Released from District Leader

5/29

This week was pretty good! :)

What’s up!? I love serving here in Yucaipa again. On Sunday we went to some of my recent converts home, Mike and Heather and Silviano was there too and we had dinner there :) It was awesome, and then after dinner we roasted some marshmallows and I helped Mike put this BBQ grill together that was in like 100 pieces lol. It was cool and fun to exercise my mechanic skills again :)

Also, this week I’m going to help this kid that just got home from his mission install a sound system in his Mustang!

So yeah the work his is doing well. We have our investigator that I think I mentioned before (Lauren). We had another lesson with her and this time we brought a girl her same age group along for the lesson and they just clicked! SO I think she will be getting baptized here pretty soon! :) No rush though, right?

These past few weeks with Elder Kava have gone by so fast! But it has been a great time for growth. I’m pretty sure both of us have had some great learning experiences and we help each other become better! Earlier this week Kava and I were talking and I told him that as long as we have experiences that seem uncomfortable or as long as we are still pushing our limits, we will constantly be growing. But the moment we stop pushing or feeling comfortable, we become idle. So, that is my goal, to keep pushing for these last 6 months. It seems crazy but I can totally feel it coming.

Also I have some news. This morning I was notified that I am no longer District Leader. It’s crazy, but they forgot to tell us at the beginning of the transfer that the districts were being changed, so I have been serving as district leader here for 4 weeks. But, I guess a year as district leader is enough :) To be honest, I feel relieved. I was kind of surprised, but at the same time I’m totally cool. So hopefully now I can focus more effort on my companionship and we can tear it up with the time that we have together.

 Aright well. I think that’s about all for now.

 Love you!

 Love, Elder McNew (Justin)

May 21, 2012

05/21

Hey what’s up y'all? How is everyone? Sounds like you are all doing pretty well after reading all of your mail! :) As I’m sure you all expect I am still doing super well! I am finally really comfortable here. I love California and when we went to multi-zone conferences this week I discovered that Yucaipa is one of the highest baptizing zones in the entire mission. It is very likely that I will spend the rest of my mission here, if not then I will spend I suppose a short amount of time in my next area!

Dang it seems like everything has gone by so fast. But as for the increase of knowledge it’s like I have been here for a lot longer! I love it so much! Here’s a cool story… So, last week we talked to this girl that was outside of her house washing her car. As we talked with her (I guess she talked with the missionaries previously, but nothing really happened) we set up an appointment with her at the church on a Wednesday night. This is the second time I have met someone at the church to have a lesson there and the spirit is so much stronger it seems. Anyway, so we set up this appointment right and she was like, Oh and I’ll probably bring my friend along too! :) YES! That’s exactly what we want to here!

So we had a lesson with her and because it was two young women, we had to have a team up. So, we had one of the priests in the ward come and it was really awesome! The lesson went really well and the spirit that was felt was amazing! We committed them to be baptized when they know that the Book of Mormon is true! No date yet... but give us some time, it was still just the first lesson. I know that the Lord is blessing me and my companion because we have been striving to do our best and to just keep a positive attitude about everything. We work hard and have some fun too!

 In the home share I currently have, there are four sons. Two are at home, one is on a mission, and another is a returned missionary. The son on a mission is Garth. The returned missionary is named Bryce and there are two kids in high school. Their names are Shane (junior) and Wyatt (senior). Wyatt went on a team up with us when we taught the girls last week. Their names are Lauren and Jessica. Recently, Wyatt has been teaching me a few things on the guitar lately. It’s awesome. I still suck, but my skills are improving!

 Also we were helping this lady throw some stuff out. She moved and left all this stuff in her driveway and we told her whatever the other church didn’t take we would donate it to the DI. So, we went and loaded all the crap into the zone leaders truck (it’s a Chevy Colorado), and we ended up taking like 3 trips to the DI which is just down the road. Then, while we were throwing the stuff out, we were kind of checking out all the stuff that was there and I scored 3 SLR film cameras! :) I tinkered with them when I had some spare time and got all 3 of them to work! Ha yeah, so I loaded up some film.  My favorite, one and took a ton of pictures at the combined with Redlands zone activity today. It was tight, like unto a dish lol :) jk but it was pretty fun! 

 So yeah, I’m doing pretty well and the work IS PROGRESSING so well! :) Hopefully we will have some great news for you next week too! Please pray for our investigators Lauren, Jessica, John, Cindy and Staisha. The last two are struggling, they kind of dropped us but hopefully there is still time!

 K Love you all! Have a great week! Love, E. McNew

New Companion

05/07

Hey what’s up?

 Hello and good afternoon, I am doing great! Back here in Yucaipa is awesome! I’m serving in the Yucaipa 4th ward, which is just to the east of the ward I was in before. My new companion Elder Kava is awesome! He is Tongan and part Mexican, and he is way chill and he likes to work hard!

This week was okay because we are still getting used to the area. We talked to 209 people and taught 14 lessons. That’s not bad. We will be doing much better this next week though! :) I’m stoked because my companion is ready and so willing to do work and to be obedient. I am excited about that! :)

 Love you!

Have a great week and so will I.

 Love, Elder McNew