Elder Andrew Peña:

August 3, 2009
To start off the week and how it was! I only remember yesterday which was the greatest day I have had in a long time! It meant everything to me. It seemed as if everything went perfect and the joy and peace that we felt all day was amazing! It was even a long day but it was great! Monday we had our zone activity in Oakdale and played basketball, ate lunch, made t shirts and played volleyball and threw water balloons! It was great! Probably one of the funnest activities I have done on my mission! Or I should say probably the first activity other than basketball haha! We are going to the family home evenings in our branch now every Monday and it was great. We meet with the high counselor over missionary work every Monday and he is awesome. Tuesday we had alot of appointments and we went on splits. Elder Beach went with brother Layne in Salida and I stayed in Modesto with our ward missionary in the 1st ward and we had a couple of appointments. Then we had a family home evening with a less active family that is coming back to church that we are trying to help direct family home evenings! I loved it! Wednesday we had district meetings. They were good. Thursday was ok and Friday we planned alot and we went on our exchange with the assistants and I guess this is where another week turned into something great! I went with my old companion Elder Simmon to Fresno on an exchange. We drove there Friday night and went all Saturday. We had appointments every hour and it was amazing. Most of them fell through but I learned so much more about how to be a missionary so it was great! I repented and had to change the way I do things and the Spirit was able to help me see where I can improve and how better to change my life and my mission! On our exchanges we always have interviews and set goals! The week went by really fast because we had to get all the information for our stake correlation meeting and it was a bummer because we received all the information and when I was in Fresno my companion had to make copies ( about 6 packets ) of all the papers and when I got back on Saturday night at about 10:15 I noticed only one side of the papers were copied so we were missing a bit of information. So we discussed about what we were going to do to still have an effective meeting. So we went to bed at 10:30 so we could be obedient because obedience brings the blessings that the Lord wants to give to us and if we aren't we don't receive them! We woke up at 4:30 got ready and at about 5:45 started highlighting and talking about the things we needed to go over in our meeting. Our meeting started at 7:30 and it took from 5:45 till 7 to prepare and highlight and finish all the stuff! But our meeting went great! We were able to have an effective meeting. We then went to sacrament and then after that we had to teach a class which was really good. Then we split to go to both our wards. I went to elders quorum and was able to see a less active member that came back get set apart to be in the elders quorum presidency and we ran into a member, brother Tautua who is less active and we visited him this week and he came to church and it was amazing to hear everyones testimonies. I learned in Doctrine in Covenants about the priesthood and how fulfilling our callings and responsibilities gives us a " renewing of our bodies " and that is exactly what is seemed like happened. We had church till 5:15 and had break the fast with the branch and went out with a ysa and had an appointment with this lady named Margy and it was the lesson that changed my life! It was amazing! The spirit that was felt and the lesson that was shared were amazing! I have a renewed testimony of the restoration of the gospel! I love it all! Yes there may be days that are harder than others but there is no reason to complain! The savior sacrificed his life and has felt more pains than imaginable and yet I may have a bad day in the hot weather! Or because no one wants to listen to me! Or the gospel! Well I'm being selfish and you can just call me Laman or Lemuel. All I know is that the savior went through all of that for me so I don't need to complain! I just need to be obedient and experience the blessings! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!:) Elder Peña

August 12, 2009
This week was great again! Nothing was too exciting! We just worked a lot and were able to bike a lot in the hot weather and we went on an exchange with Elder Woods from Missouri and my companion went with Elder Fatu ( my trainer ) and now one of our district leaders! It was fun. We had a lot of fun biking and I was able to get to know Elder Woods a lot better! Other than that this week was great! We had a couple of good lessons and things. We finally had 2 investigators at church! One who finally came is moving to Missouri and she left right after sacrament, then another came and I was able to sit with him through all of church in all the classes. He is a great guy! In fact, Ace Merril knows a girl here named Sarah Whitmeyer. It is Sarah's uncle who we are teaching! So, its a small world! :) He is the nicest guy and has taken the lessons before. He has, I guess, a really bad word of wisdom problem but really has a desire to make changes in his life! Other than that I forgot to mention a while back that our ward mission leader in the Modesto 1st ward is an old stake president and is one of the most humble men I've ever met and am so blessed to serve with him! He is absolutely amazing. I really hope to see him again! You would think that he is a general authority. He is great! Other than that it was great to have two of our investigators at church! Well, transfer calls came and I will be going down to Turlock 4th ward still to be a zone leader. It is the biggest zone in the mission and the zone covers my second area " Hughson " and my old companion Elder Fifita is serving there so it will be good to see some old faces. I've never served in Turlock. The only times I have been there are for zone conferences! So I will be going to see new faces and a new area! I'm very excited! I will be covering one ward instead of three! My heart sank I was so relieved! It will be great because we have three district leaders instead of two! I'm super excited and can't wait! I will be leaving on Wednesday morning! So I will let you know how much I love my next area! It is a great honor and blessing to be able to serve and I'm glad I am blessed to be out here, it is good to hear the blessings that come from being obedient and the love that our Heavenly Father has for all of us! I love you all and hope everything is going well! This week we will also be heading down to Fresno for zone council which is always an amazing meeting! I love it! Before you know it I will be letting you know all about the next transfer and who I'm serving with and all the great people I am able to meet in Turlock! I hope you all miss me tons cause I know you do!:) Love you and miss you all too! Thank you all for the emails and the updates! Take care and have a wonderful week!
Elder Peña