Week 77

Even though we did not get any snow, we did have a white Christmas! Kylee Massingill was baptized a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last Thursday and was confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost on Christmas Day! What better gift could she had given the Savior! She will be so blessed! And she loves it already.

We also had Christmas morning presents just like everyone else. And  found my hat in one of those. The Casados family, about 3 weeks prior, held my hat hostage for leaving it at their house and thought it would be funny to give it back for Christmas. They make me laugh 😂. There are a lot of great people here in Poway. We were definitely well taken care of.

One of my favorite things that happened for Christmas was going about 15 mile north to some missionaries in Ramona. Some packages for Christmas came in the day before and we had the privilege of driving up at 6 am in the morning to play the role of Santa and give them some last minute Christmas presents. They were all super tired still but over joyed to see the gifts from loved ones back home. It was sweet!

I will top off this email by talking about Josh and Sara. They are both awesome people and they love the Gospel and everything the church has to offer, they believe it is true and everything. But....... they are scared about getting married. We think it is a  financial thing, something about insurance and dependents. It is a mess but the point is they cannot receive all of the blessings that God, our Heavenly Father has to offer them until they follow all of his commandments, including keeping The Law of Chastity, including getting married if you are living together. Hopefully we can help them overcome that and let God's blessings flow.
😊

~ Elder Joshua Alger

P. S. The four Missionaries in this picture are Elder Wilson, me, Elder Mahoney and Elder Chen. I trained (Elder Wilson and Elder Mahoney, my mission children), and Elder Chen is Elder Mahoney's trainee.

I have my hat back!

Out caroling

Week 76

We have been having a lot of fun here in Poway as of late. We have been going to the Mormon Battalion, caroling, stuffing my companion with milk and cookies and joining the members and their friends for
some Christmas fun! The people here in Poway are so kind! I absolutely love it! The people we have been teaching that are really close to baptism include; Kylee Massingill, who is going to be baptized on Thursday and
confirmed on Christmas, Josh Eyer, who we are inviting to get married and baptized on Christmas Eve, and Chris Shah, who we are going to commit to be baptized be for he new year and get his mom's permission (he has been going to church for 6 years) he just needs the green light from him mom. We also have been working very closely with the Casados family in fellowshipping Kylee. That also are holding my hat hostage. But we are formulating a plan to acquire it. All in all Everything good in San Diego comes from Poway!

Bonus Pictures

These were sent to me, Stephanie, by the sweet people of Josh's area.

Hi Sister Alger, I'm in Elder Alger's Ward and I wanted to let you know how much I adore your missionary! He's a hard worker and his testimony is a light in our home. Thank you for sharing him! I'm including a few photos from Zone Conference Thursday and one from Rubio's a few weeks ago when my husband and I ran into him and Elder Jensen. I have a missionary out serving right now too and I appreciate your sacrifice and his

Oh, can't forget this one! He forgot his hat last night at our house

He's a good boy we are happy to have him here in Poway! 

Week 75

This is Elder Alger's companion. He has been driving us and another companionship around all day and isn't going to have much time to email because of it, so I'm not sure if you'll get one this week. But it's because he is a champ. Anyways, this week he sang again in sacrament meeting with a returning less active and nailed it, and then he found a giant pepper grinder.

Elder Jensen

I have been doing great! My mission has been the best experience of my life. The only trouble I am experiencing is that I am becoming more and more busy. I am so sorry! I really wish I had time to send you super wonderful
juicy emails every week. We were driving in traffic for 4 hours today and I was driving for all of it. Please forgive me!

~ Elder Joshua Alger

Week 74

We started off the week by loosing an elder and gaining Elder Mackey. Elder Mackey's companion had to leave so we ended up being his new companions until President Schmitt found him a new companion. It was
really weird but fun at the same time. Elder Mackey is super sarcastic and loves messing with you. We all got along great.

In the midst of all of this we went over to Josh and Sara's. They had a life changing event happen to them that is very motivating to get them married. So we challenged them to pick a date in December and fast to know if it is right. They chose Christmas Eve. We are ecstatic!

On Saturday we had not one but 2 ward Christmas parties. Elder Jensen and Elder Mackey went to one and I went to the other. Both wards are amazing and I was sad I could not go to both. At the Twin Peaks Christmas party (the one I went to) they had a wonderful Nativity scene. It was so fun and to top things off we had some ward members sing. It was a blast!

At the end of the day on Saturday Elder Maughn joined us and we had to let go of Elder Mackey. Elder Maughn was my zone leader in Chula Vista. He is a great missionary and does not tolerate anything short of what needs to happen. I love him so much.

On Monday we had a super fun Family Home Evening. We went over to a member's home and had a sweet object lesson on how we influence everyone in our lives by what we do. We then gave them 3 minutes to write down the names of every nonmember that they could think of. Afterward, we showed the Christmas video and asked them to think of how they can serve those individuals. They all ended up having 2 people each that we are going to help. It was a great spiritual experience.