First week in Pleasanton

Hello, This week was pretty interesting. Leaving my first area, adjusting to a new one, meeting new missionaries and other people, it was fun haha. We're the Foothills Ward, and there are a lot more hills here than there were in Bernal lol, so that's been fun biking over those. Tuesday was transfers; Elder Duncan and I got picked up early to head to the mission office since Elder Chapman (our ride) had to be there for a leadership meeting, and the rest of the missionaries gradually piled in as well. I picked up a new bike, got a ride home from our zone leaders, and then Elder Bennett and I did some studies. Then, we were about to head out to make some contacts and meet some members, but his bike broke right when we went outside 😂. It was all good though; our ward mission leader came by to fix it a little bit, and then we rode our bikes to his house so he could continue working on it. While he was trying to fix it, his wife gave us some breakfast burritos, and by the time we had to go home, Elder Bennett's bike still was broken lol. So he gave us a ride back, and he said he'd keep working on it tomorrow. Wednesday was our first district council, and we met the zone before we split off into districts. Afterwards, our district decided to go to Panda Express, and we realized that the other district had the same idea and was already there haha, so that was fun. Afterwards, we did some studies, and because we still didn't have our bikes, we had to walk everywhere once we were driven home haha. We walked to the church, tried talking to some people on the way there, and had some dinner with a member there. We then did some social media/family history work at the church, and our bikes got dropped off, so we just headed home for the night. On Thursday, we finally had bikes to use lol, and we did some weekly planning. After our planning, we went out making some con Quite a few people rejected us and a couple people had moved out, but there were some who said we could stop by again at a different time. We also stopped by Ed (not a member; Elder Bennett met him last week), and he was totally down to have us come over another time when he was less busy, so that was pretty sick. We then got a "jumbo burrito" at this Mexican restaurant, and that was pretty good haha. Friday was a bit interesting. We did some service for this one store nearby (started out by scrubbing the floors, that was fun lol), and that went well. I think missionaries stop by every once in a while to help out, so that'll be cool to do. After that, we did some social media/family history work for a while (we apparently do that a lot more in this area than I did in Bernal, so good learning opportunity), and we made some calls. Later, we were able to chat and have a good lesson with a member of the ward, and we had a good discussion on Moroni 10:32-33 and how we are "perfected in [Christ]". That doesn't just mean that we are cleansed from sin as we rely on Him and follow Him; it also means that every imperfection (physical, mental, emotional, whatever) that we personally deal with can and will eventually be made perfect because of Christ and His sacrifice for us. He and our Heavenly Father want us to overcome our weaknesses and limited capabilities, and They want us to rely on Them so that They can help us to do so. Saturday was pretty good. After doing a couple social media lessons, we were biking the rest of the day. We made a lot of stop bys, had a lesson with some members, met Ed again and invited him to church, and we met a lady on the street named Anna. We offered to say a prayer for her, and we ended up summarizing the plan of salvation after she had told us about what happened to her brother, said a prayer with her, and as we were asking when we could meet again to teach her, she actually asked us if we have a church building since she's been looking for a church recently for her and her family. So that's a pretty neat miracle haha. At the end of the night, we were biking in the furthest west neighborhood of our area, and the steep hills we had to go up were brutal lol. On Sunday, we had church. Neither Anna nor Ed showed up to church unfortunately, but it was still good. We then had lunch with the Bishops, and then we went over to the church again. We did some studies, some social media and family history work, and we made a lot of calls haha. We then had a meeting with the zone and someone else in the stake to schedule some service opportunities for this week, and we headed home after that. I hope you all are doing well and that you guys have a fantastic week as you trust in the Lord and look for the small miracles each day. See you guys next week, Elder Enger