Being with Elder Enthusiastic is Sweet!

Hello! (: 

My mission now is asking that instead of sending letters to the mission office (3301 W. Gonzales Rd. Oxnard, CA 93036) to send letters to us DIRECTLY rather than through the mission office. They are trying to decrease the amount of mail coming into the mission office. My current address is:

2473 Vista Wood Circle #13 Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

This week was really good! I am loving my new companion, Elder Gerber. He is such a great missionary! He definitely is sincere about helping the investigators and less actives in this area. I have definitely seen that in him in the short time I've been with him. He is really upbeat and enthusiastic, which is awesome. I've never really had a companion that has been overly enthusiastic so it is really great! We had a great time coming up with zone goals this past week and we are excited to get them rolling.  We are doing really good though and the work is going great! 

Our investigator Alonso actually got "dragged" to church by his friend named Matt, who is not a member. MIRACLE! Alonso and Matt came to the family home evening we had as a ward this past Monday, which was a pool party. At first Matt didn't really want to be there, but he came into the backyard of the house where the pool was, and members started talking to both of them, and about 10 minutes later, members convinced Matt to go swimming... So he took off his shirt and went into the hot tub! Since then he has been happy to see us when he does, and he convinced Alonso to go to church yesterday. They showed up near the end of the 2nd hour and it was so good to see them there! 

Stephanie also came to church yesterday. We had a lesson with her right before church, and she told us how she doesn't really have a desire to investigate any more and feels like she simply keeps coming to church to keep her friends happy... It was kind of a sad lesson but the spirit was definitely there. We aren't completely sure if we should keep teaching her or not but our plan right now is to teach her everything about the church and see if that helps. She just feels frustrated because she has been reading and praying about the Book of Mormon but she doesn't feel as if she has gotten an answer. She doesn't know for sure if God is really there, which is also a hurdle she needs to get over, but we are doing our best to help her. 

Our investigator Ryan expressed desire to be baptized this week. He has special needs and I'm pretty sure the ward has come to the conclusion that he doesn't "need" baptism due to his condition but we've been talking about it with the ward council and we are thinking it may be good for him to feel like he is truly part of the church by coming every week and having a calling as well as having home teachers that could be assigned to him for the rest of his life. (:

In my studies this week I studied about light a lot because that is what our zone goals are based around, is being a light to others, and helping members be a light to their friends. It has been really cool studying how that light can be part of our countenances by living the Gospel and doing God's will. 

Thank you for all your love and prayers! It really means a lot to me. Have a splendid week (: 

Love,

Elder Teeples

Love Love Love the Temple! And....I got a new comp!

Hello  (: 

TRANSFERS ARE HERE!!!!! Crazy how fast time goes by! I have been praying for Keith and his surgery. Hopefully he recovers quick! I will be staying in Thousand Oaks with an Elder named Elder Gerber (yes, like the baby food (: ) I have served around him, and I am excited to be with him! Elder Welker is actually going to the Ventura 1st ward, which is the ward I was in, when I was in Ventura. But this week was awesome! The work has been going really well around here! Elder Welker and I are sad to be transferred away from each other, as we have come to be good friends, but he will do some great work in Ventura and for the missionaries there.

I was really impressed by the missionaries we live with this morning around 4 AM. One of them is the district leader over 12 Sisters O.O crazy. Last night, a sister called around 4 AM asking for a blessing. She had been experiencing some breathing problems and wanted a blessing as soon as possible. The whole situation was a complete miracle.  The Elders forgot to put their phone on sound last night, and left it on vibrate, but as the Sisters called early on in the morning, one of the Elders miraculously woke up to the vibrating phone. That was a miracle, because he usually doesn't even wake up to the alarm on full sound in the morning! And even the alarm to get up for exercises this morning he slept through it. But I was very impressed with their willingness to get up and sacrifice some of their sleeping time to minister to those Sisters, and this morning we received word from them that Sister was feeling better this morning. A true miracle, if I do say so myself.

Work-wise, this week was great. We started teaching Xinxing's girlfriend Qianqian (Anna)! That was a huge highlight of our week! In the past she has seemed really hesitant about going to church, and was skeptical about that, but we taught her for the first time this past Tuesday, and she told us that she wanted to know if God was really there! It was so great! We talked to her a lot about faith in that lesson, and in the lesson on Thursday. She said the closing prayer at the end of both lessons, and it was so great. They both made it to church yesterday, and it was awesome! They are headed down to San Diego this week and they said they might stop by the San Diego Temple.

We were also able to meet with Alonso. We kind of lost contact with him this week, because his phone is broken. We tried to go by a couple times each day, but couldn't catch him. Then last night we knocked on his door, because he didn't come to church, and he wasn't there... So we worked around his neighborhood and we actually ran into him walking his dog! Miracle. We had a lesson with him then, and we have an appointment with him tonight. 

We taught Luke this week as well. We talked with him about REALLY being committed to reading the Book of Mormon Stories book that we gave him, because he hasn't read it yet, unfortunately. He did, however, go down to the LA Temple with the ward for ward temple night on Thursday and he enjoyed that. 

We also taught Stephanie, and we had a really good lesson with her about faith and why we set baptismal dates as goals. it was a really good lesson and the fellowship was perfect. One of them left to Utah this week for school and the other one reaches out to her often, so it works great. She really is so humble and willing to learn it is great! She really has a strong desire to know this for herself so it is awesome.

In my studies I studied this article in the August 2013 Ensign called Worlds Without Number. It truly is amazing! It really puts into perspective just all of God's creations. That, along with going to the Temple on Thursday, has really helped me be humble and I really have learned a lot about submitting to God's will. The temple was soooooo great! I loved it (: I actually ran into somebody I went to high school with! So that was aweome.

Thank you for all your love and support! Have a wonderful week (: thank you for all that you do!  love and miss you!

Love,

Elder Teeples (: 

Priesthood blessing to calm a troubled heart.

Hello! (: 

Well this week was a lot better! At the end of my interview with President Felix, I received a blessing from him and it was amazing. The blessing touched my heart, and I really feel like I have been more effective in the work, especially with keeping motivated when opposition hits. I feel a lot better with everything (: 

So this week, we were pretty productive in the work. We were able to set our investigator Xingxing/Ben with a baptismal date of September 20th. He is doing really solid as always. He and his girlfriend, Anna, came to church yesterday. We had our regional YSA conference (which is where the surrounding YSA wards come and have a 2 hour long fast and testimony meeting, and eat afterwards). It was great to hear all the testimonies that were borne, and they both really liked it! I saw a lot of members from the Camarillo YSA ward. 

We saw our investigator Stephanie as well. We invited her to be baptized on September 27th, but we have received word from her fellowship that it has been overwhelming her a lot, just thinking and praying about it. So we are going to discuss that with her this week. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a great lesson! 

We had a lesson with our investigator Riley. We just stopped by Saturday night, and it was really good. She was going through a hard time, but we testified of the peace that can come through reading the Book of Mormon and having the spirit. It was really good and she learned a lot.

We made a lot of progress with our investigator Alonso. We set him with a baptismal date of September 27th, and we discussed the commitment it would take to be prepared for that day, and he seems to be committed. We have a lesson with him today and it should go well.

In my studies one principle that I have really found to be grateful for is the resurrection. I guess in my life, we have never really had to worry about disease or cancer in the family too much, until I heard about Jax. So I have really appreciated the knowledge of that principle in Alma 40:23. My family is quite bummed though. I also studied more about courage, repentance and the atonement. I read the story of the 2000 young warriors this morning, just looking to their examples of courage to see what I could learn. It always amazes me how these young men scared off these grown lamanite men, and I have found that it was because they were diligence in obedience to God's commandments and because they had courage. I plan to study more about courage this week!

Sorry this is shorter! Thank you for your love and support (: It is truly felt. Love and miss you! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Teeples! 

Elder Uchdorf says..."You can do it now!" So....I guess we can!

Hello! (: 

This week, the work went really well actually! We didn't get to go out and do a lot of finding, due to attending to our assignment as zone leaders, but we still picked up 4 new investigators this week which was a miracle! It was great (:

We taught a guy named Arnold at our dinner appointment this past Monday night. He is a really great guy and he has read about "20%" of the Book of Mormon. He is really open to learning about the Book of Mormon and how it came to be. He lives with one of the stake representatives from our YSA ward.

We started teaching a girl named Stephanie. She lives in Simi Valley, but wants to come to the Westlake YSA ward, because all of her fellowship is here. She really wants to find out if this is true for herself, and not for any other reason. She doesn't have too much of a religious background, but she is humble and willing to learn. We taught her the Plan of Salvation at a dinner appointment and she seemed to learn a lot from it. We are excited to help her find this for herself! She has some trials as we all do, and we believe the Gospel will really help her.

We taught our investigator Xingxing/Ben about Temples and Family History. He understands that it is important and during the closing prayer, he mentioned to Heavenly Father that he wanted to be baptized for his grandfather, so that was a cool moment! He is such a great investigator to teach because he is so sensitive to the spirit (: 

We taught our investigator Luke. We taught him about scripture reading and prayer, and he understood it pretty well. We aren't sure what to do with him... He seems to be more interested in the social aspect of the church, and puts the spiritual part to the side. So we are trying to set him up with a friend who will help him to start reading and praying on his own.

We found a person named Gabriel, who had actually talked to Sister missionaries up at San Jose State, as he was going through the orientation program, and had a return appointment with him. We taught him a quick restoration lesson, and invited him, as the Sisters did, to read the Book of Mormon, specifically the title page. He was super chill! 

On Saturday we met somebody named Kira. She was out washing her car, and I admit, I was hesitant to talk to her, (as she wasn't modest...) but Elder Welker was pretty set on talking to EVERYONE. She was actually really open to learning more and hearing more and we will be teaching her again soon. We had a really good conversation with her just about the church, and what we believe will happen after this life. She doesn't have too much of a religious background either so it was all kind of new to her. She was really nice and accepted a Book of Mormon , so we are excited to follow up with her!

Lastly, we contacted a referral named Clay Boers. He is not a member, but his dad is, and he actually served his mission her in the California Ventura Mission. He doesn't seem to be active but we had a great conversation with Clay, and got a return appointment with him. 

This week I studied a lot about the Atonement. It was quite amazing. I reviewed the talk by President Uchtdorf "You Can Do It Now!" Very encouraging. I would share more but I am running low on time. 

Thank you for all your love support and prayers! It really means so much to me! I love and miss you tons! Have a great week (: I will keep the family in my prayers with their challenges.

Love,

Elder Teeples (: 

Becoming Christlike is a process.....not an event.

Hello! (:

It has been a really good week! We had two exchanges, one with Elder Kleinman and Elder Lee, the assistants, and one with Elder Rasband and Elder De Costa. Elder Rasband is a district leader in our zone, who we actually live with. They were both really good exchanges and I really learned a lot. I really love Elder Lee, and I feel really blessed that I got to go on another exchange with him this transfer! We went on an exchange last transfer and we saw many miracles, and we saw lots of miracles this past Wednesday. I have really come to be good friends with Elder Lee! He is a really hard worker, and he is such a solid missionary. We connect a lot, and we can be open with each other. We talked to a lot of people and had a lot of success. It was a really fruitful, and productive exchange!  I went with Elder Rasband on an exchange on Saturday and it went really good. Not as productive, but I got to know Elder Rasband really well. He's a really good missionary and he is fun to be around! He doesn't like being in awkward situations, so we talked about that a lot. We are always awkward as missionaries! It's great! I have come to know how to have fun in awkward situations, but I guess some other missionaries struggle with that still. We both learned that we could have an increase of charity for those that we interact with each and every day. 

Our investigator Ben came to church yesterday with his girlfriend, Anna! That was a huge miracle! She hasn't been to fond of him coming to church and being away from her. We were really excited about that! She was hesitant to stay for the 3rd hour, since she would be separated from Ben, and she doesn't know too much English, but the members just swarmed her and loved her, and she went to relief society and had a great time.  We taught him a couple times this week, and he is still setting his sights on baptism.

We taught our investigator Luke this week as well, the one you met at Mayra Clarke's baptism. We taught the Plan of Salvation and it went really well. He is fun to teach, because we have to come up with creative ways to keep him involved, so it's definitely a growing experience for us as well.

Elder Welker is doing really good. He really is so focused, and such a consecrated missionary. I am willing to say that he is probably one of the most obedient and consecrated missionaries in this mission. He moves quite swiftly, which is a good thing, but I feel at times that it is hard for me to keep up with him sometimes. I feel as if I am burning out. I love this work, and I love the Lord, but I just feel like it's hard for me to stay motivated... I really learning how to cope with stress, and just pushing through hard times. 

In my studies I focused a lot on Christlike attributes, because I feel like I need to work on those a lot. I love chapter 6 of Preach my Gospel. I love the little green box at the end of the chapter, "remember this," which basically is a little summary of the whole chapter. It talks about how becoming like Christ is a lifelong process, and that it can't be learned all at once. It is really significant to me that it is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ that we CAN become Christlike, and that it is a process. It is more of a journey than a task. 

Thank you for all your love and support! You are constantly in my prayers (: Love and miss you lots! 

Love,

Elder Teeples

 

Check out my mission's new blog here:   http://thecaliforniaventuramission.blogspot.com

Great week to have a birthday.

Hello (:

This week was great! Thanks again for the package! It has brought much happiness (:

Ben came to church yesterday!! He is doing so well! He let us know this past week that nothing is going to stop him from being baptized. It is so cool seeing somebody who didn't really have a belief in God not to long ago have such a strong testimony of him. His prayers are so sincere that it makes me want to pray better! We taught him the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, pray often, study the scriptures, and keep the Sabbath Day Holy this week. It was a productive week for his progress! He has the missionary fire too. A member in our stake is housing two Chinese students for about a month and he wants to share the Gospel with them so bad. So we will see how that goes! 

We taught our investigator Erick. He wasn't able to make it to church today but we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and why it is important. We set him with a baptismal date of August 9th. He is doing really good. He has some word of wisdom issues, but nothing that can not be overcome. 

We came up with a creative way to teach our investigator Luke. He has a short attention span, so we had to keep him really interactive with the lesson. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we reviewed the lesson afterwards and he seemed to retain the majority of it. We also watched a couple videos that would keep his attention, so it went well.

Our investigator Nolan is doing good. We had a few lessons with him this week and taught him about keeping the Sabbath Day holy and reading the Book of Mormon and praying everyday. We are mainly just trying to get him some friends that will consistently invite him out to activities.

My birthday was really good! We just continued to work hard, and we got a lot done! The other Elders that we are living with made breakfast and it was really good (: So it was a good birthday! And I forgot to mention what I did on the 4th of July in my last letter... haha it was spent doing a lot of paperwork... unfortunately! But we got to get out and talk to a few people so it was great!

This week I studied about receiving the spirit/light of Christ, and how we can receive that spirit/light through our righteous works, meet for repentance. I guess it all comes down to "by their fruits ye shall know them." If their works are good, that will definitely show, and not necessarily just their works, but their attitude toward their work. I figured that I could be exactly obedient, but if I didn't have a positive attitude about it, it wouldn't mean much at all. So I've been trying to have a better attitude about everything! It really helps.

Well! Sorry this is a bit shorter. But I hope you have a great week! Thanks for all the pictures of the fam (: Everybody looks so much different! Love and miss ya lots! Talk to ya soon (:

Love,

Elder Teeples!

Got another baptismal date..Wahooo!

Hello (:

This week went really well! We had a productive meeting with the stake presidency yesterday morning. We are going to start coordinating more with the high councilmen over missionary work every week by phone. We should begin to see good results from that. (: Hasten the work!

As goes for investigators, Elder Welker and I were excited to have our investigator Xing Xing, or Ben, attend church yesterday. He is a foreign exchange student from China going to a university out here. His baptismal date is for July 26th and he got up and bore his testimony in the meeting! What?!?! It was amazing! He can't speak much English which makes it even better. (: He uses such simple terms and bore testimony how he knows God lives and that Heavenly Father has help him overcome smoking. It was so great! We had a good lesson with him this week and he asked about the sacrament, and why everybody prays, and we explained to him what the sacrament symbolized, and he understood, and yesterday during the sacrament we looked over and he was folding his arms and bowing his head. Such a great experience!

We also saw our investigator Nolan. He is really great! We taught him about scripture study and prayer and he committed to praying and reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We are excited to follow up with him.

We had a lesson with our investigator Luke. Elder Welker and I are trying to find a new teaching style for him. He has a short attention span, and doesn't really soak in the lessons we teach. Regardless we read the introduction and the title page of the Book of Mormon and he accepted a baptismal date of August 9th.

We taught our investigator Justin. He seemed really grateful for the visit. He has had a hard past few months. He has read the Book of Mormon a few times all the way through, and he feels like it is true, and even defends it at points.

He also wants to get other members opinions on it. After the lesson our WML called him and invited him to the temple trip the ward was having on Tuesday. Our WML is so great! so on top of everything! He was really grateful for the call and is going to try to get Tuesday off work (:

We saw a miracle and found a pretty prepared person in Moorpark, who is from Bakersfield. It was cool, because Elder Welker had a prompting to go see this potential investigator in Moorpark after we had already started heading back to Thousand Oaks. The potential wasn't there, but his dad was there, and his dad's brother was interested in learning more. So that was a cool tender mercy from the Lord!

Elder Welker is great. He really does his best to be obedient in ALL things. Seriously. He is the most obedient companion I've ever had. He takes obeying with exactness to a new level. It is a definite strength, but he does seem to get down on himself pretty often though, and I am trying to help him through that. But he seems to be doing good. We are strengthening our relationship day by day. 

In my studies this week, I continued studying 1 Nephi 5 from an institute class we went to. It is where Sariah is scared that Lehi and her's sons have probably been killed or have perished after approximately a month, and she calls Lehi a visionary man. Instead of contending with Sariah, he shows humility, and says that he knows he is a visionary man, but because of that he knows he has "obtained the promised land." It is cool that he says that in the past tense, although at that time they were in the wilderness. I related it to my patriarchal blessing, and how I have already "obtained" those blessings if I remain faithful.

Well! Thank you for the birthday money (: I really appreciate all your love and support! Have a great week! love and miss you! 

Love,

Elder Teeples (: