Wednesday P-Day (Nov 11, 2015)

Hey-o all! How's the week been? I hope you've all had a spectacular week filled with enriching experiences. First yes, sorry I'm emailing today again. We went to the temple this morning so today is

technically our P-Day. The Oakland temple is AMAZING. ITS SO BEAUTIFUL AND BIG. It is now one of my most favorites. Ahhhhh it was so good. Oh yes mom I got my greenie package too. The Elders in my apartment thought that was kinda funny LOL!

Elder Kimber & Elder Joyner

Alex in Oakland

Oakland Temple

This past week has been a roller coaster but good fun nevertheless. I've been praying for Grandaddy today that his surgery goes/went well and that the recovery is pretty fast too.

Some cool things that happened this week though. We had Zone conference in Petaluma this past Friday. This is where four of the zones in our mission met to have some training from President and his wife, The AP's, and the tech elders. A sister in my zone and I sang "Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words." It was kind of an odd song to do, but President requested it so we did it. Conference was really good and we received some really great instruction and guidance. One super cool thing I learned from that and have been studying is about God's will. We need to embrace whatever it may be. His purpose is to, "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." So in saying this,

everything God gives us is to fulfill this purpose. Everything happens for a reason. We just have to embrace it and trust God. It all comes down to the relationship of love we have between God. If we trust that he loves us and all things are possible through him, why should we worry? It's all gonna turn out ok, if we just keep his commandments and stay strong to him. That is something that is hard for us to accept sometimes but I know that as we pray for strength each and every morning that we can have that power to accept God's will and anything that comes with it. That was just one of the many things I learned last Friday.

Alex's Zone

(Lol also just an add on, President and Sister Wright came and talked in the Spanish ward on Sunday, so Obispo wanted a special musical number so me and the same sister who I sang with at conference sang "Mas Cerca Dios De Ti." So good fun)

I also had my first comp exchange this past week. It was loads of fun. I went with Elder Taylor (the Canadian) and my comp went with Elder Britt. There is this like 6-10 mile path near our complex that we were able to walk yesterday. There are a bunch of homeless people that live along it so we wanted to walk it and see if we could help them out at all. We both kind of realized that if Jesus worked with lepers and different people that most probably wouldn't, that as missionaries should try to reach out to every. Every single person is a child of God, which means we have something in common. We met tons of interesting people. One in particular we met, was this guy who was on the path fixing his bike. We were just walking by asking how his day was and he completely just opened up to us and give us his whole story. Because we just gave him a a smile and were willing just to talk with him made all the difference. It's crazy to think how something so simple can go a long way.

We also had another cool miracle happen along the path. We got to a point in the path where we were trying to decide if we wanted to continue on the path the rest of the way or take a short cut down a busy road to make it to our dinner appointment on time. We just decided to go down the busy road. We started walking and this lady started to honk and wave us down. We went to go see what she wanted and she was actually a less active who wanted to come back. She had said that she was going through some pretty tough times and that she was trying to find something to help and the night before she remembered how much she loved the church when she was young. She also told us that that day she was going to look up the times for church, later that night, but then she saw us and knew it was meant to be. We got her name and number and the English  missionaries are going to back to talk to her tonight. That also goes to show how God puts people in our path that are so ready.

OHHH I ALSO MET UP WITH DAD's COUSIN (my second cousin?) FOR DINNER THIS PAST MONDAY. It was super fun to meet them and spend some time with them. They are the nicest people! We talked about family and I saw some old pictures of Grandaddy and Grandma that I've never seen before. It was fun to connect some of those family dots that I didn't know we're there. We might try to go back and have dinner with them again.

Alex & David Freebairn

Ok this weeks ponderizing scripture was Alma 32:43-44. I didn't have a chance to go as in-depth as I would've liked to but something I really like from it was the fruit reference. Fruit is often referenced in the scriptures in several places, from the tree of life to missionary work in the scriptures, it is mentioned several places. One thing I love about fruit is that it's good for you. It keeps your body healthy. This fruit, talked about in the scriptures is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is something so sweet and tasteful for us. It is there waiting for us, but we actually have to go pluck it and partake of it. The effort, like I've said in the past, is on our part. If we don't do anything, how are we supposed to taste of the goodness that's there.

Hey Y'all go out there and have a great week! I love you all! God is the best.

Te Amo

Elder Joyner