Elder Judd in California

Spectacular first week of the transfer! I love this area! I recently found out that the translation of "Talega" (The area of San Clemente I serve in) translates to "Money Bags". Not surprised.The weather is finally getting back to normal and it has stopped raining. It has been super fun to be in the same zone as my trainer Elder Kema! We have had some good times already. This week has been super booked with endless meetings and other boring first week business but we have still been able to see some awesome things.  Every Thursday us and a couple other elders hold a soccer night for some of the youth and seekers of truth. This week only one boy and his dad showed up, we were pretty disappointed, but we stuck around hoping some other kids showed up. After it was over, we went to the chapel for a second to here one of the elders practice the piano. After a couple minutes a man we met briefly earlier that day came and listened to him play. After he played a few s...

I am staying in San Clemente! I love it here and like I said when I first got here, I could serve the rest of my mission in these wards. It's the promised land. We had the opportunity to hear from more general authorities this week! This makes 5 in a transfer! We heard from Elder Tad R. Callister and Elder Owen. It was amazing. Elder Callister has given some of my favorite talks like  The Blueprint of Christ's Church  and  Becoming a Consecrated Missionary . He and his wife talked about the importance of the Plan of Salvation and how to plan for lessons. My favorite quote from him was "Do not lose faith in the things you do know because of the things you don't" Elder Owen talked about "Being a Happy Camper" and that we should be grateful for the things we have. I love when he said "Don't ever let this, the gospel, become so common that you don't appreciate it.". Both of them gave incredible talks to us. I am so grateful that we have...

We are approaching our last week of the transfer, I can't believe how fast the time can go by! I really hope I get to stay in San Clemente.  Nothing too spectacular has happened this week, just normal missionary stuff. We have had the chance to teach a lot this week. Ever since Elder Holzapel came to our mission, we have been trying to teach a lesson everyday whether or not it is an investigator. Teaching members has helped us become much better teachers. This week we stopped by a man we met when I first got to San Clemente a couple of months ago. This time he let us in and I pulled a classic "My companion is new, can we practice one of the lessons on you" and he was totally down. It was super cool, he got kind of emotional through out and he invited us back when he has more time. It was pretty cool to see that stopping by people pays off. The Brazilians are great! This week we taught them the 13 articles of faith. The coolest part was when the dad asked where we ...

Well, it was fun while it lasted, my good pal Elder Cox was emergency transferred out to go train a Farsi speaking missionary. We had a lot of great things happen and I already miss him, but now I have the opportunity to train Elder Esplin who has been out 3 weeks now. It was a crazy week, and it has been weird readjusting to a new missionary. Elder Esplin is awesome though, he is a hardworking farm boy from Oregon. He drove onion and sugar beet trucks before the mission. We are getting along great already. Elder Cox and I were super bummed to leave each other so soon, but I have come to learn that you can't grow on your mission without change. Not too much to report on this week, it has been so busy with so many different things. We had the area 70 come speak to us, and it was awesome. He gave a fiery 2 hour talk and it really got me pumped. He talked about the barriers of faith we have to cross in order to see miracles. we can't turn around at the first barrier and expect...