Carlsbad 3rd Ward

      Hey everyone! My new area is awesome; the ward is really focused on missionary work. They've had a lot of baptisms recently and are really pumped up about the work. We have this investigator named Mike who we set a baptismal date with for the 18th, it's so cool to see how the Lord has been preparing him over the past couple years to accept the message of the restoration. He is very humble and is so sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit. It's made me think about how my Mom and Grandma were prepared to hear the message of the restoration and it has been nice to reflect on their conversion stories they've sent me.

      Elder Alldridge is in my zone now and I've got to see him several times already, it was awesome to catch up and tell him how the work in Encinitas has been. I miss him sometimes; we had so much fun together and had a lot of really powerful experiences. He'll definitely be a life long friend of mine.

      It was a little hard to get along with my new companion at first. Some of the missionaries that we share the car with and do our P day stuff along with him are older in the mission and are more lax when it comes to following the rules and it drives me crazy. It's definitely different than when I was with my last two companions.

      It's really making me stretch and learn how to not look inwardly. I've realized that I can only correct and uplift people if I really love and care about them first.

Transfered to Carlsbad 3rd Ward

Hey everyone!

      Woah it's crazy I just got a call on Sunday night from the assistants and they said I was getting transfered and needed to be packed up to leave in the morning. I got transfered to the Carlsbad 3rd ward. I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone except my ward mission leader and Elder Taylor who I had become very close to over my short time with him I'm gonna miss him a lot. It is very sad to leave my first area, there are so many people there I want to help and so many things I want to do but I know I'll become just as fond of the people in this new area.  I have a new companion now named Elder Haskin, he will be done with his mission in 3 weeks and I've got to learn the whole new area before he leaves. He doesn't seem as willing to teach me the area as I would like which makes it very hard on me.  He is an awesome missionary who has had a lot of success and knows a lot. I know I can learn so much from him I just don't know how to motivate him to teach me. I won't have a lot of time to write letters today because I've got to unpack and clean the apartment for cleaning checks tomorrow so I'm sorry if there's some people I don't get back to yet.

New companion

Dear people who do not live in Carlsbad,

      What's up!? It's pretty sad that my companion Elder Aldridge is now gone. I missed him a lot the first couple days ha-ha. But my new companion is awesome, his name is Elder Justin Taylor, he's from Illinois and Utah. He went to a little bit of school at Utah State and is a country singer. He's a little bit older in the mission (about 16 months as apposed to Elder Alldridge who is at 7 months now) I've already learned a lot from him and I look forward to a productive transfer in which I will be able to grow a lot. It took some getting used to having a companion that wasn't exactly like me like Elder Alldridge was but it's ok because Elder Taylor is awesome and I know that we will become great friends. He's teaching me how to work with the members more to find people who want to hear the gospel as apposed to what Elder Alldridge and I did which was a lot of tracting. We find a good mix together and I think it is working well and will be very fruitful (did I spell that right?). It's pretty cool, we're teaching this nine year old boy named Conner who is the son of a member of the church who has not been active in the church for a very long time and has a lot of word of wisdom issues. He asked us to teach and baptize his son and so we told him that we would teach his son but that he needed to work with his son and every commitment we extended to the both of them. I look forward to seeing the Lord bless and enrich the lives of this humble family according to their desires and faithfulness. I have a testimony that it is possible through the infinite power of the Atonement, concept that I still can't fathom but do have a greater understanding of since I have been out here. I've been studying the "enabling power of the Atonement" or in other words the "Grace" of Jesus Christ a lot recently. Elder Bednar's talk "In the Strength of the Lord" helped me to understand it a lot better.

      I gotta go.

Love, Elder Orgill

P.S. Being on a mission is still awesome :)

Things are great here in Encinitas!

Dear Padre and everyone else,

      Things are great here in Encinitas! :) today we have transfers and my companion Elder Alldridge will be leaving the area. He's gonna go train again and also be a district leader. I don't know who my new companion will be yet so you'll have to wait a week to here about him. It's a little sad that Elder Alldridge is leaving because we have become such great friends over these last three months. We've put a lot of hard work into this area together and have had a lot of fun while doing it. He's definitely gonna be one of my life long friends. But I'm looking forward to this new transfer, there's a lot of good stuff cooking here in Encinitas and I know who ever my new companion is I will be able to learn a lot from him.

      General Conference was incredible! It feels so good to finally here from President Thomas S. Monson after spending three months telling people that we have a prophet on the earth today that speaks to God and leads and guides us, it was something that I thirsted for. We had to stay on the Stake center all day Saturday because it was a bit of a drive and we had to watch all three sessions. By the time we got back it was almost 8 o’clock and we were so ready to share the gospel. We had so much joy and energy from being spiritually fed all day that we couldn't contain it when we talked to people ha-ha it felt like we were attacking them with positive energy.

      Being out here is awesome I love it so much, I don't know how to describe how sacred and personal this experience of serving a full time mission is. I feel very blessed to have this opportunity. I just wanted to say again how grateful I am for everything that everyone has done to get me ready to come out here and for all the letters and support that I get, it always pumps me up and makes me want to work harder.

News from Encinitas

Thank you all so much for the Birthday letters and packages! I love you all so much and am so thankful for the prayers and love I receive from all of you. I can definitely feel the support coming from Heavenly Father because of those prayers. The time I have spent out here has flown by and I receive so much joy and strength every day. Every time I get a letter it makes me want to work harder because I think about how much love and effort you have all put into preparing me to serve.

      Some news from Encinitas:

First there is some bad news about our investigator Stacy, she called off the baptism the week before. She had gone back to her old church one night and received a lot of anti-Mormon influence. She became very confused on what the Spirit feels like. She put up walls the next time we came over and said there was nothing we could say to her. We had to call off the baptism which was very sad but did not slacken the work. We started to work even harder and the members in the ward saw our efforts and gave us referrals because of it. After an appointment last night we were headed over to an apartment complex to do some tracting and felt like we should stop by Stacy. We saw her in the parking lot and started talking to her. We ended up having a lesson right out there in the parking lot. She felt the spirit strongly and even started to cry a little bit. I know Stacy will one day accept the gospel, I just pray that it is soon so that she can experience the blessings now.

      Things are going great out here :) Elder Alldridge and I have a blast. You guys are awesome.

Love,

Elder Orgill