So, I’m here in the Santa Maria Branch as District Leader on an assignment  from President Felix. Basically, this is their last chance.  If they don’t step it up this transfer, we are pulling out all the missionaries and leaving the branch on their own.  It’s pretty crazy.  There is just an extremely poor understanding of the gospel in general.  It’s not even missionary work that is the problem.  So President has stacked it this transfer with Elder Moreno and me ( We’ve both been Zone Leaders for a long time) Elder Clarkson, Hermana Costilla, and Hermana Killpack (the traveling sister trainers) as kind of a last resort effort to save it.  We all have only a couple months left, so we got our own little dream team up here and we're goin’ hard.   So far, so good! We've met with a lot of the leadership of the branch this week, and told ‘em straight up that we are not tracting or door knocking, and only focusing on the members to strengthen them and help them.  For the most part, they seem pretty behind us and willing to give it a try.   The Branch President Predazzi is great, and we have set goals with him to contact everyone on the member directory to have 100% accountability in the branch.  One of the things we have decided to focus on, which wasn’t as big of an emphasis in Oxnard, is Home Teaching. It’s like nobody has even heard of it up here.  We think it will be the best tool to get everything going and earn trust with the members.  We were able to take out one member to a lesson, and taught an awesome lesson on the Restoration to a guy named D----. The spirit was definitely in the room and he is keeping his commitments, so poco a poco he will come around. 

Santa Maria District

The district is great!  President Felix inspired me at transfers with a quote about, “There being a hush down every hall and corridor in heaven when we say we were in the dispensation of President Monson." That was kind of our theme for district meeting last week.  We talked about reconnecting to the pre-earth life and our potential to godhood, studying our patriarchal blessings and using that as motivation to be everything the Lord wants for us this transfer, and also using that to recognize the god-like potential of the members as well, and having the faith that they have every eternal capability to participate in gathering Israel.  It was a good meeting.

My companions are amazing!!!! Elder Moreno is a stud. He's a bold and powerful teacher, cool, calm and collected always! Elder Clarkson is such a motivated missionary, and always desiring to improve. He just has a natural way of talking to people and getting them to talk and open up.  So far our unity has been good, and it has been a ton of fun!  Companion study is sweet, and we always learn a bunch from each other.

I have enjoyed studying about covenants this week in an effort to better understand mine, and help others begin to make their own. In reading Deuteronomy (I think it was chapters 27-33), it was really cool to see how the Lord set up his covenant and charged Israel to keep it through Moses.  There are a lot of cool fulfilled latter-day prophecies in there and also LOTS of curses and penalties for breaking covenants.  I know that keeping our covenants give us blessings and power, and that breaking our covenants brings not only lack of blessings but also very specific and bad things. It is important that investigators understand that as well as they prep for the baptismal covenant.  It also made me think about one of our primary responsibilities as missionaries- "to warn people of the consequences of sin."  I know I can do a better job of crying repentance and condemning sin, and want to work on that as well this transfer.

Love, Elder Parrish

From these internet photos, Santa Maria looks like a nice city with vineyards, hills, and beautiful coastline!