mlczoneconferencecontacts4dayzzz (May 22, 2017)

Hi Everyoneeeee! Happy P-Day! Hope y'all had such a great week. It absolutely flewww by this week. We don't even know where it went. Glad to hear school ended well and that's over with for a while. Enjoy the summer vay-cay! Ok lets see what happened this week.

We had Zone Conference this last week. It was amazing! We had it at the Badger Building, where the mission office is. It was good to travel home again (Santa Rosa!) A lot of what they taught is what was given at the last MLC in April, which was definitely a treat to get to hear it twice. Sister Wright taught on using music in our teaching, which is something we've been trying to implement more in our lessons. We now plan a hymn and sing one in every lesson we have. I can definitely tell it brings a very special spirit like nothing else can. She emphasized that even if we aren't musically talented or necessarily have the best voice, that it doesn't matter. As long as we have the spirit with us and have the best of intentions, angels will back us up! We need to start using hymns more in our church activities, meetings, and also just in our daily lives. 

Saturday, we had MLC in Santa Rosa also. It was DA BEST! We are focusing a lot on creating a mission vision, because as we know "where there is no vision, the people perish." We've got a good thing established that I'll send on to y'all soon! I love being able to work with President and Sister Wright. They really are the best and are suppose to be in this mission at this time. I totally wish y'all can meet them one day! 

We've been meeting more with Israel lately. He even fed us on Saturday. We feel we're really close to opening him up and getting him there. We're just praying to figure out what his concerns our so we can make that next push. We weren't able to meet with Adalberta again this week. She cares for an elderly woman at night as part of her job, and her health hasn't been too hot so Adalberta is with her more helping out. 

Welp, somehow this is week 6! I dunno how that happened but I guess it's here. Can't wait for a super week! Love y'all!

Con Amor,

Elder Joyner

5-15-17 (May 15, 2017)

Hey y'all!

It was good to talk to y'all yesterday! Sounds like all is well there! Weird to think the next time I see y'all will be for real for real. I won't write too much cuz I told most of y'all yesterday about the week. Lets see...

Tuesday, Elder Harris and I went on exchanges! We had set some really good goals and ended up contacting 72 people that day, which is the most I've ever counted in my mission in one day! We're working on contacting 100 in a day! We're super excited about all we are doing. We were able to have a lesson with Ivan on Thursday, in the chapel. We talked about the sacrament and sang, "In Humility, Our Savior," and we could tell he was really into it. We're think he thinks he's not ready yet, but he is just not sure if he's ready to make commitments yet. So an extra prayer for him would be much appreciated! We were supposed to have a lesson with Adalberta but she cancelled for this week. We know she's ready she just has to come through on some commitments! Saturday we had interviews and then the baptism after that! It went super well and I was also able to see my son, Elder Brock who came to the baptism. So that was fun!

We have a busy week this week with Zone Conference Friday and MLC Saturday. Sooo should be so good! Thanks for all y'all do. I love and appreciate you! Talk to ya soon!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner

Alex Playing Quidditch

paracantatirinicaro (May 8, 2017)

Hola Familia!! It's so great to hear about what's been happening with y'all. End of the school year stuff was always the most fun!! Gotta love it. And now Dwayners is off to Nauvoo for the summer. Good Luck bud! Soak it all in. Being a missionary is the best! Elise you must feel so lonely out there by your lonesome...... you could always go buy a bird? I've heard those help.....JA!! So ma', just a heads up for the call next Sunday, we plan on calling just right after church at like 2ish our time, so around 5 there. The last call! Should be good!

We had a pretty good week this week! We are continuing working on our 1000 contacts goal. Right now we are at 423! Before I thought we talked to everyone, but now I KNOW we talk to everyone!!! We have to if we want to reach our goal. There was one day this week where we felt we could get 50 contacts in one day, so we set a goal and went out and WE DID IT! It was the coolest thing ever. The Lord put those specific people in our path that day to help us reach our goal as well as bring them the gospel. It's just awesome to see such a change in my contacting and teach skills also. It's truly a blessing. 

We've tried to work with our investigator Ivan, who has a baptismal date for this weekend, that we will have to push back because he is not ready. He hasn't been able to meet with us because of his work and schedule and it just hasn't worked out. It's sad but that just means we will have to work a little harder with him in coming days. We also have our investigator, Adalberta, who we met with this week. We talked about The Plan of Salvation, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We invited her to be baptized and she said YES, but that she didn't want to set a date before she actually attended the church. So we set a goal with her to come to church yesterday, but she didn't come:(  We even called her at the start and she said she was on her way but never showed up. I feel as though that's a reoccurring theme in my mission, people being flaky about coming to church. I often think about how church is just three hours out of the week. We've been asked to come for three hours out of the 168 that we have. It just kinda breaks your heart a little when people can't commit to something so simple and true. But we hope with time it will get better!

Oh so fun story. There's a recent convert (of about a year) in our branch. Her name is Gloria. She is an older lady that cares for 3 younger children. Well one of her kids, Jacob, just turned 8 and seeing as there is no man in the household he needed to pick someone else to baptize him and he chose me! Haha! So Saturday we will have his baptism which should be a good time! We also have interviews that day so that should be busy busy!

I'm excited to talk to y'all in a week! Thanks for all ya do! It means the world to hear your emails each week, even if I'm not the best at responding. Love y'all!!!!!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner

may🌸 (May 1, 2017)

Limantour beach

Hi y'all! Sorry I'm so late today! We were at the beach all this morning! It was awesome and quiet and nice! This last week was a good one. We worked really hard and were able to pick up 5 new investigators. Our count right now for contacts is at 203, so we are on our way! I really grow to love my mission more and more each day. And what? It's not May, it can't be.... ugh I wish I was in that movie Clockstoppers and could stop time for a little bit, ya? It was cool to see that video of Cole being a superstar at Relay for Life! What legend. Good luck Dwayne as ya head off to Nauvoo this week. Live it up!

It's been fun trying to hit our goal of 1000 contacts! We are literally talking to EVERYBODY. It's the best. We have fun with it. Haha Elder Angulo will be contacting someone on one side of the street and I'll be on the other side doing the same. One time we were trying to go visit one of our investigators and I was backing Elder Angulo into a parking space, when some people walked by so I instinctively started talking to them. He saw our investigator from across the street and ran out to go talk to him. (We were still within sight and sound of course :)I finished talking to these people and was about to go with him and our investigator, when out of the corner of my eye I see two others about 100 yards down the sidewalk from me. That's a good minute or so till they got to where I was, so I had to improvise and make it look like I was doing something. I pretended to get something out of the back seat and then out of the trunk and then tie my shoe and then tie my other one haha and they finally got there and we had a good little talk hahaha. We have loads of stories like that. Another one is that the other day we were getting gas and before Elder Angulo got out of the car to fill up, I gave him a pamphlet and said, "Don't come back with this." He turned to me and gave me a card and said the same thing. We were able to meet a couple cool people doing that! Hahah it's the best!

We weren't able to meet with Ivan this week due to his work, which is kind of concerning but we are still in close contact and such. We hope he can make it to his baptismal date. Lots of good stuff happening!!

I've also been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon! I'm at the end of Mormon and it's been talking a lot about the wars and contentions between the people. It's interesting to see how the Nephites fell from being such a righteous people to extremely wicked, and it all happened because of how prideful they were and how they loved their riches and things of the world. These people who Christ administered to in person had fallen because their pride and worldly things. It puts it into perspective for me and helps me recognize the truly important things. 

I really appreciate all your letters and love. It just makes my day to even hear a little bit from ya. I really do love and miss y'all! Talk to ya real soon!

Have a superb week. 

Con amor

Elder Joyner

"What's that? The Young Women's theme?!" (April 24, 2017)

Hey y'all! Happy PDay! It's been a pretty good first week of the transfer! It was good to hear those recordings of Cole and Dayne! What legends! Elise, I'm still waiting on yours! :) 

It's been quite a week. We started off the week getting apartments ready for the new missionaries coming into our zone. We're excited to be able to work with our new  missionaries here. We've gotten a lot of changes and it should be good! We also had a super good MLC on Thursday. Usually in MLC, they teach on subjects which we then bring back to the zone for a Zone Meeting. It was just recently announced that we will not be having Zone meetings anymore, just Zone Conferences, to cut down on missionaries traveling and to have more time proselyting. So MLC was focused a lot on us and what we can do to help missionaries in specific situations. It was bomb! 

This week we were able to have a good lesson with one of our investigators, Ivan, and set a baptismal date with him. We hadn't been able to meet with him for the longest time due to his work, but we were able to see him twice this last week. He left his wife and kids in Mexico to come to the US to make some money and then he'll go back in a couple years, so he says. He's a pretty humble guy and definitely ready to make some changes in his life. We set his date for the 13th of May, so it should be good! He actually lives in the same house as Israel, the guy who gave us the referral for Jesus Chavez. We haven't been able to meet with him but are still trying!

Elder Angulo and I set some goals this week for the transfer. After the section in MLC on goals, we felt impressed that we could step up our goal setting. After prayer and pondering, we decided that we are going to get 5 baptisms this transfer, which means 10 new baptismal dates, 8 new investigators at church, and last but not least we want to find 50 new investigators. Now you may be saying, Elder Joyner, 50? That's a pretty lofty goal. Lets just say I'm going to work harder than I ever have this transfer! That's a promise. Also, we decided as leaders of the zone, that with us and the STL's, we are going to get 1000 contacts! We started counting our contacts on Friday and are off to a good start. To achieve this will literally force us to talk to everyone, so it should be good! I'm really excited to be able to push myself and put every last energy into this work. It's time to really be ALL in!

Well, that's about all I gots for this week. I love y'all and appreciate your letters and support. The work will keep on! Till the next time!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner