On Thursday, after trying to visit someone who wasn’t home, we decided to walk to where we were going next, even though it was pretty far away. After a few blocks, we realized how far it actually was and wondered why in the world we were walking.  There was nobody on the street to talk to, but for some reason we just kept walking.  Right before we got to our destination, we passed 2 women. We offered a card to the first, but she said no and kept walking, but the second stopped and listened. It seemed as though she was just listening to be polite at first, but after a couple minutes, she invited us into her yard to tell her more. We taught her about the restoration. She told us how the day before, she was in an Episcopal church during a meditation period and was just praying and asking God to help her find the truth, somewhere she could settle down and where it felt like home.  She said she wasn’t sure why she listened to us, but thinks it could be her answer!  We testified that it was, left her with some reading homework and set an appointment for this week!  Her name is R--- and we are super excited for her!

 Elder Bryson and I did 8 hours of service this week, nothing too special, but hopefully it will plant seeds for future harvest! 

OH and I got to see the movie, “MEET THE MORMONS” on Friday after President’s interviews.  It was sweet.  I was skeptical at first, but it’s a pretty sweet movie.  I hope it’s not just because I’m a missionary and it’s a good missionary tool.  So ya’all are gonna have to let me know what normal people think about it.  Just make sure you take non-members with you to go see it!  It comes to theatres here on October 10th.... 

Love you, Elder Parrish

Oxnard is amazing! I have heard a lot of good things about Oxnard from past companions and other missionaries, and it is definitely living up to my expectations. It is about 30 degrees cooler than Fillmore, so I’m freezing while everyone else is sweating, but all is well. :)

We are working with a lot of great people and some who are really close to baptism. M---- has a baptismal date for October 25.  We were able to review Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 with her and really establish what is and what isn't necessary to know before baptism. We also had a really good lesson about the temple with her yesterday. It helped her to see the bigger picture as we talked about how baptism is simply the gateway and not merely the end itself. She even attended early morning seminary with one of the young women in the ward on Thursday and Friday and really enjoyed it. She said she wants to start going all the time so she can learn and prepare more for baptism! Her mom has been somewhat closed off to the idea of baptism for her, but she has also been a lot more supportive lately as well. We really feel like we did our job as missionaries with everyone we have taught.  We fought for people the best we could and we were bold with people when it was necessary, and it seemed like the quality of our lessons was really great. We invited at least one person to be baptized every single day this week, and hopefully we can invite even more this week.  That is one of my goals for this month- to invite as many people as possible.

 I am so excited to serve with Elder Bryson. He's such an effective missionary in all aspects of the work. He is very obedient and is a great hard worker. It’s been a lot of fun to get right into the mix of things and learn my new responsibilities as a zone leader. Elder Bryson is really helping me out. It’s so nice to just recommit myself and really refine everything I’ve been doing to be more exactly obedient and more effective teacher. Even though I feel like there are many missionaries who are a lot more qualified and able to receive this assignment than me, I know that as long as I get to work and do my best, relying on the Lord and not on my own strength, everything will turn out fine.  For some reason the Lord blesses me so much! We have seen a lot of miracles this past week! I am so excited to learn everything I can from Elder Bryson. It’s going to be a great transfer serving the Lord and serving the Camarillo Spanish zone!

Something Elder Malm of the 70 said while he was here has constantly been in my mind. He said "Whenever there is change, the Lord is in control." I have been able to see that every day this week.  It’s always tough to leave an area, but I have been so blessed in coming here to Oxnard with Elder Bryson. It seems like everything is flowing perfectly and we have just hit the ground running since the first day. I’ve felt the spirit very powerfully in a lot of our lessons with investigators this week.  One instance was simply when I testified to A--- that even though that was the first time I met her, I knew that she was a choice daughter of God. She just started crying and the spirit hit me so hard with that simple sentence. It was as if the Lord was telling me "I want her, I want her," over and over. So I’m gonna work my butt off until she walks into the font for baptism.

 We were only able to offer one hour of service this week.  It was for a member family who was in the process of moving. They called us and we were able to go right over and start helping them clear the back yard.  We were able to knock it all out in an hour, so the members were really grateful and very impressed with how quickly we got it done.

Love Elder Parrish*****