The River

This was a strange week for us SBYSA missionaries. We had most of our ward go up to Blithe for a boating trip on the Colorado River so for 3-4 days we had pretty much nothing to do except reach out to people on lists we have never heard of. Despite all the difficulties we managed to get our 23 lessons in and saw some miracles with Less-Actives on the list we dropped by. 

This week I got to go to Newport Beach as part of a mission wide exchange. Our dinner cancelled half-way through the exchange so I convinced the missionary I was with to let me go to Ruby's Diner for dinner. I got to check one more thing off the bucket list. Pretty good meal! Pretty bad punch to the missionary budget XD. Oh well, I had to do it! As well on the exchange we were able to teach this surfer guy who was restoring a 150 yr old paddle board in his garage that he is going to surf in a competition that Saturday. He was like 50 yrs old and still going at it. Pretty hilarious guy. His entire house was full of antiques and cool old things. I walked away with a little piece of Disney land history myself. It was especially fun to find out his nephew is the NCAA downhill ski champion at the U of U and so he showed me all of his U of U stuff. Never too far away from home am I! and it gets closer every day.. snap. 

Well as a result of this exchange we also got a new investigator who we are pretty certain is going to be baptized in July. Her name is D and some Spanish speaking Elders picked her up during their exchange. She just started going to a non denom. church in the area and when she heard these Elders message she was touched by the spirit and is pretty committed at this point which is amazing. We had the pass of lesson and she really is golden. 

Elder G and Elder Epperson at Dana Point,  CA

Fun Stuff

Now the fun stuff:

So we met this crazy girl down campus who called herself a unicorn because she is Vegan. She invited us "Stallions" to come to dinner sometime. So we set up a time for this last Friday and invited a member who is a cop to come with us. We showed up to the home which was actually a shack labeled "Unicorn Palace" in Laguna Beach Canyon. Laguna Beach Canyon is known for having the world’s most interesting people so just pulling up Elder Epperson and I became very scared. We were invited in and we said we would just take a look around outside first and then called the member to find out where he was at. I will never forget Elder Epperson's face as he was told that the member was no longer coming. Sweet, a candle lit dinner with smooth jazz and a unicorn all by ourselves in the world's craziest place. We stayed out of the house and kept all the rules mind you! But, we sure had fun with it to and made it out safe.

The other story is simple, We had dinner on a boat in Dana Point Harbor with a super cool member. Really fun. End story.

Just got back from Big Air Trampoline park with the zone. Jammed my finger and feeling sore. Gooood Stuff though. I found a guy named Brother Grace earlier this week and he was selling Christian Apparel to feed the homeless. Elder Epperson and I couldn't resist and bought these hilarious shirts that say "I love to worship" and have some black Christians dancing in the background. We wore them to zone activity today. Super funny. 

--Elder Gemperline