Meeting a Family Who Moved from Fresno

     This week flew by. It is hard to think if anything exciting actually happened. We just worked and worked. Oh, I just thought of two things that were kind of exciting.

 

     First, the Hispanic young man that we've been teaching accepted a baptismal date for mid August. He however was not at church on Sunday. Hopefully his parents aren't keeping him from progressing. We helped them move two blocks North and the Spanish missionaries talked to his father a little.

 

     Also at church two Sudays ago I had a man walk up to me and say, "Elder Rindlisbacher? The Rindlisbacher? Where are you from?" Then I recognized him. It was Brother Palmer, Scotty's dad. I guess he goes by Scott now. They said that he is working and spent some time off at school, but wasn't planning on serving a mission. Sister Palmer gave me a hug before I could tell her she couldn't. It was an interesting experience. I can hardly remember them.

 

     Other than that, nothing is really going on. We have a pretty small teaching pool, and it seems like every time we find someone good to teach they get scared by Anti, or move. But the Lord's work will move on. I love y'all a lot.

 

Love, Elder Rindlisbacher

Investigator Inviting Friend

We had another fairly uneventful week. It has been really hot, and it doesn't seem to be letting up at all. Every once in a while a giant cloud will pass over and we just pray that it'll drop rain, but it doesn't. I'm not sure the water would help that much anyway. I think it would just half way evaporate and then it would be even more warm. But I hear in mid-August the weather starts to simmer down a bit, and that's not too far off. I think the bike will be a lot more enjoyable in the fall.

     We found a young man about a month ago, and we taught him twice last week. He keeps on saying things that makes since. He has been reading and praying. We just need to get him out to church. I think that he believes it is true. Hopefully his parents will allow him to be baptized if he chooses to. He is 16, and his parents are Catholic.

     We also got in touch last week with a man that had taken a Book of Mormon about 3 months ago. He invited us back another evening and when we got there he said "Is it ok if I invite my friend? He had some questions as well." We thought that for sure it was going to be a Bible bash. I'm not nervous about those, but they are a whole lot more unproductive. Luckily it wasn't. They had very sincere questions, and we were able to answer a lot of them with the Book of Mormon. Hopefully we can turn their curiosity into a desire to know.

     Last night we taught a lady that we've been working with. Her husband is completely opposed to her meeting with us, and it also sounds like he is abusive. She is trying to find work so that she can leave him with her son and live somewhere else. It is really sad. But she loves the Book of Mormon. We had a very spiritual lesson. There were tears everywhere. Hopefully we can continue to help her see the blessings that would come by following the Savior's example.

     We went to visit one of our eternal investigators named Alex. He is a 450 pound black man. He is a disabled veteran, some heart problem. He lives off of the government and has 9 big screen TVs in his house. We go over and usually just share a thought with him and challenge him to be baptized. He keeps telling us he is waiting on a calling from God. But anyways, when we were visiting him he was really feeling sick. He was heaving and almost threw up. So he asked us to run to the store for him and pick him up some medicine. We road our bikes about a mile to CVS and got the medicine. When we got back he said, "They must have been really busy."  We said, "Not really, but we were on bikes." He thought we had a car, so now he loves us. He sure is a funny guy. He is excited about the Lord.

     Other than that, nothing too exciting is happening. Please pray for our investigators: Matt Humble, Chris, Jeff, Jeff & Amy, Jorge, Caryl, and Alex. I love y'all.

Love Elder Rindlisbacher,

Thank y'all so much for the package. The cookies were a little destroyed, but they still taste good.

Hitting the Wall

Well another week down. You guys in your emails sounded like you were trying to counsel me about staying in the same area with the same companion for another transfer. That's silly. I'm soo excited about it. Elder Whittier is an amazing missionary. We'll probably be friends for life. we are seeing success here in the form of baptisms. I am really enjoying myself for the most part.

Things really are great, but I am at an interesting place in the mission. In three days I will have been out for 8 months. That is a long time and looking back at it, it truly has been a long time. Looking forward I see another 16 months which seems like a considerable amount of time and it worries me a bit. Some people call this point in time the wall. I am currently trying to decide how I will maneuver up, over, under, or around it. I haven't got it figured out yet, but I have not lost hope. Lesser men than I have finished their missions. I can definitely do it. It is just that every once in a while we will hear a Beatles song playing in a passing car and I will want it soo bad.

We had a pretty good week. We are working on getting our teaching pool back up right now. We are really only teaching 2 people that have a real desire to get baptized and sooner than later they will be and then who will we teach?  We we have been tracting (door to door work) a ton and praying harder.

We set a baptismal date with a young man we have been working with named Chris. He is the grandson of some members in the ward. He is excited. We just want to make sure that he has a solid testimony before he gets baptized. He is going on vacation for two weeks and then two Sundays later we will baptize him.

No matter the trials, the Lord's work will roll on. I'm happy to be a part of it.

Love,

Elder Rindlisbacher

P.S. Cassi, if you wreak my GEO I will be very sad. Make sure you know how to drive that manual before you leave this fall. Also remember to keep it well maintained every 4-5 thousand change the oil. I kinda really want it back when I get home. And no silly pink paint or anything.

Grateful for Blessings

     Well another 6 weeks has flown by. Last Saturday we got our transfer call. Both Elder Whittier and I will be staying in the Fossil Ridge ward. I think I'm a bit more excited than he is. He has served here for 4 and a half months and by the end of the transfer it will be 6. That's a quarter of the mission. After we got the call we had a talk about the few little things that we could do in order to make this next transfer a little better. Perfection is a process and we're not done yet.

     At the beginning of the transfer we baptized a young man by the name of X-Zavier. He had been staying with his grandparents who are recent converts. The day after his baptism he moved to his mom's for the summer and we weren't able to have him confirmed. This week his grandma let us know that he would be over that Saturday. So we took him and played basketball at the church and had a little chat. We invited him to church the next day, and asked if there was anything we could do to help him get there. He showed up and was confirmed. It was great. It felt great to know that the ordinance we had performed was complete.

     Last Friday I had a really neat experience. I was preparing my backpack for the day. I noticed I had my camera in it and I thought, "Great, I want to have a picture with the family that we are visiting." Then, I had the distinct feeling that I needed to take it out of my bag and keep it in the apartment for the day. We went and made our visits, and then we started heading home. We decided to wrap up some tracting (door to door work) that we had started earlier. Then it started to rain, and rain, and rain. It was probably the hardest rain I've seen, and we were 2 miles from the apartment. We hopped on our bikes and headed back. The passing cars splashed waves over our heads and at one point we were up to mid calf in the water while peddling. I had a blast. Upon arriving home I noticed that everything in my bag was soaked. It helped me realize that the Lord is protecting me. It was awesome.

     Our teaching pool has dried up quite a bit, but we have a few investigators that are progressing well. We are teaching the grandson of a member of the ward. This week we left him with a soft baptismal commitment that he agreed to. We are also working with the sister of a recent convert. This week we showed her The Restoration DVD. Afterward we asked her what she thought and she told us it was amazing. It was great.

     Elder Whittier and I also have a challenge going this transfer. We are seeing who can loose the most weight. We weighed in on Tuesday and we will weigh in every week until the transfer is over. Whoever has lost the most amount by the end of the transfer will get to keep the scale that we bought. Also the looser has to buy the winner a ticket to Disneyland when we get home. We are both excited. I think it will be fun.

     I love y'all keep on keepin on

Love

Elder Rindlisbacher

Answer to Brother Humble's Prayer

You are probably wondering why you didn't receive an email this week. Well here's the story. It is the morning of Prep-Day (Preparation Day). After a thorough cleaning of the apartment, we decided we'd get our emailing and shopping done first thing so we could go and play with our district. When we got downstairs and into our care we turned the key and "click" "click" "click" -- dead battery. After about an hour of runnin' around like a chicken with it's head cut off we got a jump and headed to the store. After arriving back at home we drove to the library which was conveniently closed until the fifth. So we were like, "No problem, we'll email from the apartment office."  When we got back we logged on. I got on first. No email yet, so I let Elder Whittier go. He wrapped it up pretty fast, and then people were waiting to use the computer. So we decided to try later. Later  rolled around and we went back to the office. After waiting for a guy, I hopped on. I typed in the URL and pressed enter. It loaded sooooo slow. After multiple attempts and about 15 minutes I decided it wasn't worth the stress it was causing. So, I resolved to write by hand this week.

This week was an awesome week. We had some really cool experiences, and got a new mission president.

We have very limited miles because we are in a bike area but have a car. It was the end of the month and we had almost no miles left so we rode bikes this week. Part of a hurricane hitting the coast sent some storms this way so the weather was crazy this week. It rained and poured on Monday and the rest of the week has been a mix of rain when the clouds are over us and hot when they aren't.

Last Friday we decided to go visit Brother Humble. He has one of the strongest testimonies I've ever heard. He is active in his calling, and participates in everything at church. Brother Humble is just not baptized. For years he has struggled with an addiction to cigarettes. Last week we had visited him while on exchange and talked to him about quitting. He has the desire, but is scared of failure and doesn't want a lot of help. We were going by Friday to drop off pictures of Christ's baptism to remind him of his goal. When we knocked on the door he answered. He looked surprised but excited to see us. he invited us in. After visiting for awhile he began to tear up. He explained to us that his daughter was having a rough time and needed a blessing. He didn't have home teachers right now and didn't know who to call. He decided to pray. He told us that he asked Heavenly Father to send priesthood holders. When he got off of his knees he heard a knock at the door. It was us. We gave his daughter a blessing and then him a blessing. Having such a direct confirmation that I'm doing the Lord's work was amazing.

Saturday was also great. We baptized a girl named Mikaylah. She is 14. We're now trying to teach her parents. They have testimonies, especially her mom, but they aren't married and aren't living the Word of Wisdom.

On Wednesday we had a Meet the President meeting. President Sagers and his family seem like great people. He has a 16 year old son and 19 year old daughter with him. He told us we were allowed to talk to his daughter but that was it! He spent 25 years working for CES (Church Education System) and is very well acquainted with the scriptures. President Thurston was very business oriented and number focused. It seems like President Sagers focus will be to make us all better teachers. I'm excited to get to know him better.

I love the Lord. I know I'm doing His work. I know the atonement is real and I love teaching people about it.

I love y'all very much.

Love,

Elder Rindlisbacher

P.S.  Whether you think you can or your can't, you're right.

A New Mission President

     You are probably wondering why you didn't receive an email this week. Well here's the story. It is the morning of Prep-Day (Preparation Day), and after a thorough cleaning of the apartment we decided we'd get our emailing and shopping done first thing so we could \go and play with our district. When we got down stairs and into our car we turned the key and "click" "click" "click" --- dead battery. After about an hour of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off we hot a jump and headed to the store. After arriving back at home we drove to the library which was conveniently closed until the fifth. So, we were like "no problem, we'll email from the apartment office." When we got back we logged on. I got on first. No email yet, so I let Elder Whittier go. He wrapped it up pretty fast, and then people were waiting to use the computer so we decided to try later. Later rolled around and we went back to the office. After waiting for a guy I hopped on. I typed in the URL and pressed enter. It loaded so slow. After multiple attempts and about 15 minutes I decided it wasn't worth the stress it was causing so I resolved to write by hand this week.
     This week was an awesome week. We had some really cool experiences, and got a new mission president.
     We have very limited miles because we are in a bike area in a car. It was the end of the month and we had almost no miles left so we rode bikes this week. Part of a hurricane hitting the coast sent some storms this way so the weather was crazy this week. It rained and poured on Monday and the rest of the week has been a mix of rain when the clouds are over us and really hot when they aren't.
      Last Friday we decided to go visit Brother Humble. He has one of the strongest testimonies I've ever heard. He is active in his calling, and participated in everything at church. Brother Humble is just not baptized. For years he has struggled with an addiction to cigarettes. Last week we had visited him while on exchange and talked to him about quitting. He has the desire, but is scared of failure and doesn't want a lot of help. We were going by Friday to drop off pictures of Chris's baptism to remind him of his goal. When we knocked on the door he answered. He looked surprised but excited to see us. He invited us in. After visiting for a while he began to tear up. He explained to us that his daughter was having a rough time and needed a blessing. He didn't have home teachers right now and didn't know who to call. He decided to pray. He told us that he asked Heavenly Father to send priesthood holders. When he got off of his knees he heard a knock at the door. It was us. We gave his daughter a blessing and then him a blessing. Having such a direct confirmation that I'm doing the Lord's work was amazing.
     Saturday was also great. We baptized a girl named Makaylah. She is 14. We're now trying to teach her parents. They have testimonies, especially her mom, but they aren't married and aren't living the Word of Wisdom.
      On Wednesday we had a Meet the President meeting. President Sagers and his family seem like great people. He has a 16 year old son and 19 year old daughter with him.  He told us we were allowed to talk to the daughter, but that was it!  He spent 25 years working for CES (Church Education System) and is very well acquainted with the scriptures. President Thurston was very business oriented and very number focused. It seems like President Sagers focus will be to make us all better teachers. I'm excited to get to know him better.
      I love the Lord. I know I'm doing his work. I know the atonement is real and I love teaching people about it.
     I love y'all very much.

Love,
Elder Rindlisbacher

P.S. Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.