Hello everyone!
To start off: so remember those rumors and such about the wards splitting that I told you about last week? Well, turns out it happened! This new transfer my companion and I will be part of the new Boyle Heights Ward. We will also be opening a new area, Boyle Heights South, but it won't be too different since it is still all the projects, just added a few more streets to the west. Our new district consists of my companion and I, (he's on his last transfer by the way) the district leader and his trainee who will be coming in tomorrow, and the zone leaders. I am super excited to be in this district, I feel like whoever the new trainee will be, I will be learning a ton from our other district members. But we don't have any hermanas since it's too dangerous for them. They are putting hermanas in the ward I was in though, but they're not putting in just any regular hermanas. They're putting one who is from Mexico, she lived in Chihuaha for some time because her dad was Mission president there, she actually came in the same day as me. And her trainer is Hispanic as well, she is awesome from what I heard. Sometimes I forget we even have sister missionaries because I have only been in all-guy districts so far...
This week, we passed by Rosa Villasenor and her 40 year old son Oscar. Rosa is an inactive member. The reason for her inactivity is: as her husband lay on his deathbed, he made her promise that she was never going to go back to the mormon church. He was an active member, the thing is he got offended by something dumb and made her promise that. Right now she is going through some physical struggles. She has an extreme form of diabetes that caused her to lose her leg a few years ago, and now she is losing her sight. When we last talked to her (Wednesday) she told us she stopped by the doctor and she is now in danger of losing her other leg. We gave her a blessing, but my companion and I talked about it after and we agreed that it's hard to reassure someone in that situation. If it is the Lord's will, it will be done. Now, her son is a cool guy. The first day I met him he asked me what my name was. I responded: Elder Perez. His response: No man! I want your first name, I'm not gonna call you that. haha so he calls me Pablo. But he calls my companion by Elder... Maybe it's cuz I'm so young haha. But I like that he calls me by my name, reminds me that I am still human. Before I came into the area he had promised my companion and his previous companion that he would read the Book of Mormon and he'd send them a letter once he was done telling them what he thought about it. And he is keeping up with that promise! We had a good talk about the Book of Mormon and he had some great questions. I then invited him to church and he said he would come this upcoming Sunday. I am hoping that this interest he is acquiring will spark something within Rosa so she will realize that the promise to God is more important.
Earlier in the week, my companion and our padmates companion had to go for an interview so I went with Elder Alvarez to his visit. And dang was it a great visit. We visted the Rodriguez family. And I was so humbled in that visit. This man has 9 kids, one who is about to have a child of her own and lives elsewhere, and he lives with his parents due to his circumstances. But the living conditions were undesirable to say the least. And he is going through an extremely tough time, won't go too much into detail on that. But his spirit and faith has been coming a long way and it was amazing to hear what he said. He gave me advice on picking my friends and what a real friend is. He told me: Yeah I have buddies and guys I'll hang out with, but they're not my friends. My friends are my family and you guys. (Missionaries) I felt super honored that he would consider us, naive young missionaries, as his friends and people that he cares about and admires.
Those two were the main people I wanted to share this week.
This week at church we met as a stake to announce the changes. And they requested that the missionaries take care of the blessing and passing of the sacrament. It was suuper cool! Our mission president gave a great talk afterwards and commented how just about 6-8 years ago we were deacons doing the same thing without a real good idea of what we were doing. Made me think for a bit haha, things have changed a lot since then. I think that's all for right now...
Did you guys like the Armenian pass along card??
Love you all!!
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