Week 75

So this morning I was reading in the conference talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles about "Opposition in all things". It is a really good talk. I definitely learned something new about God's plan for us. He talks about the pre earth life and the grand council in heaven where Satan proposed a plan in which all men would be forced to obey and that not one soul would be lost. The purpose of this mortal life is to truly show Heavenly Father that we WANT to CHOOSE HIM! If we would be forced to do that, His plan would not be His plan. I thought "no wonder when Satan then said 'all the glory be mine' it was like - bro, that's not even what the plan is! Where in the cosmos did you get that idea from?" Anywho, it makes more sense to me know and it just makes me realize how unified and "one" Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ really are. I also liked the part that it talked about members of the church being in open opposition to prophetic direction. Here in LA there is so many people who need the restored gospel in their lives because it is just battered with sin. It makes me sad to think that members of the church would be so prideful to feel that what the prophet says is not true. In the scriptures we see PLENTY of times that the prophets not only perform miracles, but prove God's power. I think back to Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath. I think if anyone in the scriptures could have doubted a prophet, it was here. BUT prophets always leave God's blessings with us, so where can we really doubt? If you want to read the story of Elijah and the Widow, it is in 1 Kings chapter 17. It's super awesome and I just think of all the modern day prophets and how cool they really are. (End of shpeal)

Korea Town Episode III (Blasted Heat) Scene 2

Monday we started out emailing and we were trying to set up a time for Elder D to meet up with the sister missionary who taught him 3 years ago in Virginia and her mom (FYI the missionary is already married so we weren't worried about flirting or anything). They have met up before because the mom of the missionary lives in the mission boundaries, but what I didn't know is that she actually lives in our area! I was so down to meet up with them because I mean, how cool is that right?? Anywho President Haynie said that it was ok if our DL said it was ok. So we called up Elder W and I feel like he didn't understand what was going on because he was almost saying no (I would've been so mad) but finally I explained it to him in my manipulative way and he said yes, so we planned to meet up with them at the church. We went and bought a little bit of food because we have so much food in our fridge... So much leftovers and junk food, it is not good I tell you, but it is good at the same time:) we went to go and play sports with some elders, but the mood for me turned sour very quickly because we have a mission rule of only having 3 companionships together in one place to do an activity on Pday. So we had planned to be with Elder P, Elder S (the guy from Kaysville FYI) and Elder S and Elder B. Well, two other elders tagged along with Elder S and Elder B AFTER we had already planned the 3 companionship thing. I was very mad. Some of the elders that were there didn't care that the rule was broken, but I felt very uncomfortable. Elder P and his companion then left and it was all settled, but I was still pretty mad. We got to meet up with the missionary that taught Elder D and her mom and they are super cool. I think I sent some pictures, but we were in our sport clothes so that's why we look like that, we aren't always dressed like that ok!! ;) When proselyting began for Pday we had a couple plans that fell through so that was pretty sad, so we ended up walking around for a little bit.

Tuesday we started out the day pretty good. Elder D is really helping me with my Spanish because he has really good Spanish, so during studies we actually do them well. We talked for a bit because on Monday he was a little depressed and it was a good bonding moment with him. We then started out the day visiting C F C. She is the lady with the prosthetic leg. She is doing good, but the doctors still haven't given her her new leg yet. She is using a loaner leg that isn't suppose to be walked on a lot and she has to pay to rent it, but then the doctors have the leg but don't want her to leave her house to go to the hospital to pick it up... That's messed up right there... Messed up. But she has a positive attitude and she is always smiling, even though she has a lot of health problems. We then got a call from our DL that he had some bike stuff for Elder D because up to this point Elder D hasn't had brakes. Well we went to go and get his bike fixed and he got a new brake, which I guess for the type of bike he has is like 50$... Just for one brake, ridiculous. We went to go and visit the C's after that and it was nice, L wasn't there, but it was still good. We read with them in the Book of Mormon and we went over the introduction to the Book of Mormon. I forget how, but they went off on a tangent and told us some crazy stories. One of them was that L's son one time had a bad infection in his throat and nobody could help him, so they called this doctor "Doctor C" and her son told her that he came with the injections in hand and after he had given him the medicine that he was perfectly fine. He also took a picture with the doctor and the doctor gave her son the copy of the receipt for the medicine so that way he wouldn't get in trouble (the doctor just gave her son the medicine for free). Well fast forward 2 months and the same thing happened to her grandson, but this time she was there. They went to the house for Doctor C and it was abandoned, so they asked the neighbors behind them and the neighbors started to freak out. L and her kids wanted to see this Doctor C but the neighbors said that the doctor had passed away 2 years ago. (Freaking out time). So then the son showed them the picture and the receipt and he said that it was only 2 months ago that it happened, date and everything. Then the neighbors pulled out a picture of his burial and his death certificate..... What? Anywho, that was craziness and it has nothing to do with what we talked about, but crazy story huh? They told us that they are moving to another area and that hopefully they can be sealed later on this year, I just hope they start coming to church!! We biked to where D lives and we found her!! We talked to her and she was as smiley as ever. We found out why everything weird has been happening to her. She has epilepsy and so on Sunday mornings, when she has attacks, she takes a pill and then bam, out cold. That is going to be a big struggle for her to attend church. Right then and there though we asked her if she wanted to attend the activity that the Relief Society was having that night. She said yes and so we immediately called a member to pick her up. We then told her that we would see her later because we also were going to be at the church later on. After that we went to go and contact some people and found one of the referrals that we have. He just barely came to the states about 4 months ago. Hopefully on Sunday or sooner we will be able to meet with him. We biked to the church and had dinner and it was a surprise, I don't really remember what was in it, no importa. We then spent the rest of the night trying to get a ride for the VC trip we had planned to have with E and oh my goodness NOBODY can go in the mornings??? So frustrating!! 

Wednesday was Elder D's birthday so I said happy birthday to him. In the morning we were doing everything that we could to go to the VC with E. We had a ride and everything, but then the RC didn't want to go that early in the morning and so we had to cancel that ride. We then asked if E and J D could take the bus to the VC and we could take the car, but then E said that it wouldn't be a good idea to go separately... So here we are just frustrated out of our minds when a miracle happens! The mother of the missionary that taught Elder D as an investigator about 3 years ago lives in our area and she C shim up to wish him a happy birthday, well she asked us what our plans were and we told her about the whole VC trip thing. She said that if we wanted to that she could give all of us a ride to the VC... Yes!! So here we are trying to get everything in order for us to go to the VC and J D was down, but then E was like "no, maybe another time"... Ugh! So we had to cancel the VC trip. E still wanted to meet in the early afternoon and so owe went to Denny's to celebrate Elder D's birthday. It was really funny because here we are, me and 3 Latinos in a very American style restaurant and I order some hash browns and sandwiches and they get nachos and quesadillas... Good grief. We talked to E about the Word of Wisdom because J D was joking that she couldn't order coffee... So it was kinda just brought up so it was easy to get into that conversation. She has a problem with drinking coffee, but she seemed to get it pretty good, too bad later during the week she was drinking Starbucks. Now we know what to work with!! J D brought a cheesecake to celebrate Elder D's birthday and it was pretty good. On our way back to the apartment (we had to take the cheesecake back and get our bikes) this random homeless man called "the Mormons" over. It was so funny because we went over and he addressed us as the Mormons and individually as Mormon... It was cool. Basically he just wanted some food, so we gave him the leftover cheesecake, it was a good cheesecake too. It was really funny the whole thing. We picked up our dinner from Hermana G and that was fun. We then decided to stop by to see if we could find E or E and BAM! J (one of their siblings who has Down Syndrome and she is just awesome) appears in the elevator with J (another sibling that is like 6 or so) and it was J's birthday! She was so excited that she tried to give me a hug and I'm like trying to act excited but not giving a hug because J is a little bit older. It was so funny because it just reminds me of how one happy person really can just make everyone around happy too. We talked to the mom of E and she told us that they weren't home, but that we could stop by on Saturday. Our next appointment canceled, but hey, I guess it's just not their time yet to hear the gospel. Because we had some extra time we went to go and try to find some referrals and former investigators. We knocked on this one door (with my pen) and at first we didn't hear anything. But then a reply came! A little kid on the other side of the door was mimicking the tapping noise that I was doing with the pen. I played some Pirates of the Caribbean and some other taps on the door and they were mimicked perfectly. We thought for sure that these kids remembered the missionaries, but the door never opened. We figured that the parents must've not been home and so all the kid was doing was having a little fun. So we left, even though it was really fun. We ended the night with a FHE at the R home and it is going to be a little more difficult than we thought. The lessons have to be given in English because that is what the wife understands, because she has never understood what is going on at church in Spanish!! It's not that she doesn't understand Spanish, she just doesn't understand gospel Spanish... Ugh. Well they gave us a cake too so that was nice. We are definitely going to have to find out how the Hermana learns best because right now it's just a struggle. 

Thursday we had interviews with the Haynies and it was super cool. I started talking to President Haynie and he asked me how long I have been out. I told him about 17 months and he said "wow! You finish next month!" I then looked at him like (oh no I do not) and he was like... Oh yeah, right, ok but ya you are close. That's what is so weird but interesting about President Haynie. He understands that missionaries that are older in the mission have different view points of things and he is committed to helping missionaries, especially RM stay active in the church. He told me something that was super cool, we were talking about some of the cool things that I was able experience while on the mission and we got to talk about RC and members and stuff. He said "you can tell how good a missionary is based on how good a RM he is. A RM is not defined by what he did on the mission, but what he did AFTER the mission." And I really liked that, because I totally want to stay in touch with all the people that I have come in contact with! Especially because half of those that I have taught and have been baptized are kids... I have to stay in touch to see if their families stay active!! We talked about some other stuff and that was good. I talked to Sister Haynie and we talked about a lot of stuff too. Something that we talked about is how hard Pioneer Treks can be, and how hard missions ARE. She gave me a little advice because my companion goes home in 3 months so me and him are like the oldest missionaries in the zone, especially as a companionship (he is number 1 and I am number 3) so it's really rough sometimes for me to encourage him when he is worried about home and feeling trunky. We got back to the apartment and we decided to have lunch because we didn't get it before interviews. We went out to contact referrals and we talked to a couple people, but not too many were interested. I think it's the heat that is getting to people, they might be more cranky or something ;) we had a member bring us dinner because they live outside of our area and the food was pretty good. We actually bought orange chicken sauce last week and so I have been addicted this week and I have put it on everything... Almost. I really like it with rice and with tacos, meats... Ya it's getting pretty bad. We stopped by D to see how she was doing and to try to help her to pray. She has never prayed in a lesson with us before, so that was our goal. We taught her about the doctrine of prayer and how simple the steps of praying are. We invited her to pray and she didn't want to. We don't know if she feels uncomfortable or she just doesn't understand, it is really frustrating. She is such a sweet old lady and we don't know how to help her. We have visited with her a couple times, and if she doesn't feel comfortable praying around us... I don't know how we can help her progress in the gospel. We swung by to go and see S and visited with him for a quick minute outside of his apartment. We taught him about coming to church and found out that he takes the bus... He doesn't drive. We invited him to come to church this Sunday, but he didn't come so that was sad. We are trying to work with him to have him meet at the church with members so that way the environment for the lessons are better, because at this relate we aren't really helping progress as much as could. We visited with the D L family that are non members and that have a son on the mission. He is coming home in about 2 weeks and so they are all excited. It is really sad because I don't know how well they are going to progress in the gospel, hopefully with the son home things will change. They also made fun of my Spanish a lot, which is funny because before they never did. I think it's because my companion is a Latino so he makes fun of me, so the members and investigators then think that it is fun to make fun of good OL elder Roberts here. We then had a lesson planned with M B. The plan was that he was going to teach us the message of the restoration. Well, when we got there, he told us that he wasn't ready for the lesson, so we totally had to improvise. We started to just ask him questions and the lesson was pretty good. We talked to him about baptism cause he brought it up and we talked about how to receive answers to prayers. At the end of the lesson we invited him again to prepare the lesson for the next time we visit him, BUT it turns out that there was some miscommunication. He thought that he was suppose to prepare a lesson on the expiacion not the restauracion. So he told us that next time he will be ready to teach us about the restauracion (restoration). And that's how the night ended.

Friday was just a really rough day. It started out with going all the way to the dentist again just to pick up the retainer (which I wear every night to bed and it tastes weird in the morning) and so that was SUPER HOT. Goodness gracious. We went to go and see W C because he hasn't been coming to church and it has been really hard to visit with him. Well, their family are having a lot of financial problems and W, because he works on Sundays and so does his mom, nobody comes to church. It is really difficult because he looks up to his mom, and so if she doesn't help or encourage him to not work on Sundays and to go to church, he won't. His brother, R, is just full of sarcasm goodness. Elder D almost ripped his head off with how sarcastic they both are. I was just like... Uh... Uh... It was pretty bad. Hopefully something can change. I feel like we need to teach the mom more because she always works on Sundays, and she needs to gain a testimony of going to church and the sacrament. We then got back to the apartment and had our weekly planning session which was good. It was time to head out and so we walked to dinner with the D L family. This D Leon family is the LA family that is just super cool. They gave us pasta and cake (because of Elder D's birthday) and so that was really nice for them. The lesson got really heated because the brother of the Hermana, his name is M, he is about 17 and is completely inactive. I say inactive because he is now Catholic. Long story short, he has gone through a lot of rough times (so he thinks) and he went to a private catholic school for high school that helped him get a soccer scholarship and because he loves soccer, he feels indebted to their kindness. We tried to explain to him the difference between good people and really nice stuff, versus the true church of God. We explained to him that there are good and bad people everywhere you go. We said that this is why the apostasy happened. GOOD people wanting to get closer to God without the Priesthood formed their own churches. We explained that the intentions are pure, but that the doctrine is not. He was getting a little heated by that especially cause his sister started to bash with him. I told him that if he has a question about anything in the religion of Mormonism, that he would ask me and that I would find scriptures... Aka God's word to show the truth. Hopefully he will, but it looks like right now he might not be willing to change too much. Well Sergio D L gave us a ride home and that was nice of him, they also gave us the cake to take home, so that's cool. We have like 3 cakes in the fridge right now because of all the birthday stuff. 

Saturday we got a call from the C family that they had invited some friends to go to the VC and to the Pioneer Day celebration. Well they called us up to see if we could go with them... Ugh yes! We actually didn't know if we needed to ask President for permission to go to the VC so when we asked him we phrased it like this "President, a RC in our are invited some friends to go to the VC and they asked us to go with them, we didn't know if we needed to ask permission, but can we go?" Swift came the reply "absolutely, please go!" Sweet! We went to the VC and it was awesome. The sister missionaries that were there were taken by surprise too because we didn't schedule an appointment or anything, we just showed up. But it was really good. One of the ladies that was in the group just loved everything, but didn't want to say that she loved everything because she wants her daughter to change religions so she was focusing on her. After we went to the VC we walked to the Pioneer Day celebration and (I know I should've taken pictures but I didn't) they liked it. It wasn't as good as in Utah per se, I think our stake could definitely put on something better than what they did with like 2 stakes and a lot of missionaries, but generally it was aight. It was really funny because there was a mechanical bull and Elder D wanted to ride it. I told him that it was probably not allowed for missionaries to ride it, but then we saw some other missionaries jump on and ride it. He wanted to go and I just decided that I wouldn't get on it. I mean, I didn't get on the mechanical bull at grad night, so why would I do it now? Elder D was waiting in line to ride the mechanical bull when our ZLs told us that it wasn't allowed for missionaries to ride it. It was pretty sad and Elder D was a little bummed about it too. It was really cool though because one of the 5 investigators that we were with there (in the group that the C's brought to the VC) she jumped on the mechanical bull! Crazy cool thing about that is she just barely came to the states like a week ago from Guatemala and she feels comfortable to just jump on a mechanical bull?? That was cool. They all liked the experience and we invited them to church (even though they don't live in our boundaries unfortunately and they slept in so they didn't make it to church but oh well) it was still a good experience overall. The ride home was really hot and all of us fell asleep except for the Hermano because he was driving of course:) 

WE FOUND E!!!!

We decided to stop by and I am so happy that we were able to find her again. We waited outside her door for like 10 minutes because her little brother went to go and wake her up. Well basically she has been having A LOT of problems going on in her life, I will try to sum it up: 

So she has a daughter named H that is almost 5 years old (do the math cause E is 20) and her daughter doesn't live with her because one of E's former friends took H by adoption and foster care from E. E can only see her daughter if she has permission. H has a lot of health problems and she is in the hospital which makes E (and her maternal instincts) really sad. She then has been having problems with her mom (she has to pay rent to her own mother) because E often loans money out to her stepdad and then the stepdad doesn't pay her back. Basically then the mom kicks E out of the house. Well then E has work and she went on vacation a lot because of how awesome her job is and she went to TJ where she went to the temple and took pictures (she still doesn't have a temple recommend to enter into the temple). AND her phone is disconnected and only works with Wifi so that is why it has been impossible to meet with her. Ya, so I feel pretty accomplished that we were able to find her and figure everything out. She didn't come to church on Sunday, but we will see why when we go by on Thursday. It was really cool though, she is still solid in her testimony of the gospel though.

Sunday was pretty cool cause we had about 8 of the people that we are teaching right now come to church!! It was so cool! We had a random referral come to church too! We called him to see if he wanted to come to church and he asked us to find him a ride and that he would, so we did, and he came... No big deal :) A lot of the members were really nice to him and got to know him pretty good, so that was nice. We had a FHE with the R family and the B family at the same time and we talked about temples and it was a really cool experience. M B participated and commented during the FHE which was cool and he was laughing and joking with all of us, so I'm glad that he was feeling comfortable. He was also making fun of me and joking back and forth with me so that was nice and refreshing. We then celebrated Elder D's birthday with a cake and while everyone was cutting their piece M and I were talking because he knows about Josh and how he had autism (cause he no longer has it cause of his perfected body right ;) ) anywho his son also has autism and is 20 so it's basically Josh but Latino, not exactly like josh though of course. His son is named J and he likes Tomas and Friends (hmmm) AFV (hmmm) stickers (hmmm) and loves sports... Boom!!! It's pretty awesome. I just hope that M gets baptized soon so that way him and his wife can get sealed in the temple... That would be so cool. We then finished the night off with another FHE with the A family talking about temples with them, but in a different way, and it was good too.

Well, I love y'all!! Tons and bunches:)

Love,

Elder Roberts