Best Week in San Gabriel!

Dear family and friends,

What an amazing week this has been!!! First we had a Noche de Hogar with some members of our ward and then we went and contacted some referrals.  Tuesday we were contacting people and knocking on doors and then had a lesson with Sylvia. We also got invited to a birthday party for a member's three year old daughter! We also had a lesson with Marta, Maritza, Marlene and Mayra a family that we have been teaching for awhile. We watched Finding Faith in Christ and they all liked it but thought that it was a little sad.  Wednesday we went and ate with Hermano Mercado we also did some more contacting and finding and then had dinner with some members.  We then went to mutual and found out we were getting a new ward mission leader which is good because our old one was working all the time and could never meet with us.  Thursday we had a contacting day and we taught a recent convert and had a cook out with Maritza, Marlene and Mayra it was pretty fun! We were trying to contact Juan for a visit but he was still at work.  Friday we went to Hermano Mercado's and he had a new investigator for us! It's his sister, her name is Nati she is pregnant and is staying with her brother right now and is very interested in the church and the change that her brother has made! Then we had contacting and finding and weekly planning. Then Saturday we taught Arturro and went contacting and tracting. We also had a situation where the church was flooding so we had to take care of that but thankfully it got resolved! We talked to Juan and he said he would come to church on Sunday! Then we had dinner with members and then  Hermano Delossantos had 2 new investigators for us! His brother and his wife they are going through a hard time so they really could use the healing power that the gospel could give them! Sunday Juan, Nati, and Hermano Delossantos' brother and sister came to church it was really amazing and a miracle! Especially because we haven't brought any investigators to church in awhile it was soooo amazing!!! We then had lunch with members and talked to other members went contacting and finding and talked to a family that's been having a hard time because their daughter has Lupus. Anyway, we were trying to help them and she is getting better day by day! Yesterday we went hiking to a waterfall and did normal preparation day things. Then we had to find and find because our 6 and 7 appointments canceled! We went by a family in our ward and shared a spiritual thought with them! Thank you everyone for your prayers!! I know they really helped to get our investigators to church this week!! I love you all and I hope that you all have a great week!!!

Love, Elder Reisner

It's always sunny in San Gabriel!

Hello family and friends!

This week has been another good one but since I LOVE

missionary work I don't think there can be a 

bad week :-)Monday we taught a lesson and did some

finding. Tuesday we had a great meeting with

President Becerra! He is a great man and I am so
privileged to have him as a Mission President. He

just opens up the scriptures in ways that just make

them more meaningful and impactful!Also, he gave

us some good contacting council. When we are contacting
people in the streets and knocking on doors he said ask

them a question that gets them thinking. Even tell them

sometimes you may not be interested in our message but

what would you think if I had the answers to the things

that keep you up at night? Powerful questions that make

you think and get people interested! It was really super
great! We then used the advice and found some good

potentials that day and also worked with some members.

Wednesday we ate with members. We are trying to work with

members in our ward better and people in English wards that

speak Spanish. Then we had a tour and it was a 2 hour lesson

with investigators!! It was a good one thankfully it definitely

didn't seem like 2 hours though!  It wasn't supposed to be so

long but they had a TON of questions and the members that were

helping us out had a lot of good things to say!  Wednesday we

just did a lot of finding and that's about it for that day!

Friday was a good day we did weekly planning and taught 4

lessons and had a new investigator which hardly ever happens

on Friday!! Saturday we went by members and potential

investigators and less actives we were also trying to contact

our investigators to come to church on Sunday.  Sunday we made

plans to get our investigators to come to church. We were going

to ride the bus with one and he left before we got there. The

other investigators were getting ready but apparently not for

church. That was sad :-( We ate with some members and celebrated

an Hermanas birthday. Then we had a lesson with a new investigator

Maria and went by some less active members. So that's all for now!!
Love, Elder Reisner

Pictures Came later...

L.A. Temple

Me on exchanges with Elder Larson

Cake? Not sure who the missionary is with him

Good Times in San Gabriel

Dear everyone, 

(Elder Reisner said that he remembered his cord today to send us some pictures but either he forgot to attach them or download them!  I will remind him again and hopefully we can have some pictures next week!)

This last week was super great!! The Noche de Hogar on Monday where we did a live reenactment of Lehi's dream was a BIG SUCCESS!!! Everyone came there were more people there then there were at church!! We had a great time and so did the members it was great! :-) Tuesday we knocked on doors all day and went tracting.  Then the bishop asked us to deliver cards to all the less active ladies in our ward. So we were doing that and working around the areas where they lived which turned out good because we found some great potential investigators by doing so!  Wednesday we tracted and delivered the rest of the cards nothing too exciting. We found some more potential investigators though!! Thursday was a super great day!! We had district meetings. We learned that we sometimes want to go faster with our investigators then how fast they need to be going on the road to conversion. So we need to know at what pace to teach them and invite them to make commitments.  We also had 2 lessons with a family and Juan another one of our investigators. We read with both of them but Juan was so great about understanding what the scriptures were saying and how to apply them! Friday was biking day and we just contacted people all day it was great! Saturday we went to a service project and we also went by our investigator Arturro's house. He said he'd read the Book of Mormon! We also tracted and then we were seeing if our investigators were going to the Mothers Day activity that was that night. We gave them invitations previously but we didn't know if they were going. Then we had the activity where we served the food and helped out the ward as much as we could. Then we tracted and contacted people in a park it was a good day! Sunday we had 2 lessons with a new family and Maria then I got to talk to my Mom:-)  and family!!!  :-) and surprise guest that was super great!! :-) We ate dinner also with the bishopric and then we taught a less active family so that was another good day! The work here in San Gabriel is going super great!! I love you all!!! 

Love, Elder Reisner 

Another week of great missionary work!

Good morning(California time)!

 So this week was another good week! On Monday we had 2 noche de hogars! We did a great activity with cups and string and talked about the Holy Ghost. Also, they fed us 2 dinners so I was one full missionary!! What was funny is that the noche de hogars were planned that day while we were out and about doing our preparation activities! Then on Tuesday we were knocking on doors and we had some lessons and it was a pretty normal day. Wednesday was the weird day we rode on bikes because it is a really good method to find people and it's good exercise!! We had lunch at a members house it was yummy! I don't know what it's called but pretty much you can guarantee there were some beans and tortillas!! So what made this day weird is we tracted into this guy who talked about how apparently there is an old hymn in our hymnbook that talks about bringing in the sheep. He didn't want to do that (be brought into the church) but he wanted to teach us about history it was interesting.  Oh we aren't teaching Reuben anymore he said he just wanted to learn and he didn't want to read the Book of Mormon or anything else. So we said we'd come back if he would read the Book of Mormon. That's how it goes sometimes unfortunately. Thursday we had district meeting and went to Applebees after with our district. Since it was the end of the transfer and some elders could be moving it ended up being our whole zone! One elder was finishing his mission so there were 14 of us!  We then talked to the kids in Marta and Francisco's family and they had a TON of questions! We answered them all and they agreed to read the Book of Mormon so now we will be teaching their whole family! We then had a bunch of appointments cancel but we were at the church when everything fell through.  We went to announce our noche de hogar we are having tonight at mutual and the Stake President of our stake was there. He gave us an assignment to go and find this member's daughters family to start teaching that family so we did that right away! Friday was biking and weekly planning. Nothing really happened except that we contacted a bunch of people but none of them really were too interested.  Saturday we played soccer and got some less actives to go we were trying to invite investigators but we couldn't get a hold of them.  We also had free pizza because it took like an hour to make! We then had some appointments and rounded up people to go to church.  Sunday we had church and then studied. We also went to a referral and the couple wants to read the Book of Mormon to find out if it's true it was exciting!!! Well that's all for this week I love you all!!!

Love, Elder Reisner