Week 74

Korea Town Episode III - Part 1

Monday was the last pday with Elder B. We went to go and email real quick, and then we bought ice cream to have a party later at night. We then saw Elder P and a couple other missionaries and went out to lunch with them and took pictures. Elder Parker is going home!! Omg so when you see him playing baseball for BYU this season, just know that he was my favorite companion by far. We then had some other Elders come and pick us up to go to Little Tokyo. Elder P and V were the elders. Now Elder P is like me, into sports, slightly into superheroes, but definitely not all the Japanese manga or stuff like that, but his companion totally is. We saw a couple things that interested us, but they were like 12$ a piece... Uh.. No. There wasn't any little thing like a souvenir even, but it's ok. We then went back to play sports at the church with Elder H and T to join us, it was so much fun. We played ultimate and when Elder P and I were on the same team, the score was 7-0 hahaha. We then had a tall team and a short team. Elder B, Elder V, and I vs. Elder H (6 2) Elder T (6 4) and Elder P (6) and they all played sport before. BUT we won! It was 7-6 but man was my companion on fire! I would just toss it out to him and he would catch almost everything! It was awesome and Elder B liked it too haha. Elder V is so weird. He is the oldest missionary in the mission at 27 years old and he has had a hard life. He is just the guy that enjoys every little thing, and sometimes it's something just random. For example we went through a car wash, and he was so excited that he took a video of us going through the wash... Uh bruh, come on. We visited with M and it was a tender moment because in Elder B's mission, he only has 1 RC and that is M. It was just sad because she almost cried and Elder B was almost crying and here I am... Sitting... But it was touching. We then went to go and see the A family and that was cool. We went over the prophet of the restoration movie with them and that was good. We got back to the apartment and I tidied it all up for Elder D while Elder B packed.

Tuesday we had to wake up early because the member that was going to take Elder B took him around 7 am, so we had our ZLs come and chill with me while I waited for my companion to come. Elder H, one of the ZLs was going home and man will I miss him. I didn't serve around him too much but he was such a nice guy and an awesome example. We then waited until my companion came. My companion is Elder D and I have served around him 2 times before. He has a fixie bike which is different than normal. His bike had a flat and has no brakes so we had to walk to the store to buy our groceries. We bought a lot of food, but we split in buying so I know this transfer is gonna be a good one. Elder D is a hard core Mexican so he knows how to cook and loves so it stuff.... Yikes! Anywho he is really cool. We made orange chicken for lunch and it didn't turn out too bad! We then started working in our area and we were talking to people right before we had a lesson with the C's. L C had a baptismal date, and so we wanted to follow up on that. Well, we found out during the lesson that L may not have as much desire as we thought to read in the Book of Mormon and find out if the message of the restoration is true, which is really sad. We then went to go and pick up dinner from an Hermana that I had never seen before, but she is totally active in the church. She gave us lasagna and it is so good! We had a little bit of time to contact after dinner and before correlation because a lesson fell through, but it was good cause Elder D needs to learn the area a little bit. We had coordination meeting and it was interesting because the sisters didn't show up!!! Elder W is also training and he got a Latino companion, so that is good for him. His companion is Elder A and he is from Taylorsville, but went to Cottonwood Heights, so maybe when we are on exchanges we can connect about SOMETHING from Utah. We also found out that the missionary that is from Kaysville and knows the Jordan's is in the same zone as me. His name is Elder S and he is being trained by Elder P.

Wednesday was the first real day of the transfer. Woke up and did exercises (finally getting into a habit) and I make shakes in the morning so that is really good, better than cereal before hahaha. As a companionship we read Jesus el Cristo in our language study and hopefully we can read most of it this transfer. I am already in chapter 6 out of the 42 chapters so I know it will be pretty far by the end of the transfer, IF everything goes according to plan. We contacted around our area and tried to go and visit a couple people but they weren't home, so many people on vacation or what?? We then headed to the G's home and oh my goodness, did we walk in at the right time. The daughter had just gotten a new car (a Kia) and her Boyfriend  was driving right as we arrived to the apartment building. Well what we didn't know is that they (all 3 including the Hermana) had just came back from the dealership because the key got stuck in the ignition. Well, the key got stuck again and I guess tempers were really high. The Hermana was going crazy and just yelling at her daughter, and she was fighting back. The boyfriend was just there just kinda chilling and trying to calm her down and here we are just kinda trying to smoothen things out. Well it was crazy because the Hermana was wanting us to talk to the insurance people but her daughter ended up working everything out. BUT then she totally went off on her mom and then we stepped in. We just tried to be a little more positive and the boyfriend was just like "man, y'all are just the happy people huh?" And I was thinking, Ya bro, want to join the church? But then we ended up eating with the G and having a mini lesson with him. He is beginning is faith in God. It's not that he doubts that he is there, but just the fact that he doesn't have a solid foundation and with a bunch of churches and religions going around, it's hard to know (missionary time baby!) anywho so he is super chill and we are going to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon next week and help him out. A has some questions of her own because she is a little less active in testimony, but her mom is super solid and active in the church and A's brother is on a mission right now, so it's pretty much a good hand we have been dealt here. We then went to go and so S and I tried to tell my companion before that we were just going to focus on S and not his roommates. Well, it was really hard because the roommates are just full of DOUBTS. (Shpeal of a missionary here) when talking about RELIGION, DOUBTS are not good. QUESTIONS and DOUBTS are different and here is why: questions are a form of growing and learning. They make us ponder and think of the answer, that is why when the answer comes, we feel satisfied and uplifted (by the spirit). Doubts are the opposite. They make us question the reality of the truth. Doubts are the building blocks of fear, and fear is the opposite of faith. We cannot have doubts and faith at the same time. That's why the quote is "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". Ok so his roommates have a lot of doubts. They ask questions just two test our knowledge basically and have very little desire to actually learn and apply the things that we tell them about the gospel. My companion is very bold though, so it's kinda like good cop and bad cop in our companionship. We ended the night street contacting some people and then returned back to the apartment.

Thursday we had weekly planning and Elder D I guess has always made popcorn for weekly planning. He has all the different types of flavorings and then he puts spicy stuff on it. It was really cool because that was also my birthday and J D and E took us out to eat at a Oaxacan (WA-Hak-inn) restaurant and I got some tacos that were good. They also gave us cheesecake that was good, except oft eh piece that E got because there was a little green on it (omg if you could've seen the face that she gave the waitress that helped us... My goodness) it was really nice and it was a good opportunity to talk to E a little bit more about missionary work and the church in general so it was worth it. We then biked back to the apartment to drop off the food from there and headed to the C's. Their dog is just causing problems I tell you. First off, they have to move because in the apartment complex they are not allowed to have pets in it. AND then the dog is really weird now because he thought that the C's abandoned him and so he is acting really weird anyways, he is the reason why they are so stressed and trying to find a new apartment building to live in. We picked up dinner from Hermana Z but I was so tried that I just crashed and fell asleep. We then went around and talked to a lot of people... It's crazy how similar some Koreans look to Latinos I tell ya... Wow. We finished off the night with a FHE with the eyes family and we found a crazy thing: the Hermana was just baptized because her husband got baptized... Uh oh! So now we are trying to help her gain a testimony for herself so that they can be sealed in the temple one day. It is just really sad in cases like this because last week she was asking when the temple classes were, can you imagine her going to the temple just because she wants to satisfy her husband?? There are some pretty serious stuff in there and so we have taken the responsibility to help her gain a testimony!!

Friday we had an awesome set up for the day. We had a lot of lessons scheduled with investigators, and with some less actives. We first started out heading towards the B family. Elder B and I had stopped visiting them for a while because they weren't keeping any of their commitments, so we decided to see if they were ready to progress. Well, because of that stupid new game called Pokemon Go the older brother is never home now, so we can never enter... Stupid. Well we decided to walk around for a bit and try to talk to some people. We came across an interesting building in our area that is a Masonic temple, so that's really weird. It is in that part of the area that there is no work basically. Well we were biking and S of all people saw us! She was all like "hi!!" And so we crossed the street to talk to her. She is 5 months pregnant now and still smoking.. Super bad, ya. Well it seems that things are going better for her, mainly. We set up a time to go back and talk with her so that's really good. She is crazy, but it's just one of those investigators that you get attached to because you found them, and they were progressing, so it's kinda intense for me. We then had a lesson with M and she is just awesome. I'm gonna do a quick rewind: so she invited one of her friends to her baptism, and that friend was originally taking the missionary lessons. Well NOW she has her parents permission to start attending the Mormon church. The friend really likes it and M of course is just being awesome at supporting her! It's so awesome to see youth do missionary work!! Makes me feel like such a loser that I never did it. The lesson was really cool, especially because some people on her Facebook have like the Mormon message that she shared so WOOO!! Go missionary work! Well from there we went to go and visit the P family, but we were only able to visit for a quick minute because they had to get going pretty soon. We tried to swing by and visit D with Hermana C, but D wasn't there! We called her earlier in the day and she said she would be there, but nope! So hopefully we can find her again because this is just craziness what is happening with her right now. We had Hermano P come with us to visit with S and his roommates and Hermano P is a really good member to take out to lessons! He reads his scriptures and he testifies super good, it was awesome. The lesson itself was really weird because the roommates were incredibly distracting during the lesson, so we decided that it would be better to teach S at the church. We then finished off the night visiting with the D L family, the less active family that is just so cool. Well I could go off about how awesome they are, but really there was only time to introduce my new companion and talk a little with them. We committed them to say nightly prayers and as a couple hold hands and kneel down in prayer every night, the idea came from a Mormon message about marriage so it will totally work!! 

Saturday we had DM and oh my goodness was that just crazy. Elder W is our DL and he is training and let's just say that the DM was not the most orthodox that it could've been. It was a little weird because the training was on how to contact better and it's really funny because Elder W is a little awkward when he talks to people, it was a good laugh though:) I FINALLY got everything for my birthday I think. I got 2 packages from you all, one from Charlie, and one from Grammy and Grampy. Grandpa and Grandma also sent me an email so that was really nice. We had a quick lesson with E in a park with J D (OMG they are totally going to get married I swear) and it was really good. We testified of the eternal importance of families and how the priesthood is a blessing in this life so that way we can return to live with our families after this life. We also set up a VC trip with E for this upcoming week so hopefully everything goes according to plan. We had a late lunch because we didn't have any time before and then we went out to go and find the elect. Well, we tried talking to a lot of people, but it was just a really hard day contacting I guess. We ended the night with a dinner and a lesson with the B family and we invited M to prepare to teach us the message of the restoration, maybe he will learn something new and gain a testimony of it ya know? It was a good way to end the day though.

Sunday was good, except not that many people showed up to church. The R family actually gave me a cake to celebrate my birthday and that was nice. We also did a FHE with the A like normal. Anywho, I forgot to write last night about this and I don't remember too much about what happened... Sorry.

Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Roberts

Transfers Week 73....Grab some Popcorn

I just wanted to write a little shpeal about how blessed this country really is. 

I think we all know history pretty good, but I'm not sure if you have all heard the talk "Why 1820". Basically it talks a lot about all the factors that had to go into the Restoration taking place when and where it did. It talks about the Great Apostasy. The Great Apostasy is when the church that Jesus Christ established during his mortal ministry in Jerusalem became corrupted. The Priesthood power that Christ gave to his apostles was lost. Without the Priesthood power the church could not be lead by divine revelation as it had always been in the past. God knew this was going to happen. The prophets from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon all teach and testify to us about a worldwide apostasy. With confusion rampant in the world, reformers or men that realized that the church that was dominant during that time did not have all the truth. They themselves did not affirm that they had received God's authority to RESTORE his church upon the earth. Because of the Reformation the United States of America was born. Pilgrims looking for religious freedom sought a new place in which they could worship how they wanted (although it was not yet the fullness of the gospel). The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 signifying that the 13 original colonies wanted to be independent from Great Britain. This led to the Revolutionary war in which the United States of America was formed. The founding fathers wrote the Constitution in which contains the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights affirms to everyone of a freedom of religion. 

Shortly after in the early 1800s was born the man who would become the prophet God called to RESTORE his church upon the earth. In the year 1820 this miraculous event began. God called Joseph Smith to be a prophet through whom the power and authority of God, the Priesthood, and ALL the truths and doctrines of Christ's church would be restored as well. 

The Book of Mormon teaches us about the ancient Americas and the blessing that God has given the land (the blessing still applies to all of the American continents, but we are just going to apply it here to the Unites Stated of America). 

New Jerusalem is to be built on the American continent, the Book of Mormon and modern revelation bear testimony of this truth. New Jerusalem signifies the city of Zion when Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords when he comes again.

We have God's chosen servants on the earth. HIS prophet is Thomas S. Monson who leads and guides the church here on the earth. Our leaders are men and women called by God to serve God's children to help us prepare to meet God after this life, for this is our purpose here (see scripture : Alma 34:32) We as citizens of this wonderful country that God has blessed us with need to be active in proclaiming the Restoration to the whole world for the field is white (D&C 4:4). We also have the right and responsibility as members of God's church to defend our beliefs and our rights.

I testify that the United States of America is a chosen land by the Lord and that if we follow the commandments of God and follow the guidance of his chosen servants, the latter-day prophets and apostles, then we will be able to stay on "the Old ship Zion" and reach the final destination that our Heavenly Father has for us with him in the Celestial Kingdom.

Transfer news: 

I am going to be... Staying! Elder B is going up to Hollywood with a really cool elder and my new companion is Elder D. I know Elder D pretty good and have gone on exchanges with him before, he was in South Gate branch with me and Elder S so this will be good. He is a Latino so hopefully I take advantage of a native Spanish speaker!!

Korea Town Episode II Scene 6

Monday was the 4th of July y'all!!! Woo!!! U'merica! It was pretty cool cause we had some awesome plans and a fun day. People waved at as more and so that was really nice. We went to McDonalds to email and while emailing we found out that Elder B's family was in Utah! The only problem is is that they weren't by West Jordan or anything as we previously thought. I forgot to tell you that they would;don't be able to come... So that's my bad. They really did think it was a good idea though. We then went shopping and bought a bunch of junk food cause we are teens todavia and it's a holiday sooooo ya. We made plans with awesome elders to hang out and just have fun. We had Elder H and T come pick us up and take us to their church building because another companionship was going to come and we were all going to do fun stuff. On the way to the church building Elder B and I were talking about Arby's. Elder H said that we should go but Elder T was like... Well we already eat too much fast food... But we all out voted him and he was actually grateful. So I went and got a classic Arby's burger with some curly fries, oh yeah. I don't think there is anything more American than Arby's.. Burger with fries and cheese, plus I don't know if Arby's is out of the country, so ya! We went back to the church and waited for Elder J, Elder L, and Elder K to arrive. They came and we had a good time. Elder K is a greenie and he has no expression, he almost seems mad 24/7 so it's really awkward. Elder H and T took us to yogurt land and that was good, they have Mario spoons now! Totally collecting those! And because I am a platinum member (because of how often I have gone) I have 16oz. Free this month because of my birthday... Omg I am "so proud" of myself. Well, we had to be back in the apartment by 6 because of mission rules and so we got back in time and everything. We called people and just talked during those 3 hours. We ate chips and dip, and then ice cream afterwards (triple brownie) and the fireworks were nice. There were a lot of gun shots because LA be crazy, but everything was fine.

Tuesday was just a day that seemed like it was going to be really good, but then it just blew up. We had a really early dinner with the P family at 3 and they gave us Subway so that was nice. We taught about family home evenings and how a FHE has 5 important parts that are extremely crucial and must never be forgotten: hymn or song, prayer, spiritual thought / scripture / talk, activity, and refreshments! I told them that they could learn how to make cake balls and they seemed to really like that idea. We then had the wonderful opportunity to have the member of our bishopric who works with us come out to visit investigators with baptismal dates. We started out visiting L C, the brother of the C's. Hermano D came directly from work and so he was in normal clothes. When the lesson started it was a little weird because the C's had a friend over who had to get up and leave during the middle of the lesson and the L wanted to basically "escort" him out. So ya, our investigator literally got up and left during the middle of a lesson! Hermano D ripped into us on that later on, but hopefully everything works out good. We then went to go and visit D F. She was having some serious back problems and was in a lot of pain. She is an older later and doesn't know how to read, so we are either going to have to read to her, or she is going to have to be super diligent in listening to the scriptures on gospel library. It was a shorter visit because D wasn't feeling too good. Hermano D also ripped into us, basically on the quality of our investigators which made me feel a little sad. We had a visit with S, L, and Y after that. We decided to go over the Restoration again beau use we felt like they didn't quite understand the message. We taught incredibly simple and clearly, but they just kept saying that either they were already baptized, or that they wouldn't be able to meet with us because they have a prayer session at their church... Ugh!!! We had coordination and it was really weird because nobody was there and coordination has started to not be productive anymore, it was just a bummer day.

Wednesday we had exchanges with the DL and his companion. This time Elder W came with me to my area and I was not excited. I was feeling pretty sick and Elder W is always criticizing me about what I do as a missionary. This exchange went better than I thought though. We headed out and started to talk to people. Some people were friendly and others were not so friendly. We tried to find a former investigator and the manager of the apartment came to the front door and he told us that she had moved away, and that she was just an awful person. The manager (J) just randomly changed the subject and started talking about Mormons! He was saying how he needs to find himself a Mormon woman because they are just (this is when you insert a guy doing the hourglass move with his hands) and so we are like.. Uhhhh.. Anywho, we started to explain our purpose as missionaries and because it was really hot outside, he invited us into the apartment complex and he sat down on the stairs and wanted us to explain to him the reason why we have the Book of Mormon. We started to explain it to him and he seemed to get a really good hold on the idea and he even said "I want to read the book" so we asked him if we could come by another time to bring him a copy of the book and so we set up a time for Saturday. We then asked if we could say a prayer with him and he was like "of course! Come into my apartment so that we can say a prayer!" Bam, it was cool. We then talked to a guy named N who was white (really rare in these parts I tell ya) and he told us how he is a recovering addict and we testified to him the power of the Word of Wisdom and told him that missionaries could visit him. He wanted that so he gave us his information and we sent it out to the other missionaries, hopefully all goes good there. We then talked to a couple other people and hopefully everything goes good with them too. We biked to the area for dinner and decided to walk around for a bit because we don't have very many investigators in that area and as we were walking we talked to this one guy that was smoking and he really needs Jesus in his life I tell you. He started to cuss and swear and then he started talking to the air and so we "left with haste". We ate dinner with the G family. They got a new puppy!! Oh my goodness is it the most adorable little thing! 10 weeks old and its name is Louis... Reminded me of the pups when they were little and it was so adorable. Hermana G has a daughter named A who is less active in the fact that the only reason why she goes to church is because her mom makes her go. Her boyfriend was over and his name is P, or P. Everyone just calls him P though. They are super cool and we asked them "if they could do us a favor by helping us practice giving the missionary lessons and asking us questions that people might have" it's basically the missionary way of making others feel important while they learn about the restored gospel rather than make them feel that they are in trouble and learning about God. Well it was really good and we even set a return appointment with the two of them for Sunday! Crazy miracle right there I tell ya. We walk out from having dinner and who would've known, I got another flat tire! The tire was so flat is wasn't even funny. Well we had another lesson right after that now we were going to be late to, and we had to walk a little ways. So we texted the guy to tell him that we would be late because of a flat tire, but that we were still coming over. We saw D E, the less active that is awesome from Washington. We had J D come with us to the lesson because we thought that the brother in law of D who is not a member would be there, he wasn't. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how it is a tool for us to receive personal revelation and how it helps us to progress in the gospel. D might be moving back to Washington because he isn't finding the work that he wants here in LA so he might go back... Dang it. We told him that if he is going to be staying in LA for a while that he can ask for his member records and get them switched over to here. It was a cool lesson though. So then we walked clear fro that appointment back to the apartment because my bike was flat, that was about a mile and a half. So J D was talking to Elder W the entire time and I just walked in front. We dropped off the bikes at the apartment and then went to go and meet the elusive W! W is the member referral from the A family and we finally were able to sit down and meet with him. He is a really cool kid, knows a lot of stuff. I just think that because his father passed away recently that he is being extremely loyal to his mother who is a strong member of her faith. When we were explaining the lesson to him though, you could tell that he was interested and understood everything that we were saying. We set a return appointment for Sunday so hopefully that happens too! We then walked to a FHE with the R family. Hermano R is the WML but his family are not sealed yet. We took the initiative and decided to have weekly FHE with them so that somehow a miracle happens and they have the desire to go to the temple. Well, we had the FHE and then Hermana R asked us "do you know when the temple classes are going to start up again?"...... WHAT?!? Just like 2 weeks ago she was arguing with Elder B that we shouldn't ever talk to her about the temple because blah blah blah, and now SHE is asking for it? That was really cool. We are definitely going to continue to have FHE with them now. 

Thursday we switched back from the exchange and the day that we had planned out looked to be like a really good day. Well first off, we had to go and fix the flat tire, turns out that the lining of the rim was old so the spokes were then able to go through and puncture the tube, the tube had a HUGE hole in it. Well after that people began to cancel the appointments left and right. We even had a lesson planned with L, one of our baptismal dates, and that lesson fell through... Starting to worry about him now. We decided to go walk around and talk to people in an area that we don't normally go around to. While walking around we saw a lot of people and talked to them simply about the gospel. We then had the opportunity to give service! (Cool story because I am going to be a storyteller and amplify the situation here) there were two grown Latino men trying to fix a flat tire. We asked if we could help and they said that we could. They were struggling to get the bolts off of the tire that was punctured. One of the men was even jumping on the thing to twist if off, but it wasn't working. We then asked if we could help and then Elder B and I both grabbed one side of the wrench (the wrench had 4 sides for different sizes of bolts so it looks like a big plus sign but is a wrench) and we just pulled, bam, first one off. We then started to work on the next one and the man whose car tire was flat started to talk to us about missionary work. Bam second one off. He then began to explain that the man that was helping him was his bishop at the church that he goes to. We got the tire fixed and everything was good. We then invited him to go and visit the VC and the pastor didn't even say a word to us. The guy even asked us if we accepted "donations" to which we said no. I think the satisfaction that two 19 year old boys can fix a flat tire better than 2 grown men is satisfactory enough. We then walked away and then saw the guy again! He was really grateful for the help, so hopefully something good come out of that! It just goes to show that there is another reason for the early morning workouts as missionaries. We walked to our next appointment with a man named E. I was not looking forward to the meeting because I don't appreciate it when as missionaries, we share a unique message that people are looking for, and then people who we teach will ask us questions like "do you believe in demons??" It's a little frustrating. That was about how this lesson went. He said that we aren't telling him anything new and that all we were telling him he was fine with. Being bold, we then told him that if he agreed with what we said then that means that he will be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God, to which he was like 'oh never mind I guess we aren't on the same page'. We then went to go and see M. She is awesome and is just always smiling. She listens super good and can explain things about the gospel so easily that it is wonderful. We invited her to share a Mormon message on social media, to which she said yes. We then retired back to the apartment for dinner at the end of the night and made pasta because nobody fed us that day.

Friday we FINALLY were able to meet with E, the friend of J D. We contacted around the area and had some interesting convos with people on the street. There is this street in the area called Wilshere and man is it full of tourists around this time, goodness. Can I just say how rude white people are?? There is this awkward taboo about talking about religion with white people I guess whereas with Latinos its part of the culture to just talk about God. Anywho we were finally able to have a lesson with her about the Restoration. We gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon. We taught pretty simple and at the end when we asked her to be baptized she said "but I was already baptized". She did though understand the importance of the priesthood and the big reason why we read in the Book of Mormon, to find out if it is true. So basically the moment she gets an answer to the Book of Mormon I have no doubt that she will be baptized and converted to the gospel. She is really cool though. Her fellow shipper J D is so funny, the moment we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon he was like "this is a historical moment! Wow! I can't believe I was here for this!!" And then after the lesson he even took a picture of all of us. We then went up to the northern part of our area because we wanted to see if this family would be home, they weren't, but we were able to have a tender mercy from having a street lesson with a guy named F, we just showed him a video really and talked to him about the restored gospel. We then had a lesson with S and his roommates and boy, was I so frustrated during that lesson. The roommate that needs a rich of humility is named L. He likes to make fun of the lack of comprehension that S has and his little brother Y always is opening the Bible to random spots and saying that he doesn't understand this part so he wants us to explain it to him (this is about the time that I would like to say something to the fact of) "well if you are in your other church right now and you don't understand the Bible, maybe you might think it through! If you really want to listen to all we have to say, then act on it!" But I didn't say that... Anywho we were incredibly direct with them, explaining the importance of priesthood power and baptism. L was like "well some things in the Book of Mormon are a little different than what I read in the Bible" then I asked him what parts they were and that we could read them with him if he had any questions, but then all of a sudden he doesn't remember what part or what it said... Hmmm. Anywho we basically gave them an ultimatum: to come to church and keep their commitments so that way we can continue to help them progress, and to be honest, I didn't think that any of them wanted to progress or would keep their commitments. 

Saturday we had ZTM which was really weird because normally meetings are on Fridays but in this district the meetings are on Thursdays, but then the meeting was on a Saturday?? Oh man did it throw off the groove I tell ya. It made the week seem like it was going on FOREVER!! ZTM was good, lots of announcements and new mission rules and reinforcements, nothing too big, just President Haynie making sure we all understand his expectations, which is awesome. I am so bad, I have to tell you all something. Sister missionaries in other missions may be the coolest people on the face of the earth, might be chill, but here in the CLAM, some of them are just... Ya. Like for example, to plan a lesson we do something called "FCT" which means to follow up, commit, and teach. So we have to put specific plans in for all of those categories for each person we visit. Now a lot of the time with the follow up part, or the commit we just write down CPR if we are lazy. CPR stands for Church, Prayer, Reading. Now everyone that writes it understands the funny part that it is of being "CPR" but then you have sister missionaries here in the mission that feel the need to explain it to all of us missionaries that already understand it, it was definitely an eye roll moment for me... Which is bad and I shouldn't have done it. We had to hurry home and change from our suits so that we could go over to the P family and visit with the sons. Well the oldest son wasn't there so we had to wait for Hermano P to come so that way we could enter into the house. We invited the brothers to prepare a lesson about faith for us the next time that we come to visit. I was really excited to go and see J, the guy we met on exchanges. Well he wasn't there and it was really sad, because he was really excited about reading in the Book of Mormon, hopefully we can find him again. The day ended with an awesome dinner with the D L family. Now the D L family have been less active for bout 6 months and they are the ones that came to us and asked us to come and visit them. Well they are just super cool. S (Hermano) D L is a RM and he is super dark skinned Latino that isn't exactly 100% fluent in Spanish so we talk to him in English. His wife (Hermana) is half Mexican and half honduran, so it's a pretty good combo. She is also a convert. They were sealed together and they have the most adorable little baby that is 2 and they also have a puppy that is 1, so it's just a really cute family. They gave us KFC which was just glorious and then they gave us cake.... Man do I love this family  already. They always are just joking back and forth to each other, just telling us about how they met and the whole thing, pretty funny. We shared with them a Mormon message and then asked specifically in what way we could help them progress in the gospel. Basically the reason why they want us to visit them is because they want to have that sturdy foundation of the gospel because the wife is taking college classes right now and her biology teacher is a hardcore atheist that is completely against everything about God. They took us back to the apartment and we told them that as members of the church with the gift of the Holy Ghost, we are like an impenetrable fortress, even more so when we are endowed (and worthy), and that the only way that Satan can have an influence over us, is if WE let him in, they really liked that and so I am just excited to keep visiting them!! 

Sunday we didn't have the meeting so that was really nice. We showed up to church not knowing what to expect from our investigators. We actually were expecting a lot of people to show up too. We were blessed to have E and S show up to church!! S needed a lot of "hand holding" because he didn't know anyone and so we sat by him while we left E with her fellowshipper J D. S is the most adorable person during church. He does a bunch of little "Gloria a Dios" or "amen" or "si senor" when he agrees with something, so it was really funny during prayers and testimonies. Singing the hymns was also something pretty hilarious. Latino wards that I have been in help me understand the blessing that I have had my whole life to be in a ward that generally knows how to sing. Well let's just say that Sdoesn't understand how to sing in a normal voice, so he just sings like a high pitch hum falsetto type thing, it was pretty funny. The hour for priesthood was a little crazy. I'll have to tell the story after the mission but I'm just going to write down here

Hermano C // 3rd Ward // Temple worthy and endowed // hellfire and damnation lesson // 

Understand what I'm getting at? Ya it was bad, but apparently all the members really liked it, so hopefully I didn't understand his tone of voice, it was pretty loud though. We ate dinner with the R family and they made lasagna so that was good. I have a funny picture of a gelatin that they gave us, but on the instructions it says that it is not appropriate to be eaten by elders (puny stuff haha). All of our lessons basically fell through so that wasn't too good, but we did end of the night with another FHE with the A watching the prophet of the restoration. Transfer calls came and man, is this transfer going to be interesting...

Hope you all have a good week! 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 72

Korea Town Episode II Scene 5

Monday was pretty hot again. We went to go and email early because the library is always packed with people and we have to email there for the majority of our emails because it's a mission rule. We then went to go shopping at Food 4 Less and I bought some stuff to make smoothies so that way I am not just getting sick and tired of cereal. I also bought some stuff to make tortilla wraps for lunch, we will see how all of this goes I guess. We had plans to go to little Tokyo, but I guess I'm not suppose to go and visit there or something because the plans always fall through. We ended up taking a pday nap again because we were done with our normal pday chores than everyone else. We headed to the church because that's what everyone else was doing and this guy on a bike started to yell at us. He was upset because he felt that we were mad at him for some reason and that for him to join our religion he would have to change who he is (he thought we were another religion lets just say that). We talked to him for a while and explained gospel truths, he wanted to just tell us off because he just kept getting louder and louder and then rode off on his bike, hopefully he at least rode off with a smile right? Elder P and Elder V were at the church because Elder V was applying for BYUI. I think they underestimated how long the application process is because they barely got to the church at 3:30 and of course didn't finish. We ended the night with a nice lesson with M B and his wife. We asked him questions about what he read and he asked us good questions in return. It was a good visit and a good way to end the night.

Tuesday was a bit of a bummer day. We tried talking to a lot of people, but not too many really wanted to talk with us. It was also a super hot day and so nobody was outside for us to talk to. We tried to visit a couple families, but there wasn't a man present or the families weren't home, so we couldn't visit them. We had to cook dinner because nobody signed up on the meal list for us. We then went to go and see S. He is a slower learner and bit older. His roommate and the son of the roommate were there during the lesson as we were explaining the Book of Mormon to him. They roommate wasn't the most supportive. He would bash on how S is not the best learner and how S professes to want to get closer to God, but that he doesn't. We invited everyone in there to read the Book of Mormon. It was an awkward situation because we were trying to take things slow for S, but the friend kept telling him that he wasn't understanding. Hopefully next time we will be able to bring some members or something for S so that even though he may not understand intellectually the gospel, he can feel the spirit, and members really do bring the spirit. We ended the night with correlation and that was good. It was really weird because our WML had to work and so he wasn't there. I almost lost my cool at this one member, but I caught myself. Sorry that this day doesn't have more, I forgot a lot of the stuff that happened this day.

Wednesday I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with my DL E L. He is in his last transfer and about to go home. He came to my area and we decided to hit the ground running. It was a pretty intense day. Talking to everyone is just so fulfilling as a missionary!! We talked to this one guy and he wasn't the most welcoming to our message, but when we bore our testimonies and asked if we could come back another day to talk to him more, he said yes. We also saw a bunch of men working on repairing / remodeling a building. A conversation was started with one of the workers and they looked at us and said "sorry we are working" so we asked if we could help them. They asked us if we could move some pieces of wood that were pretty long into a certain area. Let's just say that was a little bit of a workout. One of these grown men only took 1 at a time, so Elder L and I were smart and decided to take 3 together, not too shabby. We ended up inviting one of the workers named S to be baptized. He accepted the invitation and we have an appointment with him later! He actually lives really close to us, so hopefully everything works out! We talked to a lot more of the workers and they are all from different states, they were just all hired by the construction company to come to LA and work on certain buildings. It was pretty fun though. We started talking to one worker, then another, then another. I'm pretty sure most of the workers that were outside now know about missionaries and what we share. I think I'm going to have to make this day a little shorter than normal, but just remember that we talked with like 95% of the people that we walked by or saw. 

We had the opportunity to visit with C C. She is the less active member with the prosthetic leg. She had a problem with being in the old habit of praying and ending "in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Ghost" so a little weird. We explained simply the doctrine and how to pray. We then invited her to pray and when she prayed, she accidentally said the same thing, BUT afterwards she realized what she did and explained to us that she thinks it's just a traditional way that she had always been taught how to pray. She also explained that she understands the scriptural blessings if we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Elder L then tried to go and talk to this one lady on the street, but she completely ignored him and just kept walking on. If you don't know us missionaries,, we walk alongside someone that we are talking to in the street. It was so awkward because the lady obviously ignored us, not too nice she was. We then biked to another part of our area and started talking to people there. We went to contact a referral that we found out doesn't live in the apartment that she wrote down, so that was sad. Elder L stopped to talk to this Latino man selling ice cream on the street. It was so crazy. He told the man what we do as missionaries and the guy just didn't seem to like us one bit. He then asked him what brings hm joy in this world and the man responded "nothing". He then asked him if he believes in God to which the man replied "I believe in nobody". The man's attitude and demeanor were pretty strange and then Elder L explained that the feelings that the man felt were not feelings that God gives to us, that the feelings come from somewhere else. We left to go back to out bikes to go to dinner when a random guy in a car honked at us and waved for us to walk over and talk to him. I didn't know what to think when we were walking towards the guy. He got out of the car and started to walk towards us. He introduced himself as D and said that he recently moved here to LA. He explained to us that he is a member, but now less active because he didn't know where the church is. He expressed to us his desires to come back to church and it was super cool. We set an appointment to go and visit him the following day. 

We then biked to the P family for our dinner hour. While there Hermana P gave us rice, salad, and barbecue ribs... !!! Score!! It was really good. We had a mini Restoration lesson with A and A and it was super good. They are doing awesome and they explained to Elder L "that they are returning to activity in the church". Ha! They said it, so that means that it's going to last! It was cool. We then left and talked to a group of people outside. In this group you could tell that the commandments of keeping the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom are definitely commandments that would need to be taught to them to bless their lives. We got their information, and sent the referral to the English elders. My stomach wasn't feeling too good so we stopped by the other elders apartment (they live in our area) to take a break. We then biked to the most northern part of our area and decided to go and find the elect. We were on the corner of 2 streets and hadn't even locked up our bikes yet. People started to pass by and we started to talk with them. It was really cool because we talked to like 8 people before even locking our bikes up! Some people weren't too interested in us talking to them, and others flat out ignored us. The majority of the people that we stopped actually had a conversation with us and it was pretty cool. We talked to a lot of Latinos and a couple brazilians. We talked to a lot of people and some people stopped to bash with us and tell us that we are really secret agents for the Congress of the United States. We even found this former family named the C family. It was a weird experience, but basically we are going to try and visit them again because it's a family of a lot of kids, hopefully they are ready and prepared right now for the gospel. 

Thursday we switched back from the exchanges and then we had a special meeting in which we met President and Sister Haynie. We were all so nervous. I wore my nice blue suit with a nice tie, the fancy watch, wore my contacts, shined my shoes and lint rolled my suit just in case. Yes, did a lot, but hey, I wanted to look nice. We got there and everyone had to show up 30 minutes early for the meeting, which everyone did. Basically there was just a STEPP talk and then some singing, and then they said that the Haynies would like to meet us. We lined up to go and meet them and Sister Haynie is so awesome. She talks to the elders much more than Sister Weidman. Sister Haynie was asking about the area, how long we have been serving for, where we are from, things like that, super nice. President Haynie is cool. He talked to me and Elder B at the same time and Elder B asked him if he had ever tried gator before (at this moment I wanted to face palm myself). After that comment President Haynie was just like "nice to meet you both" and then we went to go and sit down. The Haynies are super nice too. They are both taller than the Weidmans, and they have 4 daughters. They have lived in the Midwest for most of their lives and also in Washington State. We all thought that they were going to go over all the mission rules, but mainly they just bore their testimonies of our calling as missionaries and how important and blessed we missionaries are, especially in this mission. It was pretty cool. We then went back to the apartment and had to grab a quick bite to eat before we biked to go and see D. D is the less active that wants to come back to church. We visited with him and a member of his family named F. We shared with them the message of the Restoration and it was a good experience. D is super pumped about the gospel, he just needs to have some friends along the way. We invited F to learn more and I'm not sure if we invited him to be baptized, I think just to read in the Book of Mormon, but definitely this week we will invite him!! We then had a dinner schedule with the C family. We had planned that we would also share with them the message of the Restoration because L, the brother, isn't officially investigating, so we decided to see how the lesson went. We started off and the C's that are members thought that it was just a review, but then when we directed all the questions and the lesson towards L, they were at first hesitant. We boldly invited L to be baptized and he accepted the invitation, on the condition that he could read the Book of Mormon to know if it is true... Tough bargain I tell ya. The C's had like a light switch. We promised blessings from the Book of Mormon on baptism to Luis and there was a cool moment for me when L and I made eye contact and I was promising him that he could be cleansed from all sin... That moment... It was awesome. He accepted a baptismal date for the 31st of July!! It was cool. We then went to the apartment and started contacting people for the rest of the night. We ended up swinging by C A because he is coming back to full activity and he has a friend named William that we are trying to get a hold of so we can all meet together and have a lesson!

Friday was looking like it was headed to be a long day, and there were some ups and downs. We had our weekly planning session and then we left the apartment. We went to the most northern part of our area and started to contact the people and try to visit potential investigators up there. We talked to some people and a couple of the people we talked to were really nice, but the majority didn't want to hear us. We then had about an hour before we had a set appointment with an investigator when we decided to call up D. She picked up the phone and we asked if we could come by in about 10 minutes, to which she said yes. We told ourselves that we would need to review the restoration with her so that way she understands what we are talking about. She understands at a slower pace, we will put it that way. We went to go and visit her and she was all smiles, as always. We talked to her and asked if she remembered anything about the restoration, or the message that we shared last time, to which she said no. We reviewed the restoration super simply and told her that everyone needs to be baptized to become a member of God's church to which she looked at me and asked "when?" So we simply replied "the 31st of July". We promised her blessings and she accepted the date! She also told us that she would need a ride to get to church and so we told her that we could help her find a ride. We then went to go and visit with S, another older person who understands at a slower pace. We came in and Y, a young boy at age 14 was there. He was there the last time we visited S, I just didn't know his name exactly or how to spell it. We explained to them the need for the proper priesthood authority to be baptized and we showed in the Bible and the Book of Mormon where Christ gives authority and then the apostles/disciples go and baptize. Y understood what we we're talking about, but Samuel the whole time was nodding his head, saying how awesome it is that the priesthood has been restored, but that he has already been baptized. He even showed us his baptismal certificate of another church. (First off on the certificate, it doesn't even prove that the person who baptized him has the authority, which obviously he doesn't, and it also didn't show that he was confirmed or received the gift of the Holy Ghost.... Sooooo ya). We set a return appointment with them and they committed to come to church, fingers crossed. After that we went back to the apartment for dinner because nobody signed up to feed us, and when we were leaving our apartment to go and visit some people, my tire was completely flat!! NOOOOO!!! THE INDESTRUCTIBLE TANK OF PEGGY!!!!!!!!!!!!! What happened, or what looks like happened, is that in the inside of the tire, there is a tube, so that is a rough spot and so I think that is what popped the tube. We tried to fix it real quick to go and visit somebody that lives a ways away from our apartment, but it was too much. So we left the apartment to go and talk to a couple people before the night officially ended.  

Saturday we got permission to go and fix my tire at the shop that is just right down the street. Because the tire and the tube had a problem in it I had to carry the frame of the bike and the front tire all the way to the bike shop, and let me tell you, Peggy is no featherweight here... Ugh. We saw a former investigator from the W days and because Elder B was trained by Elder P after I left, they recognized both of us. The uncle that was with the former, Wendy is her name, was always a jerk to us. Here we are with a bike in pieces walking out in the hot sun and all he says to us is "false prophets ride bikes"... Y yo no quise que le di caso. Anywho the bike shop that we normally go to that is run by a Korean was closed till Tuesday and I was really sad because my bike is really heavy. BUT we found a bike shop around the corner that is run by a Latino and I think I like them better now. They found that in my tire was a little itty bitty tinni tiny piece of wire that was lodged on the inside, so that is what popped the tube. They gave me a new tube and it cost me about 9$ for the whole thing, not bad especially because I'm pretty sure no other place would've looked for a tiny piece of wire for me. We then went and saw the P family and they are doing good. We read in the Book of Mormon with them in Alma 36 and 2 Nephi 2 so that was good. A, the older brother is super funny. We asked him how he would respond to someone asking about faith and he responded "well let me tell you a story about a guy named Alma the Younger"... I about died laughing. They then promised that they would stay for all of church!! We then went back to the apartment to finish our studies because time allowed for it. We then had a couple lessons fall through but that's ok, we are seeing plenty of blessings, no need to get discouraged. We actually ended up talking to the brazilians again and we invited them to church. I also recommended that they try "this really good food place called California Donuts" but the reply came "I'm vegan".... Oh. I'm sorry for your loss then, naw I'm kidding. Ya you could say I invited a vegan to try donuts... Felt pretty bad about it afterwards though, maybe that's why they didn't come to church. We finished off the night trying to meet with the elusive William, friend of Carlos. The mother of C works at Yoshinoya, which is basically the cheap version of Panda Express and not even close to being as good, but hey it was free and I like Chinese food. It was a nice way to end the day.

Sunday was extremely stressful. It was fast Sunday and we had a meeting with the bishop at 8 in the morning. We woke up and headed there with our progress record and everything. We were expecting a lot of people to show up to church. We had the meeting and the bishop is out of town so a member of the bishopric was in charge. Hermano G, the member of the bishopric, is super cool. He served his mission in Miami and he is just a fireball when it comes to helping the missionaries! The meeting was really good. Afterwards we were waiting for people outside so that way we would know who showed up to church. Basically nobody showed up... That's not true, no INVESTIGATORS showed up to church. It was really sad. We couldn't find a ride for D, so that is our fault, I don't know why M B didn't show up, Samuel didn't show up, and L and the C's didn't either!! We did have the P brothers come again (3) times in a row now!! And C came with his mom along with D!! We didn't think D showed up, but after sacrament meeting he said that when we called him before the meeting to see if he was there, he was already seated in the chapel and didn't want to answer his phone... Amazing!! E didn't show up either and that was disappointing as well. Church was good, lots of good testimonies. Hermana P bore her testimony and you can just tell how happy the parents are that their kids come to church now!! Both were crying during the testimony and the kids were all like "ten bucks she cries.." Yup. Anywho. Basically we had random plans that we made because of some calls earlier in the week and some random less active members calling us to come by, then all the people called us back to cancel... So thoughtful of them to call at least. We ate dinner with the R family again, just like every Sunday, and they made us "vaca negras" or root beer floats. It's a thing to call them dirty cows or black cows in English right?? When Hermano R was holding up his root beer float he said "viva la azucar" it was funny hahaha. Anywho, missionaries don't often get root beer floats while serving in Spanish so it was a real treat. We then walked and talked to a couple people. We have been getting a lot better at talking to people on the street and explaining things in an easier manner to them. We ended the night with an FHE with the A family and now C is going to have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of summer which means he has to read 12 pages a day!! His mom also wants us to help him start seminary, so we talked about that with him too. 

Happy 4th of July everybody!!! AHHHH!! Oh funny thing: we went running this morning because we had to go to the laundry at to get coins for laundry and while we were running we saw and heard a Korean lady belting out awfully the Star Spangled Banner, this was like at 6:45 in the morning... Oh the joys of the mission I tell ya. Well today we have to be in the apartment at 6:00 cause it's a mission rule, but no buggy, we have some fun plans today with cool elders that I like. We are going to be making lip syncs and raps... And of course yogurt land or something haha. 

Love y'all tons and bunches!

Elder Roberts