Week 76

Korea Town Episode III (Blasted Heat) Scene 3

Monday was an ok day. It was really hot so that wasn't fun to bike in, but hey, you do what you got to do. We got everything done (the chores for pday like cleaning and laundry) pretty early and so that was nice. We went to the church because Elder D is going to apply to LDSBC.  Elder P and Elder S came because Elder S is new and still doesn't have his iPad yet. We talked with them for a while before we played sports. Now I know you are going to say that I need to do better stuff on pday, but when nobody wants to do anything and you are in a bike area with a companion that only wants to email on plays, you settle for playing sports. The ZLs came and they are cool, kinda. Elder N is super chill and cool. He is only 1 transfer ahead of me and we have served around each other here and there, so it's pretty fun to be around him. We played frisbee and basketball and the dream team was the picture that I sent to you with me, Elder P, and Elder N. It was fun to play sports that day. We dropped our clothes off to start the actual day day for pday, and we didn't have any plans because of stuff falling through. We got a text from C A asking if we could come help him and his mom move some furniture around because they were going to have their carpets cleaned. So we went over and helped them move stuff and organize as well. The furniture piece that has the TV on it was SO heavy (yes we moved the TV from the furniture) but that wood was super thick! I had to push from the ground while kneeling and Elder D pulled, it was intense, but it only took like maybe a minute to move it to where the Hermana wanted. We then organized everything and one of the pictures that the Hermana has was really old. She then told us the story behind the picture. Her sister was only 6 months pregnant when her baby was born. Now at this time they lived in Guatemala and where they lived there weren't any hopsitals, so all the babies were born at hom. She said that when the baby was born that he was SO tiny, and his skin was a burnt black and purple color. Everyone was freaking out saying that her sister and the baby we're going to die, so they quickly asked a favor. They went to get their dad who was a priesthood holder to give the sister (his daughter) a blessing. He gave her a blessing and the baby was born. The baby then didn't breath and it looked like the baby had passed away. The dad then gave the baby a blessing that he needed to fulfill the purposes that God sent him to do her on earth. The baby was fine and (down the road in life) became a missionary and now has a family of his own. Cool story!!

Tuesday we started out the day talking with lots of people. We talked to so many random people, but they all were pretty busy with their lives, so they didn't want us to come back. That's something that has been really hard this transfer and especially in this area, there are A TON of people, but nobody wants to listen. We decided to go to a part of the area that neither of us had been to before and we walked through this college campus... It was nice, but it was super small. There was a lot of business looking people there. We actually were stopped by this random guy who told us that he was an RM from the Philippines who served his mission in Hawaii about a year ago. It was pretty cool. He wanted to buy us a Gatorade or something, but my comp said no (which is fine) it was just cool to meet the guy. We stopped by the house of this less active and the man that answered the door was apparently his father in law. He had a huge gut and no shirt on, pure belly, it was awesome. He explained to us that the member went off the deep end basically. That he only got baptized because he liked a girl and then he got himself into drugs. We talked with the guy for a bit and he said that he would like to listen to us one day! Hopefully we can go back and talk to him sometime soon. We went back to the apartment for dinner and we made some chicken Alfredo. We went to go and see the A family and read with them in the Book of Mormon. The daughter is reading along with us and. Everything is going good! She likes when we explain the Book of Mormon to her and she is understanding it more. She even told us that she wanted to read one more chapter! But we had to go and we committed her to read the next chapter, which she did! It was so cool. I think in that exact moment is what we always look for as missionaries, leaving lessons at the spiritually high point. It was awesome and I just love the A family. We had correlation meeting and it was pretty intense. My companion likes to take control of things especially when talking in Spanish and so sometimes I just feel like a secretary to him. It was really difficult because he was a little overbearing with the members during the meeting, but I just decided to stay silent. We got back to the apartment and we had a little argument that was just awful. It shouldn't have happened and it was just a poor display of pride getting the better of the both of us. I thought I was doing really good with patience with companions and keeping my criticisms pretty low. I guess that that was a little mini test and I absolutely failed... It was bad. But the good thing is is that we are both dudes and we just got over it pretty quick, it was just sad that it had to happen in the first place. We also got a call from L R saying that she wanted us to come by on Wednesday because there have been some crazy things going on in her life and she wants us to come back by... Hopefully she has been prepared a little more and she is ready!!

Wednesday we had a lesson with E right before she had to go into work. We met up at KFC and when we followed up on her reading and asked her if she had any questions, she said yes and we spent the rest of the lesson trying to answer her questions. She has a lot and it seems like the reason why she is listening is to just hear about the Mormon religion... So we might need to be a bit more loving and bold and tell her that this message is true and that it will bless her life, and that it's not just something interesting to learn about. We found out that her father passed away when she was little and so she is very much interested in vicarious works and the temples. We invited her to go to the VC on Friday and she said that it would be good. We planned everything out and then the lesson ended. We walked around and talked to people, tried to visit some referrals, but nothing really happened. We ate in the apartment again because nobody fed us, but it's all good, we finally got rid of all the leftovers in the fridge! We went to go and see L and her family. We got in and sat down. Before the lesson I told Elder D the history of what I have experienced with the R family and so we were both prepared. We planned to focus on keeping commitments and coming to church. By focusing on that we thought that it would help us know whether or not L really wants to be baptized, or just have us over cause she is lonely and bad things are happening. So we talked to her and it seemed like she was super committed to come to church. She even made plans to go to church, what time she would wake up, what she would need to do at what time to walk to the bus to arrive to church on time, everything. The only problem is once Sunday came, she didn't show up:(

Thursday we had our weekly planning and it was good. Elder D made popcorn again and he has all these seasonings that are just super yummy to put on popcorn, so good. Well we had a pretty good day planned out, but basically everything fell through. It was one of those days that was just long and hard as a missionary, mentally, physically, everything. We ended the night going over to the As home and reading with them in the Book of Mormon, we have that now as a regular plan 2x a week with them. They told us that they we're going to have their carpets redone the following day and asked us if we could help them organize and move stuff around to help them out, which of course we said yes because no one ever actually has anything for us to do to help them out with, so it was fun. We left the big stuff to move in the morning because their house is really small and the furniture would block the way of the fridge, so we decided that Elder D and I would come back in the morning to help them move all the stuff around.

Friday we ended up doing a lot in one day. We started off doing service for the A at like 7:00 in the morning. So I got to dress in "regular" clothes and it felt super weird... Super weird. We moved their furniture and stuffed it all into their kitchen which is super tiny, just so that they could get their carpets cleaned. That only took about 20 minute though. We got back to the apartment and got ready for the day. We had everything set up for the VC trip, so that was good. We had to walk to meet up with everyone and E got there first. She wanted to buy MCDs for everyone which was super nice. She bought food for us, J D, L C, and the sister missionaries at the VC. It was a long drive to the VC because of traffic but the conversation in the car was good so that was nice. We got to the VC and the sister missionaries were on exchanges! Sister W (friend from school in Utah) was the STL that was on the exchange with Sister C (she is from Brazil) so it was a little cool, but weird at the same time. On the way up to the temple E saw the front and the Angel Moroni on top and she said "oh, I love that" and she told us later on that she just felt so good and peaceful when she saw it. If only she can now put all the pieces together!! PLEASE pray for her! We had a good tour in the VC a lot of good stuff happened. We walked around the temple and E was asking a lot of questions and it was good. We explained a lot of stuff to her. It was time for the snack part of the VC with MCDs and so we sat down outside and ate at the VC. Elder G and his companion Elder B were picking up mail from the mission office and so they were all like smiley and saying hi to everyone. It was really awkward because they didn't say hi to E or anything, and we all had to get back into our areas because J D and E had to go to work and we had another appointment. Well we got dropped off a ways a way from the apartment because J D had to take a shower and if he isn't in the car, then we can't be in the car. So we were all sweaty in our suits walking back to the apartment at about 2:30 in the afternoon. We called up J, the guy that we had the appointment with and he said that he could still meet with us. We biked to his house and brought him his own copy of the Book of Mormon. He told us that he is a little skeptical about the Book of Mormon and some other concerns he has, but we invited him to pray and read in the Book of Mormon so if he does that then the rest will just fall into place. Afterwards, we received some messages of canceled appointments. Our dinner canceled (which was with the D L Family so that was sad). We then got called by C to see if we could move all the furniture back to where it was before, so we went over and moved the stuff back. Their whole family was also there and so they were painting and redoing some other stuff so that was fun to help out with as well. We decided that because of the day before and us not being able to meet with E that we would try to stop by again and visit with her. We stopped by and SHE WAS HOME! It's always nice when she is home because she just needs a little help being self sustaining in the gospel and then she will be fine. We talked about what is going on in her life and the problems and struggles that she is going through, it is true that the adversary works real hard on people in their 1st year of being a convert in the church. We then walked back home and that ended the day.

Saturday was a pretty packed day. We started out around 10 AM visiting with the P family because they had a lot of stuff to do on Saturday, so we stopped by and read with them. A is doing really good, he is progressing and liking the fact that they are becoming active again. Next was district meeting and it is always a little weird with Elder W as the DL because he is a little unorthodox in how everything goes. It is also rough because our district is relatively new in the mission and our companionship has more experience as missionaries than the rest of the district, so it's really difficult for them to suggest something that we haven't tried before to help investigators, little frustrating. We then had lunch and afterwards went to go and see W C and his brother. They are both less active, but William has finished reading in the Book of Mormon!! He was happy that he finished and we helped him set some new goals with reading, and also had his brother join along too. We decided that we wanted to go to Yogurtland because I had a 16oz free on my "platinum" card cause of how much I went to Yogurtland in the past and the fact that it was my birthday month. So we went and they have Mario stuff going on so that was cool. The only bad part about it was that I spilled some Princess Peach Tart on my pink tie and no there is a little bit of a stain, so now my only pink tie is not up to par with the rest of the gang. We then walked to E because she is wanting us to stop by more often, she always asks us to. It was nice to visit with her again and I think she wants us to visit more so that way she feels more comfortable coming back to church rather than feeling left out and overwhelmed. We finished off the night at the B home and shared a quick scripture with M. We also planned to have a FHE the following day, so that was good.

Sunday we woke up thinking that we didn't have to go to the 8:00 meeting with the bishop in the morning, but then we get a text from our DL saying that we have the meeting... So we start rushing and going crazy and then we get a text saying that we didn't have to rush anymore because we actually didn't have the meeting anymore. Well, that gave me plenty of time to write the talk that I had to give in sacrament meeting about the sacrament. I copied and pasted a couple paragraphs from PMG and the talk from Elder Bednar about always retaining a remission of our sins and then I shared the parable of the ten virgins... So I think it went pretty good. I read it to Elder D and he helped me on parts that I needed to emphasize better or it would sound a different way, so that was really nice. We got to church and we are just waiting, and waiting, and waiting for people to show up... And nobody did! None of the investigators or our LA or RC were arriving and it was really depressing. Sacrament meeting started with less than 40 members there, including the missionaries and the leaders. Part of the reason was because the YM were on a scouting trip and they obviously have some of their leaders with them.. (Can they do that? Cause basically they just made people miss the sacrament but I guess because they had leadership there they gave them the sacrament on the camp out?? Weird). Anywho the bishop was cracking off jokes about the youth and nobody was really laughing so it was a bit awkward. Elder D and I were sitting by Elder W on the stand and it was really weird, just because of how the stage is. Well I gave the talk and it was just a train wreck, I felt like I did horrible, but I guess it was pretty good. M B showed up to church so that was good. E CAME to church and that was awesome. She brought her baby nephew with her (don't ask why idk) and because she has been away from church for a while there was a couple members that asked if that was her baby!! (Que chismosos!!) so basically she had to keep explaining that he wasn't her baby or anything like that, but it was nice to see her at church again and to see all the members say hi to her and everything. After church E asked if we were going to stop by later on and so we planned to stop by. I think that she misses having the missionaries come over and so that is why she has wanted us to come by so often recently. So after lunch we stopped by and visited with her and we helped her set some goals with reading in the Book of Mormon and going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, so that was cool. We then walked to a FHE with the high priest group leader (N Family from Peru) and with the B family. It was a pretty dang good FHE. The message was short, the testimonies were strong, the activity was awesome and the refreshment was delicious, so awesome. We then finished off the night with dinner at the R house which was super good.

Well, sorry if this letter isn't as exciting as others, but things are picking up, I think that I am just getting a little fried from being in the area for too long... Things will get better though! Hope our week goes good!!

Love,

Elder Roberts