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

Season 13 Episode 3: Free at last!!

Hello Friends & Family,

There weren't too many events that happened this week. There is an increasing amount of excitement about the closest holidays! Mainly Christmas, to my dismay. whether or not you agree with me, I will share my opinion. I do enjoy listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving has occurred. This bothers quite a bit of the missionaries I live around for they all enjoy listening to Christmas music essentially year-round...

I gave our social media training this past Saturday. I was training on how the mission might be able to have better accountability for each of their Facebook posts they put out. Upon counseling with my father, we came up with the idea of using an acronym to help missionaries remember the training and also to make it stand out more. 

We ended up with the acronym, "WITNESS" as missionaries are called to witness of Christ in all things, at all times, and in all places. During the training I happened to mention that I don't particularly enjoy Christmas music early in the season. it seemed the entire mission was out to prove me wrong after that. Including President Watson! Throughout the week present Watson messaged me videos of him putting up a Christmas tree at his house, and also gave me homework to listen to an entire Christmas album everyday for the next 365 days, or until I went home!

We are officially out of social isolation this week, which is Fantastic for our friends we are teaching, for now we can visit them in person which is typically much better than visiting them over the internet. This also means that we can baptize B this Saturday!

If you have not listened to President Nelson's latest address to the world, I would highly recommend you do so now. What he said is universally important, and helps us enjoy this Thanksgiving season in a greater and deeper way. As you might have seen on many social media platforms, there are lots of people who are using #GiveThanks please join with them in this effort, I think it would really cheer up the planet right now!

I'm sure there will be many memorable stories from this upcoming week, we have scheduled another Turkey Bowl and if it is anything like last year's Turkey Bowl it will be an incredible experience!


-Elder Vance

Season 13 Episode 2: Stay Positive

Hello Friends & Family,

A few things happened this week that I will try to talk about, I am using Google Voice Assistant right now to type out my email and if there are any typos that I blame Google.


This week we got a call from the Mission Medical coordinators and they said that I had taken the wrong test for Coronavirus at see if I was positive but I ended up having to take a second test it was a swab test was honestly did not feel like right having a swab down my throat, but after a few days I got a call saying that I had actually tested positive for Coronavirus. This was not a surprise to me because I had experienced pretty much every symptom that is possible to experience while having a coronavirus. I ended up losing around 5 lb because all I ate was carrots and Broccoli.


Medical staff on the other side of the phone recommended that I say quarantine for at least another ten days because I've been experiencing symptoms for about a week now. medical staff on the other side of the phone recommended that I say quarantine for at least another ten days because I've been experiencing symptoms for about a week now.there's actually pretty funny because I got the call when I was teaching ASL class, and so am I entire class heard that I tested positive and everyone started making jokes about it. It seemed the entire Mission knows about now because I'm one of six missionaries that tested positive for the Coronavirus.


On a side note our friend Beatriz was interviewed for baptism this past Saturday by one of our ASL Elders in training other Aamodt. He did excellent job (I assume because I wasn't actually in the interview) and we found out that Beatrice actually passed her interview and was going to be baptized on the 21st however we decided to postpone that because we will still be in quarantine at that point in time so we postponed it to the 28th and all the branch is very excited to see her enter the Waters of baptism and so are we!


There is also a very very exciting thing that happened this week our friend N attend sacrament meeting over Zoom. that morning we had called the branch president to ask if he had anyone in mind who might be able to fellowship with N to be able to be her friend and she makes a new change and attends Church. He didn't have anyone in mind and neither did we so we mutually agreed to come back after a day or two and ponder the subject to see who might be the best help for our new friend. After our worship service on Zoom we got a call from Sister Smith and she explained that she actually knew N from previously at CSDR (the school for the deaf here), she was very excited that N was learning from the missionaries and attended church and actually asked us if she could join in the lessons with.


We called N and told her about the experience which we had with Sister Smith, she also remembered Sister Smith from CSDR. Nitro also explained that she knew a few more members and that she recently had a call with brother Cochran, the elders Quorum president, about meeting with her with him and the missionaries on Friday to study with us. The surprising thing was that we actually didn't even know that she had set up an appointment by herself with a member! N actually ended up scheduling a few appointments with members and we never had to do it, she just wanted to learn herself and so she decided to set everything up herself!


Our A/C unit is broken again, but luckily It isn't too hot outside at night. However our apartment is 80 degrees right now. Oof


We found out that in order to order another video phone we could actually sign up as a business rather than having to prove that we're deaf or hard-of-hearing. This is excellent news because the other Elders as I type out this email or actually signing up and trying to qualify our business or rather the church to get another video phone in California Riverside.


There are a few other positive coronavirus cases in the Riverside Zone and so we are mostly in Social isolation. The few of us had RX showing symptoms however that should end early next week. It's kind of a bummer because nobody is able to get out and do service over it's kind of cramped up in their apartment, but we'll pull through this. There's a quote that President Watson shares very often and it really has given me strength during these times it is "We have Him, and He has us".

We found out that the new youth 2021 album is releasing a few songs early, we really enjoyed one of them the theme song and we've worked and began translating it for our next SL song post which should be coming out hopefully late this week if not early next week we have the translation finished we're now just practicing coordinating our movements which takes up the brunt of our efforts. It's a bit like coordinating a dance but only with your arms and hands and also a lot of your face which I definitely did not enjoy at the start of my vision but it's become so regular to make very large and grandiose facial expressions. We really do try to do our best for these videos, so we hope you all enjoy them!


That is about it for all the news from California Riverside, but I'm very thankful for all of your prayers and all of your emails!!


-Elder Vance

Season 13 Episode 1: Nerf-Gun Crash and Dash

Hello Friends & Family,

This week has been semi-eventful, however not very entertaining. 

We had 5 stake devotionals this week, 3 on Sunday alone (that was a long night). I was surprised when my Mom joined in the last devotional during my training. Apparently some conversation was being had with her and President Watson, and he sent her the invite and told her to join. Unfortunately she forgot to mute her mic...

There was about 5 seconds of  HOW DO WE RECORD THIS" followed by 3 minutes of me (still giving the training) trying to understand how my Mom got the code for the zoom meeting.

(Also the entire time she was on the meeting, she thought I didn't notice, but the entire stake noticed, and she even got a shoutout by Stake President Wilson)

After these devotionals Elder Hallsted and I finally got home around 10:30 P.M. We were backing into our parking spot, and walking to our apartment, when we spotted a nerf gun over by the trash. 

We looked at each other, then back at the nerf gun. We both had the same idea. We excitedly picked it up, only to see another a few feet from our position. We picked up the next nerf gun and then we found another! This process repeated until we had roughly 20 nerf guns (and not the wimpy small kind, but the HUGE kind).

We have set-up a baptisimal date for Beatriz for the 21st, and we have been working with her so she will be ready for the Interview. Elder Aamodt (ASLder in training) is working on his language skills so he can conduct the interview. Stay tuned for that!

 

My latest post

-Elder Vance

Season 12 Episode 6: Jug fishing

Hello Friends & Family,

There are currently 4 missionaries going home in my apartment, and it is very hard to focus with 8 years of mission experiences/stories floating around the room. I will do my best to write this email, and then try to soak in some of the seniority in the room.

Elder Larsen says hi

Update there are now 8 missionaries finishing their missions, 16 years of experience.

This week we had a zone chat after the district council, we focused on finding methods. We had a short segment from the finding master, Elder Zierenburg. The meeting was successful, as we had every companionship in our zone find at least 1 new person to teach! (Except 2 companionships, but we still love them!)

There are now 10 missionaries soon to go home, 20 years of experience!

We have already discussed plans for the ASL 3 area, we think it would be wise to start them off focusing on YSA work, and give them a few home visits with members we select so they can practice ASL and get a feel for the Deaf culture. Slowly but surely!!

We had a meeting with the stake presidents of California (I think) and Elder Miskin (Area President and member of the Seventy). Because our mission is doing very well with finding over social media, Elder Miskin asked our social media crew to train the stake presidents and share strategies. It was an excellent training, and Elder Miskin shared some things that I really enjoyed, one was an example of fishing VS. Jug fishing.

For those of you who are like me, and don't fish that often you may be asking, "What on earth is jug fishing?"
Regular fishing involves a line and a hook. When the hook/line is not in the water, there is no possibility you can catch fish! However, Jug fishing (Which I've now been told might be illegal) is tying a line (with multiple hooks) onto a milk jug, which has been filled with air. You leave the jug in the water and come back and find multiple fish attached to your line! Facebook work is essentially Jug fishing.
"Missionaries have been wasting time tracting" -Elder Miskin
Everyone who has ever served a mission knows that tracting has NEVER been the most efficient thing to do. It is a constant thing we can do, but not effective. When we post on Facebook, the messages we share stay on the internet, and whether we are on facebook, doing other activities, or sleeping, our posts about Christ and his Gospel are getting attention, and can help us find people who are longing for the Truths of the restored Gospel.

Now all the 15 missionaries brought food into our apartment without any regard to WHOSE apartment they are in! I will therefore end my email, and ask for your prayers that my apartment remain clean. I need them

-Elder Vance

*

Season 12 Episode 5: Windy Week in Riverside

 

Hello Friends & Family,

Hoorah! California is finally cooling down! This morning was a chilly 55 degrees! I have missed cool weather so much!
For P-day we decided to hike Mt. Rubidoux again, our friend Cody invited us also! Previously he has invited us 3 times, but has slept in all 3 times. We were pleasantly surprised to find him waiting for us at the base of the trail! We hiked up to the top with a few others from our zone, and then fully embraced the wind at the summit! (Videos for proof)

After 10ish minutes we decided that we had had enough rocks flung into our mouths and eyes we ran back down the mountain (honestly it's a glorified hill compared to utah)


Also notably, Elder Hallsted and I FINALLY got a Rav4 to drive! We were incredibly excited to switch from our corolla and finally join with the rest of MLC with the Rav4 squadron!


The Miracle of the week was this past sunday. We recently were informed that our in-person church was canceled AGAIN... Back to zoom! Typically we had a Sunday School zoom meeting at 2pm for anyone who wasn't able to attend the earlier sacrament meeting. But with the in-person sacrament meeting being closed, everyone SHOULD be able to attend the meeting over zoom. All of us ASLders didn't know that the later meeting was canceled, and continued to invite friends to both 10am and 2pm church meetings (majority to the 2pm meeting). Sunday morning, we found that there in fact was no meeting for our friends to attend (Surprise!). We quickly snapped into action and attempted to gain approval to host our own worship service so our friends would not be left out. We called the Branch President, and got approval! We then called the second counselor and he agreed to conduct the impromptu meeting. We had 9 friends attend! It was amazing! We all took turns and introduced ourselves. I think this was excellent because now everyone has someone to look forward to seeing at church! "If there is a will there's a way"


Revelation is most commonly found for me while I act. We should not wait for Revelation to come, then and only then agree to act. Rather we should do the opposite and be anxiously engaged in whatever we are doing and continue to work until we are guided by Heavenly Father to continue, or to change our course!
"We cannot steer a parked car"

-Elder Vance