Love this work

We have been so busy we have had hardly anytime time to spend in our area which actually is kind of rough, had to plan a couple of trainings and we had a big service project that we were I charge of for the city of la Mesa so we spent our evening from 4-8 helping out at a fundraiser where everyone was very drunk and we were still in our name tags so we had a bunch of drunk contacts with people that were pretty funny. We then had time to write our talks at 8pm for sacrament meeting the next morning at 9am... got to love this work!

Other than nothing much is new so yup.

Loved this quote from Elder Holland

"Brothers and sisters, every one of us aspires to a more Christlike life than we often succeed in living. If we admit that honestly and are trying to improve, we are not hypocrites; we are human. May we refuse to let our own mortal follies, and the inevitable shortcomings of even the best men and women around us, make us cynical about the truths of the gospel, the truthfulness of the Church, our hope for our future, or the possibility of godliness. If we persevere, then somewhere in eternity our refinement will be finished and complete—which is the New Testament meaning of perfection."

Love Elder Palmer

ONE YEAR!!!

ONE YEAR! I'm officially counting down now... so weird. I actually missed my year mark I wasn't paying attention until the day after I realized that I had been out for a year Haha. 

This Year has Gone by to Fast! It seriously feels like 6 months ago that I was dropped off at the MTC. 

This Year has been something else let me tell ya. I have never felt so consistently Joyful. I Love this Work And I Love My God! 

My favourite days are the days are the Days I see people Eyes light up with understanding and a realization of the Joy that the Gospel brings. This is a Gospel of Joy, of peace, of Love unfeigned. I have had the Sacred Opportunity to enter into broken homes to teach broken hearts and Wipe away the Tears of Broken Spirits, because Christ wiped mine away. 

The Sisters had been teaching this lady for months who had struggled with Substance abuse for the past year, we tried stopping by in the morning before she started drinking but she was already under the influence... so we asked her if this is something she truly wants to over come? Then we Gave her A Priesthood Blessing. We left not thinking much of it, she had had a blessing before. A few days passed and we stopped by her place to check up on her...a completely different woman answered the Door! She had been sober for 3 days! And she told us that it was the Priesthood Blessing that gave the the will power to put the bottle down and find help! She couldn't stop thanking us. She has been sober now for over a week and counting!

Let see so this week was pretty good we are kept very busy with lessons and any spare time we use to get to know towards better nice they are powerhouse wards with many large families that we are trying to get to know. 

So we now cover la Mesa 2nd ward that Sister used to cover and they were teaching his lady named Jodie who is a super kind woman with a young son. Jodie is so amazing she left the church over 20 years ago with her family, but for months the Spirit had been softening her heart until she came to church again for the first time in a very long time. Her First Sunday she felt like crawling our of her skin she knew she need to be there but everything was telling her to get up and leave. Until she saw the Missionaries giving a talk in sacrament meeting... then the "voices telling her to leave, left" 

Long story short she has been working with the sisters for a few weeks working towards baptism, and when we were transferred into the ward Jodie was super nervous to meet us because she isn't comfortable around men. 

Well we met with her at a members on Wednesday and it was so Awesome we talked and laughed all night, and when we were getting ready to have a lesson Elder Hampton and I felt that we should just bare our Testimonies of the divinity of a Loving God and the Book Of Mormon. It turned into a very spiritual uplifting discussion, then Jodie shared her Testimony, which if you knew her whole story was Huge! Once we left Jodie turned to Sister Jeffs(the member) and said "Oh I like This Two". 

Reason I tell you this is because Jodie really really didnt' want to meet with the "Elders" and the Ward was nervous about her being able to progress towards Baptism. Aka the Ward didn't trust us... but this was a huge step for us because we gained the Wards trust and especially Jodie's!

Love Elder Palmer

Loosens band

Well it has been a crazy week. We have been so busy trying to meet the new ward since they combined our area with another ward and then having lessons and meetings we had no time to study even, I have been having to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon as I'm going to bed for studies. 

It is also interesting whitewashing in behind sisters because everyone says that they will miss the cupcakes and cookies that frequent their doorstep. I'll admit we aren't as cute as the sisters, I'll support that. But the Ward is awesome and the Bishop is so excited to Have Elders in the Ward. The La Mesa 1st and 2nd wards are power house wards with big youth programs and primary's. Not quite a Utah ward though.

So we are teaching this old man named Carl who is working towards a baptismal date we are only waiting for first presidency approval then he us good to go. I bring him up because he is a super kind old man that wouldn't hurt a fly but had a little mess up in his 20s that has haunted him his whole life. And he needs the Atonement just like all of us. He also is pretty much deaf so teaching him is interesting.

We have been running around a lot today for P-day and at almost every stop we have had somebody come up to us asking questions! And one guy (joe) that came up to us was a guy Elder Hampton met about two weeks ago, when he interrupted their drug deal... so Joe saw us today walking home from work and started talking to us. We ended up getting his information and having a really interesting chat about what we do and how we can help him deepen his conversion to Christ. 

Bishop Swalger of the La Mesa 1st ward is this super missionary focused Bishop! He sets up appointments for us thought the week to teach lesson at his hi to his friends and he tells us that every time we are at his home we have to leave him with a commitment and follow up with him on it....he has a full time job and has 7 kids. If you think you are to busy to  share the Gospel you are wrong. 

Had this pointed out to me By Elder Hampton.

17 But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.

                                    18 And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet, and I stood before my brethren, and I spake unto them again.

 That sometimes we pray to have our bonds burst but God doesn't not always answer the way we want or ask...some times he loosens our bonds instead of making them burst. 

Love Elder Palmer

La Mesa

Transfers!!! Welp my area was whitewashed/combined with another area due to the lack of missionaries in the mission. And I have been sent to the ward just north of us, La mesa 1st and 2nd ward. With Elder Hampton. I am pretty excited because it is a super solid area and is very coveted among missionaries. Sorry this is so short I am having a busy day

Trunky Mission

Haha so this is the last week of the transfer and I've said this before but we are losing 37 missionaries so... the mission is trunky pretty funny and my Companion Elder Farmer goes home this transfer too. However he is in denial of going home so he is doing good and we are still working. 

This week was a pretty normal week we taught a good amount of lessons. We have been teaching this Guy named John he is a pretty large man that chills in his wheel chair all day. Anyways he recent moved out of an assisted living home into a halfway home and he has "fallen in love" with a recent convert that we still visit back at the assisted living home. So he is always asking us for advice on relationships and trying to drag us into the middle of this fantasy...she doesn't know that they are dating. Anyways pretty interesting situation and he is a funny guy. 

One thing about John that is really cool is that when we first started meeting with him he refused to recognize the Book of Mormon as the Word of God it was "An add on to the Bible". Then he picked up the Book of Mormon and started reading it...and in his word he said "this is not an add into the bible this is the same Gospel, the same Christ the same spirit. And of course God speaks to all nations!" 

I love the converting power of the Book of Mormon. Anyone that sincerely reads it learns of its truth and clarity. 

We also help this lady move this week and nobody from our ward could help so we hauled all her stuff across town in or little Corolla and dropped it off at her place (that was in a sketchy area) so we thought we should stay and watch her stuff until she got there.(she took the bus)

Well we waited there for 1 1/2 hours just waiting until finally at 9:20 we had to leave to make curfew. The lady we helped just straight up disappeared...wouldn't  answer calls texts nothing the house was even locked. So we just bailed and hoped it all worked out lol.

Also found the greatest life Advice one can ever receive in the Book of Mormon

Alma37:37

"Counsel with the Lord in all they doings and he WILL direct thee for Good"

That easy.

I Love this work 

Love Elder Palmer

Elder Palmer's biking sweat marks

July 4th

July 4th🇺🇸 

We got to head in early for July fourth so we had some chicken that we burned really bad on the BBQ then played some Risk. So not to much but we did listen to the sound of thousands of fire works blowing up deep into the night. 

Nothing super crazy happened this week but it was still a pretty good week. We have started teaching this young man C who is literally a genius and he claims to be agnostic...funny boy we will see about that. Only problem is google is his must trusted source of truth. Which I find funny how nowadays we tell our kids as adults not to believe everything they see on the internet yet...they believe every bit of anti they read taking hear say for solid truth and forgetting that behind every article is an agenda. And if it is not of good report or brings feelings of love and peace it is not of God, the devil leaves us in a stupor of thought. 

Sorry this is short 

Love Elder Palmer

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!!!🇨🇦🎉

Being Canadian has its perks, there is a surprisingly decent amount of Canadians in San Diego so we are sure to connect and they take extra good care of me. Even had some Canadian candy and drinks given to us to celebrate.

This week was pretty great Daisy was baptized on Sunday and her whole family came. Only her mom is a member and others have been very sceptical of the church since day one, well they came to the baptism and really loved it! The spirit was definitely there, Billy, Destiny's BF openly admitted "I feel the spirit right now" and he even said "man I didn't know I was a Mormon" he had a ton of questions for us after the baptism we spent about an hour answering all his questions, and he agreed with all the doctrine and our answers. I love how when people give us an opportunity to teach and share just bit of truth their previous misconceptions of us are shattered and they begin to see that 1. We are normal people and 2. The gospel is simple and centered around Jesus 

We have a very unique message, the restoration and I love sharing it with people...there have been countless times that once we finished our discussions about the restoration many individuals will say "that makes a lot of sense, I was expecting to be confused the whole time"  I love this work it Makes perfect sense to a truly penitent and a willing heart. 

So San Diego has so many homeless around and a good amount of them are on something at any given moment so we were biking on a main road and we came to a red light at a major intersection and this homeless lady starts yelling at us from the corner of the street. (We are in the left turning lane) and we glance over a couple times to see what she wants then she starts coming at us!!! She starts running at us from the side of the road into traffic then the light turned green just in time as she was getting to us so we just start peddling like our lives depend on it. 

It would have been a scene for anyone to watch some crazy lady chasing two missionaries into the intersection. We sure laughed our heads off when we got to the other side to look back at her continuing to harass everyone walking by. Literally that kind of stuff happens on the daily in Lemon Grove. 

Love'n life

Elder Palmer