Kendall Green San Bernardino Mission

Hey everyone!  Well, this week has been a great week! First of all we had Zone Conference which was tons of fun. It was long, but we were able to learn a little bit more about the new handbook and teaching about baptism. I also learned how to teach about baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost using Matthew 3:13-17. Those verses are very simple, but I never realized how many powerful truths they contain. The most awesome thing that happened this week was that one of the people we are teaching accepted a baptismal date and came to church this Sunday. We are so excited for him and happy to have someone on date. We are looking forward to working with him! Take care everyone and merry Christmas! 1. Our Zone Activity  2 & 3 photos in the apartment

Well, this week has been busy. I did my second baptismal interview as a district leader. It went smoothly thankfully. It was pretty cool too because the person I interviewed told me that he was very grateful to me and that I had been an important part in his conversion which made very happy. Along with that, we had exchanges so I was with Elder Cressal for a day and we had a good time. I was pretty nervous because last time he wasn't really interested in working hard. However, he surprised me. He was talking with everyone on the street and we had some good conversations. I was really happy to see how much he had changed. Another highlight of the week is that we got to sing in the stake Christmas activity. It was fun and my companion was the angel Gabriel. He had a spotlight that shined on him and I got to turn it on. It blinded him and he almost fell off the ladder he was on! Thankfully, he didn't or else the week would have been even more interesting. Besides that, we ...

Hey Everyone! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I got plenty of food and cold weather. The most interesting thing that happened this week was that during the day of Thanksgiving it rained, the temperatures plunged, and the winds picked up. It snowed up a lot in the mountains too. From what I've been told, this is the earliest it snowed in a while. Despite the rain and the cold, we persevered and found some new people that were interested in our message. We found one person that was very interested in our message and she liked the idea of finding the truth through prayer. We are so excited to teach her this week! Elder Green

Hey Everyone! This week has been very busy. We had a lot of meetings a long with exchanges. On Tuesday we had district council and after that we had zone leader council which is basically a meeting with the zone leaders, sister training leaders, and district leaders. The next day, we had follow up training which went from 10am - 3pm and then we had exchanges with the Waterman Elders only a couple of days later. It made it a little hard to get out and proselyte. However, we did have some success this week. During exchanges, I knocked on a door and a man answered. He was very nice and when we explained that we were missionaries he invited us in. We were very surprised and in turned out him and his wife had great faith in Christ. We have an appointment with them today and we are so excited to visit them.  The most interesting thing that happened this week was that as we were knocking on doors we accidentally found the house of a member of the church in the English w...

Hey Everyone! This week has been both hard and rewarding. The week started out pretty slow. A lot of appointments fell through and we weren't finding a lot of people. We did get to call 911 to report a car crash. Thankfully, no one was hurt. This weekend was a lot better,  though.  First of all, my companion was lead by the spirit to two people who were very open to receiving missionary visits. We also had a lesson where reading the Book of Mormon had a friend of one of the people we were teaching in tears. Finally, I just got an email from one of my recent converts. He is currently serving in the Arequipa, Peru mission and it maked me so happy to be working with him in the work of the Lord. Knowing that he is in the service of the Lord with me has made all of the sacrifice I have made worth it. Have a good week! Elder Green

Hey everyone! Well this week has been an interesting week. Thankfully, we had no bike problems this week! We were so happy that nothing went wrong. Sadly, no one was home for most of the week. With one person, we called everyday trying to set up an appointment with him but everyday something came up. It was very frustrating. However, at the end of this week we had some good successes. There were some people that were opened to us and said we could come back. Yesterday was just filled with miracles. First of all, we had a great mission conference with Elder Whiting. We learned a lot about teaching by the spirit and helping others recognize the spirit. He taught that when we know the spirit is present we should ask the people we are teaching how they feel so that they can learn to recognize the spirit. He also shared about how when we testify we need to make it real. We should share our own experiences that others can relate to. This also is a powerful way to bring the spirit. It...

Hey everyone! Well this week has honestly been crazy and busy. I conducted my first district council and it didn't go to bad. I'm learning little by little. We also had exchanges with the the zone leaders and that was helpful. Elder Clarke helped me learn and plan how to help my district. We also had some good conversations with the people we are teaching. We found the iceberg that is preventing one of the people we are teaching from being baptized. It'll be a rough road for him, but with prayer and faith, I hope he can overcome it. With another person we are teaching we found that he is on the edge of being baptized. He's just waiting for a confirmation from the spirit that it's what he should do. We're now just trying to figure out how we can help him be more receptive to the spirit so he can receive the confirmation he desires. Besides that, the most frustrating thing this week is that our bikes have been breaking a lot. According to the mission bik...

Hey everyone! Well this week has honestly been very long and tiring. Once Elder Livingston left and I got my new companion everything has been fast paced. We've been visiting a lot of people and trying to balance the training of my new companion. My new companion is Elder Watson. He is from Star Valley, Wyoming. He's pretty cool and is already navigating the area and leading me around to appointments. He's also very focused on helping people and relates to them well. We also had several miracles this week. First of all, some recent converts that we've been teaching came to the ​ W​ ard Hal loween party. It was fun and I got to introduce Elder Watson to everyone there. The second one happened a week ago. We got a call from one of our contacts. We decided to visit him because no one responded when we answered. It turned out that he never called us, but ​he did ​ ha ​ve​ a strong desire to learn more about God and change his life. In short, an ang...

Hey everyone! Well this week has been great. I'm afraid that this email is going to be very short because we were very busy today getting chores done and cleaning our apartment. Also, the car we were planning to use to do our errands was towed so that made things a little more complicated.  The big news that I have for this week is that I am going to stay in San Bernardino, train a missionary, and become the district leader all at the same time! My companion Elder Livingston is also going to be transferred out to the desert and will also become a district leader.  Love you guys lots! Elder Green 

Hey Everyone! Well today has been an interesting week. The good news is that we found someone new to teach and she has already had a spiritual experience with the Book of Mormon. We are going to try to help her get to church this week. Also, one of our recent converts just received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday and really wants to go to the temple. Hopefully, we'll be able to go this week.  Another exciting ​ ​ piece ​ of news is that we were finally able to contact a recent convert. We've been trying to contact him for the past couple weeks so we were so happy to finally meet with him.  We also went on exchanges this week so for a day I was with Elder Cressal. We had some fun together and found a member that hadn't been to church for years. He was pretty cool and the manager for an apartment complex so he let us lock up our bikes at the apartment complex and knock on the doors. We found maybe one person who said we could come back. However, I hope the mi...

​ Hey Everyone! I hope you all have had a good week. This week has been interesting. We've had a few miracles and been able to find some people that are willing to listen to us and were pretty friendly so its been a successful week.  The first crazy thing/somewhat miracle that we had is that as we were a tracking, a man came up to us and started talking to us about the Book of Mormon. He had an experience with ​it ​ where he believed it was the reason why God spared his life. His experience was crazy but it goes just to show how powerful the Book of Mormon is. Another miracle we had was that on our way back home I was impressed to pass by someone that we had as almost given up on. We had a really positive visit with them. They were going through a really hard time and really needed our message. I felt so grateful that I followed that prompting. We also had a funny, but scary experience. As we were biking, a big bulldog chased my companion. Thankfully, the dog tire...

Hey everyone! Well time has just been flying by here in San Bernardino.  It's crazy that it's only been four days since I've written. Some of the highlights of the week was I got to help set up a huge service project for those that could not afford paying for dental work. It was pretty fun. I learned how to set up some of the tools and s ​a​ t in chairs in order to help the camera crews filming the service project.  Last Saturday, it ​ was​ really wet and cold in the morning. Even this morning was a little chilly. However, it's better weather for biking than blazing heat. We also had the zone activity which was fun. We played volleyball and ate ho ​​ t ​ ​ d ​​ ogs. What was also fun is that a couple of police officers came up to us to introduce themselves. We were worried that we were doing something wrong, but they just said they wanted to be friendly and see who they are. They were pretty friendly and once they found out that we were missionaries from...

Hey everyone! So its been quite an adventure this week with transfers. My new area is very different from Borrego Springs. It basically covers the entire stake of San Bernardino. The downside is that I'm on a bike so some parts parts of my area are unreachable. There are, however, some Spanish speaking sisters that cover my area too,  but they have a car so they can get to the parts where me and my companion can't.  Besides the fact that my area is huge, its also mostly city and the sirens of police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks never stop here. Thankfully, we've been fine as we have traveled around talking to people. Along with the stress of adapting to a new area, I'm follow up training (my companion has only been out on his mission for 6 weeks). Thankfully, it hasn't been too stressful. My new companion Elder Livingston is pretty awesome and has a gift for finding people that are open to receiving us. We actually found a man who is really awesome. He...

Well this week has been interesting and I'm not sure where to start. The biggest thing is that we found out transfers this week! I will be moving to a new area called Rancho in the San Bernadino Zone. One of my companions will be leaving to be a zone leader and the other will stay to train a new missionary. This is the first time I've ever trained so we'll see how this goes. Besides that, we had a pretty good week. We finally had enough miles to go out to Borrego Springs and so we did some contacting. Surprisingly, we found some people interested in hearing our message. We tried proselyting there when I arrived and it wasn't very effective so it was nice to see some fruits from our labors. Hopefully, some of them will become new people to teach soon. Sadly many people that we started to teach in this area have either stopped keeping their commitments, moved, or haven't responded to our attempts to contact them. However, I have been to touch many people'...

Hey everyone! Well this week has been a difficult,   but wonderful week. What was difficult is that this last Wednesday we had six appointments and all of them fell through except for one. This really surprised us because many of the people we had appointments with usually kept their appointments. We ended up knocking on a lot of doors. The good news is that this week we met an hermana who is just awesome. We asked a member for references and she told us to visit her neighbors. We started to knock on the door of one her neighbors and then an hermana came up behind us and asked who we were. It turned out to be that she had talked to sister missionaries before, but then moved. She brought out an old pamphlet of the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We set up a return appointment and then taught her the next day. It was awesome! She readily accepted the restoration and the invitation to read the Book of Mormon. She said she had seen the Book of Mormon and...

Hey everyone! This week has been great! We have seen a lot of great miracles this week. First of all, I have been able to see the great poet of the Book of Mormon in helping people feel the impressions of the spirit. So one of the people we are teaching,  expressed some reservations to being baptized and wanted to read the Book of Mormon before she was baptized. We were a little disappointed that she was hesitant about baptism, but we were grateful for her desire to read the Book of Mormon. When we came back for our next visit,  she said that as she read the thought came to her, "What are you afraid of?" Towards the end of the lesson, she asked if we were going to invite her to be baptized. We asked her if that was the desire of her heart and she replied, "Yes." We also are very happy because this week we were able to pinpoint the concerns of another person we are teaching, who is a very close to baptism. He's in for a trial of his faith, but we...

Well this week has been very interesting and long. We have been teaching and traveling a lot. This week had a zone conference so we had to wake up 5:30 in the morning so that we could make it to the conference.   We then drove back and had barely enough time to do some studies before going to teach another lesson. This week has been interesting because we've had some curveballs thrown at us through out the week. First of all, one of the people we are teaching asked us about polygamy. This caught us off guard because we were ready to teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'll also admit that this was the first time I've been asked that in the mission. No one in Peru ever asked me about polygamy. Most of the concerns were about accepting the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith because though they are mentioned in the Bible, they are not referred to by their names. My companions were also surprised so it was kind of all over the place in trying to answer her. Another c...

Hey everyone, Well this week has been interesting and awesome. It's been awesome because more of the people we've been teaching are progressing. Manuel and Priscilla are doing so well. They are so receptive to Jesus Christ's message and are willing to follow His commandments. They are still going through hard times, but it is amazing to see how God strengthens those who follow him. Another really cool thing is that we are starting to see the positive effects of the gospel of Jesus Christ in another one of the people we are teaching. She hadn't been reading or attending church, so we were kind of worried about her, but then when we met her this week and she had read the Book of Mormon. She also seemed a lot happier and positive then before. It was a great contact because we were able to help her see how God had been helping her as she has been obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ. Another miracle we had was a member referral. The member invited her friend to ...

Hey everyone! This week was pretty good. We weren't able to do as much proselyting as we would have liked, but we had some great success this week. First of all, one of the friends I am teaching, Manuel, is continuing to grow closer to Christ and to baptism. He is just so awesome! He's going through some really hard times, but is still pressing forward. It is amazing to see his faith and the Lord has been blessing him with strength. I also had the privilege of being in a conference with Elder Klebingat, a seventy. He was really cool and expounded a lot of doctrine and what I liked most was what he said about the premortal life. He said that the earth was the most wicked world of all of God's creations. Basically, the fight between good and evil is the strongest on earth. Therefore the Lord sent His strongest soldiers in the war in heaven (or us). What I liked best was his comment that when we were assigned to come to earth, we were nervous. However, when we saw ...

This week has been a great week because we finally had some one attend sacrament meeting. He liked it a lot and said he would attend next week.  We are very excited for him and he is very excited for his baptism.  We also helped some people clean up their burned down house and because of it we made some good friendships with the people there and we hope that will lead into them receiving our message and hopefully will be willing to act upon it.  The most intense thing we've  been through this week was waiting go find out if one of us was going to be transferred. We found out that none of us was being transferred and we are all pretty happy about that because we are working with some amazing people. Love you guys lots! Elder Green 

Hey everyone, I have had an amazing week! I didn't find any one new, but those that we are teaching are progressing so well. It has been a wonderful experience. I have been able to see the gospel of Jesus Christ give people who have no hope, hope and peace. Also, several people I am teaching have now accepted baptismal dates. Our lessons with them have been powerful and you can see the spirit testifying of the truth of our message. House with an airplane hanger for a garage  I know that the message that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith and that the Church of Jesus Christ is Hus kingdom on the earth is true. I know that every part of that message is true because if it were not, the spirit would not testify of its truthfulness. This us because it is bold to claim that the gospel was restored through a modern prophet. It is even bolder to claim that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the kingdom of God. The boldest statemen...

Hey everyone! This week has been another great time down here in Salton City and in Borrego. Next where I live, Salton City, is a big lake called the Salton sea. Salton city is hot and humid and the lake stinks. Ive always wondered why and I've heard so many explanations from ancient Indians cursing the water against European settlers to Mexico pumping their sewage into it. The most plausible of these explanations I think is that the water smells bad because it has no run off. Just like the Dead Sea, water may come in during the wet season, but the lake has no rivers or streams as an outlet. The lake is actually the remnant of a really big flood from a river. Since the lake doesnt have outlets, the salt content is really high. The farmers also drain there pesticides into the lake which adds to the stink. What's interesting is there is a way to fix it, but its expensive and I don't know when or if it will be implemented.  Besides uncovering the mystery of the Salton se...

Hey everyone,  This week has been great! First we're had exchanges which was interesting since we had to do a lot of driving. Elder Richardson came down to Borrego to replace Elder Rodriguez for the day.  However,  we had a special experience with one of the people we're teaching. He called us saying he was having a bad day and that we wouldn't be able to come over to come over.  Then my companion asked him if he wanted to witness a miracle. Here responded yes so we went over and gave him a powerful blessing and at the end he said that he realized that he needed to have more faith in God. It helped me see that all we need to do to see God's miracles is have faith and do His will. We can have miracles daily. They will not always be great miracles like the raising of the dead,  but the power of God can be manifested everyday as long as we do His will. We also had an earth shaking lesson.  While we were teaching a guy, his wife asked are we having an earth...