Mi casa su casa!

Well, transfers are high tide and we have no clue what is going to happen. I am really excited though, because I get to do the transfer call and let the entire zone know who will be staying and who will be leaving! That should be fun! It looks like Elder A. could be transferred, but we don't really know.  My toes are almost healed; they feel fantastic! 

Last Monday we had a lesson with a man named C. who is very intelligent. He "believes in science" ;) and loves evidence. We began sort of rocky, but smoothed out and he accepted a Book of Mormon and a mormon.org card! We need to follow up with him again to see how he is doing. That afternoon we also played basketball with many other missionaries and it was a blast! I had not played in a very long time! One of the Elders brought a watermelon and it was marvelously tasty after a long hard game.

We were trying to contact a less active member when a man named B. came out of the apartment complex and asked us to give his grandma a blessing, so we did. He tried to give us a ton of money afterwards, too.

Real fast... time is running out. We got a bogus referral for Walmart one day this week:)  Saturday we went to a Belizian wedding for the parents of some member kids; everyone was Belizian except us. We helped set up and prepare the party favors, watched the toast and talked to the kids. The bride and groom even took a picture with us. We left before the dancing.:) It was a really cool experience!

I gave a training on President Benson's Beware of Pride talk at district meeting and I loved it! It made me realize how pride is the root of many of my sins and mistakes. Christ was even crucified because of pride! If you haven't read it recently, I highly suggest it!:) 

At church I realized how great a blessing it was that the children of Israel were scattered! Missionary work was so much easier once they were all over the place!

D. and her sons came to church yesterday!!! They were discussing the stake change and seem to like it. They left before sacrament meeting, unfortunately, but seemed more excited than last time. The boys loved the cultural hall and want to play basketball on Tuesday nights. (I don't know if I've every told you how amazing our building's architecture is.  I love the building!) They even began flirting with some of the member girls. Have you ever heard the term "flirt to convert"? Well it just may be true. We were unable to get a hold of J. this week but we talked to A., the referral from SLC, and she is awesome! We are planning to go to the Visitors Center and Family History Library with her on Thursday!!

I gave a talk in the 6th ward (Spanish-speaking) on Sunday and was super nervous. It was the first time in a transfer that I've taught in Spanish. After the first minute, though, it began to flow back and I was grateful. The gift of tongues is incredible!!! I felt right at home. Sorry to be brief. I love you all!!! We have the power to change things in our lives through the Atonement! Please do if you need to! Have a great week!

Boom Shaka laka boom!

Olo! Life keeps moving along and it can sure get crazy! So, yesterday they dissolved the Huntington Park West Stake (the all-Spanish stake) in order to combine the youth classes. It is quite a great idea. Now, all the English and Spanish wards will meet in the same buildings, just different hours. It is a drastic change, but I am excited! I may get to see former Spanish contacts at our stake conference now!!! Elder Richards, my MTC companion, is going to be the next assistant to President Baker, which is cool! I will get to see him even more often.:D

We received four referrals last week and contacted all four. We have return appointments with two of them. One of them, A, just moved here from SLC and could be awesome! J is the other one and she originally didn't answer the door. We called later and, since the answering machine was in Spanish, I left a message in both English and Spanish. Half an hour later she called back and scheduled a day for us to come back. Updates to come in the future! We were actually allowed to call SLC to talk to the Elders who taught A while she was living there, so that was fun! I also got to meet a member, Brother A, who travels back and forth from Utah (UVU- area) on business -- he is the bomb! We made a few referral boxes to leave in the church and other areas so that people have more opportunity to refer friends and neighbors! Hope it works!

We went to the Temple on Wednesday; I am attaching pictures.  We have half of the visitors center sisters in our zone -- the Marina zone has the other half.  Not all were in the picture because they were working. We went to the Getty Center after the Temple and it was pretty cool and very inexpensive. You might see a few pictures from it in a bit ;) I saw a member from Inglewood in the car the other day and it made me happy. They still remember who I am!:)

The last bit of news was the baptismal interview I did yesterday. I had the opportunity to interview M. and he is 11. He is incredible! I am so excited for his baptism on Friday. The Elders in his area were blessed to find him there! The Church is true! My testimony of that grows every hour out here! I love this work! I love you loads and pray you are safe! Thank you for all your prayers!

"You become who you want to be by consistently being who you want to become" - Elder Richard G. Scott

 

 

Time is cruising!

Time is just cruising right along and I cannot keep up! We had another crazy week and I don't know where to begin. We tried to visit a less active member, but no one was home. As we were leaving, a man came out of the other apartment. As soon as he stepped into the hall, the Spirit fled. This man was creepy. He yelled at us to get out as I was trying to hold the door open for him. It was an interesting experience to see how the Spirit reacts to evil! I won't forget how that felt. This guy gave me the willies – beyond Free Willie-sized willies!

At zone leader conference we had a great discussion about the Atonement and I understand more about the Condescension of Christ. Elder Tad R. Callister has a good book/talk on the Atonement. I highly recommend it.

We had a zone activity last Monday and it was fun. We announced our zone goal, Finding Nemo, and had a BBQ-like party with sports. The bball hoop was at 8.5 feet – it made me feel like I was in the NBA. That was fun!

D. and A. are coming along. We have a great relationship with them and have another lesson with them tomorrow. A. said he wants to come o church and I have a great feeling about it. I pray he’ll follow through.:)

We had stake reports where we report to the stake leaders and with President on how our zone is improving. I quite enjoyed it!:) It was a unifying and exciting meeting. 

We did a surprise service to Brother B. two days ago and it was cool. The three companionships in the ward got together and pulled weeds in his yard.  He would never ask for it himself. :D

Well, I hope you are all safe and that the weather is cooling down. Can you believe it is already half way through September? I cannot keep track of the time! I am getting worried – it’s going too fast! Sorry it was a brief one. I love you!

Hey! Where's Perry?

Happy Labor day everyone! I hope you did something crazy and fun. If not, you still have time to get going!:) Well, here are some of the Scriptures we used for The Embrace of the Atonement: 2 Nefi 9:41, 2 Nefi 1:15, DyC 6:20. I love how Christ is the only way we can get to the Celestial Kingdom, and He is waiting for us. That will be the best hug! Other fun ideas: The children of Israel were baptized as they went through the Red Sea, Christ (the Bread of Life, or mannah) came down to feed mankind and also the children of Israel in the wilderness. Teaching in English has taught me some new things!

I have discovered several connections in the last week! We ate dinner at the W. home and Brother W. asked if I had a relative who served in Barcelona with him. Well, Clint is the right age, and he served in Barcelona, right? I am pretty darn sure it is him. That also means I was at the MTC farewell meeting at the same time as Brother W., too! Weird.

Then I met a young man who is living in a member's house in our ward. His name is K. and he is from Iceland. I said "Hey my friend is serving a mission in Iceland right now!" He said "cool". Then I verbalized my thought of "I wonder how Elder G. is doing?" Well, it turns out that he played soccer with him a lot out there! Who would've thunk it! I was also talking to the G.s (senior missionary couple in our ward) and discovered that they are from Dublin, Ohio. I asked if they knew the Z. family and it turns out they are in the same ward! Santa Mapache! 

On Sunday, Elder Moli was looking at an old Improvement Era in the library about Tonga. I asked if they had an article on Samoa. They did, and I saw President Joseph H. Dean mentioned a few times! I made a copy and am sending it home to Mom and Dad! This magazine was from 1966!!! The crazy stuff you find in church libraries!?!

Well, this week will be full of lots of meetings and craziness. I have been having  a hard time keeping up with the fast pace. September is here and so is the Book of Mormon musical! I loved hearing from all of you last week. I hope the reunion was fun and I am glad you are safe and recovering. Love you!  P.S. I heard that Steve was fabulous in a mumu!

Smashing Toast, Gromit!

Well, things have picked up a bit :) We didn't have many dinners at first, but now we have about 4 a week, which is nice. My first dinner in the ward was with the S. family. Sister S. is from Uruguay and Brother S. speaks Spanish, too. The C. & R.s were there and they both served Spanish missions, so we were all speaking Spanish and I thoroughly enjoyed it!!! Elder A. has been picking up some Spanish, too. I like to think that my "teaching" helps him. He is very smart and studied a bit of Latin. He could easily pick it up!

We found a small family that may progress, but we need to teach them a second time. They both said they would read the Book of Mormon, and the wife expressed interest in coming to church. We will see this next week. Note: we need to get closer appointments so we can progress faster!

We had a referral that turned out being Spanish and we introduced the Book of Mormon! It felt so good to have an almost 100% Spanish lesson again!:) It was really hard to tell her that the "Spanish missionaries" would be coming by next time. It about killed me!

A car stalled in front of a crazy busy intersection, and Elder Allred and I pushed it across by ourselves. I would like to know what the people were thinking and saying as we did it. It was really fun. I also happened to be on the phone at the time we decided to hop out :). Love service!!!

We met a less-active family and they straight-up told us that they didn't want us trying to persuade them to come back, but that they would let us in for a drink or to talk (but not gospel). They are all from Mexico but speak perfect English. The wife is not a member and looked pretty ticked-off when we showed up. She opened up tons when I began to speak Spanish with her, though. Before we left, they committed to call us so we could help them do some kind of service soon. I am really stoked and could not stop thinking about them. It was not a coincidence that we found them. There is something incredibly special about them.

Yesterday after leaving church I was reading a talk that brother Boswell (an MVP incredible man) gave us. We were discussing some updates on the ward list when I got an interesting buzz from head to toe, like I was being scanned by a spiritual price gun. I literally stopped talking and focused on the feeling for a minute. I had been talking about a member, Sister O., at the time. I knew it had been a prompting and I told my companero that we needed to see her today. We eventually got by and had an amazing lesson! She told us, "I signed up for the missionaries last week for dinner, was that you guys?" We were not aware and had not planned on being fed that night. We were able to uplift her and experience her strong testimony. She had a brain aneurism about 2 years ago and became a member shortly thereafter. She told us that she was grateful for the anerism because she had been a workaholic and would've worked herself to death if she had not been forced to slow down. It was powerful to hear her explain the blessings of this experience. My companion also strengthened her with an awesome scripture chain about the Embrace of the Atonement (I will write it next week ;)! We were both blown away by the Spirit!

We met the M. family, who moved into the ward a few months ago.  I was telling them I was form Orem, and Brother M. said “I'm from there, too!” He saw my name tag and asked "Are you related to Adriane and Lauren?" I was shocked! All I could say was "Are you serious!" SO I met A.M. and he is doing awesome! He served in Carlsbad speaking Mandarin. There you have it! Love you all dearly!! I have to run. My hour is up!!!! Lots of love from Los Angeles!