Parker's BYU Graduation

We are very proud of Parker and all of his hard work and dedication. He graduated with a Masters Degree in Computer Science. We are so happy for him and Katie.

Serafina

Brent and I flew to Utah for Parker's graduation and to meet beautiful Serafina!! She is so pretty and sweet. We love her so much.

May 19, 2025 - 90th Email - Hot Pockets and Firetrucks

So uh

My bad lol

I forgot to send this email last week

but

I still wrote it

So dw ur still getting both emails this week

But to clear up confusion this email is for the week of May 2-8

Alright back to our regularly scheduled email

Hey

This week was fun

10 weeks left babey

Uhhh

What even happened

Oh yeah

So munday after pdaying like we normally do we decided to be cool and knock doors for the first time in forever (frozen reference) and we took our epic recent convert oscar with us (i talk about this guy too much) and we knocked some doors and lowkey nobody was interested except this one honduran guy who was actually really dope and chill and reminded me of our recent convert fam from honduras literally the same people and talk the exact same bruh im not racist i swear

2sday we didnt do very much in the morning but we did cool stuff in the afternoon where we went to a familys apartment and watched a video about ammon from the book of mormon and it was lowkey sick and talked about being humble servants of God and stuff was chill then we went to english class and chilled some more and had some canceled lessons and uh idk what else lol

Whensday we had a good lesson with this lady named veronica who loved having us over and told us shes learned more from us in the two weeks of having us over than her entire time in her church which is lowkey kinda wild but like at the same time kinda sadge but then the next day she told us she felt bad for even thinking about changing churches so we made her feel a bit better because she was goin thru some rough thingies and people staying at her house (they ended up moving out but thats an entirely separate thingy and we lowkey have no idea where they live now even though they were hecka interested too but its chillin) but yeah life goes on

Thrusday [sic] mornin i got lowkey sick and got out of going to zone council so Uhhhh

Yeah i just laid in bed all morning but my stomach was better by the afternoon

Our friends marco and susana are super ready to learn to get baptized and are dope and they loved their first lesson on the restoration and we gon get them bap tized pretty dang fast i think so pray for them

Oh and the english sisters gave us a referral (common occurence) who never answered the door but a really weird lady did and she was weird like telling us he wasnt home rn so we were like aight we can pass by another time and she was like yeah but he aint home rn and we were like yeah we know but when do u think bros coming back and the lady was like yeah but hes not here right now like she was a literal NPC with a set response text you might as well have put a speech bubble above her head and said i was pressing A to interact with her she would not change her answer and we were left so confused

Friday morning was funny lol so we were about to eat lunch and elder carwin (who i live with) is looking for some grub in the fridge and he finds a pack of hot pockets so he looks at me and goes can i have one and im like sure they aint mine lol and he asks me ok do you know whos these are and im like nah but they aint mine so idc if u eat 1 so he goes over to elder strong and mind you we're all talking to each other in the goofiest voice of all time so carwin goes "hey elder strong" (so imagine like a very sarcastic voice mixed with a baymax voice and thats pretty much the gist of this conversation) and he goes "what" so carwin responds "are these hot pockets yours" and strong goes "yeah" and carwin asks him "can i have one" and strong goes "why" and carwin goes "because im hungry" and strong just kinda shrugs and says sure whatevs so carwin is like in lets go mode rn and he tears the packaging on that hot pocket to shreds hes so excited to eat this hot pocket but obviously it was in the fridge so he has to heat it up first so he goes and opens the microwave just to find that there was already a hot pocket sitting in the microwave no packaging no plate just sitting on the turn table in the microwave elder strong left it there for a solid 4 hours because he forgot to eat breakfast so elder carwin and i start dying laughing like i havent laughed that hard in at least a week so i was pretty tuckered out hope you enjoyed that really random story

Oh yeah also on friday we went to our friends house and literally everything wrong that could possibly happen went wrong so first of all she had a bruise on her eye so we were like "uh what happened" and she said she fell in the shower and hit her eye on something idk what but yeah she had a black eye and then we were like dang that sucks and also they had their car stolen because they left the keys in it and then also her boyfriend had a fricking stroke

Like not even capping bro was recovering and stuck at home all week and hes pretty young too i wouldnt give him more than 35 so that was wild

Also her brother like broke both his arms or something

And we had a service missionary stay over at our place on thursday it was super cool he hung out with us and came to lessons for a day and hes starting his mission soon gonna come back out as a proselyting missionary super excited for him

Saturday morning was cool in the morning we went on a parade down in the town of grand terrace at the edge of our zone and it was so fun we were representing the church and met cool people and handed out bracelets and stuff

So we reach the end which was a park filled with overpriced souvenirs at kiosks as an end to the parade but everyone (meaning the missionaries) was taking forever to leave and i was starving and we all planned on going to in n out and the member lady we were walking with told us there was a faster way to get back to our cars than the actual parade route so me strong and this other guy named elder baldwin decided to dip and lemme tell ya the conversation we had on this walk was so weird and in depth i could write a whole email about that conversation cuz we walked for like 20 minutes and we realized 1 we took the long way by accident and 2 baldwin was going to lend the sisters his car and he had the keys so they couldnt leave until we got there so we're like freaking out but also chillin trying to find out where the heck we're going its a nice hilly walk with really nice houses but we get to the cars and we're expecting everyone to be waiting for us since we took the extra long way but we were actually the first ones there even the sisters who were supposed to get a ride from the member lady to the car werent there and so we waited a solid 10 minutes and we heard a firetruck go by and another 10 minutes later all the missionaries (so besides us 3 this is like 7 other missionaries) are walking together and they tell us they helped a lady whos house caught on fire they got all her important stuff out because at first it was just the garage that was cooked but yeah we missed out and they were the ones to call 911 because the lady was frantic and then we went to in n out where hold up ima make a new paragraph for this

So at in n out we learn from the colton ward missionaries they had to get moved out of their apartment (like emergency apartment switch type beat) because their apartment had a cockroach infestation that was so bad they were finding them everywhere and the apartment complex was refusing to fix it so now they live outside the zone with elder barlow actually (i was his companion) and yeah that was pretty wild

Then we had stake conference saturday night it was really good a seventy came named elder mortenson which is funny cuz our stake president is also named president mortenson but apparently my parents know the guy which now im sad i didnt go talk to him but its chill then we also had stake conference sunday morning it was really good and everyone gave great talks in both sessions the mission president was there too in the saturday evening sesh and i got lots of epic insights on how to help my friends and stuff

Well that was my week so yeah hope u enjoyed the email

Pictures!

-ducks

-all missions are possible

-duck 2

-mountain

-parade but one of the signs covers my whole body so im basically not in this picture

May 12th, 2025 - 89th Email - I moved again

We had transfers

So i moved

But i didnt move areas

I just switched apartments

For the

Second

Transfer

In a row

It was funny cuz i just got moved back to my old apartment that i was in previously

Also elder luna stayed in his area so we aint a trio anymore but im still with strong so we chillin

Bur yknow whats crazy

Im in my second to last transfer

Got 11 weeks left

Kinda nuts man

But anyway my week went a little bit like this

Ok honestly we reported terribly so theres not much from before the transfer that i remember but trust me when i say we did missionary work we just got so tired of covering two areas lol

So tuesday we had a really good turnout to english class its kinda funny how the class went from having like 3 or 4 people pulling up to like 15 people lol (english class referrals go kinda hard) and we got some solid people we invited to church and stuff so it was pretty chill some sick lessons lots of progressing friends

Wednesday comes along and thats when we get news of whos leaving and everybody in our apartment complex was staying but they were bringing in another companionship

So much stuff changed with transfers it was insane our zone leaders got whitewashed and another area got whitewashed elder luna is on bike now in his area which sucks because hes district leader and his companion is one of the zone leaders and also the other district leader is on bike so we have only one zone leader in a car which is weird apparently some other zones got zone leader whitewashed too seems like president is trying to get everything ready for the new mission president coming in next transfer

Oh yeah next transfer is the new president which is weird itll be good for the mission to have a change honestly but itll be an adjustment... for a month and then i go home lol

But yeah having so little time left is sad but lowkey kinda relieving but im excited to make the most out of these next couple transfers

Ok rest of my week

On thursday we had a lot of solid lessons it was really good

But we had one lesson about the plan of salvation go on for like well over an hour and a half it was fun tho as much as long lessons are crazy i love it when theyre driven by somebody just having a ton of questions hopefully this chick progresses

Friday was our first zone council of the transfer so that was good and fun to meet everyone but at this point i basically know everyone already so its chill

We also had a dope lesson where we finally met someone who was trying to meet with us for a long time but we went to his house and we asked hey u got questions and bro was like "what do i have to do to get baptized" and we're like "aight man its actually quite simple" and so hopefully bro and his wife get baptized at the end of the month his brother's already a member that attends our ward and he wants to learn more

Had a great mothers day activity our ward had a big cookout with carne asada and chicken and it was GAS lemme tell ya and had tons of friends come with and then aftee we went to the willow branch's mothers day activity (another branch in the stake) because the week prior elder strong had promised to do a little musical number so bro pulls up with his guitar and sings volver volver (a mexican song) it was funny as heck but regrettably i do not have the video footage but yeah was cool

Sunday we had church and the primary kids all sang a song for the moms it was really sweet

Also got to talk to my mom she likes talking to me so i decided to finally talk to her after not talking to her for a very long time (by very long time i mean 6 days since the last pday) and then proceeded to talk to her again the next day for pday

Solid week overall transfers was weird i miss the trio we had a good thing goin but we were also strugglin at the same time managing 2 wards so i think the ward is kinda glad we just get to focus on them now lol

Aight bye

Lowkey just weird to think ill be back home before summer's over

Pictures!

-bought a balloon for my mom at dollar tree (it cost a very expensive $2.36)

May 5, 2025 - 88th Email - Did I do that

Hey

Another week in the books

Another week as a trio

(The last one)

Bro we got a call from the housing coordinator saying our apartment is gonna be changed to a 4 man so thisll be interesting

And we ALSO heard from the guys in the apartment 2 minutes away thay their apartment will also be a 4 man so we were slightly confused dw by next week ill explain all the deets next time but theyre gonna add another companionship to this complex making it a glorified 8 man (upgraded from 6) should be fun

So last week

Uhhh

Its kinda funny honestly we do some work in elder luna's area but its like

All in ours

Basically

Like i think luna lost a lot of work lol because we just focused so much on ours

Monday after pday we had a lesson and it was a cool new guy who wanted to hear the gospel we'll see where he goes

We went to a lesson at 11 am on tuesday at a store that sells tea and shakes (kinda small business yknow, we met with the owner) and she wanted a blessing on the store so that was interestin

Good lesson tho we chillin and we went back the next day and tried to teach the plan but she lowkey kinda bashed us and we couldnt get very far but its ok

Uhh

Did some planning for the week and stuff and then had like three good lessons back to back

First two were with cool families, third was with our friend sara that was tryna get baptized on sunday the 4th. Lol that didnt happen but ill get to that later

Rest of the night was pretty good. Had english class and then had a late night lesson with another friend at like 8:45

Wednesday we didnt report very good so we probably did stuff in luna's area besides the lesson with the drink shop lady (made lots of calls too)

Had a SOLID lesson on thursday about the restoration with some new friends. Really promising and want to come closer to God so those blessings can come in clutch

Lowkey the younger chick Veronica is kinda skeptical about everythin and compares everything to catholicism but its chill shes learning hecka and she loves it

One of our zone leaders surprised us with an exchange after zone council that day too so luna and i went with him in our area that day it was chill but he lowkey drives terribly (dont tell him i said that we all bros)

Friday morning we were freakin out because sara wasnt answering the door for her interview and she was kinda tryna make excuses but we brought elder jones (love that guy) from fontana and he kinda had to do the interview and couldnt do any later so she caved (kinda felt bad) and she passed and it was good. So things were looking up for her baptism (key word: were)

Saturday we were planning for the baptism and stuff getting the program set up and people to come do prayers and talks and it was all gonna be great and then we went to another ward's baptism of a kid that ward's missionaries were teachin cuz they needed us to lead the music lol like they always do strong and i are music powerhouses and we sang a goofy little song by idk who but its about being like book of mormon prophets and most importantly Jesus Christ so that was chill

And at 8 we go by sara to confirm ok you are getting baptized at 6 pm in the building on willow street and make sure to come to church at 9 am and she was like ok great will do

Church comes around and we get a ton of friends there we got like 11 non members to pull up just from our families so it was great and they loved it (even the teenagers believe it or not) but there was one problem

Sara didnt come to church

What happened was at like 8:30 am we call her like "hey are you ready" and she was like

"Yeah for church at 6 pm"

And we are freaking out at this point and are like "but church starts at 9 u need 2 come" and she goes

"Im in riverside with my brother"

And we're like "heck" cuz we got our member to pick her up and she was in front of her house and sara wasnt home but she needed to come to church in order to get baptized cuz she needed to come to church twice but she only came once

And she proceeded to not answer any of our calls the rest of the day

While we were waiting for luna's sacrament meeting to start we call our bishop to ask whats gonna happen and hes like "yeah if she wants to get baptized just baptize her" so we're super confused and we end up calling our mission president who is like "well i usually just want to follow the bishop if he wants a baptism to go through but she seems to have a commitment problem if shes only come to church once and shes been taught a month" but in the end he was like just do whatever your bishop says so we text sara and say well the baptism is still on for tonight i guess even though you didnt come to church and of course she doesnt respond so we finish luna's sacrament meeting and we then were told by one of his friends to visit them right after so we do and then we're starving it's like 2:30 and we havent eaten since 8 in the morning so we go home and eat some lunch and it's like 3 pm and we have no idea whether our baptism in three hours is going to happen or not so we book it to her house get there like 3:15 and knock on her door and...

...out comes her daughter.

We ask where she is and she goes "yeah... shes still in riverside" and shes like lowkey kinda chill so we start talkin and we were like "well... she was kinda supposed to get baptized today"

And she goes on to tell us how sara was never really serious about the baptism thing, she liked having us over but even her daughter noticed she had a hard time ever actually doing anything. She was surprised she came to our church on easter because they had been trying for years to get sara to go to their catholic church and she never would. She said sara felt kinda forced to go to church...

Anyway, blah blah blah sara wont get back till super late and she probably wont get baptized and never really was interested in the first place. We were kinda down the rest of the day we pretty much just had to notify everyone in the ward immediately that the baptism that was supposed to start in two hours at this point is not going to happen.

But we forgot to notify our ward mission leader... so hes kinda mad at us. Theres more lore but i dont want to bore you guys with the deets and it lowkey sucked but hey we all make mistakes and thats what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is all about.

Luckily the rest of our ward is still super chill with us and we're working to damage control everything. Dw we got this in the bag and honestly everything is already a lot better at the time of the writing of this email

So that was my week. Crazy the transfer blew by and we'll see what happens in the next one, lowkey wouldnt mind staying. I would feel bad if i just dipped after that fiasco and leavin it for another missionary to deal with lol

All in all though it was a good week. Really fun and very... uh... learn-ful. I invented a new word

Also we have well over $200 in pollo loco gift cards from our members lol

Talk to you guys next week!

Picture time:

-Tiny turtle

-They should probably remove this from the road (it's a straight up tree)

-me in elder strong's glasses

April 28th, 2025 - 87th Email - Surprise Service

 Hey

This week was pretty cool and pretty normal

Well

As normal as a trio covering two areas can get

On monday we had a return appt with this catholic guy

He was pretty knowledgeable and i think we taught him a lot of stuff

But like

Idk

He was weird

He said he believes in catholicism but doesnt believe in the catholic church

Basically he believes in the teachings of the catholic church but not what they do

Which makes no sense

Because like

If bro believes in catholic teachings

Then he's trusting that catholic leaders are called by God

But i think hes somehow detached the teachings of the church from the people who the teachings come from

Which is like

If you dont believe the leaders are called from God why do you believe what they say

But he wasnt budgin so

Its aight

Then we had to go over to our friend Anas house because they were goofy goobers and didnt come to church and she said it was cuz she didnt have nice clothes to wear lol so we had to explain to her that it doesnt really matter that much she chillin

(She ended up working the next sunday which was sad)

Tuesday we taught the ten commandments to a cute family was fun but they still scared to come to church because they dont know anyone but we tryna tell em they wont get to know anyone if they dont come to church lol so weve decided we're just gonna invite a lot of members of the ward over to their house as we pass by for lessons so they get to know everyone and theyll feel comfortable at church so we tryna invite diff ppl every time

Also we confirmed that our friend sara is getting baptized on the 4th, next sunday! Soups excited for her shes been taught for sooooo long

Also helped our friend oscar set up his fakily history account so he can start doing some temple work! Really fun stuff

Also we got a referral from a family thats kinda going thru it rn and we had an absolutely fire lesson with em because theres two sisters and one of the sisters has 2 daughters and the sisters are baptized but not the kids and they havent been to church in a long time and want to come back and it was all fun until we realized they dont live in our area lol

Either of them haha

We had to pass them off to the rialto 3rd ward hermanas like what the heck guys 

Its chill tho the daughters are both getting baptized really soon now so we hyped for that

Also wednesday night we were at the church building and it turned out an english ward young men's was cleaning up some firewood just... sitting around in the courtyard for some reason in a giant pile

I mean it had been there for at least a month we just never questioned it

So we decided to help out because it was kinda a mess and it was pretty fun to chill with some english youth lol

(They all watch way too much brainrot)

Just picked up all the pieces and threw em in some storage room on the stage out of sight out of mind amirite

Thursday and friday we did a lot of work in elder luna's area

Saturday we contacted tons of people in our area and visited the same family from tuesday and brought our recent convert oscar with us

Then we had a wedding that evening for our recent converts jafet and osiris! They got baptized when i first got here, theyre dawgs

They were already married legally (otherwise they couldnt get baptized) but they just did the reception at the church last saturday! Was a really cool activity and we even got another young family we're teaching to come too. Although the dj was being crazy with throwing in airhorns and other random sound effects wayyyyyyy too often it was honestly really funny

Also i tripped on a chair (idk how that happened) and i pretty much fell face first on the ground in front of the entire ward so that happened

We didnt report anything for sunday lol oops

We had both sacrament meetings as normal, and we also had a noche de hogar where we ate some awesome food (especially the crepes) but they didnt start the movie until really late and we had to leave for a lesson lol

Anyway thats my week

Prettt chill week all around

Crazy this is the last full week of the transfer, i really hope i stay here with elder strong but its pretty much set we aint gonna be a trio cuz the ap's asked elder luna if we need a parking pass to park in our apartment, which means theyre bringing in another car.

Ok bye lol pray this baptism happens

Pictures!

Us at the wedding

Pretty tree from last week forgot to post

Aight thats it

April 21st, 2025 - 86th Email - There's a crowd

Hey

So something interesting about being a trio and covering two areas is that means we have two area books to manage and that means some of the reporting we do is on the other area which i do not have access to so regrettably the archives are incomplete for what we did last monday because we were entirely in the other area

The weeks are flying by and honestly its hard to keep up with everything we do but i'll do my best I have to please my fans

Ive only got like 14 more weeks as a missionary lol

Also this weather is wild beginning of last week was in the 90252s then it rained and it was in the 60s i think earth is confused or something

Tuesday we tracted and went to english class and then tried to get volleyball night to happen but nobody showed up lol

Wednesday we went on an exchange with the zone leader elder blad and what happened was luna swapped with him to go to his area and blad came here with me and strong

That was a WEIRD day

So we start by contacting in front of an el super (its a grocery store that only mexicans shop at) and literally everybody we talked to was intelligent and knew a lot about churches and history and were all really not wanting to learn anything about our church (which lemme tell ya that never happens) i had no idea it was possible to bash with a catholic guy but he made it possible

(Actual conversation)

-hey wanna hear a message about Christ?

-what if i told you the message instead?

So you can probably imagine how that conversation went we were lowkey destroying him but he wasnt having it so we just dipped and bro had even said he needed to get to work but then he kept following us trying to argue and we were like dintcha say u needed to work or smth and we just left because we were tired of all these people

Then we tried to knock on this dudes door but he wasnt home and on the way back to the car cuz we had to park in a parking lot lol we ran into this guy carrying a ton of boxes of pizzas and he had questions about our church and he invited us inside his office turns out bro is an accountant and we sat there in the entrance of his office for a solid twenty minutes and he was interested but it was hard to get information thru to him cuz every time we asked him a question bro was like "depends on what u mean by that" like i could ask him "eho is God 2 u" and hed b like "whatchu mean by that" and i was just left absolutely flabbergasted we just have him a book of mormon and then he got distracted because someone delivered something to his office and we sat there for another ten minutes waiting but we had a lesson so we were like aight we gotta dip so we just did lol we let him know first but idk if that dude is finna progress

Then we went tracting in a trailer park in elder lunas area but the problem was we dont have access to his area (remember hes not in there with us) so we dont really know the boundaries we're just guessing and we actually ended up tracting just outside of the willow branch area and we tract in rialto 3rd's area which is nice for rialto 3rd but not what we were going for and this guy freddy lets us in almost immediately and we tell him all about baptism and church and the book of mormon and we dip and we're like lets goooo baby like moistkritical type beat but then on saturday we had a return appt and we realized because elder luna was like "lol this isnt my area" we were like aight lol and just passed his information off to the hermanas in r3 hope hes doing ok

Then we go tracting again in another trailer park with our recent converts bryan and oscar they were pretty cool to tract with and the first dude we knocked on was a "reformed baptist" (very insistent on the "reformed" part) but he didnt actually bash us he was pretty chill and was like just keep working hard and we dipped lol

Also ran into another intelligent catholic guy that did not bash

We also ran into a lady that had actually attended our church a lot as a kid in mexico but for some reason wasnt interested in coming back and being baptized in the united states since she attended a different church since moving but she still has a book of mormon and a testimony i really dont understand people anymore

Thursday we had zone council idk what happens in zone councils anymore they all blend together

Had a good lesson with our friend ana working really hard with her but she and her dude william arent wanting to get married for some reason argghhhhh (read that in a mr krabs voice to understand my pain) so we are tryna get members to come with us to force- i mean convince- them to get married

Met this chick who also wanted to come to church with a bunch of kids but then last minute she said she wasnt feeling good to come to church even though she told us the night before everything was good for church

I dont understand people

Friday we did more temple cleaning so that was really fun

Elder strong and i were told to go outside and what we did was sand and smoothen a fountain

So we were working with this other guy named dallin (shoutout) and he had this epic machine that easily smoothened the granite of the fountain but the problem was the fountain had little curved indents where the epic machine couldnt reach so we had to do those by hand with sandpaper, a chisel, and a wet towel

Apparently they used some kind of acid to get rid of bacteria so the chisel was for wearing away that layer of dirt and acid that had since hardened and then we sanded off the rest and wiped it off with the wet towel

There was another layer of fountain on top of the fountain (fountain inception) so we had to hop up top to get to those curved indents and then as i hopped off i jumped off in a weird position where i think i pulled both my pecs and it hurt like really bad for a solid two minutes i just sat down and after massaging my pecs (this is really embarrassing) the pain went away so we are chilling

Then my arms were sore for the next couppe days cuz that was hard work we were at it for like two hours and we didnt even finish

Then we were late to a return appt after so we drove straight there in regular clothes to see if we could do at least something because it would be a hecka detour to go home but they didnt answer so it was ok

Then we helped out the samoan ward bishop with preparing for an activity honestly i cant even begin to describe what we did so first they gave us fried chicken which you can never complain about fried chicken and then we got these fake vines with fake leaves (i mean itd be weird if fake vines had real leaves) and we had to clip the leaves on the ends vertically in half and then use the scissors in a way that made the leaves curve and we did that for like 30 of these things and it might not be the weirdest thing ive ever done but its up there it was chill tho

Also my brother's daughter was born on the 17th that was pretty cool congratulations

Saturday i honestly dont remember what we did but we confirmed a lot of friends for church and had a meeting with our ward leaders about missionary work that went on for over an hour lo

Sunday was easter that was pretty cool our friend Sara actually came to church for once so we're gonna talk to her about finally getting baptized since she can now that she came to church she just needs to come one more time

Really good service overall the primary sang a song that was pretty cute but we were stressing because the rialto 3rd elders needed elder strong to go play piano for their sacrament meeting so as soon as our meeting was over for the rialto 4th ward he got picked up by them and luna and i just chilled since church was only 1 hour for easter and then we went to luna's branch's service and everyone was asking what happened to elder strong thinking there was another emergency transfer so we messed with them a little bit but not too much they knew he was coming back next time but it was funny

Easter is cool   i was honestly surprised at how many people i met that dont celebrate easter because theyre all like "why celebrate it bruh" and have no idea that its about Christ's resurrection like its funny but yeah easter is arguably more important than christmas for its actual meaning and i loved talking to our friends all about it so hope you guys enjoyed your easter and that you have an awesome week

Aight peace

Lol i dont have any pictures oops