Week 83 - Bread and Jam

El Segundo / W3 (week 4)

Monday was pday and we did the basic stuff. It is a rule now that to go and visit cool places on pday you have to be close to them, which sucks because I am in the middle of the mission and all the cool stuff is up north or down south. We hung out with a couple missionaries and played sports and I am getting sick of it super quick. I feel so old because all these youngsters (remember 60% of the mission is younger than 6 months old) don't know what to do so all of us oldsters have to basically babysit and it just gets so tiresome. We had a member take us out dinner which was really nice they took us to Number One which is a Chinese buffet. That was K L who is just the nicest old Tongan lady who has a fire for missionary work. We then went to go and give the wife of our WML in El Segundo a blessing because she is pregnant and has problems with her teeth right now, and she hates going to the dentist. We went over and Bro J gave her a blessing and she seemed so sad, it was rough. We then decided to go and visit the V family and talk with them for a little bit. 

Tuesday we went to go and see J M and it is so true that you have to keep visiting with people weekly or else the spirit will cease to strive with them. A lot has been going on in his life and don't get me wrong, he's still friendly and nice, it's just that his interest level is down. He kept saying stuff about "his church" or "the church he goes to" and acted like he actually believes in it, which he has told us that he doesn't. The church is a Lutheran church and his wife and son attend it, but he can't. It is really sad when he is one of the people that are reading the Book of Mormon the most out of everyone that we visit and his desire to accept the truth is not there. It is really sad because he knows and understands the importance of temples and eternal families, but he misses the mark! We then went by Sister N who is just one of the most adorable old ladies. She will call us up and ask us to do something that takes like 5 minutes, but for her it would take a really long time. We moved bags of salt for her and she gave us cookies, so it was a nice trade off. She lives 2 doors down from the P and so I dropped off the eggo box with them. I am so glad you got the box!!!! Did you like the fact that it was an eggo box? We then went to go and see D Y just to stop by and see how his family is doing. We talked with him for a little bit, trying to set up an appointment, but he told us just to call him another day or to text him. We then went to go and read in the Book of Mormon with L S. Her husband and her are returning back to activity right now and they are really cool. She is such a chill person that it is so nice. We read with her because her husband was right about to go to work. It is so apparent to me now the differences in the homes where the gospel is taught and lived to where it is not. The V family are members, but the gospel is not taught there. There is a big difference in that home and the, call it what you want, aura... Mood... Feeling... The Spirit. In the S home, they are living the gospel and coming to church and you can just feel a difference. We then went to go and see W and K. K has been super sick because she is pregnant and her blood count is super low, so we gave her a blessing that she would feel better. We taught W about the word of wisdom because he has some serious problems with it. We talked about it and he told us that "it makes sense" and so we committed him to live the word of wisdom and that if he ever felt the urge to smoke or whatever, that he could call us and that we would be right there for him. He told us that he would and it was pretty cool, but we will see what happens. We stopped by to visit with R and M and to see how they are doing. M has a lot of health problems so there are a lot of times that they have a lot of doctor appointment that they have to go to. We talked with R and it was good. We talked about the normal missionary stuff like baptism and R seemed pretty good and solid on some stuff there.

Wednesday we were so excited to go to the VC with R, but for some reason he just isn't meant to go there yet. We called to set up an appointment, but that fell through because he forgot that they had a doctor appointment... Ugh. It was a long day that not a lot of cool stories happened. We tried to go and visit some people, but it just didn't work out. The people in El Segundo are really nice and polite, but the moment you start talking to them about religion, it is this taboo that just never goes right. In the El Segundo ward there are a lot of cool people. One, because this ward is the epitome of a Mormon ward with lots of families, young couples, teens, stake people in the ward, people who have been mission presidents, and we even have old people that were the people that did the fund raising to buy the bricks for the church building, pretty cool. One of those cool members is Brother B. He is a younger guy who served his mission in Washingotn. He is super tall and loves hockey. He took us to this Greek restaurant to try out some gyros which were bomb! Basically it was a tortilla with tomatoes and onion and lamb (lamb tastes like steak and jerky together) so that was super good. We then stopped by to visit with the V family and to teach them about the importance of attending church and partaking of the sacrament. It was a good lesson, but brother V just has some problem that we don't know what it is yet about going to church. We basically told him, but in a loving way of course, that if he wants to improve his relationship with his savior, then he needs to go and partake of the sacrament. Again, we said that in a much better way and with a lot more love.

Thursday was a pretty interesting day. We had a lot of stuff planned and it looked like it was going to be a good day. We started out by visiting with J M. He is the Lutheran dude who reads the Book of Mormon. Well, when we knocked on his door he had just woken up, so maybe he was just a little cranky to see us. We also wanted to go inside his home (which hadn't been done before) and so I think that threw him off a bit. We talked inside but he was running late to get to work so basically he just kindly kicked us out, but we will be back for him later:) . We then went to go and read in the Book of Mormon with this one member named C. She is crazy awesome. She has schizophrenia, goes to the temple, and just loves the gospel. She was listening to the last conference session when we walked up to her door. She always is the one in charge of the lessons by saying "can we start with a prayer?" It's pretty funny. We just read with her and it's nice. She also gave us Pizza Rev cards (it's a pizza place here in town) and she has been giving the missionaries these gift cards every week for a while now, so we have a good amount haha. We went back to have our weekly planning and oh did the poop hit the fan this week. My companion and I had a disagreement and it was intense. In the end it all worked out... Mostly. We talked about some things and it's really rough right now in the companionship. The B family invited us over to eat and they are a very fun young couple! They have two kids, and the kids just have the most picture perfect faces and poses. We ate some apricot chicken with rice and green beans, then had brownies for dessert (so white it was awesome). They are one of those families that you hope you stay in contact with them, especially cause they are young. They might be a couple years older than Charlie and Emily, but they are solid. We then ended the night with ward correlation at the WML house. During that time we texted R to see if he could go to the VC with us on Friday, and he said yes. We called the VC and they told us that we better not cancel on them, well about 3 minutes after the call R texted and told us that his fiancé/ the RC has a lot of doctor appointments tomorrow because she has diabetes and is pregnant, so we might not be able to go... Great. It was really frustrating. It is so funny because right now it seems like EVERYONE is pregnant, WML wife, K who is the wife of an investigator, M who is the fiancé of R, a mom in the Tongan ward who is neighbors with M, just everyone! 

Friday we had district meeting and it is really hard for me to go to meetings here. Sometimes I feel like the conversations are a little bit immature between some missionaries, but I guess I just feel that way because I still feel young and new and that I have a lot to learn, so then when I hear other missionaries talking like that I'm just super annoyed. Well we got a call from K asking if we could go and give a blessing to a newborn baby after district meeting. After DM we grabbed a bite to eat at this real cool pizza place that you make a custom pizza, changed out of our suits, and went up to the hospital. Now if you remember right, the last time that I went to the hospital on the mission was to give a blessing to a guy that was pronounced brain dead before we got there. Needless to say I don't really like hospitals and I always have mixed emotions when I go there. So this hospital is really confusing and the entrance was in the middle of the property... Dumb! We went up and we met up with K (she is the grandma) and M (the mom). At this point we thought that we were giving a blessing to the mom, but we weren't too sure because K said something about the baby, but for some reason we thought we were giving a blessing to M. Anywho, here I am, freaking out because we are right about to go and give a blessing to a newborn that is in an incubator and I feel a little uneasy about it. We called President Haynie to see if we can give the baby a blessing and if there is anything special that we have to do. Well President Haynie just told us to be careful and to makes sure that the oil goes directly from the container to the baby's head. So we gave the blessing to M, D H S. When we were giving the blessing I could just feel his tiny little hands trying to grab my arm and it was so adorable! We finished the blessing and M was like "I am all good now, all my nerves are gone". The baby was sick, so that is why she wanted us to give it a blessing. It was having low sugar counts and so that's why we went. We got out of there and there was some stupid traffic on the way back, so we listened to some approved missionary music and sung our little hearts out in the middle of LA traffic. We ate dinner with the A family in El Segundo. He is the Elders Quorum president and she is a nonmember. She is one of those "eternigators" so it's really hard when you are new in an area and you have never met an eternigators, but you can't do anything sly or sneaky because this is the elders quorum president and a family with 3 kids here, so it was a very delicate situation that I was stressing out about what we should teach. Because usually at dinner appointments we don't teach a full on lesson to a family, and this was a dinner appointment. Well, the spirit took it away I guess. We started chatting with the family during dinner. Sis A is Vietnamese and so guess what she made for us to eat? That's right, Mexican food. It was basically a make it yourself Taco Bell. I was laughing on the inside. We talked with the family and the conversation was really good. I brought the family album book that I have (you know, the one that only has a max of like 10 pictures... But I'm not bitter...) and K loved it! She was like "wow! You are the FIRST missionary to bring this and show it to us!" So hopefully I got an in because of that. We talked about families and how the gospel has blessed all of our families and how parents are really important in raising their kids in the gospel. R had been texting with us and so we stopped over to see him for a bit to answer some of the questions that he had about the Book of Mormon. He asked about the different plates that it talks about in the beginning of the Book of Mormon because it is all confusing, so we explained it to him. He also talked about converting to Mormonism... So that was kinda funny and cool. In his prayer he actually prayed for help on converting to Mormonism.

Saturday we were invited to attend a birthday party for a kid in the Tongan ward that turned 1 year old. Let me tell you, they went crazy for this party. It was held at the stake center pavilion so we were able to attend and we were invited to it for a lunch.  It was sponge bob themed and so everything was something to do with bikini bottom or something. There was A LOT of food, and a lot of our investigators and less actives that we are teaching showed up! They show up more to the activities than they do to church! We decided that it was time for us to leave and so a member gave us this huge tray and told us to go and fill it with food to take home. We also saw W on our way out from the party and he was getting out of a truck with a cigarette in his mouth. Red handed. He about fell over when he saw us and it was kinda sad to see that he didn't tell us when he was going to smoke or anything, it was just a little frustrating I guess. This is a picture of all the food they gave us, sorry about all the pictures being small, I just take the pictures with the iPad so that's probably why they aren't the best. We got back to the apartment and decided to go and visit some people, but for some reason people just weren't home!! 

Sunday was pretty crazy. We had ward council in the El Segundo ward at 7:30 in the morning and we talked about the progress of the missionary work in the ward. K and F, the two eternigators, showed up to church and I got to know a couple more members. The 2 recent converts in the ward also showed up to church so that was really nice. We had to leave right after sacrament meeting because we had ward council in the W3 ward at 10:00 so we drove over there and then sat in that meeting. It is really hard for me to be in meetings that are only in tongan because I want to say something or try to understand, but I just can't so I have to sit there and be quiet. There were a lot of people that showed up to church at the W3 ward though! It was pretty cool to see a lot of people show up. We met with one of the investigators named J during church because he asked us to and we talked about him being baptized one day and our purpose as missionaries. We invited him to pray specifically about a date to be baptized and he liked that idea. He also asked if we could pray for a date for him as well, so that was awesome that he asked us. We had a lunch with a member because the member that was going to feed us dinner forgot (which is gonna be drama in the Tongan ward just wait and see). We told the member not to worry because we have a lot of food back in our apartment, but by the time we got to out car to leave, there was a member inviting us over to eat... Crazy. So.... Funny story. We were back at the apartment having our dinner hour when we get a call from Brother P. Elder O was on the phone and he just turns to me and says "your parents sent some bread and jam (I literally FREAK OUT and I am just rating my hands up and saying 'yeeeeessss!' At this point) with Brother P and they have it, when could we go buy to pick it up" so we picked it up in like 30 minutes from that when our dinner hour was over. Sister P gave me the bag and I opened it right then and there and you can only imagine the face that Sister P had when I am just happy for bread and jam ahahhaha. We ended the night off with visiting with M who is a recent convert. She is going through a lot of trials right now and she kinda told us what is going on with her family, R's family and everything. She opened up a lot to us and it was a good time to get to know her a little more and to just share a message about trials with her. 

Thank you so much for the bread and jam... That definitely was so awesome.

Hope y'all have a good week! Get ready for conference!!!!!

Love,

Elder Roberts