🇺🇸🇺🇸'José can you see?'🇺🇸🇺🇸 (July 3, 2017)

Hey Familia! Happy 4th of July y'all! Enjoy the fireworks and the festivities. I'm not sure if we'll do anything out of the ordinary here. Maybe we'll catch some fireworks or something while we're out and about. Should be fun! Have fun at EFY Cole! Love ya Buddy! 

Elder Joyner & Elder Pederson

It's a been a super good week! Lets see, yesterday was awesome! It was a good Fast and Testimony Meeting and then after church I was able to give a baptismal interview to an investigator who'll be baptized in the Petaluma Ward this next week! He has a super cool story and is honestly one of the most ready and prepared people I've ever met. He's like his own little 12 Step video within himself. Good guy! 

We were able to meet with Brian several times this week. So Tuesday, we were thinking about what we could do to help Brian feel more comfortable with coming to church and we thought about doing a church tour with him. So Tuesday before our lesson with him, we went to the Petaluma chapel and got it all set up for a church tour. Our plan was to go knock on his door and be like, "Hey Brian, we're going on a field trip today to the chapel." (It works because he lives 3 minutes from the chapel and we could walk there with him) The funny thing is that IT WORKED! We told him we were just gonna go to the chapel for a tour. His response was, "oh, right now? Ok let me go put on my jeans," and then he ran upstairs and put on his jeans and came with us! It was the coolest thing. At the end of the tour, we ended up in the chapel and were able to talk about the sacrament and sing 'In Humility, Our Savior,' for him. It was a great experience. Also, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but every Thursday night we play fútbol (soccer) in the chapel with investigators and members. Thursday, we were able to get Brian to come to that and he really enjoyed it! The sad thing though is that he didn't want to come to church on Sunday :( He expressed to us that it's too formal for him and that he doesn't think he's ready for that yet. So a prayer or two his way could help a ton!

Oh, another funny experience with Brian that happened on Saturday We knocked his door that morning to invite him to come to church the next day and such. After a minute, the door opened and we started talking to who we thought was Brian. After a moment, we realized he wasn't Brian and he explained he was his twin Brandon! It was just kind of funny because we had heard he had a twin but totally thought this was Brian when we opened the door jajaja! 

Friday, we had Zone Conference and this was my last one :'( I had a very tender experience getting the opportunity share my departing testimony. I am most definitely not the same person I was two years ago. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ helping me on this journey of personal conversion and change. It is truly one of the most incredible things I hope each of you (have or) will experience! There were also several really good topics taught in the Conference. Sister Wright talked about testimonies and there was one really awesome quote I loved that was by Elder Packer. He said, "Oh if I could teach you this one principle: a testimony is to be found in the bearing of it." If you feel your testimony is struggling or have not yet to found such a testimony, follow the counsel of Elder Packer and bear what you know to someone else. That is when we will find it!

One more funny little story. So we tried to stop by Israel's house this week to visit him. He lives in this little apartment complex where kids are always running around playing. When we went this week, there was this one little kid that ran up to us before we knocked the door and then decided he wanted to knock the door for us so he did! He then started knocking on the window and such for us haha! We can't do that but he definitely can! Hahaha so Israel wasn't home but then we asked if the kid's parents were home and he led us to his house and we taught and picked up his parents as new investigators! It was kinda funny. Later that night a similar experience happened, where a kid led us to his parents and we taught them! Twice in one day! Fun stuff!

Well I'm off! Have a super good week. Love y'all!

Con Amor, 

Elder Joyner