March 25-Talega means money bags

-
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 songs for him we got in a conversation with this man. He was waiting for his friend who was in an ARP meeting. We soon realized that he was not a member so we started asking him questions. This guy was awesome! He was one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met. It turned out that he had met with missionaries in the past and considers himself a "Dry Mormon" his words not mine. Soon we got down to the question of his soul which was "If there is a God, why does he allow little kids to suffer?" From that point we were able to testify of Gods perfect and divine plan for us. We told him that we have a Heavenly Father that knows us and loves us perfectly, and while the plan he gave us doesn't always make sense, it is perfect. It was one of the most powerful impromptu lessons I have had on my mission. This man was so real and nice to us. At the end we invited him to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon. Rarely do I feel like I learned more from the person we taught than they did from me. I am grateful God put that man in my path.

Not much to add this week. life is good, just trying to soak up all I can from President and sister Clark before they leave this July. I Love this work.

The scripture I have been thinking a lot about this week is James 1:5 and the experience that Joseph Smith had with it. We can really ask God anything we want. Our Heavenly Father loves us and wants to answer our questions. I know that.

 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Stay Kool

Love,
Elder Judd

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

February 25

-
Hello everyone, this was probably the best week of my entire mission! There were so many incredible things that happened. Here are the highlights...  1. First I got to go to the Baptism of my good friend Alejandro in Newport Beach. He and his family are some people I found my last week in that area. They progressed so rapidly in a week and it was amazing to see that my second transfer. I drove up to the baptism with Elder Kema and Burrows (who I was with when we found them). His family happened to live right across the hall from us. At the End Elder Kema, Burrows and I got to bare our testimonies to the family. It was a super spiritual experience. It was so incredible to see this young boy beaming with excitement to be baptized. Afterwords the rest of the family said they felt the spirit very strongly. The mom got up and bore her testimony and said "I have had many missionaries teach our family, but it was those 3 crazy boys in the beginning who came with their hearts and thei...
Read more

August 27th-Great 2 weeks

-
Wow. I have had the best 2 weeks of my mission so far! Last Tuesday was my birthday, and it was a weird day for sure. A member took us to a fancy dinner and we drove in his new Tesla there. It was a great day, but its hard to celebrate your birthday when you are trying to serve and focus on helping others. Later in the week, I had another birthday dinner at the Clark family's house, probably the most genuine family I've ever met. They always show so much love to the missionaries who serve in that ward, I am really going to miss them. We started teaching a Columbian family that we helped move in and happened to live across the hall from us, talk about God putting people in our path. This family is spectacular. We taught them the restoration, the mom and dad only speak broken English, but were able to understand the majority of the lesson. The mom even read the introduction in Spanish and was blown away. We invited them to an activity right after the lesson and came! The ...
Read more

June 4-It smells great here!

-
Image
Holy Cow! I can't believe I'm finally in California! This is where I'm meant to be! My first area is the Newport Beach 1st ward. It's right on the coast, but I haven't seen the ocean yet, just a harbor, which apparently is where they shot the intro to Gilligan's island. It is so beautiful here, and everything smells amazing! The weather is perfect and I dread wearing a suit because it feels so good to wear a short sleeve shirt. My first night was awesome, we got into Orange County super late and had dinner at the Clarks, it was awesome. I also met my trainers  Elder  Lichtenberg (pronounced Lishtenberg) and  Elder  Kema, couldn't have asked for better companions. My first full day was nuts! I sat in a ton of Zone meetings with my companions who are the zone leaders, I didn't understand anything that was being said in the meetings, but it was interesting to learn about what was going on in the mission. Also sat through a few hours of orie...
Read more