President and Sister Merritt - California San Diego Mission Blog

  Sending holiday wishes to our loved ones, friends and family. We pray you feel the Savior's love and light in your life this holiday season. The Christmas season is such a wonderful time to be sharing messages of Christ, and inviting others to come to understand His purpose. This transfer we are focusing on Christ His names and attributes. In addition to scriptures from the Bible and Book of Mormon we have relied upon The Living Christ , a wonderful document, written by modern Apostles, detailing much about our Lord and Savior. This brings such joy and gratitude to our souls. Norm has also prepared and each morning shares with the missionaries a different name of Christ. We share with you here an name, inspired by the departing testimony of one of our missionaries, titled, "Our Good Samaritan." " December 16, 2023   Our Good Samaritan - In his departing testimony, our own Elder Gudino referred to Christ as his   Good Samaritan . It got me thinking about this un-off...

  Let us begin by saying thank you for your prayers as Hurricane Hillary blew through. We are happy to report all was and is well. We do have a clip below of our awesome missionaries out working in the rain, which turned out to be very mild. For some fun footage, watch this video! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3111353299169063&extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&mibextid=HSR2mg&ref=sharing Here we are well into fall with the holidays rapidly approaching. It is high time for an update. Our September transfer was extremely busy. Normally transfers are six weeks long, but this transfer was reduced to five weeks to accommodate our attendance at the North America West Seminar for Mission Leaders.  During this 5-week period we received 31 missionaries spread over four separate days. Normally, we have one arrival day each transfer that occurs the same day as departures.  However, because of the longer training period for missionaries in our "small language" program...

We have just ended a zoom call with our missionaries discussing the plan for Hurricane Hillary which is approaching Southern California. The storm has been weakening but will in all likelihood drop large amounts of rain in the region and flooding is a major concern. In addition, strong winds can down trees and power lines. We feel very fortunate, and see the Lord's hand in the timing of our efforts to update emergency backpacks that are kept in each apartment. Just this week at zone conference missionaries brought backpacks and while they trained, our senior missionaries emptied, inventoried and refilled the backpacks. Planning for this happened weeks in advance of any news of a storm. This is a great comfort to us and yet we know we are still in need of your prayers and appreciate any that you can offer on our behalf for the safety of our missionaries and all those impacted by Hillary. And now onto other mission news. The mission home is graced with the presence of fruit bearing t...

  On April 7, Good Friday, we kicked off an ongoing program to be held at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in Old Town, San Diego. The program is named  Inspire, Music and Messages of Hope.   The Battalion has a smallish theater that seats about 60 people and once a month we present a program in collaboration with the missionaries there. Our first program on Good Friday focused on how Christ's power, coupled with our faith, can make us whole. The source of this teaching is the miraculous healing of the woman in Luke 8. In an act of faith this woman with a flow of blood reached out her hand to touch the hem of Christ's garment as he passed by and was immediately healed. Christ's words to her are so profound, "Daughter be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole;  go in peace." Certainly, it was her faith in Christ's power and acting upon that faith that produced the desired miracle. But this miracle could not have been performed without Christ's po...

  The Lord continues to sustain us in our work here in San Diego.   We were graced with a visit from Elder James B. Slaughter of the Seventy at the end of February. He taught us an important concept, one that continues to resonate through the mission, about confidence. He explained that while we often think of self-confidence and self-doubt as being on opposite ends of the spectrum they actually share the same, self-centered, inwardly focused side of the spectrum. He continued and explained that opposite the self-centered side we find “Christ confidence” which is outwardly focused. He taught us that with that outward focus, Christ can work through us to bless others. One exhibits Christ confidence when they choose to follow Christ without fear of man. In the New Testament, Paul is a prime example of an individual who practiced Christ confidence and there are many examples of such contained in the Book of Mormon.  Our missionaries have many opportunities to show and practi...

Kansas City Chiefs sure ran with patience their race today, Superbowl Sunday! When he joined the church, in an effort to "observe the sabbath day and keep it holy," Norm gave up viewing the Superbowl on Sunday. A "sacrifice" that has been a symbol to him of the commitment he made with God at baptism. That has not kept him from watching highlights the next day, or recording it to enjoy later, but he has continued to abstain from watching on Sunday . It so happens a member of one of our congregations here in San Diego is Eric Weddle. Some of you may not know the story of Eric Weddle. He retired from the NFL in 2020 after a storied 14-year career (All American, All Pro, Pro Bowl, etc.). One Tuesday late in the 2021 season, he got a call from the defensive coordinator for the LA Rams. They were on course to have a run at the Superbowl but had just lost their two safeties to injuries. The question posed was “What kind of shape are you in? Could you give us 17 snaps this ...