This week was pretty cool. Transfers are today, but my whole district is
staying except for Hermana White is going to Oxnard, so I’m excited to stay
another transfer here in Filllmore with Elder MacKay. President Castro finishes
his mission this week, so there weren’t a lot of changes to make things easier
on President Felix.
We had zone meeting with President Castro, and basically had
a good-bye testimony meeting, and then took pictures with him after. Sister Castro said she has a picture of me
that she wants to send to you. Sister Castro
reminds me a lot of you, Mom. She looks
like you too, just shorter. The more I
get to know her, the more she is like you, just not as cool of course :)
Last night there was an open house for the Castros in Ventura that we
went to. We rode down with our bishop, so
that was great to get to talk to Bishop McKinney on a more personal level, and
the open house was great. Literally every single time I have seen President Castro
on my mission, he tells me "You look good Elder Parrish, you look really
good." I haven’t been able to figure out if he's talking about my
incredibly good looks that I inherited from mom, or if he means it in some
other way... I just smile and say thanks either way. Then he always says that I am a good leader
and one of the missionaries they never have to worry about. He says he knows that wherever I am they don’t
need to worry, because they know I am on top of things. So it feels good that President Castro trusts
me, even though I feel like there are a million ways I need to improve. He has changed my life, and I hope I can pass
it on by changing the lives of the people of the Great California Ventura
Mission.
We have found 4 new investigators this week who all have great potential. One in particular was a man named F----. We did service for him and had a great discussion about the restoration and the plan of salvation while shoveling dirt. I looove digging and sweating. F----- is a super cool Methodist, who just recently has started going to church a year ago.
We stopped by the R----- family on Friday afternoon, and he said, "Oh good, it’s the elders. I was just about to call you!" He needed a blessing. He has been really sick this whole week since Monday, and was just about to call us for a blessing. I love it when that happens. Even though it was just a regular name we had in our planners to visit at that time, and we didn’t think it really had any significance, it turned out to be exactly when he needed it. The Spirit knows what he's doing, even if we don’t.
A similar situation happened yesterday after church we had a noche de pelicula with the ward and investigators planned for that afternoon and were on our way, but decided we should stop by C----‘s house on the way. (I wrote about her a couple weeks ago..) C----- opened the door and Ii could just tell something was wrong. I asked if she was ok and she just bursted out in tears crying. She calmed down, and told us that yesterday when she got home from work she didn’t notice her dog, T--- jump in her car. She shut the garage and went in the house and took a nap for an hour. When she came out to go to the beach with the dogs, she found T--- dead in the car from heat exhaustion. C-----'s dogs are the most important thing in her life. She loves them and takes care of them just as much as she takes care of her son. They are part of the family, especially T---. He was a really cool dog, so well-behaved and He knew exactly what you were saying to him all the time, and would respond back with his eyes and barks. She is completely devastated. It was really hard to see her like that. There wasn’t anything we could do but comfort her and bear our testimonies. She asked us to please pray. Then she thanked us for coming and said she really needed it. Again, she wasn’t even on our plans and we had other things to do, but for some random reason not apparent to us, we stopped by at precisely the right time.
We have found 4 new investigators this week who all have great potential. One in particular was a man named F----. We did service for him and had a great discussion about the restoration and the plan of salvation while shoveling dirt. I looove digging and sweating. F----- is a super cool Methodist, who just recently has started going to church a year ago.
We stopped by the R----- family on Friday afternoon, and he said, "Oh good, it’s the elders. I was just about to call you!" He needed a blessing. He has been really sick this whole week since Monday, and was just about to call us for a blessing. I love it when that happens. Even though it was just a regular name we had in our planners to visit at that time, and we didn’t think it really had any significance, it turned out to be exactly when he needed it. The Spirit knows what he's doing, even if we don’t.
A similar situation happened yesterday after church we had a noche de pelicula with the ward and investigators planned for that afternoon and were on our way, but decided we should stop by C----‘s house on the way. (I wrote about her a couple weeks ago..) C----- opened the door and Ii could just tell something was wrong. I asked if she was ok and she just bursted out in tears crying. She calmed down, and told us that yesterday when she got home from work she didn’t notice her dog, T--- jump in her car. She shut the garage and went in the house and took a nap for an hour. When she came out to go to the beach with the dogs, she found T--- dead in the car from heat exhaustion. C-----'s dogs are the most important thing in her life. She loves them and takes care of them just as much as she takes care of her son. They are part of the family, especially T---. He was a really cool dog, so well-behaved and He knew exactly what you were saying to him all the time, and would respond back with his eyes and barks. She is completely devastated. It was really hard to see her like that. There wasn’t anything we could do but comfort her and bear our testimonies. She asked us to please pray. Then she thanked us for coming and said she really needed it. Again, she wasn’t even on our plans and we had other things to do, but for some random reason not apparent to us, we stopped by at precisely the right time.
This week, I realized how amazing the Holy Ghost
is and how important it is that we follow it. It makes me think back on all the times where we
may have missed out on helping someone in need because we weren’t following the
spirit, or just too caught up in the numbers game to think of seeing someone
when they needed us. It’s so humbling, and just makes me want to be exactly who
Heavenly Father wants me to be.
Love, Elder McKay Parrish
Love, Elder McKay Parrish
