Season 14 Episode 1: Big Boi Riverside Zone

Hello Friends & Family,


This week we have successfully combined the Mission Inn Riverside zones. We have the largest Zone in the entire Mission, with a grand total of 16 companionships and four districts (32 missionaries in total). I made a slight wager of sorts with some sister missionaries at the start of the transfer that I would name the Riverside that " The Big Boi Riverside chat", if I did so they would make me brownies, I thoroughly enjoyed those brownies! (Unfortunately President changed the name after a day, which I agreed with)
Because there are so many missionaries in our Zone, Elder Hallsted and I will be going on quite a few exchanges. The original idea was going on exchanges with each companionship twice (so we could be with both missionaries), after some math was done we found out that if we did so we would be on exchanges 21 days or 3 weeks out of the six weeks of this transfer literally half the transfer would just be exchanges. We decided against that idea, and settled with 1 exchange for each companionship (and 2 if necessary).


We were incredibly excited to see Giselle be 

baptized this last Saturday, 

she has been taught for quite some time,

she grew up in the church but didn't get 

baptized at age eight. 

She had postponed her baptism 

for a little bit but we were 

surprised in early December 

when she called us and told 

us that she wanted to be 

baptized on the 12th of 

December. 

(We postponed one weekso her family could come)

 (She was baptised on the 19th)

 She was incredibly excited for her baptism and so are we!  

At the start of this week because it is the beginning of a new transfer we helped a few missionaries move to their new areas, and we also updated all the Facebook pages so that the editors of each page might be the correct missionaries in each zone.


The new apartment which we moved to is simply put, new! We moved just down the street of our old apartment, and now we live with the tech missionaries. It is a slightly smaller apartment, but everything is new including the floors (which is a strange thing for me to enjoy but they are sooo clean!) I also live near Elder Ottman now and he lets me know that, every single day as he visits us.

"Battle of wits"
- Elder Ottman (sitting next to me as I dictate this letter)

Merry Christmas to all!


-Elder Vance

Elder Vance saying Closing Prayer

Season 13 Episode 6: The short email

Hello Friends & Family,

This is a really short email. We didn't get transferred but we did move apartments. We are now living with the 

Tech Elders down the street. 

Riverside and mission zone are now combined and Elder Hallsted and I have a 16 companionship zone, 

the largest in the mission! 

Settlers of Catan is awesome. That's about all you need to know...

~Elder Vance

Season 13 Episode 5: The Freeze (part 2)

Hello Friends & Family,

There isn't anything to share from this week besides some local news.
California is getting put into another social isolation lockdown. However the Riverside county sheriff has released a video arguing against it and saying that he refuses to enforce it. This causes some strange situations for missionaries, however we will always remain cautious and as of now all of our in person meetings are cancelled.

We will see how this situation progresses...
Catch you all next week!
-Elder Vance

Season 13 Episode 4: Miracle Mayhem

Hello Friends & Family,


There were so many amazing Miracles this week, I will attempt to read a few of them that I remember!


To set the stage we had what was called "Zone accountability". this is a meeting where we set goals for the next calendar month, we got together as his own to discuss what we would do and what plans we are set to try to achieve goals reset and at the end of the meeting we typically have the goal of how many people we think will be baptized in the upcoming month. This is a meeting where we set goals for the next calendar month, we got together as his own to discuss what we would do and what plans we would set to accomplish said goals.

We generally went around the room and asked how many people have a baptismal date for that month, we asked everyone and we only could find one person who had a baptisimal date for the month of December.
During the meeting I had the strong impression to set the goal for 2 people, and one specific name came to mind, Jacky. Jacky is a Deaf girl I started teaching literally one year ago (that is strange to say on your mission) and we had previously invited her to baptism, but her mom didn't give permission for her to be baptised. I shared what I felt about the goal being set at 2, and when asked why I felt that way, I simply said "Jacky will be baptised in December".

Now here is where the miracles begin! We got a call late Sunday night from a person we were formerly teaching named Giselle. Giselle the member of a part number family, we thought it would be awesome if Giselle could help teach Jackie because they both go to the same class at CSDR. we figured we can have them befriend each other along this journey as they are both 9-ish years old, and we could teach them both at the same time. Giselle called us and told us that she wanted to be baptized, because she watched Beatriz's baptism (Which was amazing by the way!!). She told us that she wanted to be baptized on December 12th. Not only were we excited for Giselle, but if she came to Jacky's lesson andand told her that she was being baptized that might motivate Jacky to do the same. Miracle #1

Later that same night we got a call from the hermanas who have been teaching Jacky's sisters. Last week we took a day aside to fast and pray for her sisters to receive an answer when they prayed that they should be baptized. they had told the Hermanas that they had prayed and they received their answer, and not only that but they had received permission from their mom to be baptized, when they told us the day they wanted to be baptized we were shocked it was the same day... December 12th. Jacky's mom had given her sisters permission to be baptized, I believe she will do the same for Jacky. Not only will the excitement of her sisters being baptized help motivate her, but her good friend Giselle will likely be baptized on the same day! Miracle #2

Everything is aligning for Jacky to be baptised in December, and we have a lesson with her tomorrow with Giselle in attendance. Please continue to pray for Jacky to be baptised though! We could always use more prayers!!!

The Last Miracle I will share is that of Beatriz's baptism. All I can say is that it was a very tender and sweet experience, everyone in attendance especially over the resume could see that Beatrice had her happiness increased tenfold. She couldn't help but smile the entirety of the meeting afterward. We are very excited to welcome Beatrice into the Riverside ASL Branch as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

One More Story for my weekly email it's kind of a funny one. Elder Brady, the other Zone leader, I was visiting our apartment to be able to teach a lesson over Zoom using our Wi-Fi. I was in the same room as him and heard a familiar voice, it was Elder Tingey who had recently returned home from his mission. I suppose I shall call him Dallin (Brother Tingey) for that is his name now. I poked my head into the camera to say hello to my old friend, when the person they were teaching pointed at me excitedly and said "ELDER VANCE!". she then asked if Elder Cluff or Elder Ericksen were also there. She had instantly recognised me from our ASL page. She then showed us her phone where she had downloaded all of our videos and watched them repeatedly. I felt bad for disrupting the lesson in such a way, and then promised her that Elder Brady was a far better teacher and that she should listen to what he has to say! The crazy part about this, is that Avery (the girl) lives in Myanmar. I honestly have no idea where Myanmar is, but we think it is far away. The fact that she, without hesitation, recognised me and knew the names of every one of the other ASLders was a little frightening, but also exciting to know that our messages had reached so far! Avery will be receiving a shoutout in our next video, hopefully that helps get her excited to attend church


I will hopefully have more miracles to share next week!!
(P.S don't forget to sign up for "Light the World")


-Elder Vance