7-25-11

Monday: Today was my first Pday in Los Angeles. We wokie up and headedover to a chapel in the Los Angeles North Zone to play a little Soccerwith them. It was exhausting and I realized that I haven`t reallyimproved my skill at playing soccer, regardless of how much better Iunderstand the game. So, I opted out ofo playing after a little while.Lisonbee and I played catch with his frisbee instead. :) Hna. Barillasand Hna. Alvarez joined us. We got hungry after a bit, and got somecold cheese sandwiches, which are a lot tastier than a lot of peoplegive them credit for. When we all left, we headed to a local shop andgot 3 ft. long completos. I`m pretty sure that that made my day, andmade me feel all manly and stuff. Don`t look at me like that. We wrotethe family and, although everyone wrote seperately, all of themsaidthey missed me and schemed individual plans for when I get back.Sheesh! They`re almost as trunky as I am. I miss them lots. Lindsayand Cassie are enjoying their alst summer there. We tried to pass bysome of the News from last week, but no one answered.Tuesday: Today was alright. We had a really cool spiritual experiencein the afternoon. We went to our Distrizona and spoke as leaders (withmy dear Elder Lisonbee :)). I got some pointers on how to be a betterand more powerful leader. We had a class in our District and I wasable to keep it more under control than last week. I found out thattwo Elders are not getting along. I`ll try and do divisions with themthis week. But after the Meeting, they asked me for some money to getthem back to their sector. Maybe I`ll wait until money comes in. Inthe afernoon, we went by a contact from a few weeks ago. His name`sJorge. He pays attention when we talk. We taught him the Restorationand he accepted it. After the First Vision, he said he felt it wastrue. He said he saw it happen in his mind. He said that pictersdon`t matter to him. When that feeling entered his heart, he said noone can take that away from him. HOw wonderful the Gospel is, to beable to testify in such an utterly POWERFUL way. Sure, people rebelagainst Joseph Smith just because. But Jorge was so receptive. Iinvited him to be baptized and he said, "taht would be fantastic!" Iwas so happy for him. We paid the price last week. Now we`re going toharvest.Wednesday: I`m enjoying my time here, in Los Angeles. It`s not aswindy when it rains, and that makes it a lot easier to endure. We didcontacts in the morning and only two people out of about 20 answeredtheir door, and they only did it to give us a waggle of their fingers.That`s not cool. We had lunch with a Sister, Hna. Amstein. She`sfrickin` vicious! She didn`t smile once, made fun of my comps spanish,and treated us in a very hostile manner. But I guess we Missionarieshave to come down from our polished and oh so stylish pedestals thatrepresent the glamorous lives we live...HA! We had our firstInterviews with Pres. Martinez today. It went really well. He told methat I had stood out to him right away, with my great big smile andenthusiasm to help (I may or may not have been playing tag with hiskids that day). But he also said I was a charismatic person. I`m notgonna lie, that`s AWESOME. My personality from before the Missioncould have been described by the word, "blah." I didn`t know who Iwas. I wasn`t sure abou thte things I did. I din`t have room to grow.And now people think I`m an outgoing , confident and charismaticperson. Isn`t that something? I`m so thankful for the lord and theblessings of our specific needs that he gives us through trials.Thursday: REmember when I said I wouldn`t have any more "hard days"because I knew what to look fore, and how to learn from them? yeah,well, Heavenly Father sent me a tiny dose of humility and humanity.The whold, "I am nothing, for I am man" vibe was going on a bunchtoday. gotta love it! jThere are several people that we can only teachon Thursdays: one was sick, another out of town, and the last one hada relative die. It was freezing and then it started to rain. We didhave a delicious lunch of mashed potatoes and cartilage-free beef.Mmm! During language study, I dried my things next to our Propaneheater. And I mean RIGHT next to it. Theh hood melted into crunchplastic. There was a leak in my left shoe that let water in, and ontop of all that, I got a cold. To the forces of evil, I say unto thee,"bite me." We kept going on, trying to find people.. We knocked allafternoon. Every single person told us they were busy! We couldn`thave a conversation with anyone. My comp. and I were down, despite ourundefeatable optimism and tenacious never-surrenderness. Okay, I madethat last word up. But at least the night ended dry. It stoppedraining.Friday: As I got through the Mission, and life in general, it`sinteresting to see the blessings that come after really hard times.Some-tiems, regardless of whether we`re obedient or disobedient, theLord sees fit to try us or even chasten us becuase he knows what hewants us to become and he wants us to push our limits so we can getthere. it`s like we`re constantly doing push-ups, and every once in awhile, we have to do a few while carrying a cinderblock on our bareback. it`s heavy and the sharp edges may make it even more unpleasant.But our muscles will grow and the skin will callous. We payed theprice yesterday, and today we were blessed immensely. We got intoabout 5 houses, and they all wanted us to come back. We had a membercome out with us and we got to teach a lot of other people with themas well. I got to know Scarlet and Gustavo, our investigators. They`regoing to get married in January, so they can get baptized. We helpedher understand what the true church of Christ had in it`s primitivestate. She`s already received an answer, now we`re resolving doubts.Saturday: We did a lot of walking today. We woke up, got ready,studied (still working on my marking system), and planned. We scrapedthe dregs of all the people we could possibly visit and invite tochurch. Almost all of them fell through. Humph! We actually had anauto-contact. That`s where you walk up to a house and before you evenyell (they don`t knowck doors here), the person comes out to tell you,"no." That happened to us, and we both thought it was hilarious andsad. We ate lunch witha socially awkward (weird) family that had 7cats in their home. Then we went back and forth, between all of ourappts. that fell. I`m tired. Something interesting, when a mom and her3 year-old daughter came out of their gate, the daughter immediatelylooked to her left, at us, down the street. Then she tried to walk tous. Her spirit got to Earth just a while ago. Maybe she can recognizeGod`s servants more readily than others. We bought a completo `causewe were tired and hungry. I only had enough for one, and Elder Burchhad nothing. So I bought the completo for him. But the guy gave us two(before we had paid). When we told him we only ordered one, and thatwe couldn`t afford more, he took it back. But he returned and said,"It`s already made," and gave it to me. We shared a bit of the Plan ofSalvation with him and his family.Sunday: Today was a good day. We went to pick up Lucinda, aless-active member. But when we got to her house, she had just gottenup...again. This was the 4th time ina row. We won`t do it next week.scarlet and Viviana came to church. None of the news we were hopingfor showed up, even thought they said they would. the family Lopez,with whom we had lunch, lives far away, so they just made lunch in theChapel. Then I had to give our numbers and those of my District to theZone Leaders. We`d finished Yesterday, and the Sisters were good, too.But Elders Cotrell and Gomez failed horribly. Elder Cotrell took it lightly, like it didn`t matter. I learned that if I don`t want him totake it lightly, I can`t take it lightly. I told him that work wasunacceptable to the Lord and that he should go work super hard today.We did, too. I called Elder Montalbàn. He is so awesome. I miss him.He said his girlfriend of six years dumped him. That sucks. He alsosaid that Josè and Marìa are getting baptized. Josè`s whole family isgoing to church, too. Calaway and I found him as a late-night contact.I feel like a bad missionary, `cause it seems like things got better,right when I left. Was I holding my comp. back? I miss him. He`s soawesome. But I guess I can`t be so selfish to assume that everythingrevolves around me. Maybe the new Elder that arrived when I leftneeded this experience more than I do.