December 15, 2014

Hey! 

it has been very interesting lately, Elder Petersen and I have been having weird encounters in the wilds of Oceanside. It has been really cold and rainy for a week now (55-60) so the homeless population got a little stirred up and we have been seeing them a lot more often. Some of them are really nice, but most of them are the variety that are just really hosile and volatile. It has been difficult. We started teach one of them who is elect, his name is Ronald, and he is really nice guy. He has come to church with us twice now, and he wants to get baptized. He came to us and told us he wanted to get baptized, we didn't invite him. but, we helped him get a bus pass from the bishop, and some warmer clothes, so he told some of his friends about our Christmas party and said that we were nice people and that we helped him out. So a few of his friends showed up drunk and went around the church asking everyone for money... we helped them and gave them lots of warm food, but they were belligerent and causing a lot of problems, so they were escorted out of the building and he had to talk to Ronald about it. I hope that we can figure out how to help Ronald, he is in a really hard spot right now.

Our ward made packs with cups and hot chocolate with invitations to the Christmas party for everyone on the ward list (they came with the family who they were for attached to them). After church last Sunday, the men were supposed to grab them for the families that they home teach. We agreed to help pass out the ones that were not taken. Well... there were a TON of them that were left over. a ridiculous amount. so needless to say, we did not get all of them handed out, between missionary work and preparing for our Zone Training Meeting, we did not have enough time. we made sure we did the most important ones, but as for the others, we have a lot of hot chocolate in our apartment now. :) haha

Well. signing off

Elder James Riley Strong

 

HOLINESS TO THE LORD