Elder Gold's update for Aug. 17th

This past week we experienced some more baptismal setbacks with another one of our baptismal candidates (Michael). He has a somewhat heated fued with one of the members of the singles ward he will be baptized into and the ward member has slandered him pretty bad in the past weeks. It's a long story that's too dramatic for guys in the mid-20's to be involved in. I felt like I was in high school again after church yesterday as we discussed our investigator's side of the problem in the parking lot.

I went on splits last Wednesday in a part of L.A. that I had never seen before in the city of Los Feliz. I went with one of the Zone Leaders who's from Chile and we spoke spanish for most of the day with the people we contacted. We taught a less-active member of the Church who claimed that he "lacked the discipline" to do anything that was expected of him (church, taking medication, changing diet, etc.). A lack of discipline in any aspect of a person's life will limit who they can become. This concept repeats itself daily with the people we meet.

I went on splits last Thursday with a member of the Elder's Quorum Presidency in our family ward (Westwood 2nd) for two hours in the evening to check on less-actives and part member families. He (Dean Thompson) graduated from Utah State, then got his MBA from BYU and now he's working for a large banking/investment firm here in L.A. (Barkley's). It was interesting to notice the parallels in interests that the two of us have and how his route in schooling reflects the route I plan to follow in many ways. Fun fact: He has a grandma who lives directly across the street from Grandma Gold's church in Sandy, UT. Her name is Wonda Thompson. I'm not sure if she goes to the same ward as Grandma Gold, but it's likely.

I've been reading a series of talks by General Authorities lately and before my mission I could not envision myself becoming so interested in reading the comments of church leaders. At the mission home we have the luxury of going to lds.org to print off talks and access General Conference addresses if we have time and I've taken full advantage of that opportunity.

I read one talk yesterday by Dallin H. Oaks that deals with the rate of our discipleship. He says, “Some people live the gospel with short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, followed by long periods of lapse or by performance that is intermittent and sputtering. What we need in living the gospel is the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime…This steadfast standard requires us to avoid extremes. Our performance should be the steady 100 percent of a committed servant, not the frenzied and occasional 120 percent of the fanatic…A fanatic is one who has lost sight of his goal but redoubled his efforts to get there.”

We have transfers this Wednesday and we will be opening up three new areas in the mission, which has caused the work load to increase for Elder Gentry and I. We've been coordinating new apartment move-ins, orientation meetings, training meetings, and all sorts of other things that will happen later this week. It's good to be busy. I enjoy the work and the responsibility. It keeps my mind occupied and focused on being a missionary.

Thanks for the e-mails and for the updates about the family.

Nate & Emryn sent me an e-mail with pictures of the pregnancy timeline and I'm looking forward to meeting the new cousins in a few months.

Have a great week! Elder Brycen Gold

Elder Gold's update for July 24th, 2009

This past week was pretty solid. We have two investigators with baptismal dates right now (Jad, Michael) and they both go to the single's ward that we cover. We should be able to set two more this week if everything works out. Both Jad and Michael will be baptized on the 16th of August. We do still need to find out if Michael has an apartment within the stake boundaries for the single's ward, but after that he'll be good to go.

We had zone conferences this past Wednesday and Thursday and Elder Gentry and I gave a 40-minute training about being missionaries that work with our heart and our minds. Keeping the mind consistently focused on the work is a challenge, especially here in L.A. At times everything can feel like it's becoming routine and it's easy to allow the mind to wonder. The billboards on the sides of all the roads, sports, stores, etc. make it a tempting place for the mind. As the AP's we go to all the zone conferences, which has some good benefits to it.

On Saturday we had a day that taught us the importance of mental toughness. We had four appointments scheduled for the day but all of them cancelled on us and we ended up tracting or traveling to potential investigators for most of the day.

We have been working with an Elder who is supposed to be in Argentina right now, but he lost his passport at some point during his travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina last week. He flew from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles to Lima, Peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina and then found out that his passport was missing. They sent him back to the U.S. by flying him to Santiago, Chile, then to Los Angeles. We'll be taking care of him until he gets all of his passport forms figured out.

Earlier this afternoon we went to the UCLA campus and met up with the starting quarterback for UCLA, Kevin Prince. He's a member of the single's ward that we cover and we're both pretty good friends with him. He'll be a redshirt freshman this year and he gave us a tour of the football facilities and offices for 1.5 hours. He introduced us to Norm Chow, the offensive coordinator for UCLA and former offensive coordinator for BYU and USC earlier in his career. We met one of the UCLA recruiting coordinators and I had a chance to ask him some questions about how he got to where he's at. Working for a college football team in almost any capacity would be sweet.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the sun. Keep sending the pictures when you can. I love you all and I'm grateful for all that you do.

Quote for the Week: "Just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives." - Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Brycen Gold