We haven’t had much of a P-day.  That’s why I’m emailing so late.  We had to travel to give a girl a blessing, and we all felt the spirit super strong, so it was well worth missing our P-day. :)

This week was amazing - one of the funnest of my mission.  Things were going a little slow for us at the beginning of the week, but the past few days have just been crazy, jam-packed with miracles. We got a referral from Elder and Sister Taylor, the "military relations missionaries" or something like that, for a family in our area, H--- and J---.  They are 34 yrs old and married for about 2 years now with a few month old baby girl. They are both from MANAGUA NICARAGUA. (Tuani no?  If all Nicaraguans are as cool as these guys, I’m stinkin’ jealous of Mitch.)  J---‘s mother is also living with them from Nicaragua. J--- and her mom are both members of the church, but H---, the husband, is not.  He is a naval officer and was raised Jehovah's Witness, but when he decided to join the military at age 19 they kicked him out, so he hasn’t really been active in any church since then.  The referral we got said that we should just focus on J--- and her mom and try to avoid H--- because he was "cold."  So we called, set up an appointment, and went over on Saturday morning with Sister A--- from the ward. We go in, do a little bit of “How to Begin Teaching” from Preach My Gospel, and H--- tells us he only has 30 minutes because he has a lot of homework.  He also made it clear that he only believes in the Bible, and not the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he knew what the Book of Mormon was or where it came from, and he admitted that he knew very little.  So we taught about the restoration, and the Spirit was super strong.  He committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it was true.  He even said he hopes it is true, so he can know that this church is where the Lord wants him to raise his family.  We invited him to be baptized, and he said yes. He invited us to stay for breakfast, and we had a lot of fun with them! (He forgot all about his 30 minute time limit.) He came to church the next day and heard a super powerful Sacrament Meeting.  There was a bunch of members who went to the temple for the first time this last week, so they shared their experiences from the pulpit.  Harold was very interested and had a lot of Q's for us.  We have an FHE with them tonight in the A--- home.  We are so excited.  He has so much potential to be an amazing member and even a great leader in the church.     

 L---'s little sister arrived from Mexico, and is starting the lessons as well! She is excited to come to his baptism on Friday and all is in order for that!  There are so many other cool things happening right now.  One is that our recent convert, J--- T---  got the priesthood yesterday and will be baptizing his son soon!!  It is the best feeling in the world to see our converts totally rock-solid in the church. There are many other miracles that are impossible to fit in this letter!

Elder Griffin and I are loving life right now.  We had to give an hour long presentation in Mission Leader Conference, which was awful (#suckatpublicspeaking),  but we are seriously stupid-giddy about member missionary work right now.  This is the most fun I have had on my mission and I truly know it’s because of the way we are working, that it’s the way the Lord wants us to work, so he is blessing us for our efforts.  It is as simple as that, and working with Elder Griffin just makes the whole experience that much better. 

Love, Elder Parrish

Sister Felix shared these pictures from Mission Leadership Conference in her blog, as well as the following information about the California Ventura mission:

"We now have 105 English speaking Elders,  30 Spanish speaking Elders, 37 English speaking Sisters, and 32 Spanish speaking Sisters. We have 204 young missionaries. Our numbers are going down. We enjoy serving now with 4 senior couples."

The Zone Leaders

Singing Called to Serve

Communication activity