Week 102!

USC part 2 Week 5

Monday was just a mess. We were thinking of cool places to go visit and so we decide on the Disney Concert Hall, thinking that it would be a good idea to go visit it. It was pretty cool, the architecture was nice, but there was nothing going on and we didnt get the actual tour so it wasn't like the coolest thing ever. Plus I think that when you go sight seeing, that you need to have the right group to go with, or else it just isn't fun, and we didnt have a good group that we went with. I think it would be super cool to come back and visit LA as a normal person so that I could actually visit all the places that I want to. We got back to the church and played soccer, and you can bet that these 2 Spanish missionaries killed it.... its because we are Spanish thats why;) jk Elder W played soccer so it was fun. We then went to go eat dinner with the C family and they are just super cool. We had them explain what their experience was like at the temple to their kids and it was a really cool moment. For dinner they gave us chapulines! I cannot believe that I actually was able to try them! For those that don't know, they are grasshoppers. They tasted super funky! We got pictures and a video so don't worry about that. We also were given probably one of the best dishes of mole that I have ever tried, it was so good. 

Tuesday we had a crazy day. We tried to contact a couple investigators and knocked a lot of doors, but nothing happened. Sometimes you just think if anyone is going to open. On the other hand, you have a lesson with someone like A who is just awesome and its all worth it. We asked A if she went to church and of course she did! She told us that she loves the sister missionaries and that she is just super excited for everything. The sisters didnt want us to teach her a missionary lesson and so we taught her about the Holy Ghost and personal revelation. We figured that it would be a good lesson to kick off her learning process. We had a really good discussion about how the Holy Ghost testifies to us and we used a couple mormon messages, it was nice. We then stopped by the C family and read with them in the Book of Mormon. R (the dad, who is not a member) read the whole thing out loud to all of us and it was good. We started in the beginning of the Book of Mormon and when they read the part that Laban told Laman that he was going to kill him, there was a "Ah!" From a couple people hahaha. Its funny because they have totally read the story before, they just might be heard it a different way today.

Wednesday was a crazy day!! We woke up early because we had a Worldwide Missionary broadcast that started at 9:00, but President wanted the whole mission to meet in the VC by 8:00 in the morning to go over some things. It was also temple day for the whole mission. That means that the whole mission went to one session!!! Yikes!!! President told us that we needed GA approval to be together as a whole mission and to also go to a temple session as a whole mission. So we got there and sat down in our spot, and I sat next to Elder Arguelles who is just the coolest missionary ever. The broadcast was super cool and I took a bunch of notes, but thats not the part that y'all want to hear about. You have to hear about this:

THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES!!! The Missionary Executive Committee made changes to the missionary schedule!! Before it looked something like this:

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study

10:00 language study

11:00 lunch

12-9:00 proselytizing

9:00-9:30 daily planning

Now it something like this:

Every day needs to have-

Personal study for an hour

Companion study for 30 minutes

Lunch for 30 minutes

Planning for 30 minutes

Language study 30-60 minutes

Basically what they are saying is that as missionaries we are responsible enough to make our own plans. They said that there are many benefits to the new change. The new schedule will allow flexibility in the schedule of the missionaries to accommodate each mission and each area individually, it will be more productive because instead of leaving around 12 we leave around 10 each morning.

AND!!!! PDAY CHANGED!!! The change is that instead of starting PDAY at 10, we start at 8!!!!! WOOOO! For 2 pdays I get 2 extra hours weeeeeeee! That is a HUGE change. You can guess that there aren't that many complaints about the new change. Elder A said "I bet there was a roar across the whole mission when the PDAY schedule changed" there totally was. Other interesting things is that instead of having about 9 key indicators, now it has been reduced to just 4 key indicators. So the only things we report on each week is now baptisms and confirmations, baptismal dates, people at church, and new investigators. They stressed that everything in PMG is still applicable and important, that we still need to have members out with us and to ask for referrals and everything like that, but that KEY indicators are just 4 now. (For all you RMs, this is super HUGE). What they also said is that because missionaries are able to choose when to have their studies, it will be an easier transition for returned missionaries to plan a time during the day to have their personal scripture study, its in these moments when you just know that the Lord is at the head of His church, so cool. After the broadcast President Haynie got up and had all of us ask questions and one of the questions was "when does the new schedule start?" President said "it is modern revelation that has been received, we start now." Boom! I love the Haynies. We also took a mission picture so that is totally on the ClamGram16 or whatever it is. We then had a session at the temple and it was amazing. Cool story: so one of the guys that I met at Mission Ready was working at the temple on a church service mission!! I was like M!!! And we talked a bit, he told me that I have lost weight and I was like, you saying I was chubby before?? Haha. The session was super cool and awesome. We were in front so that was super nice. I got a 100% during the session so that made me feel real good too, especially cause I was right by a member of the temple presidency and he was the one on my side. Like before, the Haynies were waiting in the celestial room and they are totally the mom and dad of the mission, I cannot express how much I love the Haynies. We then got back to our area around 5:45 cause of traffic, which is to be expected. OH! I also have gotten a couple letters from the ward, super nice! The youth and the primary have written me, that was a nice surprise. We ate dinner with the G family and we were super hungry cause we just got back from the temple, so it was a good meal. We then went to the church to have our planning time for the following day and we organized a couple things on our ipads and set goals for our investigators which was really nice.

Thursday was a crazy day. We started out with service at Gs and that was good as normal, I had G sign in my journal and I am glad that he didn't put anything bad in it cause boy that guy has a mouth! Anywho we went back to do our weekly planning at the church and then we quickly went to a lesson that we had with G and K. While talking with them we talked about baptism for about the 3rd time and we asked them if they had prayed about a baptismal date, but they told us that they don't feel like they know enough about the church to be baptized yet. Elder W and I thought about what we could do with them and we thought that this next week we are going to teach them about the commandments and watch the Restoration video because that will not only explain how the church came about, but what the culture of the religion is, which is probably the two questions that they have about the church. We will see where that goes. We had dinner with the Cs and that was nice. We stopped by the A family later in the night because Hermano just had an eye surgery and we wanted to check up on him and see how he was doing. 

Friday was Elder W birthday. We started out the day opening up his birthday package from his family and he was very happy about all of that. He was given some cake mix and some icing so he wanted to make his own cake and bring it to DM the next day. We had a good day with talking to people and visiting families. We got a couple return appointments and we contacted a referral early in the day which was really nice. We first stopped to see Sophia and she was just as spunky as ever. We challenged her to bear her testimony next fast Sunday. She said that she was nervous, but that she is super excited to bear her testimony! We asked her "how do you think God feels when we bear our testimonies?" And she said something like: He loves us even more than he does, which is impossible, but you feel that love so its nice. I think I am going to feel so warm in my heart that I will want to "ahhh!" (Angelic singing), like that. She is so funny. We then went to go visit with the O family, weird fact, its actually the O family, so the O family. We went there and waited for a bit for E and V to get home from school. We sat down at the table and V had 2 friends over and they also joined in on the lesson, so that was really nice. We read with them in 3 Nephi 11 and they all participated in reading which was cool. Then the discussion was good too, we talked about baptism and about the Savior and it was just amazing. Before we had thought about taking them to the VC so we invited them to come and we planned for February 5th is when we are going to go with them to the VC. We ended with a prayer and then had dinner. It was really good, they had a salad, rice, and BBQ ribs. After that, the fun part came:) they brought out a cake that had V's name and Elder W name on it too. Culturally, latinos like to shove peoples faces in their own cake, so you can expect that it happened. Elder W was perfectly fine getting his face shoved in and he knew that it was coming. We sand happy birthday to the both of them and they blew out a candle. They both went in for a bite (opposite sides of the cake no worries, all G rated here) and then boom, both faces in the cake, it was awesome. V got some cake up her nose so she was coughing a little bit and Elder W was all smiles about everything. It was really funny and a good experience. We then walked to the other side of the street for the actual dinner appointment with the V family. Now, if you remember, this is the family that Hermana came up to me and asked me why I eat so little all the time. Well, I tried my hardest to eat what I could and I finished #2 dinner of the day. The C family then showed up as a surprise with a cake that had fruit on it and we sang Happy Birthday to Elder W and instead of getting his face shoved in this one, he just grabbed the whole cake and took a bit sitting straight up. Afterwards we went to go and visit with Y. We followed up with how she has been doing with trying not to fight with her sisters and she actually has been doing really well (there was an opportunity for her to fight with a sister while we were there but she didnt so we were like ... niiiice). We then talked to her about getting her parental approval to be baptized. We asked her if she has ever fasted for the approval before and she said that she hasnt. After committing her to fast and pray for an opportunity and the ability to get the form signed, we bore testimony of the power of fasting and of prayer and it was a good lesson. 

Saturday was a crazy day. In the morning we had apartment inspections and Elder L came again. Ugh! He is just a ridiculous inspector because he doesn't believe that anything can be perfect. We cleaned really good, even better than last time, and we still got the same score. Its all good cause now the apartment is super duper clean. We had district meeting and Elder W made himself a cake to bring to DM and to share with the other elders. It was a good DM and my last one. I had to give the STEPP talk but thats all good, no worries. We ate the cake and it was super good, got some pictures of it so don't worry. We got back to the apartment and got organized, called some people to confirm appointments, the appointments fell through, so we ended up walking around for a little bit. A lady that we ended up talking to, named H, was really nice. She talked with us and told us all about her family. Her grandson, who was adopted into a Mormon family, is a missionary right now and so she had a couple questions for us. We talked to her about a couple things, the importance of families, how we are all members of God's family, and then we invited her to go and visit LDS.ORG for more info just in case she wanted to know anything else about the church. We are definitely going to try to refer her to the Adams elders so they can start teaching her. The EQ president and his wife had missed church for the past couple weeks, so we decided to pay them a visit. They have both been sick and were not feeling too good. We talked to them both about what was going on in the ward and how we can better help them with everything that they have to worry about. We shared a scripture with them. We ate dinner with the C family and it was super good. They gave us tortas which is basically a sand which with a bunch of stuff in it and it is super good. Mine had 3 different types of meat in it and one of them was a little spicy, but its all good, I survived. Before the lesson we had been talking about inviting them to bring their whole family to the VC so that way the family knew a little bit more about the church and didnt feel left out about anything. When we talked to them about it and about talking to their families about it, they were SO excited! We planned the trip for this upcoming Friday around 6. They said that they are going to try to invite as many people as possible to come! We then talked to P, their daughter. We invited her to bear her testimony this upcoming Fast Sunday because we felt like she would grow by sharing her testimony. She had a couple questions about some stuff about sharing a testimony and we talked to her about it a little bit. By the end of it she said that she would. She then said "my brother won't do it" so we asked the brother and he said that he would.. throw down a challenge! V then looked at his son and told him "remember, it has to be in Spanish", and then M was like .... ugh.... ok. It was a good ending to the day. Oh! We also got a text from our WML telling us that Bishop had asked us to give a talk in sacrament meeting the next day, oh my goodness, thank you for the warning!!!

Sunday we had ward council in the morning and that was just intense. Don't even get me started about what happened, it was ridiculous. They decided that day on the ward mission plan for the year and the goals that they wanted to achieve. The goal of convert baptisms was 45 and last year they achieved 24.... and only 12 are active.... yeah. I told them that the plan was a good plan, just that this year it would be super hard to achieve that goal, cause if you look at it right now, they would need to baptize every week to achieve that goal:(... but who cares, I wont have to deal with it anymore. We went to a room where Elder W practiced his piano and I wrote my talk for Sunday. We had a couple investigators show up to church and then we had to give our talks during sacrament meeting. Elder W went first and he talked for about 11 minutes. It is so funny cause normally his spanish is on point and he doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but during his talk it was just all over the place, very unusual, he was probably nervous though. Elder A went up after him and took about 10 minutes which meant that I only had about 5 minutes to give my talk (YES!) so it was nice and I didnt even look at notes, I just read a scripture or two and then I was done. We then had a lunch appointment with A and L F and that was just a wreck. A member of the ward who recently went through a divorce was there, as well as ANOTHER hermana who has been divorce for a long time. A and L just need to get married so that they can be baptized, but for some reason L doesn't want to get married to A even though they have lived together for the past 20 years and have gone to church faithfully for the past 6 years. We found out that L, in all the time that she has been investigating the church, has never read the Book of Mormon. I think that is something that would've been nice to know in the past because now its like we have to start at the beginning. We went to go see Y and how she was doing with her prayers and scripture reading and she was doing really good. We visited H and his family and set a return appointment for later this week. We visited with the C family and ate another cake, which makes that 6 cakes in total for this past week... wow.

Well, its crunch time! This last transfer just FLEW by! 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 101 and 2 more weeks...but who is counting!

USC part 2 week 4

Monday was a fun day. We got all of our laundry and shopping done early, and we went to this store that we finally found out that the produce is so much better and its cheaper too! Score! We then went to go hang with Elder H and Elder B in Westchester to play some paddleball. Now, I'm not the best at tennis, so I sucked miserably at it. I had some good moments but lets just say it was really bad. I had a lot of fun with those guys though, they were really nice. A member from the Westchester 1st ward came to play with us, his name is Brother M. He was really good (the paddles were his) so it was like having dad on your team for racquetball. He isn't like a pro or anything, but you just feel good when he is on your team. I sucked so bad that the only time he ever lost was when he was with me:(. We then got dropped off at our apartment with all of our clothes and laundry and Elder W couldn't find his keys. With his keys is his lock for his bike, one of the apartment keys, and a church key, so he was pretty stressed out. We then started to head to dinner. On the dinner calendar it said "N L". We had called N L before to confirm the appointment and she said 6:30. Well we headed to Hermano L's house and walked right on in. Now Hermana L looked at us in a kind way and basically said "I am not N L, I am J L"... freak! So we are calling the other elders to find out who N is, and so we decided to call the number back. We are talking to "N" and she tells us her address, well lucky for us she lives by this one family that is super cool called the C family, but then we realize that N L is Hermana C's maiden name.... STUPID! We tell her that we will be there as fast as we can and if they could just wait a little longer. We biked for a solid 23 minutes to get to their house. When we got there we all just laughed about the whole story and everything. Hermana C works at this restaurant that serves oaxaquena food and she served us this 'pizza' thing call tlayuda oaxaquenas. It was the BOMB! It was so good, you should definitely look it up cause that thing was so amazing. We then made plans for them to go to the temple this week and they also want to feed us more. They said that they want us to come over a lot so that way they can feed us all this new food before I leave:)

Tuesday was a fun day. We had a lunch appointment with the A family and she made flautas and that was really good. She had this guacamole sauce that we put over the flautas and they were delicious. We then went to met up with our DL because the night before Elder W had lost his keys to his bike lock, the apartment, and the church all with the DL so they gave us back the keys. We had an AMAZING lesson with a girl named A. A is the best friend of S E. Naturally we were invited to have dinner at the E home and when we finished we taught A. A is super chill. She is part belizean so she understands spanish but doesn't speak it. She also likes to dye her hair weird colors with S, so S has purple hair and A has pink hair. They both love to go to Disneyland and they go almost every other day, its crazy I know. Cool thing about A, she wants to be baptized super bad! She remembers a lot about the missionary discussions and she has read a good chunk of the Book of Mormon. The only problem is that last year when school started she fell out of meeting with the missionaries and going to church with S, so she has decided that this is her time to learn, get baptized, and start fresh before school starts. She is super funny too. The whole lesson all of us were smiling. It was a really fun lesson and S bore her testimony to A which was really nice. We then went to the C home because they are actually the ones that signed up on the dinner calendar for the week sooo, double dinners!! Wooo!!!! We ate with them and had some fun times telling jokes and riddles. At the end we shared a message about prayer and we invited them to say their personal prayers as well as family prayers. That family is just so cool... they are awesome.

Wednesday we started with service at Glen's again. Elder D was on exchanges with Elder W and so the time there was a little different than with Elder B. Elder D is the new missionary in the ward. His Spanish is very gringo, like how we all start, and its kinda funny. It was funny cause we would be putting stuff away or taking stuff out of boxes and he would come and get in "the bubble" and I would think, bro! That is my bubble! But its ok. I grabbed some of the chocolate candies that are there that wont expire till March at the earliest so that there is some for all of you to try:) we got back to the apartment and decided to have a little fun during our lunch time. We opened a coconut. Now that is really hard when all you have for cutting is a kitchen knife, but we managed to do it. We also but some lemon in the coconut (hehehe oh my goodness) and that was pretty funny. The coconut was good, but I wish we could've had more time to eat it or had something to help us cut out all of the coconut yumminess. The day started out with S. We went to the usual park that we meet her and her mom at and we got there a little earlier so we decided to walk around the area for a bit. It was getting close to when we were suppose to meet with S so we called her and her mom answered the phone to tell us that S was still in school... oh the struggles of working with 9 year olds. We rescheduled the appointment and went on our way to go see the O family. The RS president came out with us to teach them and introduced herself and talked to them for a bit. Unfortunately she couldn't stay because she had to go pick up B from school so she left in the middle of the lesson. We were talking to the O family about how they liked church and what they thought, questions they have, etc. P, the mom, just goes off on a bunch of random stuff that she didnt like about church. She didnt like the sacrament and how anyone can just take it, because you know, Christ only did it with his Disciples and not just anyone... (stupid). She then says how some people just wear makeup when they go to church or how some people wear pants and how "in the Bible it says" blah blah blah. V, her daughter, wore pants and makeup to church! She then says that the hymns were really weird. WHAT!? Did you even listen or read what they say? UGH! It frustrated me so much because that is TOTALLY not her real problem! She is just throwing up stuff to hide something else. She told us that she just isn't interested anymore. What? Her kids LOVE going to church. They really liked it, and the whole time we were talking with her, her kids were looking at her like, for real? They didnt say anything but they totally liked church. I was so frustrated! This is such an awesome family and it looks like they are starting to fall off. We have done so much on our part to help this family! It makes me sad. We then went to eat dinner at the G home and we ate pupusas. K was there and we were able to talk to him for a little bit. It was a bad scenario again cause C was there. C was trying to explain that Jesus was a communist and that C has an uncle who is a revolutionary man... in those moments you just have to look at your watch, then your companion, and say that you have to leave cause you know it just isn't going to end the way you want it too. At the church the C family came, the husband and the wife, so that they could get their temple recommends for the temple! This Saturday we are going to go to the temple with them! Totally going to take pictures and everything:) we then gave K a tour of the church cause he didnt know what some of the rooms were and where the bathroom and stuff were, you know, important things like that. It also rained pretty hard that day and so we were soaked. 

Thursday I'm pretty sure was the day we made the ninja bread cookies.. ya, that was fun. We had weekly planning at the church and right after we had a lesson with S. Ugh! So Sophia's mom is just a handful. Sophia is 9 years old and is super smart and just full of life and off the wall crazy. We will be talking about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and she will say things like "God wants us to go to church so we can be happy, and when we don't go to church, it makes him sad". Then the mom will be like "Is Nephi in the Book of Mormon the same person as Moses?" No, he isn't. We invited them to come to church because they haven't been coming, and they committed to come. We also went to go and visit with the G family. Funny story: we were sitting on the couch talking with K and G when the youngest son, A, runs through the front door straight to the bathroom (he is 6 years old) to find that the great grandma is washing her hands in the bathroom and that the door is locked. He looks at his mom in horror and I tell you, he has mastered the potty dance. He grabbed his butt and said "ya viene!" Which means, its coming!!! G went over to knock on the door to tell the grandma to get out and then we all laughed about it afterwards... oh funny A. We invited them to be baptized and they were really hesitant, and they didnt really say no, but they didnt say yes either. We think that the lesson went in a good direction at least because it is giving them that little push to help them progress in the gospel rather than just stay in the normal spot. We also stopped by the C family to check up on their reading, and they weren't reading. We gave them a challenge to read 2 chapters every day and that we would make questions for them, so hopefully they will be ready with the answers the next time we stop by!

Friday was an interesting day, and it was super long too. We had interviews with President and Sister Haynie at 9:00 in the morning. Its kinda annoying me that whenever I see other missionaries they remind me of how much time I have left. I first talked to Sister Haynie and she started out "well this isn't going to be like the long interview that you are going to have in a couple weeks when you go home"... and then she started. We talked about a couple things and she just reminded me that I always need to stay busy, no matter what. She says that the sooner I get a job, the better I will feel. We talked about my mission and what I have experienced, the hard things, the easy things, some things i have learned... etc. I love Sister Haynie so much, she is totally the Mom of the mission. I then talked to President Haynie and he said that the interview would be a short one. I asked him if he could give me the endorsement and he was like "it only takes me 5 minutes to do that" and then boom, done. We talked a little bit more about stuff and he said some nice things about me which made me feel really good. It was pouring rain. I put on that nice trench coat and we headed out to go talk to people and knock some doors. We found and taught a guy named E who is super cool. He has 3 kids and a wife and we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a good lesson and he committed to come to church this week with his wife, fingers crossed! We then headed towards our dinner appointment and started to find some potentials around there. We talked to this guy named J. J was a handful. He walked out the door and he started to "tell us what we believe". He told us that the last missionaries that came by were a little annoyed at him because he started to teach them about Jesus (oh really, they were annoyed huh?). He then starts to tell us what he believes about God, the way to baptize, everything. I zoned out a couple times, cause you can do that sometimes, but then he would ask me a question and I would have to answer. He said some crazy stuff like: we baptize in the name of Joseph Smith, no. Do we believe in the Godhead (its called la trinidad in Spanish or the trinity so its confusing at first) and we said that we do, to which he told us that he didnt. He was also trying to tell us that if we need to call The Son by His name, Jesus. That we cant call Him, the Son, because he has a name. The makes no sense. We listened to him and then told him that we had to go and visit someone else, he said that he liked us and to have a nice day. We were so glad that at least he has a good impression about missionaries:) We ate dinner with the A family. Hermano A use to be the YM president but got released last Sunday. He has some of the coolest kids, D and C. We talked to them for a bit and it was a good meal. After that we went back to our apartment to get our bikes and head to an appointment that we had the E family. Hermano  came out with us. We started to teach A, J and G. G is crazy and it is really hard for her to pay attention. A and J are super cool and they would totally help G learn more, if G wouldn't randomly say during the middle of the lesson "but my sister doesn't share with me" or ... whatever. It makes me wonder how terrible little siblings really are.. glad I'm the youngest;) Anywho, we committed them to come to church because they never come. When we committed G to read the Book of Mormon she said "but my sister never reads to me" and we just said "G, how old are you? You can read the Book of Mormon by yourself". It was an interesting lesson and I am slowly loosing my patience with that family!! Ugh! We then biked to go and see Y. She had just woken up and the house was so quiet it was amazing. We taught about the Plan of Salvation to see if she understood it all or had any questions about anything, and she didn't. She said that she doesn't have any questions about anything. Its nice to know that maybe she wont be baptized while I am here, but that one day she will be baptized, and thats comfort enough for me. They have a little dog named Lucky that is just crazy, but you just got to play with the dog for a bit and then set him down by your side like Dad does and he will fall asleep, its the best. That was the day.

Saturday was a crazy day. We started out the day going on a nice little run to the USC track in the morning and we ran on that for a little bit, so that was cool. We had a lesson around 1:00 with the O family and we called E and M V to come out with us. They live a block away from the O family and they helped out a lot during the lesson. During the lesson we talked about the Plan of Salvation and it was really good. V had a friend over and she also participated in the lesson too! She even said the closing prayer and committed to come to church this week! After the lesson we went back to our apartment to change into our suits to go to the temple with the C couple. It was such a cool experience. We went to the temple and who knew that around 4:30 on a Saturday there wouldn't be ANYONE in the baptistery. Elder W and I were asked to participate in the confirmations because there weren't any temple workers in the baptistery. The Cs were asked if they were doing family names and we told them that they would just do temple names cause they didnt bring any names. Fortunately a temple worker who had just walked down the stairs asked if they could do the names of her family. It was really cool. We got all dressed and waited for a bit cause a member of the Temple Presidency needed to come and do the cards for the baptisms cause there really wasn't ANYONE. V kept asking me questions about this or that about the temple and it was a really cool experience. The worker told us that he would baptize in english but, if we would like, we could confirm in Spanish. I did the confirmations for Hermana C and Elder W did them for V. It was an awesome experience, the first time for me to do confirmations in the temple and it was as a missionary with a recent convert family, so cool. V loved it and so did Hermana C. When they found out that they can just go whatever day (except Sundays and Mondays) to go to the temple, they were super stoked. They also asked "what is keeping us from entering the temple and being sealed as a family?" We told them that they just have to wait for a year to be members and receive temple prep classes, they were so happy. We then got back to their house and they gave us chipilins, which are basically tamales just made a different way and with cheese and a sauce, it was nice. Not too bad for a Saturday:)

Sunday we had excessive rain! Like it actually rained super duper hard! In the morning we had ward council and we talked about our investigators and then that was it for us in the meeting. We didn't have as many people show up to church this week, we had about 7 people show up which is still super good, but the O family didn't come which was a little disappointing. We sat by the C family during Gospel Principles and were having a fun time laughing with them about stuff, it was good. OH! The N family came to church today! Idk if y'all remember me telling you about them when I was in the Jungle area, but they came and I gave the Hermano a hug and we talked for a bit, it was nice to see them again. After church we gave the missionary moment for the baptism of the other elders. They have been teaching this lady named M and she is about 70 years old and is just the sweetest lady you can meet. After she was baptized and the RS gave her a welcome to the ward she asked if she could say a few words (of course you can). She got up and said thank you to everyone who was there. In her own words she said "Thank you all for being a part of the happiness that I feel in my heart" it was so cute, ah! We then got a ride back to the apartment cause it was raining really hard and the streets had quite a bit of flooding going on. A F swung by the apartment to give us some food cause he didn't want to have us walk all the way to his house to eat dinner. When we went to go meet him outside we accidentally locked ourselves out. Our keys and phone were inside and so I just started to undo the screen on the outside of the window. We popped that off and then reach through the window to unlock the door. Who knew missionaries are really good at breaking into things??;) we then received a message telling us that as a whole mission to stay in our apartments because of excessive flooding and rainstorms that were happening and that unless we had scheduled teaching appointments that we were to return to our apartments when it was dark, so that explains why this letter is so much longer than the usual ones, cause we had all this extra time:)

Today we are going to go to the Pixar place thats here in the mission, definitely going to get some souvenirs. These next couple weeks I will be probably spending a little more money from my home card on stuff so, para que sepan and all.

Love,

Elder Roberts

WEEK 100!!!!

USC part 2 week 3

Monday was a very different Pday. I think Elder W and I have mastered this whole shopping together thing. We both only spent 6$ on groceries... thats 12$ together so even for a normal missionary thats super good. With the allotted money we are given you have to shoot for around 20$ a week, so if you get below that then you are really good. We got to the church to hang out with the other elders and a lot of stuff just happened that was really rough. Then my iPad bugged out on me. It completely stopped working a didnt recognize any touch or push of a button. Luckily I had gotten most of my emailing done before then so that was really good. Last week we set up a VC trip with the C family to go watch Meet the Mormons 2. We had told some people at church about it and they wanted to come. So Monday we went and in total there was about 10 people that we brought to the VC and 3 were non members. We had to hurry back to our apartment to change into our suits and then bike to the C home after the whole pday stuff which was just crazy. (Back story) Elder W and I had switched our bikes the day before (sunday) to see what the differences in each other's bike was. So my seat on Peggy was super tall and when we were rushing to the C house I put the seat where it needed to be, but I didnt put it on tight, so by the time we got to the house the seat had gone down all the way and I looked like a real cholo riding a bike in a suit:) We then got a ride from R (the dad, he is the non member in the home) up to the VC and let me tell you, he is a super aggressive driver, but he is a very good driver too. The videos were such a hit. I love the VC. It was a really good experience for them and we all had a really good time. 

Tuesday we had some guys come over and fix our oven!!!!! It was such a tender mercy that we had. Being missionaries we just naturally struck up a conversation with the workers and they were nice guys. One of them was wearing a nice Rams hoodie and I asked where he got it from. He said it was a gift from someone and then we start talking to them about where to get USC or Rams gear. Well the other then says "there is this place on... and ... the guy has a bunch of stuff. Tell him that Gilbert sent you, he will hook you up with discount. Its good stuff too." So we got hooked up man! It was cool. We also talked to them a little bit about what we do and we ended on good terms with them. We went over to the O family house ready to follow up on their reading on 2 Nephi 31 and to teach them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We went over and asked them if they had the opportunity to read the chapter, and they said they did! We asked them their favorite parts and they talked about different verses from the chapter. It was really cool cause we used the good ol fashioned pamphlets and we read from those for the lesson. They really liked the lesson and we felt like the lesson went really well. We invited them to be baptized but unfortunately they said no. The mom said that she was already baptized and so was the daughter. The mom continued to tell us that she was baptized as a catholic and a Christian so hopefully we can bring a member over to help her know what the difference and importance of being baptized with the right authority is. The two sons haven't been baptized and so there really isn't any from holding them back. What I think might be a problem in the future is the fact that we haven't been able to teach or talk to the dad yet, we will definitely need to jump on that so that way he can support his family and hopefully we can get the rest of the family on board (there are 6 kids total). The lesson was really good and we invited them to read as a family and they accepted. When we invited them to come to church the daughter, V, said "yo voy" which means that she is coming and the mom said "les mando primero" which means that she wants her kids to go first and then she will come. The only problem is that the two sons will go if their mom goes... ugh. 

Wednesday I was so sick in the morning. It was a really rough day in general. My nose was stuffed and so I could barely breathe. We tried to visit some potentials and contact some referrals, but nothing really happened. The O family had invited us over to J's birthday party which was really nice of them. When we got there we also met B and C who are their stepbrothers. The stepbrothers are nothing like J and E. One likes sports and cars and all the normal "guy" stuff I guess while the others are just nerds. I mean they talk like it, act like it, don't like touching things cause it has germs, allergic to latex, play video games all day, don't like walking, the thing. I feel kinda bad for them because they don't seem to mix very well, but I really do think that E and J are really trying to love them and get to know them. Elder W had made some cookies for J and his birthday and everybody liked them. P then gave us dinner and that was really good. We had to leave right as all the extended family showed up because we were late for our real dinner appointment with a member. We showed up to the G house and she was making spaghetti. She put a lot on the plate and I was just like, oh no, I cannot do this today. She noticed that I was sick and was saying things like "I can make you a tea right now if you want" or "I can fix up a soup real quick" but you know me and spaghetti, I just love it so I was fine with that. After finishing there we went to the church for coorelation with Hermano F. We talked about our area and the progress that we have been having which was nice. After that on our way out and as we are saying goodbye to all the members and such, the YM president comes up to us and asks about the O family (we had mentioned them in ward council). He basically invite himself to the lesson which was super cool. The ward is getting pumped right now!!

Thursday i woke up and was still a little sick with the cold. It was Elder B's birthday and so we decided to make him some cookies with our newly fixed oven:) Elder W received some special baking mint chocolate chips so the cookies were chocolate with chocolate mint chips. I had some chicken noodle soup for lunch. We went to the church to do our weekly planning and planned out next week. We then made our way to the Cs home for dinner. They fed us some chorizo and egg with chicken and rice with tortillas. It is really sad when we go over because Hermano C is the former WML so he is very critical of Hermano F as his "replacement". He is always saying how many baptisms there used to be when he was the WML. To be honest, Hermano F is involved in the work. We will be having a coordination meeting and he will ask us about how the ... family is doing or what about... person. He also is seeing for himself just the load of work that we have to do. He asked us to come up with a list of all the members in the ward who are less active... haha. We showed him that it would be better just to get him a list of all the active ones.  Afterwards we went to visit with Y and B. Y has been reading in the Book of Mormon! She is doing really good. We thought she had stopped but it looks like she is doing a really good job. So her sister, K (ugh I could go off right now), was just unbelievable during the lesson. The whole family knows what missionaries do, because they have been coming over for the past 3 years to help teach K and Y. K was baptized last April and will constantly say "what are you going to teach to me? I already know everything". So its a little rough. The lesson started and we were reading in the Book of Mormon. In the other room however, was K doing the dishes and blasting David Archuleta (like him less now) singing hymns. How ironic is that! The lesson being interrupted by someone singing hymns! It was so loud that we couldn't here each other reading. We asked her to turn it down and so she did. The lesson was really good and we found out something: that Y has been struggling with the desire to be baptized. We think its because all the missionaries ever focused on K and never on Y and so they haven't really ever focused on her. Its really hard because K is always on her back about "church stuff" it is awful. We finished off the night with a lesson at the C home. We got there and started to talk to them about temples. We invited them to set a date that they could go as a family to do temple baptisms and they set the date for the 21st of this month! We then showed them a video about temples and they loved it. They are such a cool family!

Friday we had district meeting and it was a good meeting. This district is seriously the most versatile, weird, goofy, and awesome district ever. We have a goal that next week we will in total have 35 lessons with members out with us next week. That is more than most zones in the entire mission FYI. It was really crazy cause at the end of district meeting we get mail and there is the CLAM CHATTER with all the incoming... and departing missionaries.... ya. Its so crazy that only 5 missionaries are leaving this transfer and that only 2 are elders. 2 are chinese missionaries and the rest are spanish, crazy!!! We went immediately to go try and find G at her home and there she was! We were able to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a super good lesson. The grandma then wanted to feed us a "refreshment" but I guess that is what you get when you mix corn starch with milk and something else, basically milk soup. We then went back to our apartment and ate an actual lunch. We were trying so hard to get the YM president out with us to go and visit the O family. When we arrived there we got a text from him saying that he was coming back from work and would be there for another 40 minutes, so we decided to go visit them anyways. When we knocked at the door B answered. We asked him if his family was home and he told us that they weren't. He also said some other stuff really quietly and so we decided to leave. We were in the process of unlocking our bikes with our helmets on and everything when we hear V, E, and J all yelling for us to come back! They were flicking the house light to show that they were home. We went back and had a nice lesson with them. We read in the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 11 with them. They really liked the chapter and had some good questions about it. E I think is the most solid. We finished and he simply said "no questions, it is all clear". B came out from idk playing video games or something and so we talked with him a little bit and explained what we do as missionaries. It was nice because we totally know that the gospel is for everyone and especially for families so we really want to include everyone in their family! We invited them to come to church and they committed to come. We ate Yogurtland for dinner. We swung by to see G and the gang and they were all in their pjs. We had an intense (as intense as you can be with a 9 year old) lesson about coming to church and they all committed to come. At one point we told them that we would love to come by to make pancakes in the morning for them so that they could be awake and come to church. Angela then turns to me and says "tamales are so much better for breakfast, don't you think?" To which I said no, pancakes are better. She then says "elder, you must not like latino food. I can see that you don't like latino food, its such a shame that..." and she went off. I was like, for real? I just said that pancakes are better for BREAKFAST than tamales and she is going off like I don't like any latino food, whatever, not worth the fight. We then switched to go be on exchanges with Elder W and Elder B. I went to go be with Elder B and we spent the night in the other apartment. 

Story time.

Elder B was in the shower at night on exchanges and Elder Roberts had an idea. Elder Roberts hid underneath the bed of Elder B while he was getting out of the shower. He got out of the shower and looked around for a bit. He got to his bedside and Elder Roberts grabbed his ankle with his bare hand and Elder B jumped out of his skin. They had a good laugh, it was funny.

And some other details that I will tell at a future time.

Saturday we started out the day at World Harvest. Elder B and I taught Glen and his son a little lesson. We talked to them about the power of prayer and the importance of real intent and faith. We used Enos to do that one. Glen really likes to talk a lot. He is definitely a different guy, completely different lifestyle than someone who lives the gospel. He talked to us about some stuff that is going on with workers at World Harvest, about some crazy stories that he has about ghost and how he can communicate with ghosts. Then his son starts talking about rapping and what he wants to do with his life, and Im just sitting there cause I don't know anything about rap. We then went back to the apartment to change into our clothes and then headed out. We visited with J M who has a baptismal date and he is doing really well. He has been reading a lot and understands a lot of what he reads in the Book of Mormon. It was a good lesson. There was a kid who is learning how to do card tricks and so he showed us a couple, and then I showed him the only card trick that I know and he liked it a lot. We tried visiting some potentials but nobody was home or didn't answer the door for us. Saturday night was the concert of Bless4. Bless4 came to do a performance for the Inglewood stake and so we went there because we had a lot of people wanting to go see it. It was crazy and I'll explain later who was there and what happened there, but lets just say that a former AP from this mission and his family are famous pop stars in Japan and it was a cool concert. I took a picture with him finally! He was a really good missionary too.

Sunday was just awesome. We had 11 investigators at church! The O family came! We were so happy to see them there. A bunch of members started fellowshipping them and they loved it. They even sang the hymns during sacrament, it was so cool! E and J saw the gym and they fell in love, so they are probably going to start coming to mutual now too. B was there and he showed E and J around which was really good. It was just awesome to see so many people at church, yes! We also saw Yesenia later in the day and we finished off the night at the C family home. We taught the C family about the Restoration and it was a good lesson.

Well, another week flew by! 

Love y'all!

Elder Roberts