The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.

Hello everybody, so transfers are tomorrow and I will be staying here in Thousand Oaks for another six weeks. Elder Atkin will be going to Camarillo as the district leader over there. He is my best friend on the mission and it will be sad. We will see each other around though, and we will most definitely keep in contact after the mission. As for me I was a little surprised that I will be staying in this area for another transfer that doesn't usually happen, but it is going to be great I know every street very well. Elder Shields will be my companion, and apparently he is short... go figure. It will be great though I have heard some great things about him already. He has been in the mission for a while, so he will be the Sr. companion. But as far as the area goes I'll be showing him the ropes and get him up to speed on all of our investigators. I am really excited there are a lot of changes going on around me, new companion, district boundaries, zone leaders, district leaders, but at the same time it's going to be the same.
As far as the work here goes it's still fantastic. We had a really great lesson with Willyam this week that went really well. Our ward mission leader, Brother Barrus was at the lesson and they got to know each other pretty well. Now Willyam will have someone other than us in the ward that he knows. We talked for a while about how now that he has been reading from the Book of Mormon and meeting with us he has some direction in his life. Unfortunately he didn't really make it to church yesterday. He walked in late during sacrament and the doors were closed, so we think he just left. Oh well, we will talk to him about it this week. He is still progressing really well and he told us he would let us know when he decides to be baptized. Also on Sunday Lisa Brinton, who was only baptized a couple of weeks ago, spoke in church and did a really good job. She is all about fitness and she works at the gym doing "spin classes." Basically she is the lady getting you excited about riding your stationary bike at the front of the room. She spoke about health, so she had a lot to say and was excited to do it. She told her story of giving up coffee which is really great. Basically when we first started meeting with her she was all about her coffee. She had a lot of reasons why coffee is good for you and isn't a problem, but she was willing to give it up even though she didn't know why. Then about a week or two later she realized that her legs didn't itch anymore. She would always get rashes on her legs and never new why, she was literally scarred because of it. It was a big answer to her prayer and she has a really strong testimony of the Word of Wisdom. It was a really great week and I am excited for all of the change that is coming up this next transfer.


Alan and his companion got to go to the Los Angeles Temple this week.