Week 93

Barrio Sexto - USC

Monday was a good day. We got together with a couple missionaries that are super fun to hang with and we played some games with them. We also got a lot of stuff to eat for this next week. We had a packed day after the actual preparation day was over. We had a dinner with an investigator and his wife. His name is A F and her name is L V. They have been living together for the past 20 years and have been coming to church for the past 6 years. The only problem, they aren't married yet. They could seriously just get married one day and that following Sunday be baptized, they are just that cool. However, it appears that they have some relationship issues and so its really hard to try to help them out because we normally dont help people on their marriage problems, we can just let them know of things that will help them improve their love for each other, its a tough situation. Anyways, they treated us out to this burger place right by USC called Olympian Burger which is super good. Both Elder W and I got a smaller meal because we had to go and eat with ANOTHER family later on, like right after. So we ate with them and that was nice getting to know them, they are super cool. I remember when I was here in the ward before that everyone already thought that they were members because they come every week and they have amazing input on topics and questions and they keep all of their commitments, except for getting married. It is so frustrating sometimes you know!! After that dinner we went to go eat with the V family. They were baptized when I was here clear back in January (wow, that long ago... yikes) and I remember that this couple got baptized super quick, like in 3 weeks of the missionaries first visiting them, they got baptized. They are still solid in the gospel! We talked with them while we ate and they told us about how excited they are to be sealed as a family in the temple this coming January! I think they should totally be Ward missionaries, we are trying to help out our WML and the ward by searching for some cool members to be Ward missionaries cause the Bishop told the WML to look for some people, so we are helping him out with that. We then waited outside our apartment till the other elders came to give us our phone because we had left it with them.

Tuesday we went running in the morning around the USC Coliseum and that was cool, just cause we can do it every morning if we want to cause we live right by it. We then did service again at World Harvest because they were getting ready for Thanksgiving and oh my goodness is it a whole different world at a food bank when people are getting thanksgiving for their families. There was a group of cop cadets that are in training that were about our age who were also helping out and they were just super immature, they need to go on missions psshh. There were also some small name celebrities that came in to help out and the owner of World Harvest (G) was introducing them to "his Mormon friends" which meant us. He would then tell all of them what we do as missionaries and for how long we do it, everything. Basically you just smiled and acted polite because thats just the best thing to do when you dont know what to do. We had to sort out a lot of vegetables and sometimes it was really gross because there was a lot of nasty vegetables, but for the most part we just took them out of the boxes and put them out in crates and then gave the food to people. It was really fun because a lot of the missionaries from the zone came to help out, so lots of people saw mormons that day;) . After that we went to go and visit some PMF and some of them weren't home and with others we set up return appointments with them, so thats good I guess. We then went to eat dinner with the S family. They are a young couple that met in their home ward. They both had families before, but for whatever reason they now are together (divorce, death, idk). They are so cool. It was such a good meal and they are just amazing to be around. We then ended the night visiting with the C family. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a really good lesson. That family is super cool. The mom then asks us where should could get CTR rings for her kids. She told us that she was interested in getting them because a lot of missionaries wear CTR rings, I told her just to look online because that way you could find the really cool ones. Its little things like that that make you feel confident that the family is going to stay active, getting CTR rings, how many convert families actually get them within 6 months of being baptized?  

Wednesday we went walking for a really long time, its ok though! The Lord is preparing hearts and consecrating us! We talked to a lot of people and it was really fun. Would try to visit weren't home or we set up a return appointment with them, one or the other. We then visited with S who is a RC in the area and she is just so funny. Her mom on the other hand.... oh my goodness. I think what gets me the most frustrated is when some reads in the Book of Mormon and their comprehension level isn't where it should be and because they dont understand they confuse what it says and so then they ask a question that makes NO sense whatsoever. Thats the case with this mom. The sad part, is that half the time the daughter understands and she teaches her mom, which we totally support because S is a genius with a love of the Gospel. Its just sad because they don't end up coming to church very often:(. We then ate dinner with the G family. They are definitely becoming my favorites here. The hermana was making pupusas and we asked her if she could show us how to make them, to which she told us to "get ready then! Wash your hands!" So we did and we made pupusas. I took a video so that way you can see how to make a pupusa. Now, my companion made a better one, but I think thats just because he is really good at cooking and I am not up to par by no means, but mine tasted good, that counts right? It was a fun experience and we had fun doing it because our 2 investigators watched us make pupusas and laughed at us and it was just a good ol time. We then went to go and teach the family of 7 that we found. When we got there we told them that we are not the missionaries that teach the English classes, but that we can find out for them who are the missionaries that do. We then told them our purpose as missionaries and asked them if it would be ok if we taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 3 of the family members started to listen to the lesson. We put on a video and then 1 by 1 all the family members came into the lesson and were participating in it. We then invited them to come to church and to pray as a family.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING! In the morning we went to the Salvation Army to help them with their Thanksgiving day activity of handing out food to homeless people. One of the dudes there took us and it was just a funny experience because it's another church group so we aren't allowed to really preach to them, more just answer questions that they ask us. It was really cool giving out the meals to the homeless in the morning and we were with a good group of people. There were some funny experiences from that like

A dude that we gave food to asked me if I had a sister cause he told us that he needs a woman in his life.... 

a guy cracked the joke "guess what?... Chicken butt" to us, and he started to laugh so hard that he literally was on the floor.

We had a lot of good meaningful conversations while doing the service opportunity. We also got a good bike ride for the day, in total for the whole day we biked around 12 miles... yay. We then had weekly planning and during which Elder W made some homemade pumpkin pie, it was really good. We then had to bike super far to our dinner appointment and that was a story in and of itself:

We arrived to the dinner appointment with the G family. They have a lot of family members that are members of the church and some that aren't. The daughters also had some friends who aren't members over for the dinner. Well we were just starting to talk to them and get to know them when Hermano G says "aquí esta el pavo" and put in front of us a pig. It was on of those types of pigs that you dissect in biology class. One of the daughters then said "that reminds me too much of Charlottes Web" and then nobody knew how to cut the pig. It still had teeth in its mouth!!! Oh my goodness it was weird. It tasted super good though so whatever. We then start talking to them about the temple lights and the VC activities that are going on during the entire month of December. We then tried to plan a trip to go with all of them, but that kinda fell through.

Friday we had district meeting and that was pretty fun. We had a lot of good street conversations that day and we also had a lot of teaching opportunities. We taught Y, who is the sister of K, who was the most "golden" investigator in our area. K had to wait till she was 18 to be baptized cause her mom didnt let her. Well, Y is 15 and we dont want to have to have her wait 3 more years for her to be baptized. Y has always been in the lessons when the missionaries have gone over to visit with K, but she never understood and so she has never really progressed. The lesson was a super sick lesson and we taught about the importance of reading in the Book of Mormon. She really liked the lesson and we set goals with her in reading daily so that she can come to know for herself that the Book of Mormon is true. We then visited a lot of PMF and former investigators and showed them the new Christmas initiative and they really liked the video and we asked them if we cold stop by another time to share the video with their whole family and they all said yes. We also stopped by one of our investigators named A S who canceled a lesson on us this week. We stopped by for a quick minute and just shared with him the video, we didnt have more time so we had to leave pretty quickly. 

Saturday we went to go do service again at World Harvest caused they asked us to come back. We ended up sorting out all the food. We mainly just sorted grapes, tomatoes and mangos. It was so funny because the lady that was helping us sort was Indian and she just had so many funny quotes like

"Always choose brain second choice"

And she would cut open a bad mango to see if the inside was still "good" which it obviously wasn't and she would tell us "no! This one is good!" Cut it open and then be like, oh. We were able to grab some nice groceries from there because thats what you do when you do service there, they let you grab whatever you want basically. We then went back to our apartment and oh my goodness was the day just awful. First off, it was the USC v Norte Dame game and the streets were packed and everyone was yelling like crazy, and second, it was raining pretty bad. So we tried to go around and talk to people, but that just really didnt happen. We were stopped by this one family and they asked us where we were from and guess what... they are from Spanish Fork... woooo. It was pretty funny cause they asked us if we teach people on campus and we told them no, that we just work around the campus but that its still pretty fun to do. We then had dinner at Chik Fil A cause its super good. 

Sunday we had to be at the church super early for a meeting, then we had to go back to get all of the Tupperware containers for members, and then finally church started. Alberto came to church for the first time! The G came to church and that was really good. The only problem is that one of the members who was speaking talked about temples, and lets just say that they said some stuff that you just dont say. Hopefully we dont get any questions about it, but oh well. The classes were alright, our investigators had a lot of questions that we were able to help resolve. After church there was a baptism of the other elders, elders A and M. The people that were baptized are named C and M, and they are from Belize, and dont speak any spanish... it is weird. They really really like the ward (and their missionaries too much) and so they said that they were going to be baptized in this ward. They don't understand any spanish, its weird. Well, to make matters worse, they have a fear of water. The mom, C, was screaming as she was getting in the water and it took her like 5 minutes just to get in! And then she didnt have her nose plugged when she went down and so she started coughing and she was struggling as she was leaving the font. So when it was the turn for her daughter who is 10 to be baptized, the daughter is obviously going to be scared. It was so bad. M didnt want to go under the water and she was really scared. I think Elder A had to say the baptismal prayer about 10 times because she just wouldn't go down! It was a very different baptism that is for sure, but hey, they were baptized. We then went to go and visit Y after church and do an activity in PMG with her about patience, because thats what she wanted to do. We then went to go have dinner and we basically just ate junk food, I know, not the best. We had a lesson with the G family and it was a really good lesson. At one point the hermano got our two investigators confused that the Book of Mormon was the Bible, so we had to explain that it wasn't and that it compliments the Bible just like the Bible compliments the Book of Mormon. We then went to go and visit with the A family, but this time we stopped by to visit J and her family, so hopefully we will be able to start visiting them again. 

Sorry that it was so late! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Roberts