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

Petaluma Dreamin' (April 17, 2017)

Respect Your Elders

Hey y'all! Happy Monday and happy late Easter! Oh and happy late birthday Dad! Hope you were able to have a party or eat some cake or something. Just a heads up, Elder Angulo and I are not getting transferred. We will be in good ole Petaluma for one more! It's weird I have two transfers (plus a couple weeks) left. Ugh ehh weird. But we're not gonna talk about that. Ok? Ok. 

It's been another super week here in Petaluma! Elder Angulo was sick, so we spent a majority of the week inside because he physically could not go outside. Elder Hardin and I were able to go out a couple times and do some work, so that was good. The previous week, we found an investigator named Adalberta, who was super interested. Despite sickness, we saw her last Wednesday and taught her the restoration. She really liked it and said she would read out of the Book of Mormon before our next meeting. It was really exciting! We returned Saturday but alas she was not there. We went back later that day and rescheduled for tomorrow. We're really excited for her! We also found this one family about two weeks ago that we were finally able to find at home. We've only ever met the wife, Perla, and gave her a Book of Mormon. Elder Hardin and I went back the other day and set a return appointment for today. She also said she had been reading and liked it. How cool, no?? So big things are happening this next Transfer!

The zone is getting switched up and new exciting things are happening. Also, it was announced by the Bretheren just recently that we will stop having zone meetings and just have Zone Conferences. So that's kind of switch up. We have MLC planned this week which should be good also. 

That's about it for this one. Hope y'all have an awesome week. Love ya and am praying for ya!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner

That's just how it goes! (April 10, 2017)

Elder Joyner & Elder Hall

Hey yo! How y'all doing?? This week was super good! Thanks for all the birthday wishes and stuff! Y'all really made it a special day. Also thanks for the video that you made! That really pulled at my heart strings! It was a long one too and I appreciate all of it. So thank you. 💚 So Wednesday to Thursday, we had exchanges and I was with Elder Hall. He was trained by Elder Crowley when we were in Santa Rosa and when I was training Elder Sidwell, where we lived in the mission mansion lols. We had an awesome exchange reminiscing from the Santa Rosa days. After we exchanged back Thursday, my compa treated me to lunch and then we went out to work. We had dinner and the member somehow knew about my birthday and got a cake ahhh. Then we had correlation and we played soccer with the Branch, where we got some investigators to come. All in all it was an awesome day!

There wasn't too much else that happened this week. We were able to find something like five new investigators, whom with we have return appointments this week. We are working with several other investigators but we weren't able to see too many of them this week for one reason or another. We are working with the Vazquez family. I'm not sure if I've talked about them before. So Luis and Laura are the parents and Neri and Angeles are the kids. The kids got baptized about three months ago! We are working with their parents now and Luis is looking pretty close. He comes to church, participates in elders quorum activities, and is really solid. He should be setting a baptismal date pretty soon. So that's exciting. Well let ya know about the others as they progress a little more. 

That's about all I got for this week! This is the last week of the transfer. It does not feel like it at all! Time just won't stop! 

Thanks for everything y'all do! I love you so much!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner

April? No, quit playin... (April 3, 2017)

Hey fam! We just got back from the beach, which is why I'm writing so late. We went to rodeo beach at the very south end of our mission. You have to drive by the Golden Gate Bridge to go there. It was fun!!! 

Ok ill make this one short, since i don't have as much time as usual. This was kind of a weird week. We went on two exchanges and I went out of the area both times. I went with Elder Julander, who we live with, on Tuesday and stayed in Petaluma English. Wednesday, I went with Elder Sorenson in Novato. I've served around him for something like 5-6 transfers of my mission, so it was good to catch up and talk about our missions and such. He goes home next transfer so we talked about just past experiences and such. Good times! Exchanges are just the funnest, ya?

I absolutely loved General Conference!! Like wow. I have so many thoughts, that i wish i could share them all with you. I was particularly impressed with Elder Clayton's talk on the plan of salvation. That hit me good. Everything is centered Jesus Christ and the plan they created for us. How amazing, no? I really felt I needed to increase my studies on that. I'm so grateful that we have modern day prophets and apostles that speak to us and give us light. What a blessing!!!

The baptism, yesterday, went super well! Carlos said he felt ready to make changes in his life and this was going to help him. We love him and are excited for him!!

This week we are busy busy busy! We have another exchange and just lots going on. Then next week is the last week of the transfer. Time just won't stop. At the end of conference yesterday, I got kind of emotional because i realized that it was my last time watching conference as missionary. Ouch. The feels came a rollin' in. I only have four short months left. AHHHHH. Now, more than ever, i have to keep giving it everything I've got!!! Thanks for all the love and support! I do appreciate it fully. Have a splendid week, y'all.

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner

Just Puttin' in Some Work (March 27, 2017)

Hayyyyyyy! How yar doin?? It's been a super super good week! Tuesday was our zone Meeting and we feel like that was a success. Everyone wanted to be there and had done some preparation, which in turn made it possible for the Holy Ghost to be present. I had the opportunity to teach on prayer. I had compiled a list on 10 things (from various conference talks, things I've heard over the years, hymns, other people, etc.) I thought I'd share what I put together. 

Elder Joyner's List of 10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Prayers

1.   Believe that God hears and can answer prayers. 
2.   Prayer is the key that unlocks the day and it is the lock that guards the night.
3.   Let the spirit guide your prayers. 
4.   Make sure you're being exactly obedient. 
5.   Preparation is essential in prayer. 
6.   Don't be too conversational in your prayers. Remember who you're talking to. 
7.   Our level of gratitude reflects how much we acknowledge the Lord and our dependence on Him.
8.   Use the appropriate language. 
9.   "Humbly ask for thee for things that I need."
10.   Always remember you are approaching the throne of God. 

Tuesday we went on exchanges with Elder Harris and Elder Siebach. I was really impressed by Elder Harris. He's such an awesome missionary. It was just a fun time. We worked hard and enjoyed ourselves, which is how missionary work should be. We had miracles happen but one in particular that I was impressed with. We were working hard to contact the 10 that day. (That's something President is having us focus on, contacting 10 people aside from tracting. It's also a huge part of our Zone Vision that we have for the Zone) We had gotten quite a few earlier in that day. It was about 7 o clock and we had decided to park our car at the church and walk to go do some more tracting. It was raining really hard for about the first 2 minutes until it let up and completely stopped. We were able to find a couple people and even set up a return appointment with this lady that was on her porch. We had gotten a couple more contacts just walking around and were at 9. It was getting late and dark and we were deciding to go back to the church to finish the night off with comp study, but just needed one more contact. We were determined to find someone on the walk back. We were walking down the sidewalk and had walked by a street. I looked down it thinking that could be the where the one is. I started to ignore the prompting (how bad of me right) and then decided at the last second to say to Elder Harris, "Hey lets just go down this one more." We started down the street and just as we get there we see a man outside talking to someone in a truck. As we get closer, the truck drives away leaving the man in the most opportune position to talk to us. He had said he just got back from feeding some homeless people with his church organization and actually a friend (in the truck)  was bringing back his sweater he left at the church event. We talked for a bit and set a return appointment to meet with him. I thought it was really cool how the man had to leave his sweater so that his friend would bring it to him so that he'd be outside when we were right there. Then right when we got back to the church, the rain started pouring again. Crazy, huh? I can honestly testify that we also need to follow the spiritual prompting that we get! God is good. 

We also set that baptismal date on Sunday, the which we had nothing to do with. Carlos has been taught by missionaries for the longest time and has really wanted to be baptized. He had just been waiting for his wife to come from South America somewhere to be baptized. She finally got here last week! We have been trying to get in contact with him to set up an appointment all transfer. It's hard for him because part of his brain is paralyzed and he forgets that we set up appointments and such. And then yesterday he just showed up to church. He said that he has an open brain surgery scheduled for the 18th of April and wants to be baptized before then. We said, "How bout next Sunday?" He said, "Oh ya that's perfect." So this week will be spent helping him get ready and such for his baptism next Sunday. Should be fun! 

The zone is well. We are going on exchanges with Elder Julander/Hardin and Elder Brown/Sorenson this week, and will let you know how that goes. 

I'm so so so excited to watch General Conference, seeing as this is my last one on the mission. It's really something different, to be able to experience it on the mish. You know I'll just be soaking in every moment of it. I'd invite you all to go with questions and really pay attention to the spirit whilst listening. Also, I'd invite you to do something Elder Bednar exhorted us to do when he came to the mission last year. He told us that it's kinda silly when members of the church write down word for word what the speakers say from Conference. Those Conference talk will literally be out a couple days later. Instead, we should write down the impressions or spiritual things that we feel, kinda like the small plates that Nephi writes on. So go and write on your small plates :)

I love y'all! Have an awesome week!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner