Samoan families, LOTS of food & a hospital visit

I am doing great and... I get to go BACK TO SIMI FOR THE BAPTISM!!!!

Elder Routledge

Monday was good, kinda. Now, I have some news and promise me not to go nuts. Like, sit and take a breath before you read this (NOT something a missionary mom wants to hear!!). So this day was fun. We did all of our shopping, I picked up some Oxnard fire patches (for his dad), we went to Buffalo Wild wings for lunch and had an awesome time playing beach volleyball at the beach park. Not actually on the beach, just a park by it. But I did see the ocean. It was pretty awesome. 
Monday was great and for dinner we ate with a member who is a gun fanatic, it was cool. Okay, so breath...so all Monday I had a sharp pain in my chest on my right side. I called the medical lady and she told me I needed to go to the hospital. So Monday night I spent 4.5 hours in the hospital and they were doing all kinds of tests. They said my heart and x-rays are perfect for someone my age. I am very healthy and above average on my vitals, but they could not find the source of the pain. I AM fine now, but wanted you to know, not to scare you, just to tell you. I AM FINE NOW. I have no idea what it was, but if it comes back I'll go in again, but I think I am good. 

A VERY Dark alley

Tuesday the pain was gone and it was a great day. We met with our Ward mission leader and talked about our pool of people we are teaching and we got some good insight. Lunch, oh my heck. So we have a few Samoan families in our ward and one, Brother Tuitama (the coolest man ever) took us to an all you-can-eat buffet. So I ate all I could hahaha. I had 3 full plates of food and 1 full plate of dessert and Brother Tuitama looked at me and said, "We can make a Samoan out of you yet" hahahaha. 
It was soooooooooo fun, on my heck. Then we had dinner at TGI Fridays with a member and I had a huge whopping half pound burger. Oh my, it was soo fun by the end of that night. 

Wednesday, I woke up.   
Thank gosh I didn't die from all the food I ate :)
We did service at this food bank by washing some of their trucks. This place will be weekly service like the dog shelter in my last area. It is a cool place, with forklifts everywhere, a lot like Miller Supply (one of the places he worked). They gave me a name badge and a hat, it was cool. 

Christmas lights in September !

We also did some stuff on Mormon.org and then we had dinner with another Samoan family. I did not eat that much, but hey, today (Monday) my companion and I are going to a huge Samoan bbq for labour day and I promise you, I will try my best to out eat some of them ;)

Thursday we did our weekly planning and that was good. We talked about our companionship and man, oh man, Elder Plummer is soo easy to get along with. He is just so calm most of the time. He is a BYU SPORTS NUT, but I enjoy him very much. 
We stopped by two less active members houses and got in contact with both of them. They are both pretty nice, but only 1 wants to continue to meet with us. 
So, my second day in Oxnard I got a parking ticket because I can not read signs apparently. 
We had two lessons this night. One was a drop lesson with a guy named Amador and the other was a nice lesson with this guy we met on the street. He knows like EVERYTHING about the Mormons. He is really cool and interested, and even knew Moroni and the promise at the end of the Book of Mormon. 

Elder Routledge & Elder Plummer
In the dark

Friday was pretty good. We had a really awesome zone meeting and got some good reminders about the mission. It was pretty powerful. 
So my first week here, we gave a Book of Mormon to our neighbour across the street and we have tried a few times and had no luck. But this time she said she read and told us to come back. 
Oxnard is a really humble area. 

Saturday was a slow day. No one we tried was home. We did have lunch with this potential investigator the other Elders told us about. He was super awesome. He is a Vet. He has served 2 tours in Afghanistan and has some crazy stories. We set up time to do service work for him this week because he really needs some help. He is moving in with his Mormon brother in Idaho in a year, so we have to get him baptized before then haha. 

Sunday was Fast and Testimony and I had to bear my testimony. I shared Helaman 12:1 and said that I know that the Lord blesses us when we put our trust in him. It is just so cool to know that when we trust the Lord, he blesses us and it comes down to accepting his will, even in hard times. I have come to learn that hard times on my mission is His way of saying, "okay, it is too easy. Here is a boost, here is a testimony builder" but to us, it is a road block, but when we leap that road block with His help, we see salvation up ahead over the wall. 

So, Mom, Dad, Shel, Scott, keep doing awesome. I know this work is truth as I know this Church is true. I love you all and I will talk to you next week. 

PS - General Conference is coming up!!!!