Week 37 -April 21, 2014-Lincoln Heights

Dear Everyone,

  Happy Easter first off! We didn't have anything too out of the ordinary happen. We did eat dinner with the English elders with a white older couple who's workers were investigators at one point. We had lasagna for the first time in forever! Kind of weird haha. But it was cool, the guy is a prospector so he was talking about gold and prospecting the whole time. Oh how I love being in Spanish work.

 

We had a ton of people go to church yesterday too! One family in particular that a lot of missionaries have struggled to get to progress in the past came! It was awesome. They are the Alvarez family. The dad is an inactive member, but his mom is really active and his younger sister was the one who we baptized last. They are an awesome family of four, one 14 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. So it was awesome to see them come. But they have another brother that we started visiting that is inactive, but he is a bit more stubborn. It's crazy because this family all lives on the same street. But the two brothers haven't seen each other in years! Hno. Alvarez (the one that came to church) said it's because they just don't get along and they get into big fights. Pretty crazy, they won't even talk to each other. Hopefully that will change one day.

This upcoming weekend, we are going to have a baptism! Jose M. will be getting baptized this week. He is doing awesome, just working on giving up coffee, which he is doing better and better at. He has to move out this week so we have been trying to find him a room or some sort of studio/apartment thing. We've spent a lot of time just talking to people and asking around and calling. But trying to find housing in Los Angeles is ridiculous. So we are still working on that.

Something cool that happened yesterday as well was that Pasadena (there is Spanish branch there which is in our zone) had 3 baptisms! And we invited Vilma to them and she took us, and Jose M. to go see them. It was awesome! Vilma has been doing awesome! She told us she wants to get baptized, but wants to wait a bit now to resolve some money situations so she doesn't fail on paying tithing. Which I am fine with haha,

This week, we also had exchanges with the Arroyo district leader: Elder Giles. Elder Giles is a bit older in the mission and is from Nebraska. He's a super cool guy. He has an awesome attitude which was good to be around and learn from. And we had some funny things happen hahah...

Well that is our week in a nutshell. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Love you all!

Back in Boyle Hights

Week 36- April 14, 2014- Lincoln Heights, East L.A.

Dear home,

For starters, this week was transfer week, but elder Fellows and I

stayed together in Lincoln Heights. There were quite a few changes

throughout the mission, but not really in our zone. Elder Ramos,

mijito, got called to be a zone leader in El Monte! Pretty crazy! He

is in the other Spanish stake in our mission now, so I probably won't

see him as much. President seems to be getting rid of all the old guys

one by one. I think it's to make sure that the new mission president

has good, young people in leadership by the time he gets here so we

can help him know what's going on.

Nothing too crazy or out of the norm happened this week. Jose S. Is

still doing awesome and is progressing very well. He missed general

conference, but he watched like half of it on his own and said he is

going to finish it soon. And he's been taking a lot of notes while

watching. We went over his house the other day and we sat on his couch

and all of a sudden he got really embarrassed. We asked him why and he said it was because he had a gun behind the couch we were sitting on

hahah. 

He told us how he has given up we pretty hard drugs since he's

met us, but still smokes the green every once in a while, but wants to

stop. He is super sincere and doing awesome. I think if I had met him

a year ago, or if anyone saw him without knowing him, they would not

really have a lot of hope in him. Heck, I don't think a lot of people

would have trusted him, knowing where he is coming from. 

But the cool thing about being a missionary is that a lot of times we are the only

people that believe in these people of east LA, or wherever it may be.

So it is always really cool seeing who we meet and help.

I don't think I've mentioned Rosy before. On my first day in Lincoln

Heights, we met this lady named Rosy, who let us come by. We thought

she was an investigator, but it turned out that she is an inactive

member from forever ago. But she has been helping us a lot and we have helped her get back to activity. Every time she comes to church, she pays her tithing hahah. And she always gives us money! 

They thing about people here is that they will not let you not accept their money and they get pretty mad if we don't take it... But we always take it

and end up hiding it in her stuff. And she keeps doing our laundry

when we leave it to wash, even though we tell her not to. But it seems

she won't stop no matter what we say, so we've given up on making her

stop her charity hahah. She has pretty much been our mom out here.

It's funny because she literally knows everyone. We've taken her to

lessons sometimes and walked around so she can tell us where her

friends are and she literally knows everyone in Lincoln heights. So we

are helping her be a good missionary as well so she can use that to

her advantage.

Vilma, the lady we found by me using her bathroom, is doing awesome

as well. She has been going to church, reading, and everything! So we

are very excited to see her progress. We have found a lot more quality

people recently who are actually willing to do their part. So that has

been fantastic.

Tell Jakob that we went penny boarding all day so I am working on the

weight loss thing hahah. Cuz the collars around my neck are starting

to get a little tight... Kamilla and Valentina look a lot bigger! That's awesome, love you all!

Week 35- April 7, 2014- Lincoln Heights, East L.A.

Dear home,

This week felt so long but yet it went by so fast. We started off by

going to the Los Angeles temple with the MLC and our mission president

(or our general authority now haha). We had to get up really early,

and we barely made it. My companion thought he set the alarm, but he

forgot to actually turn it on... So we were zooming to Arcadia from

Los Angeles and midway I realized that I didn't have my temple

recommend... I thought I was going to be that guy in the group, but I

wasn't the only one. Luckily, president Becerra has the hook ups and

talked to the workers there and they gave us a temporary recommend.

After all the stress, lack of food, and hustle of the morning, it was

nice to be inside the temple and feel the spirit. It was amazing! If

you haven't gone yet, you need to go, because it is just amazing. I

learned a lot. 

Right after the session, we all stayed in our white

clothes and went to the chapel inside and the temple president talked

to us. We had a Q and A and a lot of people asked about certain temple

processes but a lot of his responses consisted of "I don't know." He

said that not even president Thomas S. Monson knows, they have just

received revelation that that's how it needs to be so that's how it

is. Pretty interesting... After the temple session, we went to the

visitors center to have the MLC meeting. We pretty much spent the

whole day there! We focused a lot on planning and a relating planning

to God planning the creation, fall, atonement. Needless to say, after

all was done, I was very tired and hungry... Which seems to happen

consistently ahaha.

There is a lot I feel like I could say, but I am just going to focus

on what has happened in the area.

We have been finding a lot of great investigators who are very

prepared, we set 3 new baptismal dates this week and each on the first

lesson! I love finding those humble, ready people haha. Jose S. Is

doing great too! We only got to teach him once this past week, but

when we did, it was awesome. We gave him a church tour and he asked alot of questions about baptism. Such as, what he needs to wear, what

he needs to do, how it is, etc.. It seems like it is still running

through his mind, which is awesome! He asked if he could by his own

clothes when he gets baptized to cover his arms since he has tattoos

from the wrists all the way up to his chest and back. We were so

impressed with all his questions! The member we brought with us even

dropped a hint of Jose getting married (he lives with his girlfriend)

and he said that is something he wants to do and has actually been

thinking about! So cool! It's been really cool to see him each visit.

He just keeps looking happier and happier.

One of the baptismal dates we set this week is a man named Jose

(another Jose, you find a lot of people named Jose, Jesus, and Maria).

Very humble guy I met at a taco stand and accepted a visit from us and

was very open and ready. We introduced the Book of Mormon to him the

second lesson and he loved it. He was on the verge of crying as we

shared it, so awesome!

It has been a really great week! This is the last week of the

transfer, elder fellows and I will probably stay together for another,

but we'll see!

Something kinda interesting that happened as well is that we had a

nice dinner with our episcopalian neighbors. There is an episcopalian

church down the street and the "Franciscan brotherhood" of that church

live by it. So they actually invited us to dinner this past week. It's

a really nice house with 5 episcopalian priests from all over the

world. When we first walked in, they were reading scriptures and

reciting prayers haha, so we sat and read with them. And then one of

the priests who is from England, made us some delicious food. Only

thing is that there were no tortillas... It was a pretty cool

experience haha. But anyways, all is well in arroyo, love you!!

Making salsa and eating it!

Week 34- March 31, 2014-Lincoln Heights, East L.A.

So before I send the big letter, I wanted to share something interesting that happened. So Elder Fellows and I went on splits and I went with the Elders' quorum president to visit Joel (the member in the pictures) in the hospital. He got a kidney infection and asked if we could go give him a blessing. So we went in the evening on Friday, I think. We talked to him for a bit and then Hermano Pineda, the elders quorum president, put the oil and all that. Then I put my hands on Joel's head, and right after I finished saying his name, the hopsital started shaking! THere was an earthquake! You could hear people outside screaming, but Joel didn't budge, so I figured I should finishe the blessing as well. It turned out that the earthquake and the blessing finished at the same time. I'm not one to believe in coincidences, but... that was pretty cool hahah.

Dear everyone,

 First off, tomorrow we are going to the temple as a Mission Leadership Council with President Becerra tomorrow and we get to hear from the temple president there as well. I am super excited to go. I think the LA temple is one of my favorites. But we have to be at Arcadia at 5 in the morning, so it might just be the longest day ever... I am pretty excited for General Conference too.

Nothing super out of the ordinary happened this past week. We had the earthquake which was pretty crazy. I was in the LA hospital as that happened! Pretty Crazy! We got to talk to Jose S. again and it has been very cool to see the change in him from the first lesson to this time, he was talking about how we are all children of God and how great He is and all this stuff that I don't even know where he got it all from. Something really cool was that he told us he has been thinking a lot about his goal for baptism and that he wants to start taking those small steps to get there. And the first time, he didn't really have a firm belief in anything but he mentioned how he knew there had to be a God because of all the things he has been through! Very cool guy, I am really hoping, praying, and working so that it will all work out. He deserves it. 

Something that stood out to me at church yesterday was something the bishop said during the last hour. One thing you have to know about the East LA stake bishops is that they are all very young. I think the oldest is in his early 40s in the El Molino (Pasadena) branch. Everytime I see the bishops or talk to them, I always wonder how my dad was when he was a young bishop in Puerto Rico. Just about a lot of them are just starting up their careers, families, etc. and on top of that have this great responsibility to oversee a ward. Pretty crazy. 

But anyways! So he was talking to us about how in order to carry onward, we must have a strong testimony. Especially if we want to help others do the same. And we can't have this testimony without doing the things we need to be doing in order to be converted to the gospel as well. This is something I have been trying to keep in my mind as I have been out here. Just trying to improve a lot, because I realize there's a long way to go. I think I got humbled most at the beginning of my mission, so from then on I have been trying to just be better and help others do the same. I am very excited for General Conference and all that we get to learn!

That's crazy how many missionaries are out from Southlake! Please tell me where Holden goes as soon as you can. I think I already said this, but it's pretty cool how once you get in, you realize it's the people you got called to rather than the place... 

Love you all! Happy General Conference weekend!

Morning Hike

Visiting a waterfall with the zone