Week 81

There are some stuff that I left out of last weeks email. Some of the major cool stuff that happened was:

During the El Segundo sacrament meeting we had Elder Ghent and Elder Cook (from the 70) come to sacrament meeting. We had had ward council before sacrament so when the authorities showed up, we talked to them for a little bit. You know, no big deal, just chillin here with my new buddy a 70 talking about my mission and his mission and asking about family stuff. They were super cool because they told us that if we had investigators show up to church that they would like to meet them! That was super cool. Tongans are also so intense. Samoans are much more chill and relaxed, but Tongans are just crazy. It was really funny because now when I say that I am from Utah, the members in both wards ask what part of Utah and they actually know where I am from!! What the?? Anywho, this area is a little bit of a vacation soot too. The members give us a lot of food, at least so far. The area is super small, but we have a car because the Tongan members just live so scattered across the map that we need it. A lot of the ward members have served missions and so that is really nice, this area basically is a small version of Utah, minus the snow;) the only sad part is that we are SO close to the beach, but we can't go to it. 

Pedacito de paraíso (Semana 2)

Monday we started out the day cleaning in the apartment, it was a little dirty. We put our laundry in and I went shopping for cleaning supplies because we needed them. Elder O was out of money so that was kinda sad. We bought some air freshness because our apartment stunk and so did our car. We then got back to the apartment and folded our clothes and organized a little bit before we headed to go and hang out with some other elders. We got to the church and after a bunch of stupid missionary drama chisme was passed around, we finally started to play sorts. That was fun. We ended the pday part of Monday and had a dinner with the J family. The husband and wife both served missions in Poland and they lived their together for a little bit. They have 4 kids that are just SUPER blonde, it is so crazy. Sister J made taco soup and it was really good. She had some freshly grated cheese to also sprinkle on the taco soup and... It was really god, reminded me of home for a bit there. Brother J has an awesome job. He is on the marketing team for a toy company. The toy company that he works for is in charge of the type of toys like Bob the Builder, Thomas and Friends.. Etc. he himself is on the team that works on marketing for Thomas and Friends, so basically he gets to play with toys all day and decides what stores get what toys to sell to their customers... Such a cool job. We finished off the night with a family home evening. We headed to the house that the FHE was at before, but the members there told us that they were at a different house. Well, a cop guy showed up and basically blocked our car in the driveway. So what happened was like this, here I am, helping my companion back up the car (cause he isn't too god at it) and at one point he actually squished me between the car and the cop car (it's funny cause that isn't the first time this transfer that he has done it either). My shoulder knocked the driver side mirror, so I nonchalantly fixed that back and then got in the car and we left. We arrived at the apartment to visit the family and they were at this one. It is an older couple and what is going on is that they are wanting to go to the temple to be sealed, but they cannot find the membership records of the husband. If they can't find his membership, he would have to be baptized again, wait a year, then be sealed. Our WML and his wife are the coolest people. Both of them come out to lessons with us and they teach the doctrine so simply it is amazing. It was such a tender moment because our WML's dad is the one that baptized the old guy in Hawaii in 2000 or around there, so the older couple (mind you this was all in Tongan and I basically had translation the whole time) was thanking him and his family and the older couple was explaining at how nice it is just to be in the presence of missionaries again... I felt super humble in that moment. Here I am not understanding anything, and they are grateful for me to even be at their home? Wow, so awesome, super cool. They gave us some mangos and chocolate cake with banana to go cause we had to leave. When we got back to the apartment I decided to finally clean cause we have cleaning stuff now. We both worked on the bathroom. We took apart the tub so that way we could scrub the tub and the sliding door things to the shower really good. I am so grateful for comet, scrubbing bubbles... The tub is so much cleaner than before, makes you think of what you stuck your feet in a little bit. 

Tuesday I woke up and my toenail was infected, and I don't know why. So I cleaned that out and thankfully I had bought hydrogen peroxide on Monday to help:) we started out the day doing some service for an elderly member of our ward. Her name is sister N and she is just so sweet. She wanted us to help her put some of her gardening equipment together. So we cut open some boys and put together a wheelbarrow and some time of hand cart, it was easy. I am so grateful for my parents who taught me what tools to use to fix things. She had brought out pliers  to tighten some bolts, but I went and grabbed a wrench instead. I don't think it makes too big of a difference, but I got my stuff done a lot faster than the others who were helping out.  She then talked to us about her life, and the things that she is going through right now. I feel like it's really sad because she lives alone and she has no one to talk to, so it was nice just to listen for once. She was telling us of how good she was at dancing in high school, and how her favorite dance EVER is the Viennese Waltz... I don't think I'll tell her yet about the two you know who's ;) after that we went to go and visit this guy named S. S has a lot of problems with the WOW and he actually offered some temptation to us, which obviously we said no to. It was really sad that because he was in an unfortunate state of mind at that time that we were unable to have an affective lesson with him, so we will try to go and visit him some other time. We stopped by this guy named J who is super cool. He is an investigator and he really likes the church. He has read the Book of Mormon already, the only thing holding him back is coming to church! It is really hard to meet with him because he works a lot and so we can only stop by weekly with him. We went back to the apartment for lunch and then afterwards went to go and have a FHE with the S (L and S) which we made a Mormon jeopardy for them, it was fun. We then got subway cause a member gave us a gift card for that and then we went on splits with the elders quorum and the first counselor in the bishopric in the El Segundo ward. I was able to meet a family that just moved in named the S. Brother S works for Google and they have 4 kids. Sister S rocks the pixie cut and has it dyed, so she is super cool. At the end of the day I actually taught Elder O how to play backgammon, and he likes it!

Wednesday we did so extracting and contacting and were able to come across this guy named K. He is really cool and Tongan, but he told us that his whole family are Methodist and that he doesn't know if he would like us to come by. Well, we told him that we could give him a copy of the Book of Mormon to read and he said that that would be cool. We said a prayer with him and then left. We then saw J a RC walking down the street and started to talk with him. He is a really nice kid. Our next goal with him is so that he can go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead this next month! He is really cool and told us of the first time that he passed the sacrament and how nervous he was, but then how everything was ok. We visited with this guy named S and oh boy, is he a handful. He basically told us that the reason why he doesn't like Mormon missionaries is because they can't answer his questions. So I told him to fire away at us and he asked us a questions like "what type of body will we have in heaven? A body that looks like when we were 20? Or what?" So we explained to him that before this life we knew Heavenly Father and how we, in this life, have forgotten what he looks like, because of the veil. We then explained to him that after this life, we will recognize him and know him like we knew him before, and perhaps in that way will be with all of the people that we have met here in this life. He seemed to take that answer pretty good. We then went to go and eat dinner with the Y family. The wife is a non member and she has A LOT of quesitons. She basically bombed us with the WOW and said that tea is healthy because Japan is the healthiest country in the world, so she doesn't see why tea is bad. We got off on weird topics and so we basically told them that the next time we stop by we will teach the Restoration because everything will start to make sense then. She also asked a funny question about the plates, and why we don't have them anymore. She was like "if it is such a historical thing in the church, why wouldn't they have it?" We then said because God took them away, to which she said "I don't think God would do that" so I'm here just thinking a couple things "well his ways are higher than our ways... Why is this so hard to understand that the plates aren't here anymore.... Latinos never have this problem..." Anywho, needless to say it was pretty rough. We then finished off the night with a FHE at the V home which was good.

Thursday was just an interesting day. We started out going to give a blessing to a mom and her son. The son wanted a blessing for comfort for the school year and for the upcoming football season and his mom is going to give birth any time now, so that's why she wanted a blessing. They are really nice. I don't know if I told you, but Roberts in Tongan translates to Lopeti, so everyone is starting to call me Elder Lopeti right now. We talked with them for a little bit to get to know them after we gave the blessing and they are a cool family. We then went back to the apartment to have our weekly planning and to pick up some cupcakes from our neighbor that she made for Elder O for his year mark. We had our weekly planning and we have started to write weekly updates to the members of the ward council. It was pretty fun to do something new, so we will see how everything works out. We had a couple appointments cancel which was sad, this teenage kid gave us a fake address and number, so that wasn't too nice. We had dinner with the J family (he is the El Segundo WML and his wife is the Romanian) and she cooked some amazing food. She pulled out this jar of a mix of "pickled" stuff. So she had us try pickled tomatoes, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, all of it. I could handle it a little, but Elder O was dying. It was so funny because Sister J is worse than Latinas in making you eat something that you don't want to eat. We were talking at the table when the oldest son H showed me that they have the board game Quelf. I was like "I LOVE Quelf!" And then Ha (who is a freshman this year) was like "let's play it!" Sister J then said "no, they have to have their meeting". We then shrugged it off and told them that we get our board game fix when we play backgammon, cause we have a set in our apartment. Sister J then was like "you play backgammon? Honey, go get the set real quick, let's play Elder". I didn't know that Romanians played backgammon, let alone that it was like a second religion for them. She whooped my butt, but just because she got the rolls down. I did beat her once, and Elder O beat her twice. It was really funny because Sister J is super competitive and loves backgammon, so I guess all those mornings watching dad play before leaving for school actually did something for me;). After that we went to go meet up with Brother N who is the WML of the Westchester 3 ward (W3 for short). He wanted to go and visit some people so we went with him in his car. We stopped by this one house looking for a guy named N, but guess who answered the door? R! He is the investigator who we taught last week. We asked him how he was doing and confirmed that we could still stop by on Saturday. He said yes and even asked us, "so when I pray, is there a specific way that I should pray?" It was such a perfect opportunity to teach him how simple prayer is and then HE offered the prayer for us before we left, he is definitely going to be baptized, so please pray for him:) We ended off the night cleaning our apartment because I have been getting eaten alive by bugs, and on one leg I have like 12 bug bites... It's pretty gross. 

Friday we had ZTM in the morning and so we got ready for that. It was Elder O's year mark and so he had paid our neighbor (who does baking stuff) to make him a dozen cupcakes with some decoration for his year mark. So he took the cupcakes to ZTM to give out to all of his buddies there, but don't worry, I snuck 1 or 2 and ate them, and so did he. ZTM was interesting because in a zone of 24 elders, I am the 4th oldest... Yikes. It is really sad sometimes because there is such a difference in how missionaries conduct themselves when they have been out for a while. In our mission 60% of the missionaries only have 6 months or less as a missionary, meaning that there are not that many oldies like us in the mission right now. We got back to the apartment and all of our appointments feel through, guess why? Mainly because of high school football that happens on Fridays. It is the worst as a missionary! This community is so awesome and so dedicated to supporting the local schools that they cancel appointments with the missionaries... Ugh, I am so torn right now. We contacted this house looking for a guy named J who is about 60 something. We end up talking to this girl who was named R and she told us that he was at the high school football game. When we asked what is her relation with J, she told us that he is her boyfriend... And she is 27... Even more awkward is that J had a daughter pass away from brain cancer when the daughter was 21 years old.... (Hmmmmm). Anywho, she seemed really nice, but maybe just not "all the way there" so we invited her to come to church and she told us how nice Mormons are and how her church needs to be like us (erhem, we can fix that?) but that she still likes to go to her church. We then talked to this Indian guy who had barely came home from the beach with his family. His name is S and he is very nice. We talked to him about families and about God and he seemed somewhat interested, but maybe he just didn't want to listen to the message of the gospel right now in his life, he was nice though. We then had dinner with a member who Elder O got close to in another area. The member took us out to Chipotle and we had a nice conversation. The members has a son who is going to BYU for a year before going on a mission and he has a son out on a mission right now in Tampa. To end the night off Elder O burnt a shirt to celebrate his year mark. I also got a text at night from an old area of mine saying that Javier is getting baptized!! The missionaries told me that J asked if I could come to his baptism and I was so excited!!

Saturday was quite an eventful day. We went to the nearby school to go running in the morning and I am trying to be able to be more fit and get better times while running. I ran a mile in 7:17 seconds, which I was happy about because a week before I was at 7:28. We got back to the apartment and as Elder O was pulling into the spot, he scratched up the car. Any damage that we do to the car has to be reported to Elder R, the car czar as we call him. We texted him and he got mad at Elder O and asked us to take pictures and to send them to him on Sunday. Elder O was beating himself up about it all day. We were asked by a member of the ward to go and fill up the baptismal font for a primary baptism that was happening at 11 that day. We went at 10 and a member of the bishopric had already started to fill up the font. Well, because we were already at the church, the members invited us to come to the lunch that would follow the baptism, so we stayed at the church and did our studies there. I showed Elder O what duo lingo is and how easy it is, it was so funny because I felt really good about my Spanish just cause I was with someone who didn't know any Spanish. We went to the lunch and it was HUGE! I had forgotten how much of a protein based diet polys have, but I'm not complaining here! Haha it was awesome! A Sister made these cheesy meatballs that were SO good. Tongans also like mangos, so that's something new. There was also this drink that Tongans like and Elder O told me to try it, it's called:  and it has coconut, watermelon, lime, in a very thick texture. After that a member of the ward packed up some of the food and gave it to us to take back home. It filled up about 1/3 of our whole fridge... Goodness! We then went to go and teach R with our WML Brother N. It was a really good lesson. During the lesson we talked to R a lot about repentance and about faith. We skimmed over the baptismal interview questions so that way he could be prepared for what we are going to teach him, and he seemed to understand what was coming. At the end of the lesson he we asked him if he had any questions for us. He asked us about Thomas S. Monson and what he does as a prophet. My companion Elder O was really awesome and whipped out the conference talk of President Monson about choices and we showed it to R. During the whole video he was nodding his head in agreement and then after the video R was saying how right the prophet is in how our choices shape us. (Duh he is right, he's a prophet... But I just like it when others say it, such a testimony builder ya know?) anywho it was really awesome cause our WML is super bold and looked R dead in the eye, and the WML is a BIG Tongan, and told him how he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that if R reads it, he will feel the spirit in his life, it was such a powerful moment. It was really cool because then R accepted an invitation to be baptized THIS month! Hopefully we can work out all the problems that are keeping him from being baptized, but we will do it! R is just so awesome:) . We then went to go and visit some less active members, and guess what they were doing... Watching college football. Ugh! We shared the Mormon message about our potentials and you could tell such a difference in the mood when they were paying attention to the short message, and when they were paying attention to football. Y'all think I'm crazy when I watch sports... You have NOOOO idea.... I will record them this next week for y'all, just so you know, ok? :) 

We then had a dinner with the Stake President's family because they are in our ward (which is really weird because you never get that in Spanish programs) and so I got to know the stake president a little bit more. He has a young family and some of his kids play lacrosse, which is super cool! We then went to go and visit one of our investigators named M S. Her real name is M M so she is a L. We talked with her and she has anxiety problems. She has panic attacks frequently and she doesn't like it when she is stressed. I am so grateful to have someone in my life who has had to go through those type of things so that way I could understand a little bit more of how she feels. We got to know her a little bit and asked her questions about why she likes going to church. She basically said in a way that she likes church because she sees her kids being happy there and so she likes that. She told us of her struggles with anxiety and we offered to give her a blessing. We gave her a blessing of comfort and she really appreciated it. Hopefully this next week we can see her again:). 

Sunday started off rough, because we ran out of toilet paper in the apartment... !! Uh oh, hahaha. We didn't have ward council meeting at El Segundo in the morning so we were able to sleep in a little bit. It was fast Sunday and so testimony meeting was pretty good. English wards are just likes wards at home, nobody goes up to bear their testimony. There were a lot of people visiting from Utah that came to the El Segundo ward and so they were happy to see us. Bishop H wears crazy socks and ties, it's pretty funny. We got a referral from a member in the bishopric, well not necessarily a referral. This drunk Irish lady walked into the church (into a primary room) and started to yell at the adults. Apparently she was mad because her daughter is a member and idk the rest of what he said. Brother W then told us that he wrote down her information because "she would like to talk to us". So hopefully we will see her this week and there will be a story to tell :). We then had to go to a meeting at the W3 ward and it's always rough for me there because I don't understand anything, it's all in Tongan. We did set up a bishopric visit for R on Wednesday with a member of the bishopric so that was cool, the W3 ward really is awesome with missionary work. Super cool thing that happened and y'all could imagine this: in the Tongan ward, when they sing during Sacrament, it is like nothing you have ever felt. The notes may not be perfect (close, but not quite) but just the VOLUME that they produce.... Hijole! Now I get it when the scriptures said that they raised their voices to the heavens, or the raised their voice as if it were a trump! It is just so powerful there. And they don't need a pianist to know the tune of the song:) We had to leave a little early from the W3 ward and go attend J's baptism. We got there a little early cause traffic was nice, so we sat in on another sacrament meeting. It was nice to see the branch members again and to talk in Spanish with them. It was sad to not see A there, her neighbor told us that she has just fallen off the face of the earth:(. When the baptism was getting ready, I saw J and his mom L. It was a night and day difference in them. One huge difference was how big they smile! They were a happy people! J was so excited to see me there and it was such a special moment because I never taught him! I taught his mom, not him. Just seeing how close him and his mom are now was awesome to me. Elder Saen was there and so we all took pictures, it was good. I gave the opening prayer, that's why I was able to go haha. At the end of the baptism L was getting really tears eyed, which was so touching to see. We then traveled back to our apartment to finally brake our fast and then went to go have a dinner with Sister L, who is a ward missionary and is awesome. I met a RC in the area named A. She is the sister of M who is the fiancé of R our baptismal date. M and A are both recent converts and the granddaughter of sister L. A is going through a lot right now. She told us of all the struggles that she is facing, but that she is still strong in the faith. She also told us of how she has recognized the difference in missing one sacrament meeting and that she has only ever missed one time. We ate and watched a little Mormon message and that was nice. Our WML from the El Segundo ward wanted us to stop by his house so we drop there and that was all the time we had for the day...

Monday were do I begin, it was really weird because it wasn't pday, but that was ok and everything worked out. I have this new goal that I am working on in the morning when I run, I want to get down to a 6:30 on the mile and yesterday I was at 6:56 which is a lot better at the 7:28 that I was at a week and a half ago. I also helped encourage my companion when he was tired of running to push through and he finished at a 7:50 so that was real cool. The W3 ward had a picnic that lasted the whole day and it was really cool because there was a lot of food and a lot of people that showed up to the picnic. We had about 5 investigators there and a lot part member families that we didn't recognize. In the ward there is a member whose husband actually is a Rookie for the Broncos this year, so he was there. It was cool to play basketball with him... All these polys are huge!! We had to go to E who is the mission mechanic because our car got scraped up and Elder R wanted to see how bad it was. We then went back to the BBQ because all of our investigators were basically there and R was able to meet all of the members of the bishopric and we even hung out with him too. It was really weird because here we are, my comp and I, sitting by our WML and a member when this random guy named B comes up to us. He starts preaching hellfire and damnation because we believe in the Book of Mormon and saying all this stuff that the Bible in itself is 100% true and if you say that it is not true, then you are lying against the Holy Spirit and having Joseph Smith say that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book is lying against the Holy Spirit. We really really tried to explain to him the importance of the Book of Mormon, but it just didn't work out for him, it was pretty bad.

So that was this week! 

Love,

Elder Roberts