The hour long bike ride

Hello, Sorry that I didn't send an email last week haha. Aside from meeting Bert (I mention him later), there weren't too many big events that happened, we were mainly just trying to find people to teach and meeting with member of the ward for dinner and messages with them. This week was good. We still had some difficulty finding people to teach and all that, but it's all good, we still had fun this week. On Tuesday, we had zone conference, which was pretty good...but it was over zoom, which was a bit of bummer :/. Oh well, we still had a good time. After that, we planned a bit for some member lessons that night, including coming up with a written lesson plan for a family that was giving us dinner since we actually wouldn't be able to meet with them in person because of their schedule. We biked over to one family where the husband isn't a member, and we had a quick message testifying about the Book of Mormon and inviting them to read it as a family. It seemed like our testimonies impacted him a little bit, especially when we testified of its role alongside the Bible, but 🤷‍♂️ I can't say for sure haha. We then said a prayer with someone on the street and got her number to meet up sometime (but she has since blocked our number lol), made a few more stop bys, and went over to the other members house to drop off the written lesson and pick up their food for us. Since we got there later than expected, they actually showed up right when we got there too, so that was slightly awkward/funny haha. It was late at night anyways, so we just chatted a bit and gave them the lesson plan we created. On Wednesday, we tried our luck with apartment finding (knocking on a few random doors in an apartment complex; it's something we're experimenting with), but nothing much came out of that. We then stopped by Bert's house (we met him last week; he's finishing reading the New Testament and was open to reading the Book of Mormon too once he finishes the Bible) and dropped off a Book of Mormon with our written testimonies in it since he wasn't home. We then dropped off another written lesson plan for a couple since the wife was sick and they were hesitant about people coming over, but we saw the husband working in the garage, so he talked with us for a while. We went through a nearby park to try talking with some people, and then we stopped by another couple's house. The wife continues to watch church, but the husband does not, so we did another quick message testifying of the Book of Mormon and the Church and the blessings we have seen from them, but he wasn't really open to what we were saying, sad (he even said "no" to the invitation we left lol). We then had a good lesson with Bruce (a new member, baptized last month; we read the Book of Mormon with him and answer his questions) and another member; we're trying to involve more members in lessons with him so that he and his wife have more friends in the ward and become more involved with them, so that's going well so far. After that, we picked up dinner again, and we headed home. Thursday was Elder Wilkinson's birthday (he's our district leader's companion), so we went to lunch for him after district council. During district council, I gave a training on using the scriptures as we teach, which I think went well. Our lunch afterwards was at this pizza restaurant, which was pretty good, I was stuffed afterwards haha. After making some stop bys, we had a member dinner, and I was still mostly full from the late lunch we had lol. We also had smores, which was fun, and we shared a message about family history. We then headed over to another family's house for their family home evening, and we also talked about family history and temple work and the blessings that come from it. On Friday, we had a service at a food bank, but it was all the way in Livermore, which was about a 35-40 minute bike ride for us. However, that whole time, we were biking into about 15mph wind, which slowed us down a lot, and it ended up taking nearly an hour to get there haha. After the service, we called our district leader to pick us up, we didn't want to bike that much again lol. We then got some lunch, did some social media work (I've been able to practice some Tagalog online, so that's exciting), and made a lot of calls and stop bys. We met the wife of a family who aren't members (except her), and we got to chat with her and get to know her for a little bit before she had to leave. Her family has been taught a bit in the past, so hopefully we'll be able to meet with them again. Aside from her, we weren't really able to meet with or teach anyone else we stopped by, but there were a few that said to call them later or stop by again this upcoming week instead, so that's good. Saturday was our weekly planning day since we didn't have time on Thursday, which was pretty good, we came up with some good goals and ideas/actions on how to build and strengthen the ward. We then made a lot of calls and sent some texts to try to set up some appointments, and then we headed over to Bruce. After our lesson, we stopped by Ed, but unfortunately, he told us that he doesn't think he'd commit to anything since he's not really committed to church/religion at all right now and doesn't want to waste our time. He definitely seems open to learning about the gospel, it just seems like right now isn't the best time for him. Hopefully some other missionaries will be able to help him in the future. Sunday was good. We had church, and afterwards, we did some studies, family history, social media work, updated some documents/information for the ward missionaries, and made more calls. We also had dinner with the Bodilys, and we talked a lot with them about the ward/missionary work, and we came up with lots of ideas/plans/actions to take to help build the ward as well as people we could stop by and that the ward could help as well. The Bodilys are just great haha, I'm grateful they're here, and I pray that we'll be able to jumpstart the ward and help it grow. Anyway, I hope everything is going well, I'll keep trying to be more punctual/early with these emails haha. Keep praying, keep developing your relationship with God and Jesus Christ, and I promise you will see miracles happen in your life. If you have the faith to ask and the faith to look, they will come. God, your Heavenly Father, loves you and is always watching over you, I know that to be absolutely true. Talk to you later, Elder Enger