Dear Family and Everyone Else,
I'm sorry if I have caused a great offense in all of you, including my friends who read my blog. We actually didn't go hiking up big trees; however, we did go up to President Lyman's Ranch last Monday, and we all had a blast. Elder Wardle went with Elder Bean, Campbell, and the Zone Leaders, along with the Spanish sisters, up the small ridge to the edge of the property. I stayed down in the small plain where the river was with other elders that wanted to play ball. I also helped throw a bunch of rocks into the river to build a rock bridge/dam so we could walk across instead of using the old rickety bridge a little ways down the stream. It was fun chucking all those rocks. So I did find my own little adventure. I also found 2 cool rocks I decided to keep, one being a really shiny white Quartz rock. The member told us that back in 1997, the whole river plain flooded because there was so much rain that year. The plain was about 6 inches deep, and then the river full of mud.
Today we drove all the way up to San Andrea's and Murphy's with Christian Sawyer and took a picture of the hills up on another ridge. It was quite beautiful after the winter rains we have been having. It's cooled back down to 70 degrees after our last fierce rainy storm. So I missed out on nothing really. I enjoyed everything. We stopped by the ward buildings up in those towns, and took some pictures, along with the town's themselves.
The other adventure we had this week was that we went down to Ripon to see the mission home and President on Tuesday. It's just been crazy being with Elder Wardle. We also had follow up president interviews for the whole Zone on Friday, and he urged all of us to, "Preach by the way." Let no one go from your sight and share the gospel with everyone. We're still working on that one but the work is slowly growing.
I went on an exchange again this week up to the Jackson Ward with Elder Roudabush. I totally drove my first pick up truck in my life in the mission. Lot's of hills around here to our east before the mountains. That night, it was super windy, rainy, and dark in the hills with thick forests. This all added up on me by getting two aggressive drivings on Tiwi. It was annoying. The first being a fallen tree with many broken branches in the road and I had to swerve and slam on the breaks. The second was when we were turning into the ward building in Jackson to be with the youth to watch 15 minutes of the recorded face to face with Elder Rasband. It was good for what we were able to watch before we needed to get home. So right now, I'm a yellow driver, and if I am still yellow by next month, I won't be able to drive for a month--not that I'm in a car area anyways. Now I actually hope I never serve in the hilly areas.
One note that I will say about the work is that we found a new investigator named Charles. He is 19, Mexican, and really shy. I could see myself in him. We connected pretty well. Elder Wardle talked to him on the street while I was up in Jackson. He expressed the concern that the Bible was translated too many times and has been corrupted. That was a great opportunity to share the Book of Mormon with him. He said he would read it. We also plan to drop off a King James Version of the Bible and reassured him that it was the most correct translation according to modern day revelation. We hope to do a church tour with him and give him some comfort because he is scared to try new things like reading scriptures, or going to new buildings. We will definitely be there for him. Got to go. Have a great week, all.
Elder White
The hills of California
Graveyard in San Andreas
The Ranch
wine vineyards
San Andreas