Week 61

Week 7 in South Gate Branch

Monday I REALLY needed to get a haircut. It was so long, but none of the leaders said anything so that was good. I went to this 4.99$ haircut spot and they were really fast, cut it short just how I like it, but the cut it SO uneven. I guess that's what I get from going to a 5$ place right? We then had to travel clear to Santa Monica where the Mission office is because Elder D had an interview with President W. Elder S and I talked to a couple other elders there that are cool. Our way back from Santa Monica was just full of traffic. It was so horrible that by the time we arrived in our area, there wasn't even enough time to go and play sports... So sad. That's 2 weeks in a row that we haven't done something cool. Elder S and I visited the C family and reestablished the reason for the visits and for us coming by and such. Who knows what will happen. They are a really cool family, so we are all rooting for them!  

Tuesday I had MLT which is the training for all of the missionary leaders like zone leaders and district leaders. It was nice to see a bunch of my friends from other areas there and former companions as well. There were a lot of announcements and good trainings at MLT and I took a bunch of notes. There were a lot of announcements about Gladys Knight and the SUV performance that is going to happen really soon, this upcoming weekend. They said if we had X amount of investigators and they all had this and that, then we could go. Obviously that made a lot of missionaries want to go and so there was a crazy excitement going around. Afterwards we went and saw the F, A and S. We sat down and talked with them about being confirmed and everything. They are just so awesome, they are cool. A is always looking to improve and she is so adorable about not trying to make mistakes, so awesome. We then had dinner with Hermana P and she just has a lot of problems with her family. She is really trying to help her family to stick together. Basically her kids hate their dad and the dad hates that she pays attention to the kids more than him. He does drugs and bad things, but she still dreams of having her family sealed in the temple... Just all sad and heartbreaking stuff really. We then stopped by to go and see M G with Hermano A and that was "good" you could say. They live right down the street from each other and they are from the same part of Mexico. They chatted it up. Elder S fell asleep and I almost did too, they were basically reminiscing about old time.... So you could say it went "good". 

Wednesday Elder S's back was hurting pretty bad, we think it was from the way he was sitting on M G's couch the night before. A invited us to go and eat posole and that was really nice. We talked to her son who is not a member, but is really shy. We tried to get to know him and make him feel comfortable by throwing around a football with him. We were all laughing, having a good time, everything was just nice and friendly. We talked to A about doing baptisms for the dead and getting her recommend.... She was PUMPED! We talked about family history work and man the whole "hearts of children turn to their fathers" promise for the latter days is so TRUE! She was so excited. I was like "sweetness!" The whole time. We had coordination meeting and that was good, we have it every Wednesday with Hermano A. After coordination we visited with L. We hadn't seen her for a full week and man, does Satan hit hard. She didn't come to church on Sunday and during the week we didn't see her she got into a big argument with family members, stopped praying and reading, and even got into a car crash because she was really mad. She told us of all this and said "I don't think I can be baptized on the 24th". We had an intense lesson with her about, well, basically everything. It was so spiritual and basically we called her bluff. She recommitted to being baptized and we told her of a plan we had for her. 

Thursday I don't remember, I did bad writing this week

Friday we had district meeting and I went on exchanges with Elder F, and that was a blast. Elder F was trained by Elder G and he is from Guatemala and his dad was a mission president, he studied at BYU, and he is awesome. We started out the exchange by setting some goals. The only lesson that we had set was with L at a park in our area. We decided to go the park and talk to everyone we could. We had some pretty interesting conversations. We contacted an atheist who was really nice, we asked an old man what the most important thing in his life and he didn't want to talk so he said "getting home" it was kinda abrupt, but I then just thought "which home?" And then I thought about the talk from conference about the "lost keys".... Home, keys.... The exchange was super fun and really awesome and it was a good break

Saturday switched back from exchanges and I forget the rest, it was a crazy week

Sunday we had 8 investigators at church and found 2 new investigators and had an awesome dinner with the Samoans

And I'm going to....

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Korea Town! This will be my 6th area here in LA and the 5th zone. I am in LA1 now. My new companion is Elder B and he was trained by Elder P after we were companions. I am back on bike, so I will be losing all the weight that I gained hahaha. I'm just a regular missionary though, so that's a relief. I will be on LA 3rd Ward. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 60

Weekly Letter:

Monday we really wanted to badly go and eat at Korean Barbecue. It's something that other missionaries have told me for a very long time is good and that I need to try it before I leave, kinda like a "right of passage" type thing. So basically that's all we did during the "Pday" time. Because at first we went to a place that was SUPER expensive and because the waitress didn't speak English, we had to slowly understand her and it was just awkward when we left because we don't have that kind of money (30$ per person). We ended up going to a place that is super good and I'll definitely take you all there after the mission. Basically it's 13$ for an all you can eat meat type stuff, super good. The only down side was because you cook it yourself, and we aren't very good cooks. It wasn't AS amazing as I would've liked, probably because we were all new at it. It took all day to do that because we ate for like 2 hours straight and then traffic in LA is just horrible. We did go and visit S, the 8 year old girl who is getting baptized and reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her. She is so shy it almost hurts. But she's awesome, she really wants to be baptized and she can't wait to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. When we went to pick up our laundry from the members who do it for us, and I almost got bit by their dog. Their dog is a pretty old, fat, girl dog and for some reason it doesn't like me. We were on our way out of the house/ yard and the dog, named Bree, charged straight for us, I pushed Elder S out of the way and tried to fall backwards through the gate, only running into Elder S and then Bree almost bit my butt! She didn't get a good enough grip and I slipped out. She was then going crazy against the fence, like growling and barking and everything. Elder S was oblivious this whole time and didn't even recognize what happened. He just thought that I shoved him and he didn't want to get mad at me.

Tuesday we decided to stop by and visit A and his family. The two kids were coming back from school and they let us in. Well, this family also has a dog. This dog is older, somewhat blind, but doesn't bite... So they said. Let's just say it wouldn't let us through the front door. It didn't charge at us like Bree, but it did not let us pass. Why don't dogs like me?? We talked with the A family (A's family) for a little bit and it was funny because they were making fun of their grandma who is super old and from Thailand. The mom, B, she is from Thailand as well and she is Buddhist. We are trying to slowly get the husband active so that she can start to feel the change in her life as well as see it in his. After we visited them we had the baptismal interview for A and S with the Zone Leaders. Elder C interviewed A and Elder M interviewed S. When they walked out I asked A if she passed and she said "no, you didn't teach me all the stuff" and then Elder C said "no she passed, she is now ready for her second interview" and my stomach just dropped. Elder S, who didn't know there are sometimes two interviews was looking at me all weird and even S, the fellowshipper and basically BFF of A who is a recent convert said "there aren't two interviews!" Elder C looked at me and I understood. We both played it off cool and were like "Yah, sometimes there are two for adults" which is true. S of course passed, so we were really excited. After everyone left Elder S was like "2 interviews?" And I explained to him that sometimes investigators may have answered "Yes" to question 4 in the baptismal interview and if they say yes, then they need to be interviewed by someone of the mission presidency. It's kinda like repenting on your own vs. going through the bishop. We texted President V who is one of the counsellors in the mission presidency and the only one who speaks Spanish. After that we went and visited S. We were also suppose to go and see M, but she didn't show up. S is super smart. We read in the Book of Mormon and her comprehension is spot on! She could explain the story perfectly (we were reading in 1 Nephi 3 and 4) and wow, it was amazing. She is planning on being baptized in June because that is when her father returns from working out of the state. Afterwards we went out to eat (we got into a really bad habit this week) and got some pizzas. To end the night we went and visited the C family and decided to invite them to be baptized. They accepted an invitation to be baptized on the 1st of May! They said that they are making plans to come to church every week and that they will plan for the baptism as well. It was a good way to end the night and we were very happy.

Wednesday we started out the day normal when we received a call from Elder B who is the mission Elder in charge of the apartments. He is an older guy serving with his wife and he called us. He told us that he was 15-20 from our apartment and that he needed to install something inside. Of course I am freaking out because our apartment isn't always as clean as other times, so I started to organize some stuff. He came to install and smoke detector and a CO detector. They are the same box looking thing and when he was installing it he asked for a screwdriver and I pulled out a little handy dandy pocket knife that we have with its tiny little screwdriver. He looks at me like "you serious?" But says "well, beggars can't be choosers" and started to put the thing in the wall. After that he invited us to go and eat with him at Subway. On our way we almost died because he is an old cowboy from Texas and doesn't know how to drive too well in LA, but we made it alive and well. We then went to go and see M G because she is really sick. She told us that she is getting better, but that they will get the results of the tests next week to see what she has. She told us a real cool story. She said that when she went into the hospital, the doctors that were taking care of her weren't exactly doing a super good job. She was then switched to a different doctor and she told us that she thought he was Mormon, so she asked him. This is how she describes the conversation:

M- "What religion are you?"

Doctor- "Well, I don't like to talk about it at the workplace because some people might get mad"

M- "Well, what are you?"

Doctor- "Promise you won't get mad?"

M- "I promise"

Doctor- "I'm Mormon"

M- "I'm Mormon too" (hold her hand out to shake his)

Doctor- "Well then, I guess we need to say a prayer before we go in then"

She then said that she knows that Heavenly Father put him in her path so that way she could feel comforted. So cute! 

We then stopped by to go and visit the F family to make their program with them. We figured out who was going to say the prayer, give the talks, everything. Then the most important question came... Who would they choose to baptize them? We asked A, "Who do you want to baptize you?" She replied "The person who can".... Meaning Elder S because I'm a toothpick ahahaha. S then asked if I could baptize her... Of course I will! After we planned the program, we went to the chapel to meet with L. She is progressing and reading and everything! We went over the Word of Wisdom with her and she doesn't have any problems! She told us that she used to drink coffee, but that she was so addicted to it and that it was hurting her stomach so she stopped. We explained more about the Word of Wisdom and basically she's like, that's a commandment? I would think that's common sense! Oh my goodness I love her, she is hilarious! Coordination was right after that and Elder D wasn't too excited about the baptism for A. He used to be in my area and when Elder J and him taught A, she didn't like Elder D because he was too pushy with her. It was really funny because after Coordination one of the branch presidency members was asking us how everything is going and we told him that there was going to be 2 baptisms this week, he was like "awesome Elders! (Pointing toward where L was sitting) Now when is she going to be baptized?" Almost in a way saying that she never will be. We told him that she also has a baptismal date for the 24th and his jaw dropped and we were all like #dropdamic #boom it was pretty funny.

Thursday was just crazy. I'm going to try and explain everything as simply as I can. President V, the only member of the Mission Presidency who speaks Spanish told us that he would not be able to give the interview to A because he was busy with work. He told us to talk to President W, the other counselor and someone who does not speak Spanish. President W told us that he would need a translator during the interview, but he could only give the interview on a certain day and time because he was also working. Then we texted President W. We told him what was going on and asked if he could give the interview, he said yes. We worked it out that Elder C and I would go on mini splits during the hours right before and after the interview so that way Elder C could be the translator for President W. Elder S went with Elder M. The mini exchange was kinda crazy. Two missionaries, from the same stake, both "seasoned" in the mission on a raining day... We saw miracles. Elder C is just an amazing missionary. We had doorstep lessons and street lessons and I'm just thinking "man! Talk about representing the stake!" Naw, just kidding. But it was really fun. We arrived at the chapel and neither President or A were there. We called A and she said that she was on her way and President called us and said that he was 10 minutes out. Everybody arrived and President W was introducing himself to S (friend of A) and because she speaks a little English, she was talking with him. When he turned to A, who doesn't speak English, she said "Hola" and he said "hola, cómo está?" Me and Elder C then went "oh snap!" Meaning that President knows some Spanish, but then President gave me a look like "don't ever do that again." I was like.. Yikes! But it all worked out. During the interview President left to go and get tissues.... And when they finished I ask A "¿Ya pasó?" Meaning if she passed and President then replied for her "sí pasó". He shook my hand a looked into my eyes and basically said "this was a good one". I wanted to cry! We all left and Elder C and I went to go meet up with the other Elders. They were taking a little while so we went to this place that we always wanted to go to called Elizabeth's Bakery. It was so good! Definitely going there again. We then were walking to our car when a random guy stopped us and it looked like he was wanting to bash with us. He started with a prayer and offered us pizza. He told us that his daughter is Mormon and he wants to "help her get out of it". He asked us questions that were meant to trick us, but man, it was so intense! He asked us "how is it that we go back to heaven?" And we said by the Atonement of Christ, or by the mercy of God. He then said "are we saved by grace" to which we said yes. He then said "so we don't need to do anything then?" To which we replied "but faith without works is dead" and he nodded like... These guys are good, they got it. He then asked us if he could trust us with his daughter in the church. The reply from Elder C "you can trust her with Jesus Christ, this is his church" BOOM! He thanked us and we walked back to our car... Man! That was so cool!

Friday we had District Meeting, but when we got there people were cleaning the carpet and all the rooms, so we called President and he said just to reschedule the meeting until Friday. Well we had a mini ZTM because this last week we did something as a mission that was called Miracle Week and everything just exploded in the mission. So everyone was sharing miracles about what happened, it was cool. It was still raining and so it was pretty miserable. We stopped by to go and see A and kinda have one last lesson before their baptism. She said she was nervous, but she said it with a smile, so that was good. Later that night we went to go and see the C family, but they had family in town so we decided to leave. The rest of the day was just a lot of walking in the rain, pretty boring.

Saturday was the District meeting and it rained, so there really wasn't much that happened because nobody is home when it rains. Brother L and his wife took us to a burger joint called The Habit and that was good.

Sunday was a crazy long, but awesome day. We started out with a meeting in the Samoan Ward at 7:00 am and I just basically sat there bored because they talk in Samoan the entire time so I don't understand anything. We then had sacrament meeting and that was good, but some of the testimonies were in Samoan, so I still didn't understand anything. A returned missionary who served in this mission came back and visited. He 'welcomed' us to the Ward, how nice was that? Anywho he then asked if either of us was able to learn the Samoan language yet. I kinda just looked at my tag, you know, the one that says:

Elder Roberts

La Iglesia De 

Jesucristo 

De Los Santos 

De Los Últimos Días 

And thought.. Uh no I don't know Samoan yet. Elder S just then gave him a look like "for real bro?" It was pretty funny. The Elder spent 15 months in this Ward, and he was an English elder, not Samoan. 

Church was good in the Branch, we had the BAPTISM! Elder S basically had to tackle A into the font. I baptized S and she was just all smiles the whole time.

Transfers are next week, I don't know a haka yet, yes I'm white and I did get a haircut

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 59

 Dear Awesome Family!

Conference was so cool, I love conference... Didn't even fall asleep this time, how could I? I wrote so many notes it's crazy.

Woot woot! 4 new temples!!! Brazil, Zimbabwe, Ecuador and PERU!!! 

Monday was a weird day. Because it is the end of the month, we have to make sure that we are not driving over our allotment of miles, so we just did what we normally do for Pdays instead of going somewhere cool. We got the car washed and the car washes here are crazy weird. I swear you might as well wash it by hand because it does not do the job right, and then sometimes the car washes don't work, and that's awkward. We played sports and went to Yogurtland, so that was fun. We had dinner with the P family. They had a lot of food waiting for us and it was so yummy! The dad, S is the ward clerk and he is so funny. We talked with them for a bit and helped them practice how to talk to their friends about the Gladys Knight musical presentation, so that was fun. 

Tuesday was just so incredibly sad. We had a goal as a zone to do some crazy stuff with MP lessons and Baptismal invitations, so Tuesday we just planned the day packed with stuff. We first had a lesson planned with L and Hermana P, but then Hermana P canceled, so then we just set up a lesson with L, but then she also canceled on us... Dang it. We then went and tracked for a while, trying to contact some referrals and visit members we don't know. Elder S then said "we should go and visit M G our homie" so we went to go and see her. She is the RC who is really old and came to church for the first time last week since I've been here. We knocked on her door and her husband answered the door. It was my first time meeting him and we asked if his wife was home. He then told us that she was in the hospital and has been there for the past 3 days. He started to cry and we shared a scripture to comfort him. He told us of his worries and it was a tender moment. We prayed with him and he told us that he was going to tell M that we stopped by. It was really sad. We then had a lesson scheduled with A and S, the two with a baptismal date. We then got a text from A saying that SHE couldn't make it either to the lesson... Shoot! We were then visiting potentials and we got a call from our branch president saying that a family in the branch needed our help. He told us that they had a family member who was in the hospital and that they wanted a blessing. So we went with him to the hospital, don't worry, it was in our area. We walk in and I just could not handle it... I can't stand hospitals anymore. We thought we were just going to go and visit and give a blessing, but when Presidente O started to ask for "trauma" I was like... Oh no, I ain't going to the ICU. Well we went. The man was involved in a terrible car accident and he looked badly scraped and everything. His family was crying and his wife just kept saying "we believe". She told us that right before we had arrived, they pronounced him dead. They had him hooked up to life support, or the ventilator, idk which, but out of the 3 numbers that it is suppose to have, 2 of the numbers were 0's. We gave him a blessing (yes, to a dead dude) and it was sad. His wife just kept crying and I didn't know what to do, and neither did Elder S. We left and Presidente O was asking us all these questions and I'm just thinking "can we please leave the hospital now??" I hate hospitals. We then went to visit some potentials and they weren't home either. Bishop M from the Samoan Ward, had signed up for dinner that day, so we were calling and leaving messages for him. It was getting late so we just decided to get dinner. When we went back to the chapel to eat (cause it's like smack dab in the middle of our area) one of the counsellors in the bishopric told us that today was the funeral for Bishop M's brother.... Oh my goodness. We felt horrible. How rude is that? We didn't even know that our bishop was at a funeral and here we are, trying to call him... Ugh. So that made the day even more sad. We decided to stop by the C family. Elder S kept saying that if they weren't there, that he was going to flip out when we got back to the apartment. Well, they were home. We invited the P family and we talked about FHE and General Conference. It was cool because after the family left, we stopped and talked with them for a bit and.... They missed us so that was a good way to end a very sad day.

Wednesday was a little better. We found a family that was investigating the church a while back, the M family. The dad is a good friend of our branch president, the mom is really nice, and the son is just awesome and he's 14 years old. We talked with them for a bit and the son is actually the one who basically set up the whole lesson. We called him and he told us a time then when we stopped by, he came out to greet us. They have all sorts of animals running around their yard and stuff. They have dogs, cats, bunnies, chickens, and roosters... And no this isn't a farm, it's a normal house in LA. One of the bunnies even has a scar from fighting with the cat because the cat tries to eat all the little bunnies. They also just barely had puppies and those puppies have green and blue eyes! Melt your heart right? We did a get to know you lesson and invited them to conference. I thin the key to the family will be to work through the son. We then tried a couple of potentials and they weren't home. We then  tried to stop by for M, but he was working, which was ok because the uncle he lives with is our WML and he was sick. We canceled coordination for that night, but Elder S and I still went to the church to go and have a lesson with L. She is keeping her commitments! She is reading, praying, everything. She told us of her concerns about being baptized, because she could literally be baptized anytime that she wants right now. We then finished off the day with dinner at the Ls. The always give us so much food! It was so good and man was I stuffed! That family is really nice.

Thursday we had weekly planning and we made some plans for our investigators with baptismal dates. We made the plans and then looked up some Mormon messages and videos to try and see what could help our investigators improve. We stopped by to see A and S, the mom and daughter couple, and to go over some commandments that they didn't know still. During the lesson, A brought up a lot of questions. She has a coworker who keeps telling her all this anti Mormon type stuff and she asked us "why would he tell me that if its not true?" I can't tell you how perfect her fellowshipper/ friend/ neighbor's response was: "because the devil doesn't want you to be baptized". It's true! It was so simple and I thought, when it comes down to it... Ya! She had a lot of questions, but a lot of them were resolved. After that we tried to go and see some part member families and potentials, but they weren't home. We received a call earlier in the day from Hermana R. She is the one who called Presidente O to have us give a blessing to the guy in the hospital. She called us because she wanted us to give a blessing to her daughter, the problem was that we couldn't enter into the house because she only has daughters. We called members of the branch to see if they could come with us to give a blessing. When we arrived I met the family, and they are pretty cool. The daughter was in the same car as the man we blessed on Tuesday, B. He is their brief in law and also cousin type deal... Don't ask, I'm still trying to figure it out. We gave her a blessing and that was a cool experience. It was just really sad because we have had to give a lot of blessings this week, which are all cool experiences, it's just really sad you know?

Friday we had ZTM and I also went on exchanges with Elder D. ZTM was pretty cool because there are only Elders in the zone, so it's a "bro-zone" and there are a lot of missionaries that I know from past areas and serving around them. After ZTM I went on an exchange with Elder D in his area. His is in a Ike area, and idk if I told you, but I am letting him use my bike because his bike broke and stuff. Well, he has treated Peggy very nicely. He put new brakes on her and oiled her chain and now she is an incredibly smooth ride, how do I know? Well I rode her that day and it was a complete difference. He even fixed all the brakes and everything! We stopped by one of their investigators and they had a neighbor washing their car. Well the investigator made us pupusas, giant ones if I can add, and we invited the neighbor to come and eat with us. He looks like he is 20 or 21 and he has more facial hair than I have hair in my head, and he is only 15. The investigator, S, and her daughter, M, also thought that I was a kid, to the point that M (age little kid) asked her mom "who is the cute boy sitting by the missionary?" Ok... I know I needed a haircut, but dang! After that awkward moment we talked to the neighbor. His name is E and we told him about a lot of stuff. He has been kicked out of school, for various reasons, and works at a car wash. He seemed interested in hearing about the restored gospel so that was definitely a tender mercy. We then visited a man named J. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in about 15 minutes and he accepted a baptismal date as well! It was super cool because it was so simple! After that we went to dinner (eating 2 times ugh) but it was on the complete other side of their area, so it took a long time to bike just because of all the stops and lights in the way. After dinner we only had time to bike back home. 

Saturday was General Conference and so that was really fun, especially cause basically we had 5 1/2 hours of church that day... So awesome. I can't really say what talk was my favorite, because all of the, were really good. After priesthood session we went back to go and visit M, one of the recent converts in the area. Saturday was the year anniversary of when Hermana and Hermano A's son passed away. He past away at home, and he had cancer. He had an bag just like Josh and the comparisons are sadly similar. She was feeling really down, and I didn't know what to do to comfort her. Everyone was dressed in black and the mood was definitely mournful. We read in the scriptures with M and his uncle and that was better. It was just really sad to see Hermana A that way, cause normally she is always smiling.

Sunday was conference and that was awesome! The C family came to the Sunday morning session and that was really cool. Elder F and I went on a little exchange and listened to that session in Spanish. I probably didn't get out as much as I would've in English, but I understood SO much more than last conference, I actually have a good chunk of notes. The C family said that they loved conference and how they focus so much in the family! Lilian also came to conference and she loved it!

We ended the day off with visiting M, M G, and the C family

Love,

Elder Roberts