Hey y'all!
This week has been absolutely fantastic!! Stockton is an interesting area. The main city only has about 1800 people in it, but the ward has about 200 active members! It's awesome because lots of the members out here know everyone, and they always know someone we can go visit or something that the missionaries were doing in the past that we can pick up doing again.
There's this section of the area called "the ranch," with a whole bunch of polygamists. It's sorta weird because they believe in Joseph Smith, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, but polygamy and divine priesthood authority is what separates them from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had a member refer us to go visit his brother, who is practicing polygamy. It was really odd because it's like teaching a member... but not!!!!
My companion, Elder Haines, and I think that Stockton is about to explode with the Work!! It seems like it has all of the necessary ingredients (and more) to bring a lot of people to Christ. I honestly wouldn't mind serving the rest of my mission here! It really is a great place.
We do lots of service here. We helped this guy feed his chickens and move the cages around, just some backwoods hobby for him. We volunteer at a local senior center washing dishes, bring some music and dance around and work! All of the old people love "their boys."
We had the ward Halloween party and primary program at church this last week, it was really good for me to be able to meet all of the members. There are about 3 families that have tons of members in this ward. I get confused so easily! This ward is the best!
Well, good luck to y'all this week, have a good time!