Week 99

USC part 2 week 2

Monday we started out doing our normal pday stuff of laundry and shopping. While we were walking to do our laundry we came across this guy in the street and he just looked like he was having a really rough day. Oh, little bit of information, the laundromat that we go to is right across the street from the church, and the church is right by a major bus stop. So this guy is at the bus stop and we have to walk by him to get to the laundromat and back into the church. So on our way back from the laundromat he just starts yelling everything at us! We decided that when we were going to take our laundry out that we would take the long way and not walk by him. For the rest of the day (no joke) he was just screaming up a storm for everyone to hear, it was crazy. Elder T and Elder B hung out with us that day because none of us had plans and we don't have a car to go visit cool places. They had brought a frisbee with them (and left it I might add) and it was super fun to play frisbee. The basketball game was so different because the skill level was heavily weighted in favor of our companionship, by comparison. The entire time we shot with our left hands and it was just ridiculous. We went home and made some chicken and rice and then poured some orange chicken sauce over it (who needs panda when you have the sauce?). We ended the day visiting with Y and talking about New Years goals. One of her goals for this year is to become a nicer person. It was a really touching moment because she just realized that God is happy when we want to improve and she came up with the goals all by herself.

Tuesday we went to go do service again at Glens which was really fun because we organized the shelfs again. You can basically say that the reason why all the stuff is in an organized way at that place is because of us... just cause we are there a lot and with 4 missionaries who organize, easy. We then quickly went home to change into normal clothes because we had a lunch appointment with the R family. This R family is different than the one you hear about. Hermano R is 102 years old and he is still kickin it. The Hermana R tried to sign up on the dinner list but we always have something going on and so does she so we have never eaten with them. Well, right as we pulled into their yard I noticed that Elder W had a huge hole in his pants around the back pocket area. So the entire time at the R house I was following behind him making sure that they didnt see it. Afterwards we went back to the apartment and he changed pants. We swung by the G home to see if we could catch G and K to see how they were doing. G was getting ready for work and K had some huge splinters in his finger. He was in a lot of pain and was waiting for his mom to get out of the bathroom so she could help him remove the sliver, so we decided to help him. It was pretty funny cause the youngest brother A was watching us in horror as if we were performing a surgery or something. We got the sliver out and K was so thankful. The mom then basically acted like K was a drama queen who over exaggerated everything. We shared a quick message with them before they had to leave. We then went to go and see the O family. This time it was just the sons and the mom. We had a good lesson about the Restoration and the sons are doing super good. We gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon to read and we invited them to read in the introduction of the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson, we were talking to the Hermana about Honduras and she was talking about this food and that food and (you know how missionaries are) whenever someone is talking about food you just tell them that you have never tried the food (because everyone makes it differently) and you will soon get a lunch appointment out of it. So that happened. We ate dinner with the C family, they are definitely the favorites so far, just cause they are so cool. The dinner was perfect. The Hermana told us basically that the dinner was a "punt" because she didnt get home in time to cook what she wanted to, so she just put some stuff together, well it was good. It was just some good ol chicken, rice, and beans with tortillas and avocado... MIRACLE! We then had to travel clear across our area to go visit with the L family. It was a quick lesson with the L family and we found out that the son, Alan, really doesn't know a lot about God, or who Jesus Christ is, so it might take a little bit longer for him to understand everything, but the family is super cool and the lesson was good too. Not too shabby for a Tuesday right;)

Wednesday it was rainy 

Saw H

Dinner at G

Coorelation with the newbie

Youth were playing basketball - DONIS!!!

Thursday was a really crazy day. We got a call from K who is a recent convert in the area asking us if we could come "tell her uncle that he is wrong" about gospel topics. Basically telling us to come over and bible bash with the guy. Both Elder W and I figured that that would be a bad idea and that we should just stop by and try to talk to the guy and get to know him. We stopped by for the lesson and it turns out the uncle left to go run some errands. That was a huge relief off our backs because did not want to argue whatsoever. We then went to go and see S the little girl and she was doing good. At the end she started talking about one of her friends. She asked if we knew the friend, we said yes, she said asked us if we thought the friend was nice, and we said yes. She then starts to tell us that the friend just turned super mean and did crazy stuff. She pushed S down a set of stairs and then started texting her really mean things and calling her bad names and saying that she was going to kill her and stuff.... so we just told S how awesome she is and that we are here for her.

Friday we saw the O family and brought B over. It was a good lesson. Went to eat at the V home, they made pupusas, we were so stuffed. We then visited with the E family with Hermano F and set a baptismal date with G.

Saturday we had ZTM which was ok. It is really weird when there are a lot of newbies in the zone and you don't know anyone. We got back to the apartment and ate some food and then went to go visit H. He wasn't there, which was really sad. We then went to go give a blessing to the A family. Hermano A has bad eye problems right now and is about to head into a surgery on Monday. We talked with the family for a bit and got to know them and then we gave the dad a blessing. We then stopped by the C family because M had a surgery on his throat on Friday. Only his dad was there and he let us in and we talked for a little bit. It was really touching for him to talk openly about his feelings about M and how he wants the best for his son. Little back story on M. He has a paralyzed vocal chord and so they have done surgeries since forever every year on M. Because its a problem with his vocal chord, he doesn't speak as loud as others and can only manage to whisper. Then there came these weird things that grow inside his throat that they have to laser out every once in a while. The doctors told him that once he was older that they would go away, but they have been coming back more frequently than before. The doctors don't know why they grow and they don't know what to do to stop them from growing, pretty sad. We talked to the dad for a little bit when M walked through the door. He was glad to see us and we told him that we had just stopped by to see how he was doing and if he was feeling any better. We then said a prayer and left.

Sunday we had church and that was good. A lot more people came to church this week because they got the memo about the change in time. We had the former WML in our gospel principles class and he was trying to fight for power of giving the class the entire time. It was a little frustrating. We had a good number of the RC in our area come to church which was really nice to see. Not a lot of our investigators ended up coming to church though. The family didnt come, G didn't come, just the normal people of Y and the Fs. They are super cool and all, but we were really hoping for those new faces at church. After church we went to G's bday party because they were celebrating it (and thats why they didnt come to church) so it was a little weird because they had like no decorations and only their immediate family was there, so we have no idea why they couldn't come to church: hint: they just didnt wake up in time or they didnt want to. Anywho, after that A invited us over for dinner and we had pizza and chicken wings with soda, so American I love it. We talked a lot about a variety of topics and he is solid on doctrine and he loves learning about new things in the gospel. We finished off the night with the C family and they are super cool. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 98

USC round 2 - week 1

Monday we started out the day organizing all of the candy that we got for Christmas. We have a table in the "living room" and the candy covered the whole table. We laughed about the whole thing cause Elder W has gained 35 lbs since being on the mission and his family was saying fat jokes when they skyped with him, and then our families send us a ton of candy... oh the irony. We then did the usual shopping and laundry, but this week we really didn't need to buy anything besides milk because we already have a ton of food in the apartment that we both like. The whole day I was trying to hang out with Elder N because he is one of my good friends from the mission and he went home this week. We played basketball with them and some other missionaries and it was really fun. Elder N and I played some 1 on 1 soccer and he killed me on it, ugh it was embarrassing. We took a picture that is kinda blurry but that doesn't really matter because we are going to stay in touch with each other and he is going to go to BYUI and then transfer over, so we will definitely see each other again. We then went to drop off our laundry and groceries at the apartment before heading out for the night. We wanted to try and visit a couple families, but nobody was home. Maybe they were out of town for the holidays or just running errands, but we couldn't find anyone home. Our lesson with Y was next and Y and her friend were going to teach us the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because they both have heard it and know it by heart. It was their first time doing anything like that, so it wasn't "perfect" but I learned a lot from them. I learned what I need to focus on more as a missionary when I teach the Restoration. They also taught simply and with confidence (at some parts) and that was just amazing. Elder W and I told them how good they did and complimented them on how well they taught us, it was a good experience. 

Tuesday we tried to contact all of the referrals that we had. We stopped by a lot of houses, and the majority of the people weren't home. There was this one house that we went through the gate and knocked on the door. After the 2nd knock we see a man emerge from the side of the house and he motions for us to come to him. While he was motioning he was also heading towards the gate. We then start to speak to him in Spanish and ask him if ... was home. He basically kicks us off his property and tells us that we need to call the guy that we are looking for. We asked him if the dude lived there but he didnt answer us at all. We walked away and then this other guy came from the house and he was the guy we were looking for. He tells us that he has never talked to missionaries (thats because people don't remember the tiny conversations that we have with them in the streets sometimes when all we get is their address) but he was really nice and he told us sorry for what happened with the other dude. We biked around a lot. Peggy may have lasted me this far into the mission, but she is super heavy! Elder W will just cruise through the streets and I will be dying in the back. We had dinner with the C family and I didnt know that the drink (they give us drinks when we come over) that they have been giving us is the Aloe Vera drinks. They taste pretty good! We thought it was a type of grape juice or something, so that was nice to know what the mystery drink finally was. We talked with them for a little bit and asked them if they knew anyone that would benefit from the message of the gospel. They told us that they had some family close by that they would like to have missionaries go and teach them! Boom! A full day of nothing but contacting referrals and then a RC family wants to share the gospel with their own relatives! Worth. It. 

Wednesday we had another full day of trying to find old investigators or referrals and the like. We knocked on this one guys door and he comes out to talk with us while he is holding beer in his hand. We figured that that meant that he was drunk and that we should try to stop by another time, so we set up a time next week to visit him, hopefully he isn't drunk that time. We ate dinner with the G family and... oh my goodness. We ate dinner and we were talking to K and Hermana G (grandma) and the other Hermana G (Great Grandma). Grandma then was really tired because they had had a busy day and so she left right as we were talking to Kevin. Hermano G (grandpa - ish because he is not related to K) came in and just... ruined everything. We were talking about the Plan of Salvation and it was going really well. K has such real intent to find out for himself and he wants true facts. We explained the Plan of Salvation and he had a couple questions which we answered for him and he was good, and then, Hermano spoke. He asked a question about whether or not Jesus went to Paradise or Prison because in the scriptures (he is just referring to the Bible) it says that he preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19) but when he was on the cross talking to the thieves, to one he said to day thou shalt be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43) and so Hermano was saying that he was confused. We bore testimony that the Restoration helps us understand parts of scripture that don't make sense. We explained to him about Doctrine and Covenants section 138 and how God still speaks to us through prophets. K agreed with us and we were so happy that we answered it, but then Hermano just said "no, I don't believe that, I want someone else to explain it to me".... AAHH!! Then K asks "do mormons keep the sabbath day holy?" To which we said yes. K then asks why the Mormons go to church on Sunday if the Sabbath is on Saturday in the scriptures. Hermano then says that "everyday" is the Sabbath day because you can always read the scriptures... oh my goodness. The great grandma then butts in and starts arguing with Hermano about doctrine and so now we had both members fighting and saying false doctrine. Well, at the end the great grandma told K (this is after a little while of them two arguing) that if he wants to learn truth, to ask the missionaries (thank you) because that is why they are here to teach us (them). So we told K to read in the scriptures and he will be able to understand what God has revealed to all of us. It was such a good lesson at the beginning, but then the spirit just left. 

Thursday we taught S and did service which was cool. Gosh I really hate when I forget to write at night cause all you get is a stupid sentence like this one... 

platypus in spanish is ornitorrinco 

Friday was a pretty crazy day too. We had district meeting with our "new district" even though the only new person is a greenie that Elder A is training in the Jungle area. The Greenie is named Elder D and he is from Nevada and he totally went to the Provo MTC, hands down. The DM was good and it was one of those meetings that we were all pumped to go out and just work like crazy afterwards, thats because of the awesome DL that we have, he is super funny and crazy. We were right about to head out for the day when we get a call from Elder A. He told us that he had a referral to give to us and he gives us the referral for P O. He then tells us that they thought she was on their side of the border, but that she is on our side. He THEN says that they had an appointment with her, 15 minutes ago, and that we need to go and have the lesson with her. We call the number and she tells us her real address and we head there immediately. We get to the door and we are immediately invited in. We sit at the kitchen table and P brings her 3 children to join in the lesson with her. Her kids V (19) E (16) and J (13) and joined and participated during the lesson. We did one of the best HTBT lessons ever! E is so cool too! We asked him questions like these and this was his response.

Who is God? He is our Heavenly Father who sent his son Jesus Christ to the earth to die for us. (Boom!)

Why does prayer help us? It is how we communicate with God, and God listens to us. (Boom!)

What does baptism mean to you? It means giving yourself to God. (Boom!!!!!)

The mom at one point leaned over to the daughter and asked her "do you want to get baptized? I do." We are really excited for this miracle family. They are also from Honduras so naturally we text the ONLY member in the ward form Honduras that we found a family from there and we already have her coming out with us to the next lesson we have with them for next week!!! Super awesome miracle. We then stopped by the A family to see how everything is going there. Wendy told us that she started her divorce papers!! That is such a huge miracle because that is what is stopping Jairo from joining the church! If y'all remember we had an amazing lesson last transfer when the Ms came out with us to visit them and they told Wendy that she needed to start on the papers immediately, so thanks to the Ms everything started. We then had to leave to go to our dinner appointment and we tell W that next time we stop by that we will bring the permission form for her to sign so that G can be baptized to which she tells us that G has been begging her to be baptized and W was just wanting to know when. W then assured us that she will help G really focus to prepare to be baptized, cause G is just crrraaaazy! Dinner was just, ugh, rough. A member took us out to this burger joint and lets just say that the food didnt settle too good with either elder here, but the taste was super good!

Saturday was New Years Eve so we had to be inside our apartment by 6:00. We had some plans earlier in the day to try and go visit this one potential that we had set an appointment with and then try to visit some others around him, but the lesson fell through cause he didnt answer the door and nobody else was home. It is really weird because it has been raining a lot recently (a lot meaning at all because LA never rains). So when the rain comes, everyone doesn't open the door or is outside, so its really rough for missionaries, but it makes all the more interesting story later on right? Well we decided to go and visit the C family because they are super cool. M, the son, is super humble. When we stopped by the first time to visit with them we asked him if he knew anyone that would benefit from the message of the Gospel in their lives right now, and he told us "I need it" and so we are starting to teach him. He is super cool and just loves when we come over, and we like going over too, so its super fun. We talked with him for a bit and we also showed him a Mormon Message which he really liked. We set a time to come back and teach the whole family which will be really good because the dad is a non member, but he is the eternigator of the ward among the many here so its not likely that anything will happen, but hey, maybe its his time, who knows. We then walked back to our apartment in enough time to be in before our ZLs came to check up on us to see if we were inside by the "curfew" time. From 6-9 we did a lot of stuff, we ate dinner, cleaned a little bit, just random stuff really.

Sunday was a good day. Church started at 10:20 but nobody really showed up cause it was New Year's Day. We had some people show up which was nice. What was super cool is that G came to church! She sat down right behind me (Elder W plays the piano and I sit with the C family) and she leans over and with big eyes and a huge smile says "I read! I read what you gave me in the Book of Mormon, now you can give me something else to read!" She is so awesome. We totally know that she is going to be baptized one day, its just a matter of time really. We went home to have lunch but then A called us to ask what time we would go eat dinner with him. It was about 2:50 and he asked if we could come at 3. Then there was a baptism at 4 so Elder W said sure. We got to dinner at 3:10 and L had made pozole so that was super lot of food there. We had to leave a little earlier so that Elder W could pray some prelude music for the baptism. The english ward, the Adams ward, had a baptism and the girl that was baptized invited Y to go to the baptism and Elder W was asked to play, so we went. The baptism was AMAZING! The ZLs were there and President and Sister Haynie were there too. The room was PACKED with people and the spirit was super strong there. The members that participated in the service testified of how strong the spirit was and you could just feel it. It was, just so strong. The rest of the day we spent trying to talk to people but they just weren't having a good Sunday I guess, they must not have gone to church or something.

Hope the week goes good! 

Love, 

Elder Roberts

Week 97 - LAST TRANSFERR!!

Week 6 - Barrio 6to - USC area

Transfers!!!

Monday

Hung out with a lot of people. We ate Korean BBQ with the SM ZLs Elders L, F, and U, along with Elder A and McG and that was fun. We talked about everything and anything. I love those guys, they are just the coolest studs ever. We got back to the church and played soccer with our ZLs and our DL and we had a blast. Elder W played soccer and so there was someone who was actually good playing, but Elder Wu and I were pretty good too, probably from all those times we played last year:). We played some basketball too and that was fun. We then ate dinner at the V home and this time was really awkward. I had no voice and so there was no conversation while we were eating, so it made the whole meal really awkward. We tried to go and see the G family, but the were running errands or something or I think they had a family member from out of town come in so they went to go see them, or something, but basically they weren't there which was really sad cause that means that we haven't seen G in a couple weeks!!! 

Tuesday I had no voice. I couldn't talk at all. Elder W was nice about it all, and he teased me a couple times about it, but he's like a brother so it was all good. We went to the Food Bank because they had a toy giveaway. They got the toys from the Ellen Degeneres show, so there were some good toys there. Lots of different organizations were there helping out as well. Glen introduced us as his "Mormon friends" and then he would crack a Mormon joke, oh Glen. We helped out for a bit and then Glen wanted us to help hand out the toys to the kids. Right when we started to help a couple things happened. First, this organization called BloomFarms came (Marijuana group) and it was funny cause people would take pictures and Mormon missionaries would be right by the bloom farm people... lovely. Second, this guy from a latino radio show came in and brought in a bunch of singers and they were just partying. I was just praying that they would go talk to Elder W and not me cause I had no voice, but no, they decided to come over to Elder B and me to talk to us. The man introduced us as "los misioneros de la iglesia de los santos de los últimos días" almost... almost buddy. I had no voice so I couldn't correct him. He then asked us questions and I couldn't answer any of them, it was so rough. But hey, at least we were seen and that was cool too. We got a cool toy from Glen for Christmas, its a Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog stuffed animal.... the best. We had such good plans for the day. We had a VC trip scheduled with the L family and then they just canceled. They told us that they were out of town and that they wouldn't be back in town with enough time to make it to the VC, so they canceled. Our dinner appointment was with Hermana C and she is just so lonely. Her husband is super less active and doesn't want anything to do with the church and she has really bad health and can barely come to church on her own. She always tells such interesting stories though! I will be sucked into the story and Elder W will be dozing off or playing with something. Her stories last a really long time too so you have to be nice and tell her in advance what time you have to leave by. She definitely knows how to entertain the missionaries though, or at least one of them. We talked to a couple others at night and set return appointments with them which was nice.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with my DL, Elder Wa. We were really excited because we were going to go visit a ton of people in his area and I was just super pumped to be with him (except for the fact that I was super sick). We start to head out and we take a bus. We talked to a couple people on the bus and one of the guys that we talked to was a little weird. He told us that his last name was Y, and that his whole family is from Utah. We then tells us that he has 19 siblings and that he has a cousin who is 28 years old and has 8 children of her own already. We asked him what his plans for Christmas were and he told us that he doesn't celebrate Christmas. It was a really sad scenario and the guy just looked super miserable. We had to get off the bus before we could really talk to him anymore. After we got off the bus we both figured that the guy was probably on something, which is probably true. We knocked a lot of houses in the rain that day, but nobody seemed to be home or they didnt want to listen to us. This one guy that was super stoned on a drug asked us a question which was just ridiculous and Elder Wa and I just kept looking at each other like "for real, anybody else?". We kept walking around and trying to find any of the investigators but none were home. We ate dinner with the G family because they invited us over and that was a super good meal. Elder Wa told me that he almost fell asleep during dinner and I felt really bad because that means that I wasn't involving him as much in the conversation. Its really hard when your DL is an english elder and he comes over to a house that is just super fun to talk to everyone in! But I guess if you don't speak Spanish it is a little awkward. We had a RS activity that we had to go to because the RS president wanted us to talk about our families and why we are on our mission and what would help the hermanas help their children want to serve a mission. It was nice cause the RS ladies (the cool ones) were there and so they like the activity. They also gave us a bunch of food as a Christmas gift, I think they think that we don't have any food, which we do. 

Thursday i was super sick. My throat was killing me and I couldn't speak to save my life. I didnt have any energy so I rested. When I woke up I was feeling so much better. We had our weekly planning and we went out to work. We visited with Yesenia and that was super fun. It had been a cool minute since we had visited her and we invited her to prepare to teach US the next time that we come. We wanted to do this because she has been receiving the missionary lessons for the past 2 years and her mom wont let her be baptized until "she knows more". So what we figured is that if Y teaches us, she will come to learn and understand more. We then went to go and visit the C family, the super cool RC family. We talked with them about Christmas and what they do to celebrate it. Vicente was telling us some weird ritual thing that they do back in Guatemala and I kept looking at Elder W as if to say "he knows that he can't do that now right?" Well it was a little awkward. Then we talk to the kids about how they are feeling about Christmas and Paola, the oldest, tells us that this year she just isn't feeling the Christmas spirit. We start talking to her about why she likes Christmas and ways that she could feel the Christmas spirit. During the lesson we also talked to them about family prayers and family scripture study, to which they said that they had never done it.... what? So we invited them to start doing that to help them grow as a family, hopefully they will start soon. 

Friday rained so bad! We got super drenched. We tried to visit families but nobody answered. I am so grateful for my wonderful trench coat  cause I stay nice and dry in it. 

Saturday was Christmas Eve and that was crazy. In the morning we were going to have an apartment inspection from Elder LaP and so we were cleaning a lot. Our apartment was so clean. We were waiting for Elder LaP and he calls us to say that we needed to open our garage for him to park in, but we don't have a car anymore so we don't have a garage door opener. He then tells us that unless he finds parking in the next couple minutes (which he didnt because the Rams were playing 2 blocks down) that we would have to reschedule the inspection for another day. We then receive a call from our DL asking us if we wanted to go caroling with them. We said yes and then they told us that we were also going to do more service at the food bank because Glen asked us too. We got into our service clothes and brought or proselyting clothes to change into afterwards. We did service and that was fun and then we went caroling. It was pretty funny because every door was basically the same story, it would be something like this:

(Person) oh sorry I dont have any time right now,

Its ok! We are just out caroling! We want to sing to you!

Person: ok! Come on in!

So we did that for most of the day and it was pretty fun. One family that we went to go sing carols to were leaving right as we got there and as Elder W put it, I "summoned them" back. I think I said something like "We came to sing carols to you! Come back inside so we can sing to you!" And so they all came back and we sang and they sang with us, it was pretty funny. During that time we also got caught in some bad traffic downtown LA. So while we were in traffic we came up with a pretty cool thing, I will email it to you separately. This is so funny. We then ate dinner with the C family and that was good. They are super cool.

Sunday was Christmas. We opened up gifts. Went to church. Sang some hymns. Ate some lunch with A F. Went to go skype our families. Ate dinner. Went to go see the G family, they weren't home. 

Love,

Elder Roberts