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!

'Sup fam!

The past four transfers here in the Oxnard 5th Ward have seriously been the best of my entire mission. As is normal with I think most areas, we saw a lot of miracles right towards the end of the trransfer as one of us is about to leave it. That's ok, though, because it is in excellent hands with Elder Griffin and Elder Cavazos!  One of my favorite families just had 3 of their non-member relatives from Mexico come and move in with them. They came to the futbol night on Tuesday and will start meeting with the missionaries this week! We had one lesson with one of them. As we were talking, we found out her dad had recently passed away and she has some doubts whether or not she will see him again. It was so awesome to be able to testify of the Plan of Salvation, and promise her that she will. It's the best when you meet people with real questions and their souls are searching for solace. It makes the gospel fun as we have the chance to watch it fill the gaps in people's lives that can't be filled any other way.  Missionary work is fun! :)

Our recent convert, J--- got to use his priesthood for the first time when he baptized his 8 year old son on Saturday! That was super neat. They are moving to Utah here shortly, which is too bad because the 1st ward needs them!

This week, we took L--- to search his family history so he could take his own family names to do baptisms at the temple. They werent able to find anyone because L--- only knew the names and not the dates, but he was still able to go to Los Angeles on Saturday and do Baptisms for the Dead for the first time! He LOVED it. He was just giddy when he told us about it the next day at church! At church, they also sustained him to receive the Aaronic Priesthood and he was ordained after church! Our converts from a year ago when I was with Elder Griffin in Santa Barbara are now inactive and never made much progress in the church, so it feels great have gotten to go for round two here in Oxnard and to see all our converts here sticking it out, getting the priesthood and going to the temple! That's what it's all about:)

I sure will miss my brother Elder Griffin. I'm super grateful for the 5 transfers we have been companions here on the mission and everything he has taught me.  It was nice of him to be born in March, so we could finish out with a bang by going to the temple! It was awesome to go and just ask Bishop Quezada tons of questions about the Gospel the whole way! And the empanadas were great too :)   I'm super excited to go to Santa Maria and work in the branch up there with Elder Moreno and Elder Clarkson in a Tri-pan! I've always wanted to serve with both of them.

Halfway between LA and San Fran.

I know that members and missionaries need to work together!!  I am so blessed to have been able to be a part of the Ox 5 no tracting!  It has changed my mission.  I know that the Lord is hastening His work and all the miracles we have seen in the 5th ward is evidence of that! This last month of February, our ward (and entire zone) taught the most member-present lessons in the history of the zone and also the most less active/recent convert lessons as well.  We have shrunk the percentage gap of working with members and exactly what was supposed to happen is happening.  We had 6 baptisms in the zone this transfer, 3 from each ward and plenty more coming in the near future! We feel our zone goals were really effective too, as 4 recent converts now have the priesthood and 2 have already been to do baptisms for the dead!  It's a leap of faith to not tract, and only work through the members, but its worth it.  When the members catch the vision, it's all worth it.

I'm not sure if I ever really explained the details to you guys of no tracting, but here are the basic principles that got us started. There are a lot more that I don't have time to explain :)

-Regardless of how hard missionaries work, the Lord won't bless the ward with new converts if they're not ready to receive them and not taking care of the ones they already have (less actives and stuff).

-100% accountability of everyone in the ward.  No more focus-15.... focus on everyone.  Missionaries are teaching the lessons to every single member in the ward list, active or inactive.

-By focusing ALL of our time on working with members, teaching them Preach My Gospel, studying the lessons for Sunday School with them, helping them prepare classes, mutual, home teaching, service, etc. to make sure the ward is in order, by theory we prove ourselves to the Lord and he will then trust us enough to bring new souls to us who would have been found otherwise by tracting.

Missionary work in utah is definitely different because everyone in the ward lives within 2 blocks of the chapel, but that doesn't mean you can't focus harder on the less actives/partmember families! 

Out of time. Bye. Love, Elder Parrish

This week, our recent convert L--- got his temple recommend interview to do baptisms for the dead!  He passed, so he is going with the ward this Saturday to do baptisms! We have been working with another member who is really into geneology, and this week he is going to help him search his family history and he is going to be able to take his own family names to the temple!  We are super excited.  That was part of our zone goals for this transfer as well.

One cool miracle for the week, on Thursday night as we were planning for Friday, we didn’t have any set appointments, and I couldn’t decide what I should study for in my personal study the next day. As we finished up our planning, I just randomly wrote a letter G in my planner, and then for no reason at all I wrote the name Gabriel in the little box for my personal study topic. In the morning, I decided to study Jesus Christ in the Topical Guide.  Anyway, we went through our day on Friday, and everything went normally and then we went out for dinner with a member named O---. He took us to a little taco truck to eat some tacos (delicious). After we ordered and were eating, the member struck up a conversation with the owner of the taco truck and introduced us as missionaries that have changed his life.  The guy in the taco truck said that that he had just commented to his wife (who was making the tacos) that he could feel something about us "muchachos" when we ordered our food.  We didn’t even have the chance to speak because O--- just jumped right in and bore testimony of how that was the Holy Spirit testifying that the work we are doing is true.  He invited him to church and to start meeting with us and everything.  It was pretty exciting, and the man accepted the invitation. I then took the opportunity to bear my testimony of Jesus Christ.  As we were leaving, I asked his name. It was Gabriel, the same name I randomly wrote in the study box of my planner the night before.  Now I know that I studied about Jesus Christ in the topical guide that day, so I could share my testimony with Gabriel.

I finished the Book of Mormon again this last week - in Spanish- so that was awesome.  Afterward, I prayed in Spanish and got an answer that it was true yet again. I love how the Holy Ghost will ALWAYS testify of truth. I know that Moroni's promise is true.  We can get an answer if we ask in faith, with real intent, and it doesn’t matter how many times we have previously asked before, we can always get a confirmation of the truth! :)

We have been teaching the members of our ward the principle of FOLLOWING UP from Preach My Gospel in our dinner messages and challenging them to think about all the invitations or gospel conversations they have had throughout the last several years, and follow up with all those people and re-invite them! We have had a really good response from the members and they all accept to do it!

Love,

Elder Parrish

Dinner appointment

 
We have struggled a little bit starting back at ground zero after L---’s baptism.  We are trying to find new investigators through the members, but the Lord blessed us for our efforts by sending a man named W--- who just decided to come to church yesterday! He apparently helped clean the building sometime a long time ago, and just remembered the warm invitation to attend a service on Sunday, and thought he might give it a try all this time later! 

We have gotten a good start on the new member lessons with L---. The T--- family (recent converts themselves) is having us teach them in their home and it has been great. We planned to teach about the Restoration using paper cups to "build Christ's church," destroy it, and build it up again, in hopes that L---'s little sister would be there and we could get a double whammy.  She wasn’t able to come, so we were about to teach something different, but decided to stick to the game plan anyway. As we went through the steps, we all felt the Spirit. At the end, Elder Griffin asked the mom what it meant to her to have all this restored in her life. She just started crying and bore her testimony that this was the first time she actually understood the Restoration and why it is so important in the Church! She has been a member for just over a year and has been confused about some things, but it finally clicked for her and she was so happy and excited because it finally made sense to her after all this time. It felt so good to hear her say, "Now I KNOW that the Church really is PERFECT." So we know that it was inspired to teach that lesson, even though we prepared it for M--, it was actually for her and God knows exactly what he's doing. :)

Elder Griffin has come to be one of my greatest friends. It’s sad to think we have been together for 3 transfers, and most likely won’t be able to keep our streak going for much longer.  Who knows-maybe we can ;) but I have enjoyed every day and learned so much.

We went on 2 exchanges this week.  First, I went with Elder Barlow. He is doing great as a new District Leader and Trainer! We tried to make Jesus Christ and the Atonement the focus of all our lessons, and in one lesson in particular, there was a time when I got somewhat sidetracked sharing some Bible scriptures with one of our investigators and the lesson just wasn’t really going in the direction we hoped.  Then, Elder Barlow stepped up and bore solid testimony of Jesus Christ and brought the spirit back into the lesson and allowed us to get back on track of what is really most important.

Zone Conference was awesome, and I wrote a lot in my journal. I’m not one to write much in my journal, but I made it count because Pres. Felix committed us to.

Love,

Elder Parrish

Happy Valentine's Day from the Ox 5 boys!! Matching ties from Mama Barlow :)

L--- got baptized !  It’s not possible to have a bad week when you have a baptism! Everything was so great.  It was a really powerful service, and the room was packed. A lot of people had to stand in the hall, because there wasn’t enough chairs!  L--- asked me to confirm him on Sunday, so that was an awesome opportunity. He is doing so well. His wife has started taking the missionary lessons in Xilocuautla Huachinango Puebla Mexico (took me forever to learn how to spell that) and L--- is so excited to introduce his friends and family to the gospel. His little sister has made some friends with the young women in the ward and is a really awesome kid, so she shouldn’t be too far behind with her own baptism, as well. 

The 5th ward is still plugging along.  Everything just keeps moving along and it’s amazing. Two of the recent converts in the ward received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, and will see more priesthood bearers in the weeks to come!   H--- from Nicaragua is progressing.  We had a good lesson about the plan of salvation with them in the home of the A--- family, and he was pretty blown away by it all, just because it was all new to him. He wanted Bible references for everything, which we were prepared for, and it all went great!  On Friday, we had a solid lesson about the Atonement with H---, and he is reading the Book of Mormon with his wife and mother in law every night and praying for a confirmation that it’s true!  He says he hasn’t gotten an answer yet, but that he’s going to keep praying. He has a lot of questions about plural marriage and the sort, but they are legitimate concerns and he really just wants to understand and not be closed-minded.

Elder Griffin is a champion like always. He was a little under the weather all week with a cough, but worked all day every day and never complains. 

I love the part from Preach My Gospel that says how the Restoration in comparison to the Apostasy is like a diamond that stands out against black velvet.  It is so true.  The brilliant light that the restoration brings destroys all darkness and doubt that existed for so many centuries.  So I have been studying the apostasy a lot lately and pondering quite a bit about how I can teach it better.  I think I just need to be more bold and tell people more straight forward that no other church has the truth other than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that it is the only church authorized of God to perform saving ordinances. I know it’s true, so I shouldn’t hesitate to be more bold about it. 

Love, Elder Parrish

 

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

The highlight of the week was watching The Testaments with L--- with another family in their home. After the movie, we had a super spiritual testimony meeting with the members. L--- just stayed and hung out with them for a while after we left.   It has been so awesome to see all of the members step up and fellowship him.  They all love him. He seriously has over 10 fellowshippers!  We can’t fit them all in the "member fellowship" box on the progress record every week! His little sister just got here yesterday from Mexico, so we are super excited to start teaching her, as well and baptize her shortly after L---!

 It has been fun to brainstorm with Elder Griffin again this transfer as we came up with zone goals and prepared for MLC.  It is always interesting to me the process of receiving revelation or guidance from the Spirit with these things.  It seems like it’s always necessary for us to struggle to collaborate a bunch of ideas and nothing seems to be really very good.  Then right when we think we just about have what we want to do, all of a sudden we get a totally non-related thought that we feel is from the Spirit, and so we decide to take things a completely different direction.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just get those thoughts first right off the bat?  Ha, I guess some people can.  For some reason, for us, it always requires filtering through all the wrong things/ideas first, before the Lord finally blesses us with what he wants. It’s probably our own pride or something, but I am grateful Heavenly Father always lets it turn out alright in the end and for Elder Griffin's patience and diligence.  Here is what we came up with for zone goals this transfer:

1- Work together with the ward council to help one RC/LA do baptisms for the dead for the first time.

2- Work together with the ward council to ordain one prospective brother to the priesthood.

3- POWERHOURs with members! 

Yesterday during the 3rd hour of church, we had a combined lesson with Bishop Quezada because he wanted to address some matters with the ward.  This last week, a brother from another ward committed suicide.  Bishop really just focused on and taught the doctrine of the atonement of Jesus Christ (using Alma 7:11-12) to the ward.  The Spirit was super strong.  

It’s so beautiful to me that no matter how many times I hear or learn or study about the atonement, I can feel the Spirit every time.  It never gets old, it never gets boring.  It’s the single greatest and most important aspect of the gospel.

For service, we helped a member clean out and organize their shed.  She was expecting it to take like 2 hours and we did it in about 20 minutes.  So this week, she says she has a real project for us cleaning out a toy-hauler trailer they have packed with odds and ends of construction stuff.

Love,

Elder Parrish