Last week in San Jose

Hello, Sorry for the lack of an email last week, it was crazy hectic because I found out that I was leaving to the Philippines this upcoming Wednesday, and I had very little time to sit and write out an email. So yeah, surprise! I'll be leaving on Wednesday, and this past week has mainly been preparing me to leave On Tuesday, we had zone conference, which was pretty good. After some lunch/studies, we then met with Elise over zoom and had her new friend in the ward join us, and it went pretty well. We then met with Jester over zoom too, and we later met with Moises to read through the scriptures with him. After that, we had our basketball night; it went better than last week since we had more people and a couple less active members and new people came, which is what our goal is, and it was fun to end the night with that. Wednesday was pretty good too. We had our weekly POSSO service in the morning, which is always fun. After our studies, we tried stopping by and calling Sean and a lot of other people, but no one answered (what is it with people not being home on Wednesdays lol, same thing happened last week). We then got Mod Pizza with the Sisters and a couple in our ward, which was fun, and afterwards, we headed back to the apartment to prepare for our exchange with Elder Sandall and Elder Mouser. For the exchange, I went with Elder Mouser to his area, and Elder Sandall came up here with Elder Bundy. Thursday was an interesting exchange, it went by really fast haha. We had district council, I shared some of my thoughts on hope for a spiritual thought, and the zone leaders brought donuts, so it was pretty great haha. After lunch, Elder Mouser and I went to serve at Second Harvest, another food distribution group where you're in an assembly line putting together boxes of fruits/vegetables. We then had dinner, and by then, we already had only a couple hours of the exchange left lol, so that's why it felt so fast. Elder Mouser had a couple lessons scheduled that evening, but they both unfortunately had to reschedule, so we made some calls and did some social media work, and he was able to get a couple more people who wanted to meet next week, so that was good. We then ended the exchange and headed home. On Friday, we had some weekly planning, and then we went over to the church for a lesson with Josephine. We then went to visit Sean, and he was actually home, so that was pretty great haha. What was awesome was that we caught his parents right when they were leaving, so they were able to call him over to talk outside with us, fun when the Spirit works like that lol. We went over the plan of salvation with him, but he seemed a bit tired and wasn't too into it at the moment. We're glad we were able to at least meet with him though, and hopefully we'll be able to again. We then tried stopping by a lot of people and making a lot of calls/texts, but no one was really home nor responded. We then made some texts, updated some spreadsheets, and did some social media work for the rest of the night. Saturday was pretty good. We pulled some weeds with the Sisters for the Fields (a family in the English ward), and Brother Fields got us donuts, so that was pretty nice haha. After some studies, we walked around in some nearby neighborhoods, but no one was outside lol. We then met with an inactive member and shared our favorite scriptures with him and testified of God's love for him, so that went well. After getting some lunch, we went to set up the chairs for stake conference and attended the adult session that night, and it was pretty good; we had a member of the Seventy there, and there were a lot of good thoughts there about the temple, repentance/the Atonement, and Come Follow Me. Sunday was also pretty good, we had stake conference again. It was good, the Spirit was strong, and both Elise and Sean came, which was exciting. After some lunch and studies, we visited a couple inactive members and talked about hope and the importance of praying and reading the scriptures every day, and then we had dinner with the Fields and Moises. We then visited another less active couple (the husband came to basketball on Tuesday and wanted us to come by), and we had a good time with them. They also bought pizza and a cake for us, and we were somehow able to eat that despite being filled at the Fields lol. I hope you all have a great week and continue to say your prayers, read your scriptures, and do those small things each day that bring you closer to God. I promise they will bless you and improve your life. See you all from the Philippines! Elder Enger