Latin Blood (this is out of order - written January 11)

Something must be happening in the world of Latinos.

I swear, our investigators are unstoppable. Last week I was all excited because EIGHT of them came to church. Man... I was so young back then. I didn't know anything about church attendance.. This week, we saw NINE investigators at church. That's what I'm talking about!

Ok. Obviously, I'm just being dramatic. But I didn't even know what to do with myself on Sunday. I'm so happy that the ward recognized them and gave them a big welcome. There was no way I was going to be able to talk to all the investigators there yesterday, especially because there were men, women, boys, girls, and teens. They all left to split up into there classes and then it was all up to the ward.

In other news, in this last week, we went to MLC, and a lot of it was focused on doing creative things that aren't necessarily "Normal" or "Common" as long as it's for somebody's benefit. (Specifically talking about callings in the church.

With that in mind^^ we have a companionship that pretty consistently complains about their assigned ward.. So we decided to break the mold to fix the problem. We planned to do an exchange on a SUNDAY! Which basically never happens... But it gave Elder Wallace a chance to go visit their ward and get some eyes inside to examine what exactly the problem is. It also meant that he went to an English ward for the day, and my temporary companion didn't speak Spanish, but went to a Spanish ward! It was SO HELPFUL! Elder Wallace came back to me super confused. He said their ward was awesome. It was just the missionaries attitude that needed to change. We would never have known that without the unusual exchange.

This next Saturday we're planning on going on another unusual exchange. We'll be switching companions for the day, but ALL FOUR of us will be working in the same area (their area). We chose to do that because they mentioned that they were struggling to find and didn't seem to have enough time. This should fix the problem right? That's our hope. :)

We just feel blessed in our area. We're really just trying to help out the zone as much as we can.  And I think this whole "Creative solution" thing is inspired. Oakland's going to kill it.

You probably don't care about most of this stuff. haha But that's what I've been up to lately.

Side Note. My Personal Studies have been awesome. I've been reading the book of Mormon. We committed one of our investigators to finish 1 Nephi before the end of January. (something we're calling the 22 day challenge) (22 days=22 chapters) And we're reading it along with her. Even the first verse of the first chapter of the first book is full of some awesome principles about Family History and Journal-writing, and fathers. There is so much to learn.

That's pretty much it!

Love you all!

Have a good week!

Elder Struve & San Francisco

This week has been crazy!

First off, I met my trainee, Elder Struve. (It's spelled like stroove, but it's pronounced like struvie) He's from Virginia, but has also lived in France and Austria. He's great! I can't really see us getting into any arguments. He's just very easy-going (and kinda soft-spoken). He's taken five years of Spanish in high school, so he has a big head-start on the language. plus, he's already super familiar with Preach My Gospel. He's already memorized the lessons in order. He basically came pre-trained. So far, this is looking to be a pretty good transfer for us! :)

Being back in San Francisco is pretty weird! I've been able to meet a few of the members I knew from before, but most of the people we work with are all new. So I'm still a little bit lost as far as names/faces goes. Plus, I've almost completely forgotten the bus schedule/routes... So we've gotten lost a couple of times. :) It's been fun.

When we got to our area, we replaced the other two elders here. They both made it a point to tell me that San Francisco is dead and that it's been a hard couple of transfers for them. But I didn't want my trainee getting that impression about his first area right away.. So when I picked him up, I gave him the best review of San Francisco, and how fruitful it is, and how great our investigators have been lately. And then we just went to work!!

Well, this first week definitely showed some results of the combination of an optimistic outlook and willingness to work!

In the last 4 days, we've set 2 new baptismal dates! :)

One of them is with Raul Arteaga, who has been an investigator for a few months now.. We read on his teaching record that he "can't get baptized because he has been living with a woman for 30 years, and they're not married." But we went ahead and re-invited him and after some discussion, he committed to get married to her so that he can be baptized! :) WHOOO!

The other date is with Ana Villanueva, who is a lady in her 60s who works 2 jobs and is living in a tiny apartment with 4 other people. Super poor, and can't get work off on Sundays because she needs the money to pay rent. Well, we set a date with her, and committed her to ask for Sundays off within the next week. So we're hoping she pulls through with that. We plan to have our own little mini "Family Home Evening" with them tonight and we're hoping we can really commit her to it with our lesson tonight.

Elder Struve and I have really put a focus on Member Trust. If the members trust you, that makes missionary work so much easier.. But we've been talking a lot about how having members "trust" you is different than having members "like" you. And how they need to be able to see us as obedient, personable, doctrinally sound, competent missionaries, rather than the "fun" missionaries or the "cool" missionaries. He's so good though. Little bit quiet, but he's great. :)

We're gunna kill it.

Love you all! Thanks for the email!

Straight Outa Oakland

I've basically got 2 big updates this week.

1. Last week I mentioned that we could have anywhere between 2 and 4 baptisms. Well, I'll send pictures of everyone that ended up getting baptized. All together, we had Rita, Meani, Lupe, and Jasmine! Elder Wallace and I have just been super blessed this last transfer. Hands down the fastest couple transfers I've had, and we've just had so much success.

2. Transfer calls came in this weekend! I've been released as a Zone Leader and have been asked to train a new missionary in San Francisco!! THAT IS SUCH A COOL CALL! I'm literally so excited to train. I've never done it before, but I'm excited for a few different reasons. 1. I just happen to be training a new missionary in the same exact apartment that I was trained in about a year and a half ago by Elder Castleberry!  2. I can kind of speak Spanish now, so if I return to my first area, I'll be able to communicate with people I couldn't talk with before! 3. I never thought I'd train a missionary at this point. I've been in the same place fore about 7 months, and I didn't feel like I was leaving any time soon. But President called me up on Thursday and asked me if I'd be willing to "shotgun train" in SF. (That just means train in a place where you aren't currently serving. also called "white-out" in some places..)

So, I didn't really want to make a big deal out of me leaving the ward.. but I did tell a couple of my converts and bishop that I'm leaving and 1 family invited us over and something seems fishy, and I'm like 50% sure they are throwing me some sort of going away party...? Which is awkward.

Honestly, I love Oakland. It has been one of my all time favorite areas, and hands down my most successful, but I'm not sad to leave. It's just part of my mission to be transferred away, so I haven't really spent a whole lot of time getting closure with people yet, but I'll probably visit a few people tonight and tomorrow so that they don't hate me. haha

Those are all the big things. Should be a good next transfer. I'm not sure what my new companion's name is yet. I should be picking him up on Wednesday.

Here are some pictures of our baptisms yesterday.

Love yall

Yesterday's baptism

#checkmeout

Just updated my mormon.org profile. #checkmeout you might have to look up "jordan steven" that's the only way it comes up for me.

Some of my missionary buddies I'm leaving here in Oakland

My zone

Here are a couple of my converts and family members. They're the bomb!

Angelica Yeraldin Ramirez Nunez

So. Here is the story of Angelica Yeraldin Ramirez Nunez (Yera). Her family got baptized last March, but she lived in Sacramento at the time. She's about 20 years old with 2 kids, and has recently come back to live with her family is Oakland because she wants to get her high school diploma. We originally started teaching her as an investigator about 5 months ago or so just because she wanted to learn about the religion that her family was a part of. she personally had no intentions of joining it or anything, she just wanted to understand the culture and the beliefs. But she's really cool.

WELL! Exactly 22 days ago, we invented something called the "22 day challenge" where basically you read one chapter of the Book of Mormon every day for 22 days and then by the end of January you would have finished the whole 1st book of Nephi. We gave that challenge to all of our investigators we were teaching at the time, and Elder Wallace and i agreed to read along with them, so that we would all be reading the same parts at the same time.

Yera was the only one that accepted the challenge. So she's been reading the Book of Mormon every day. (She's awesome). She's also been coming to the church every week for over a month.

Last week, They threw a little surprise party for me for my birthday, and they bought me a cake and got me some presents and everything, which was AWESOME! But the best gift I got was what happened right after the party. *Drumroll*

Yera stands up and says "I have an announcement....... I want to be baptized!"

After some negotiations of scheduling and stuff, she pushed to be baptized as soon as possible. We decided to baptized her the following Sunday....... yesterday! :)

So in essence, we had a surprise baptism for one of our AWESOME investigators yesterday who basically begged us to be baptized ASAP.

She asked me to do the ordinance for her, which of course I was happy to do, and it all turned out super pretty. :)

Little heads up for next week, we should be having anywhere from 2-4 baptisms in our area. We're hoping for 4, but we have to talk to them about it first, because they've missed the last couple Sundays... Keep the Gramajo family in your prayers!

Love you all! Thanks for everything!

Yera's Baptism!!!

Surprise party! Complete with a cake with my picture on it!

Satan Sucks

I got lotsa stuff for you this week. Oh my goodness.

We were going to have 4 baptisms yesterday. That has always been the plan.

But this week was the perfect example of how Satan works. So check this out:

The Gramajo family: Recent move-ins from Guatemala, hilarious, cool, great desire, they are so redy for baptism.... They were going to get baptized yesterday, but this past week, they had their water shut off and they are at risk of being evicted from their apartment illegally, so they've called the cops on their racist land-lord like 2 or 3 times this week. it was rough. Their lives are just super stressed and unpredictable right now, so they decided to move their baptism back by a few weeks. February 7th.

The Carrada family: We've been teaching them since October, and they have been progressing well since the dawn of time. The 2 parents were supposed to be baptized yesterday, and everything was set.. BUT, they didn't come to church. (Which wasn't necessarily going to prevent them from being baptized, it was just confusing) So we gave them a call, and they said they hadn't left for church yet because their daughter ran away from home, and they couldn't find her.... They were obviously very worried, and were going to search for her instead of coming to their baptism... We gathered our whole district together to say a big prayer for their family, and then ditched our 2nd our of church to go visit them at home. By the time we got there, the daughter had already returned, but the family was super contentious. I guess the reason she ran away was because of a big fight she had with her mom, and they were all obviously very flustered and contentious... They were in no mood to get baptized. Never before in my mission have I ever seen the clear influence of Satan in somebody's life. They were so close to doing something that could change their life for the better, but the spirit of contention (sent from the devil) was the thing preventing them. Smart move Satan.

We had a super emotional lesson.... I may or may not have cried a little bit... And we offered to give them each a blessing to give them peace and comfort. First the daughter, then the mom, then the grandma, (Each one crying the whole time)... finally we gave the father a blessing. The head of the household. And we said we wanted everybody to think of what they really want while we gave the blessing, and then we did it. At the end, we re-committed them to be baptized that day at 1:00.

They happily agreed. :)

That was one of the coolest stories I've had on my mission. It just so happened to happen on my birthday, but seriously, yesterday, I felt like... every single emotion there is. what a day.

Love you all!

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

Shout out to Jaxon for the cool calandar 😂 2nd year in a row. Classic. :) :)

Love you all!

Elder Webster

Here is the Carrada family! My latest converts. They're the coolest.

Here is a message my district leader sent to us. It basically sums up my week :)

East Bay

ALRIGHT!

^^that's a one-word description of my week! haha We had some ups and downs as always. :)

There were like 3 days straight when we didn't teach any lessons..

It was a little bit frustrating because we've been trying to be super close to our investigators because they're getting baptized next week, but we just couldn't find time to meet with them as much as we would have liked. But hey, let me tell you a couple miracles! :)

You might remember in last weeks email, I talked about doing a "Blitz" into one of the struggling areas in our zone. (that never happens) Just a little bit of background, basically, this area hasn't found a single investigator in like 2 months. I don't even remember the last time they taught a non-member lesson. So we started the exchange and focused a lot on faith. We started off by setting the expectation of ENTHUSIASM and EXPECTING miracles to happen. We were all committed to find a new investigator before the end of the day. That was the deal.

Elder Wallace and I split up. I went with Elder Weaver from Las Vegas, and he went with Elder Aiono from Samoa. We asked them to plan twice as much as they normally do, and told them we'd like to focus the day on finding people to teach. So, we showed up before studies, they gave us a run down of the day, we studied together, and then went on our separate ways.

Well, WE FOUND A NEW INVESTIGATOR FOR THEM!! WHOO

His name is Ramsey, and he's the son of the Relief society president. Elder Wallace and Elder Aiono were the ones that found him, but their story is so cool. It was one of those "walking in the dark, in the rain, after using all of our back-up-plans, but then feeling prompted to knock on one last door" kind of miracles.

My day was really good as well. We found a couple of potentials in the streets by a college, but the real success story was Ramsey. :)

Everything should be set for our baptisms next week. We're really excited. :)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I can't think of too much that I really need, but thanks for asking! I always like home-made stuff! wink wink

Love you all!