Chapter 17: The Waters of Riverside
- Amber Prior
- Jul 15
- 9 min read
Updated: Jul 28
July 14, 2025
Weeks in the mission: 21 Days remaining: 576
Companion: Elder Watson Area: Riverside Ward: Mission
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"Roosevelt Cruz Flores, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."— Elder Watson
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A warm greetings to everyone across the globe! Hope all of you are doing well. Welcome to chapter 17 of my time as a set apart missionary. This last week has been the best week of my mission so far, I'd say. We saw SO MANY MIRACLES!! We gave it all we had this week and the Lord magnified our efforts tenfold.
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🌟 Miracle Highlight 🌟
So many incredible miracles happened this week. But what I want to talk about is CRUZ'S BAPTISM!!! WE DID IT!!!
The baptismal service was incredible. There were 3 people entering into the waters of baptism, each of them from a different pair of missionaries in the ward. Cruz was ours, Oscar was Elder Field's and Elder Browne's, and Salvador was Sister Quiroz's and Sister Garcia's.
I won't forget the joy I felt in that room as I watched someone I cared so much about make his first covenant with God and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Because of Cruz's example, he sparked a light in his mother. She was shedding tears of joy as she watched her son get baptized. She said she wanted to start coming to church.
How incredible.
I told Cruz he would be a light and an example to those around him. They'd see and witness the remarkable change in him. How amazing to see that already happening. I think we'll finally be able to meet with Cruz's mom when we go over for lessons.
This miracle is only one of several that I witnessed this week. It has been so incredible to see how God blesses you as you work to serve Him.
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🙏 Prayer request 🙏
Will you please include the following friends of ours in your prayers? You have no idea how much it helps and how many miracles we see out here.
🔹️ Angelica Vasquez – She had been rather unresponsive this week, so we went by to see if she was even still interested. She opened the door and we saw for ourselves that she wasn't lying about her fall that she had. Her face was all bruised and it looked like it hurt. She doesn't want to come to church for fear of judgement, so she's waiting until it heals. I'm not even sure if she's left the house. We're praying that her wounds will heal quickly. We may have to go over and give her a priesthood blessing as well.
🔹️ Jonathan – He is a super cool new friend we found this week. He's got a 4-year old son whose name is also Jonathan. We put him on plan to be baptized on the 27th, and he's working towards that eagerly. It was a miracle that we found him. It was the PERFECT timing, when his heart was open. God had prepared him to receive us. We're praying that he'll not deny the Spirit that he feels and continue forward in faith.
🔹️ Mateo Nicolas – His situation on coming to church is rather difficult. It looks like it's not his highest priority either. We extended an invitation to him earlier this week to pray about finding a way to switch his work schedule so he could come to church. When we followed up with him, he told us his boss said that if he switched shifts, he wouldn't have his leadership position that he has anymore. So if he is to make progress on the covenant path, he's going to have to make a couple sacrifices. Seems like he prioritizes work over church, so we're praying that he'll realize how important it is to come.
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📅 Daily Events 📅
🔸️Monday P-day! I really enjoyed it, we did some fun stuff today. We hiked Mt Roubidoux in the morning as a zone, got some ice cream, went to a bike shop to fix up our half-busted bikes, played pool with the APs at the apartment clubhouse, and called my family.As far as missionary work today, it looked a bit different. We had a very nice lesson with Cruz and prepared him for his baptismal interview tomorrow!After that, we went back to the apartment complex and played soccer with some of the people we were teaching from 7:30–9:00. We're trying to get a weekly soccer night started so we can find new friends and people to teach. We made a group chat, so far so good.
🔸️Tuesday Today we had Zone Training Meeting and exchanges. I went with Elder Rasband in his English area for 24 hours. It was pretty sweet. Elder Rasband is an awesome guy and is very funny.We had a lesson with this schizophrenic guy named Luis and his friend Melissa who is lesbian. We taught them the restoration and about the Book of Mormon and why it's necessary and how it can help us. We showed them a video of 3rd Nephi 11, and it really looked like Melissa felt the Spirit. Luis, however, told us some interesting things. He said that he was a drug addict, but God took away his drugs one time. He had his empty bag of drugs in his hand, but he turned it over and it instantly turned into a shard of glass haha. I hope the best for him.
🔸️Wednesday Today was wonderful. Elder Watson taught me something that is going to improve my mental and emotional resilience.There were several things that made today amazing! First off, we went to an apartment complex to stop by our friend Fanny. However, the gate was locked and we weren't about to hop over in front of the security cameras. BUT, this 17-year-old kid came around the corner and opened up the door for us. We started talking to him and Elder Watson asked if he had ever been baptized and he said "No, but I really want to be." So we LEAPT on that opportunity and put him on date for the 27th.I also had the privilege to conduct a baptismal interview for the one-and-only Oscar! The same person I taught on my very first day of this transfer with Elder Field and Elder Browne. It's been 4 weeks since then. He's come so far and made so much progress. He'll be getting baptized on Sunday with Cruz and a few others.
🔸️Thursday Had a very productive morning. I did my studies and learned a lot about spiritual gifts and developing Virtue, to become more pure in heart. I've set a goal to elevate my thoughts.The Lord blessed us with 2 new very prepared people today. The first is named Christian. We were biking alongside a park, when I looked and noticed a figure taking a walk all by himself, about a football field's length away. I initially got nervous and almost kept on biking, but I knew I needed to turn around and go talk to him. So I did. I biked all the way over to him and found out how cool he was. He was so friendly and was looking for more truth, so we set up a time to meet with him again and gave him a Book of Mormon.The other awesome guy we found is named Jonathan. He also has a kid named Jonathan who is 4 years old. How it happened was we were stopping by someone that had once spoken with missionaries in the past, but they didn't answer. We were about to leave when Elder Watson noticed a man swinging on a tire swing with his kid. So we went over and started talking to him. He told us that he saw so many of us go by in the past and always ignored them, but now he was curious. So we ALSO put him on plan to be baptized on the 27th! At the end of the lesson, he was so happy and excited!
🔸️Friday Today was incredible. I went on exchanges with Elder Barker in his area. He is such a great elder. He's friendly, kind, compassionate, and has a sincere desire to help others. We worked really hard today and talked to so many people. We pulled over on the side of the road and rolled down our car windows to talk to pedestrians countless times. We even got into a locked apartment complex because we barely made it to the gate just before it closed, so it opened back up for us. We told each other we weren't going to leave until we found someone to teach in there, so we duo-knocked the whole place. We finally found someone interested on one of the last houses.
🔸️Saturday Wow, today was filled with so much. I could write on and on about everything that happened. The problem is, I know my time is limited and I won't be able to capture very much of it, rather only a portion.After a productive morning, we went out a little earlier today and wound up finding Gabriel. He is already a believer but showed a little interested in what we had to share.In the afternoon, we had our second lesson with Jonathan! We learned a bit more about him. His family isn't very religious and makes fun of him for wanting to follow God, so he prays only in his heart.It is also worth mentioning that we actually found the man-gorilla teenager that chased us last week. He's actually a really cool guy. He did that to be funny for his girlfriend, just as I suspected. We got his number and we'll call him when he comes back into town after a week.We had a member meal with the Contrera family. It was honestly mostly the Contrera mom, because everyone else was doing something else. She is basically the spiritual motivator in her family and has been through quite a bit.After dinner, we got dropped off by the elders and found ourselves in "the hood" you could say. There was this HUGE party going on in someone's front yard. It was all African American. A lady turned to us and shouted "keep doing what you're doing!" We pretended we couldn't hear her so we could get closer and talk to her. They were blasting some crazy Lil Nas X rap song or something. Beer was everywhere and it was pretty wild. It didn't take long for someone to shoo us away and say "we don't need you here." But just down the street we found a cool guy who said he'd make us hot dogs if he caught us in the area again. He owns like 5 mobile hot dog stations.The last thing I'll mention is our super awesome lesson at the church at the end of the day. Remember the friend we found on Thursday? Christian? He asked if it was ok if he brought his girlfriend, and we said of course! They are both SUPER AWESOME! Both were really smart and had a lot of interest in the Book of Mormon. They even downloaded the audio version on Audible and paid for the subscription and stuff. We quickly told them that there was an app and it was free to listen to on there haha. Before our lesson, they had listened to it TOGETHER all the way until the testimony of the three witnesses! That's unusual. People don't usually get that far by themselves. We usually have to push them to read even beyond the introduction.
🔸️Sunday I'm not sure I have the words to properly describe the joy I felt today. We saw God's plan unfolding before our eyes. There are incredible things happening.Not only Cruz came to sacrament meeting, but also Jonathan and his kid were there! The two of them met each other after sacrament and talked for a little while. We are DEFINITELY going to take Cruz with us to lessons with him when he becomes a member.And of course, the baptismal service. [I wrote all about that in the miracle of the week so I won't write it here]God has great things in store for Cruz. I suspect he might have been ordained in the pre-mortal existence to play a pivotal role in his family and lead them to light and joy.The ward mission leader is awesome. He's got a plan to get all those that were baptized today into the temple by THIS SATURDAY. Cruz wants to go ASAP and do the work for his ancestors.
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☀️ Spiritual thought ☀️
If you really want to enrich your studies of the scriptures, I HIGHLY suggest you read the student manuals as you study. They really expound the doctrine and explain so many things so clearly. You can find it on Gospel Library just by going to: Library → Books and Lessons → Institute → Scripture courses. Click on any book that says "student" manual.
I've learned a lot from these manuals. A lot. They're awesome.
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That's all for this chapter. See you all next week!
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