Happy Birthday Russell!

Good morning beloved family and friends!! That's right as you see from the title it is in fact president Nelson's 100th birthday! God bless that man! But this week was another great one! Been bumming on the emails but hopefully this one's better! 

Been trying to write down more experiences I've been having with people and with friends bc I forget a lot while writing these emails. But my sister invited me to write more stuff down so hopefully this is better shout out Candin! 

This week and weeks prior we've been making it PRIORITY to build the member relationships here. Oakland 1st ward is amazing but it's dying. Literally...everyone's a little old and there's no new faces. And it's all on us. We had meetings with a lot of members this week and left them with lots of invitations to do missionary work. We hope it will catch because we are struggling finding real interested people to teach! But it's been working! 

But some highlights from the week were all the exchanges I was able to go on! I first went to Berkley with my old comp Elder Odupolu! It was an amazing exchange he's about to head home and that elder has done a lot of amazing work! But Berkley was wild! These elders literally live on the same street as like all the sororities and frats! It's crazy loud and it was a Monday night haha! Whose gonna tell them the lord is coming back soon?... Oh yea us. Then had an exchange with Elder Wardell from Wyoming! He's my DL and he's been working really hard at his assignment! He's a beast DL! And then I had an exchange with the Khmer speaking missionaries! Theyre beasts too! It is weird for sure bc I was their DL like 8 months ago but now I'm there ZL so it's come full circle haha! 

We've been still working with Sirine and set a new Baptismal goal with her! She has lots of hope so we are praying hard for her and her strength to carry through on it! We also had such a good lesson last night with out friend Paul! He's a young single dad just doing his best! He's very humble and really funny too! We talked to him for an hour just getting to know him and sharing more of the restoration with him. It's awesome how receptive he was to the message and he accepted the invitation to read the book of mormon and pray about it! 

Lately I've been reflecting alot on how much I've learned from my mission! And what more I need to commit to and consecrate! This reflecting always brings me to my favorite chapter Alma 5! There's a lot of reflecting questions in there that we all need to consider! If you ever get the chance I would invite yall to read and reflect on Alma 5! 

I love you all and miss you all! Have a blessed week! 

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