I got a new Job

 New area, New me. Not actually lol- it's still the same me. However, I did get a new area.

After spending a year and a half in the same apartment, going to the same Walmart, the same Wendy's, same church building– I'm finally in a new city. It's called…. Saratoga

I cover a big english ward that's all white people (hoping to get some भारत in there) as well as a massive ysa ward that covers a third of the mission (why have all my areas been unmanageably massive?)

New apartment is nice, there's a friend growing in the sink so I'll have to take care of that…

We have a sick gym, so your brothers getting buff. We have like…no food. 

Anyways. We went out and worked and….wow. Elder Millard is a legend. He is running after people and yelling across the road and doing whatever it takes to talk to these people. And when he does- they listen. I listen to cuz I'm tryna learn from this guy. 

He only weighs 120 pounds, he eats more than me, he was a soccer referee, he wants to be a mechanical engineer, He's from Bountiful. Pretty cool.

We've been running into Indians every day. I get to use my Hindi often. I haven't been able to use ASL yet though…

Being a zone leader is cool. I have 4 elders and 7 sisters… so this will be fun.

I set a goal to memorize 1 scripture every day. I didn't think it was possible…but so far it's working! It's been super cool to have one scripture every day that's just the theme of the day. 

I'm still reminding myself this is a new area and it's weird. Nothing here is familiar, it's all new and strange. It's super exciting but also really stressful. After 21 months this is like… my first time actually getting transferred.

So I don't know what to write lol.

However, this week I finished Job. I feel sorry for everyone who hasn't had a similar experience to mine with Job. I don't know how anybody could not love reading Job. Anybody who has read it and understood half of it won't ever really need to ask “why do bad things happen to good people?” unless maybe they go through a really tough trial. Then maybe they can ask.

Anyways. Here's one really cool piece of treasure from Job. 

Remember In the beginning he had 7 sons and 3 daughters.

 A house blows over and kills them all..a bunch of other awful things happen to Job. His friend tease him for like 3 rounds of silly debate. God speaks through a whirlwind and tells all of them (including Job) to repent and then all of Job's blessings are doubled. 

He ends up with twice as many camels, sheep, donkeys, oxen, and so on. 

However in 42:13 we see he got 7 sons and 3 daughters…..? What? 

Why not 14 and 6?

Well. It's because families are forever. Even though the other 7 are dead- he DOES now have 14 sons. Even though the 3 daughters are dead he DOES now have 6 daughters.

So it was doubled. 

Pretty cool right?

Email me please.

Keep the fire burning (Levi 6:13)

Elder Owens

Cups

 

Had exchanges with my zone leaders. Got some good juggling tips. We visited ine of their friends who has been being taught since before I got to Fremont 17 months ago, Eddie Loza. I told him straight up it's time to get baptized buddy. We set a goal for it to happen before I come back to visit.

Every day this week I have said bye to a special family or friend. During the last 17 months I have come to love many many of the members. It's gonna be really hard to leave them. But I already know I'll be back. 

On Monday we found ourselves in Gilroy and I remembered the aslders had a friend down there. Gilroy is super far south and there are just a few friends there. So we asked them if they could send us her info and we'd go try and teach her! It all worked out and I met Natalie! She was so sweet! We invited her to be baptized and she said ya! So that was actually epic. Turns out I'm still a legend with ASL.

On Sunday I got to share my testimony in the central Park Ward one last time. Prior to the bearing of testimonies, Brother Jarman from the bishopric had said “please keep it to 2 minutes”

And miraculously, somebody's phone alarm went off while i was testifying and so i was like.”oh, is my 2 minutes up?” It was amazing. 

This week a member, sister carr, helped me realize what “my cup runneth over” in the 23rd psalm may actually mean by the way she talked about her trials.

“5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

We anoint peoples heads with oil to give them blessings- we give people blessings when they are struggling. That's the first part.

Note that in the Old Testament Samuel and Elijah announced men to become kings.

Levies were anointed to work in the tabernacle. So it didn't always mean what it meant today. However, the “cup” is also important. So far there are 3 significant cups I can think of.

Joseph of Egypts cup that he tested his brothers with in Genesis 44

The cup that Nehemia used as the king's cup-bearer before becoming a prophet in Nehemiah 1

And most importantly…the bitter cup.

“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Luke 22:42

This was the cup of all pain, misery, sadness, despair- everything bad about life.

When you read other psalms and recognize this is David writing it makes sense this could be David's bitter cup. During the first half of his life, the king who was also his best friend's father was trying to kill kill him nonstop, he faced the stresses and trials of becoming a king, was always involved in a war of some kind for the promised land, after being one of the most righteous men ever- he fell and nearly destroyed his soul by murdering and breaking the sacred law of chastity, his son, Absalom passionately hated him died trying to kill him. 

That's a pretty bitter cup.

It is also notable that the pslam immediately before is all about the final moments of the savior's life, including THE bitter cup.

The whole message behind the 23rd psalm is “The lord is my Shepherd” He leads me! He helps me repent! He comforts me! He takes care of me! Because of Him I can have peace and joy! My connection with Him makes everything ok!

so I makes sense 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies

Jesus, you have a plan, you have a feast ready for me even though I am surrounded by trials and difficulties and temptation

Thou anointest my head with oil [because/despite] my cup runneth over

You are blessing me/ calling me to do some great work even though my life is full of (overflowing with) trials and mistakes.

Idk

Those are my thoughts. Maybe David is looking down like “cool thought but no, that's wrong” or maybe he's thinking I finally got it right. Idk

Lemme know

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Weinersnitchel

 (This is my 4th time trying to send this)

We Picked up a random office chair off the side of the street and it has now been to Union City, Gilroy, Santa Cruz, and San Jose. 

Needles to say, it's been an eventful week.

We met with our stake president, President Hancock, before and after General conference and we have reached the conclusion we will be starting 2 Hindi Groups. We selected some potential group leaders and THE BALL IS ROLLING FASTER THAN IT EVER HAS BEEN.

Let me just rant for a sec.

Since I arrived to Fremont and met a indian lady in our ward, Saraswati, since going contacting and going entire days only talking to indians, since walking around in Fremont and breathing 1% turmeric air with every breath- I have wanted to do something like this for the Indians. 

I started learning hindi and the more I learn the more miracles I see. After 8 months of doing it on the side we got an official hindi companionship. Now after over 150 days of serving as a Hindi elder we have plans set. Real solid plans. It'll still be about 2 months before these groups are set up and group leaders are called. 

But this is a miracle. This is the beginning of the future of the church in the bay area. 

Anyways 

General conference was super good. We did a ton of it with the zone and had a mega breakfast. 

On Tuesday we got up at 5 and drove to Santa Cruz to film so testimonies In Hindi! I have been practicing mine for so long and I still messed up. But I decided it was good enough and felt very mature. So mine will be on Facebook soon. We did some at the beach and some in the redwood forest. Super fun. 

 ️ Today we attended the temple and it was just so good. I got to help one of the Deaf Elders during the endowment and it was super stressful because none of the workers knew what was going on and I didn't either. So it was all Interpreted on the spot and they kept skipping or repeating stuff. But we all got through in the end and it was ok. 

So like- I haven't had a chance to study from the Old testament because we've just been sooo busy and I've had to prioritize other things over the Old testament. So

I guess as you study section 109 because president Nelson Told us too…also read 1 kings 8 because it's also a dedicatory prayer.

Silly Hama

 First off, please check out my good friend's Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/28i9MTT2FW1FnGmjkUdBLL?si=_XS7cnQzTEWpI82M6Ae3hQ

This is Elder Francom. He is one of my best friends I've made out here. He's super tall and so funny and just a blast to be with. Plus he's an incredibly talented musician. Please listen to some of his songs!

This week we had a giant ASL missionary Devo where they told us a little bit about how ASL missionaries can now be transferred between certain missions. Brother President Smith (my previous mission President) kinda gave the whole presentation so that was neat.

Then we made an Easter Video- start to finish in 1 day. Very stressful but luckily I have Indians and sister missionaries to help me. 

On Easter Sunday we had lunch with a somewhat new-to-the-ward family, the Johnstons. In December she gave a talk about our Christmas gift to Jesus that had significantly struck me and helped me to take some steps I needed to. This lunch was kind of my first time ever talking with her so I let her know that her talk kinda changed my life. 

She was a little shocked- she thought she did awful and was amazed I remembered anything or could have even learned anything.

I know that giving our sins and pains and frustrations to Jesus Christ is good! It's what we're supposed to do. It's at the top of his Christmas list. When we give our garbage and darkness to Jesus it shows that we trust him and that we love him. If we love Jesus enough to repent then naturally we will love him enough to be a true disciple. True repentance is how we come to know who the savior really is…and he wants us to know Him.

So. That was a really special moment. I'm glad I got to thank her.

I went on Exchange to the Chinese area. On our way out of my apartment some lady yelled at us to help her find her dog. So we did. We ran into an Indian couple who had the dog, told them we had just met the owner a few minutes ago and then led them to each other. Pretty cool miracle. Plus I spoke hindi to the couple and they almost gave up the ghost. We actually had a decent conversation! The exchange was actually so good. Elder Tien is a legend and he inspires me to be better.

We dropped some letters off to some sisters in the zone and we got there at just the right time. They had a service earlier where they got like over 3000 dollars worth of beauty products. So we each got a little goodie bag with all sorts of stuff. So now Elder Lewis and I both smell like women.

This week I read Esther, which means ‘star’ in Persian. It's a pretty neat story. One lesson I would share with you all is the foolishness of Haman. Haman was incredibly successful and had every reason to be happy and pleased with his life. However he decided to focus on everything that was wrong with his life-which was literally like…1 thing…Mordechai.

He let 1 person destroy his joy and peace….and ultimately….kill him.

You'll have to read the story, it's in….Esther. 

Mordechai is kind of an example of the opposite. He was surrounded by non-jewish people who persecuted and hated him yet he never let go of his faith. Even when other Jews would bow to Haman-he never did. When the awful news was posted all around saying all jews would be destroyed- everybody just cries and mourns. Of course Mordechai does too- but he was the only to ACT. He strategically mourns outside the palace so he can start a series of messages to Esther. He gives Esther the charge to talk to King Thesaurus. (That part is a joke. You'll have to read it to see his real name)

Haman is killed.

Mordecai becomes the king's right hand man.

Basically, don't let small things that don't actually matter and that you can't control anyways bother you!

And when everything goes wrong and life is awful, do something, act with faith! Be wise and never give up. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/DYM8hzqfMfgxUFWZ7