Week 10

Oi meus amigos/inamigos/qual quer tu estas, esta samana foi otimo!

So this week started off pretty funny actually. We went over to the Sizemore's on Teusday to do some training on the computer and we got a call from some missionaries that we left our groceries with on P-day. We were talking about when we would pick them up and after the call Ken said he overheard and wondered if we needed anything. We told him we didn't at which point he chewed us out for not asking enough of him. It was pretty surreal and he said that our needing things "surely is not satisfactory". We left and just cracked up because of the oddness of it. We ask em' for little stuff now just to keep em' happy.

After that we went to the Stake center and had a new missionary training with the Pres. and AP's. I met back up with Elder Kinney, Sister Jamieson, Elder Light and a whole bunch of Elders from PEN zone (Elder Petrie & Ogilvie's zone). Training was pretty great and we watched some funny car safety videos. It was really awesome and spiritual and everything you would expect from a great man like Pres. Weidman.

That night it got even better though. We had dinner with the Su'as and they took us out to eat! It's sounds funny but living as a missionary makes you greatful for the dummest things like that. They even took us to a place for dessert called Pinkberry's, a frozen yogurt shop. We had a great night and they told us, like everyone else, if we need dinner any night just to stop on by. He even told us "Don't you skimp on price. The more I pay the more blessings I get". It was great.

Then next night though I got a bomb dropped on me. Irmao Whitaker & Lemperle, I'm calling you out. Sister Gracia is from Brazil and we had dinner with her and her family that night. We were told all throughout the MTC that the Brazilians us the from of "Voce" for "you". It's kinda semi-formal and everyone said we didn't need to memorize the "Tu" or "informal you", but sister Gracia said no one says "Voce" down there. I'm kinda confused but it's not really a big deal. It doesn't change a whole lot of the conjegations or anything but it's a pain.

Thursday we went to the Visitor's Center with Nina. The Sizemores came with us and we had a great tour. We sat and chatted infront of the Christis statue in the VC, watched some testimonies of the apostols and saw a video about family (corny, as per usual). It was great but even better, Nina is already doing missionary work! She took a Book of Mormon to give to her friend. Her friend is fro the Philipeans so she took on in Tagolic. She is so golden! We pushed her baptism back though. She really wants to be baptized with her son, Domonic (13). We still have to teach him all the lessons and stuff but we are tenitively planning on mid-November.

On Friday we celebrated Elder Manning's birthday. He's a bit of a weird cookie but it was his birthday so some Elders got him a cake. They told him it was "A Spanish tradition" to bit into the corner of the cake. Predictably they smashed his face into it and we all cracked up. It was pretty great. We had zone lunch after that too.

Our Ward Halloween party was Friday night! It was great cause we had tons of non-member friends show up and we never ran out of people to talk to. One new girl we met was Diana. she's been in Thailand for the past few months so we didn't know her. Apperetnly she's been around for a while. She really wants to be baptized but is having some worthiness issues. She's a great girl though and she comes to church as long as she can. She's really nervous around big crowds so she can't usually stay too long. She has a really complicated situation I really can't get into.

At the party we also met Sister Chambers. You ask me "Elder Teela, why do you tell us about some random member?" Mostly because you all know her I'm guessing. Unless you live under a rock you probably saw a internet video of a man asking his wife how long it would take to travel 80 miles at 80 miles per hour and her being totally lost for an answer. Yep, that's her! It was funny and she was a good sport about it all.

One final event before I get to my thought of the week. Chad Lewis is coming here for the next why I believe fireside! If you don't know who he is, slap you slef and then go look him up. Never mind, I'll just tell you. He's an LDS All-star, hall of fame football player. I've read his book and it's SO awesome he's coming here!

The spiritual stuff now: In a talk famous in the MTC called "The Charicter of Christ" David A. Bednar says "The Character of Christ is such that when you and I would turn in, he would always turn out".  As I am going throughout my mission I sometimes feel really selfish. Thinking "I'm too tired to ride a bike" or "I don't want to get up at 6:30" or "Can't we just take a break?" These are all thoughts that don't really seem to bad and most of them are creibable, but as Vince Lambardi said "This is a battle of inches".

Satan knows that if you are on a mission he probably isn't going to shake you very easily unless you are out here for the wrong reason. He knows he won't stop you from being a good missionary when you are on a roll, but if he can hold you back even 10 minutes to make you miss an appointment, or stop you from contacting, he has won. He knows that for us to be able to find those prepared we need to be in-tune with the spirit and we can't do that while we are being disobidiant or lazy, aka, turning in. I know that the times I feel the most selfish is when I need to work the hardest, because that is when the Lord will bless us (Alma 26:27).

Espero que estejam bem. Eu vou orar para voces. ficam doce

-Um no execerito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 2, CA ( 9 Weeks In )

Hello hello hello one and all! It's been an other week of fun and blessings in the CLAM (California Las Angeles Mission) and I can't wait to tell you all about it!

So starting with last P-day we went to a place called The Alley. It's basically an open air market where you go if you want the spirit to turn tail and book it. It wasn't all that great and we were stuck there forever. I realize things there are cheap to buy and all but it's really not worth it to me. The one highlight was meeting "Tony the tie guy".  He is a small Mexican man who loves missionaries because, well...... they buy his ties a lot lol. He even cuts the price down for us for everything in the shop. Ties and belts are just $3 a piece  He brought all 12 of us out some sodas even! He's pretty great overall but he isn't too interested in our message sadly.

After that we taught Fran, a small older sister who is investigating the church. She's really funny, she takes notes at all our lessons and truely hungers after the word of the God and loves scriptures. She's been coming to church for a while but has missed the last two weeks sadly. We taught her The Plan of Salvation and she just ate it up. We extended a baptismal invation but she's not too sure yet. One of her sons is LDS and the other isn't and she feels like she would be showing favoritism for joining the church. Not you typical problem, eh? She's praying about it though and we think she'll come around.

Tuesday we met a real character though, Brother Spencer. He and his family are..... interesting. He is a lot like my Uncle Brian and say a lot of "not exactly doctrine  stuff.  You know, things that haven't been said by a prophet or revealed but make sense in the perspective of things. His wife, son and his girlfriend live with him. They are more or less active but could use some strengthening. We also had dinner with them the next night and had a lot of funny stories told to us. Apparently he almost died trying to fill up a glass 5 gallon water container early in their marriage  It cut the major artery in his arm and he almost bled out. Guess what his wife had to say about all this? "Honey, you're getting blood all over the ambulance". She denies it though :).

The next day we visited Allen again and brought Brother Mackley (the ward mission leader) with us. He was kind enough and let us in again and we all sat down and talked a little. I shared a spiritual thought about something or another and the spirit came down pretty hard. We thought the lesson went well enough and we hope he comes to church again soon.

After that we visited Doug, a high school chemistry teacher. He's a very intelligent man and we brought out the big guns for this one. We brought in Bishop Parker, a lawyer and great man. They had a really good discussion and we eventually made our way around to the subject of religion of course. He said that all his ancestors from the time of the reformation down to his grandfather were Lutheran Ministers and he felt kinda bad about breaking that line. That being said he didn't feel compelled to stay with that church. He sounds a lot like Joseph Smith almost. He says that he respects a lot of religions for what they do and believe but that he hasn't found one that he knows is true. I got pretty excited and we gave him a powerful lesson. He didn't come to church this week but we know he felt the spirit that night.

Friday I went on splits with the ZL's, specifically Elder Kpainey. He was born in Africa but moved here when he was 7 so he has a bit of an accent but has a ton of power in teaching because of how simply he testifies. We had some really awesome experiences  We where biking around and looking for dinner when we stopped at a traffic light. Another man on a bike asked us if we were Mormons and we told him yes. He said he wanted to join the church! He just had some friends who had told him it was a great church and that he should join so he asked us where the building was and we gave him a Restoration and a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. And then another man cam out of the Del Taco behind us and basically said the same thing! I was blown away by the whole experience  After all that the next morning we had a PPI and he said he was excited to see the missionary I will become. I was humbled to hear such praise from someone who himself is so great.

Saturday we un-split and went and did service by the seashore for the PD and school for a violence awareness or whatever thing. We helped set up and decorate for about an hour and then broke it down afterward. It was cool cause we met one of our investigators there and they gave us some dinner when we thought we would be left to our own cooking (always a scary prospect lol). We also stopped by said beach and got some awesome sunset pictures! I forgot my card this week so those will have to wait a while.

Yesterday was great and kinda sad as well. We were happy to report the highest number of lessons taught in a week ever to our ward, 17! That was great and we were all happy that the work was going so great. We then went and sang in the choir with Nina, who is still progressing toward baptism amazingly. We sang that Sunday and it went pretty well. We kinda botched the high climax or the piece in this minor chord but other than that it was great. Then we went over to have pancakes with the Featherstones again but we had to dash to lesson before we could actually eat too much.

We had dinner with the Dahls not too long after though and they are an amazing family! It consists of the two parents (about 40) and their 3 kids: a son in 5th  grade, a daughter in 3rd I thing and a son in 1st. They are all in Ti-kwon-do and we talked a lot about martial arts and I told them a bit about Jiu-Jitsu. Brother Dahl played rugby as well and we talked about that a lot and then I found out sister Dahl is a Music major! So pretty much I LOVED this family. They were so great and we shared a message about how God loves us not matter what we do.

That pretty much wraps up my week. I hope the Lord blesses you all and I can't wait to get back to work. I will send more next week!

Ficam doce!

-Um no excerito de Deus

Elder Teela

Hello friends, family and enemies and everything in between (you know which you are). ARE YOU READY!? 

So, starting with Monday after I emailed we went and had a lesson with William Baldwin, a less-active guy of 19 in our area. We sat down and had a really cool lesson with him about following the spirit. At the end we agree to all be quiet for 5 mins and write down what we think the spirit was trying to tell us. I swear you could almost see the angles whispering to us in the room it was so powerful. We all felt like we had received some personal revelation that day.

After that we had a lesson with Jason. He was es-communicated for reasons I won't discuss but he really wants to come back. So we've been meeting with him and just reading the BoM while he is working on his stuff. He had a cold that day and was pretty miserable so at the end of the lesson he asked for a blessing, and for me to voice it. I was pretty nervous, it's the first blessing I ever have given. My mind was empty but words seemed to come out of my mouth on their own. I don't even remember really what I said but the power behind it was some amazing. When we ended the blessing Jason was crying and we embraced. It was so amazing!

That Wednesday we went on splits with the Sea Side Elders. We went and visited an other less active member, a small Mexican lady who's name escapes me. Her son was home and he is 18 so it was fine. After talking to her she told us she was going through such a hard time and had dealt with a lot of depression. We told her about blessings of comfort and she immediately consented to have one. As we gave the blessing it felt like there was lightning running up my arms. The spirit was so strong and we knew that we were meant to be there for her. We committed her to come to church with us that week afterwards. 

Right after that the phone rang. It was the AP's, they said my name I heard but I didn't know what they were talking about. Elder Olgivie said "He's leaving now?" I flipped out and asked "I GOT MY VISA!?" He smiled and ended the call and said "Nope, you're being ET'd (Emergency Transferred)" So I packed up that hour and we left for Redando.

That is where I met my current companion, Elder Fry. He's a great guy, we get along like brothers and he and I do good work together. He's gluten intolerant which is interesting. Something funny is that he only works out his upper body.... He's really buff up top but has chicken legs. It's pretty funny. We have a car here too but we have super limited miles so we ride bikes about half the time.

Our first appointments were pretty great. We met the Nasimentos, a young recently married convert couple. He's actually from Brazil and we speak a bit in Portuguese and it's super awesome. He also was going to be a pro soccer player for the LA Galaxy but his wife kinda talked him out of it. 

Kricket is who we met next. Man is she a Character. She's super direct and says funny things all the time. There's no real way to describe her. She's about 55 and lives with her mom so she can take care of her. They make quite a duo, those two are so funny. 

Then there are the Sizemores. They are an elderly couple who joined the church last year after 8 years of investigating! They love us penguins (Kricket's nickname for missionaries) and do almost anything for us. They do our laundry for us and are super awesome. Their garage is always a mess and we are constantly doing service there. It's a running joke in the area by this point. One of these times doing service Ken (Brother Sizemore prefers we call him that) decided to show us his guns. The man has a elephant rife for heaven's sake! He has so many classic guns too! Peacemakers, A Luger and so many more! It's probably the coolest thing ever. He has well over 60 guns. 

So that Thursday night we got a text from Pres. Weidman for Elder Fry to set up a meeting with him. So we did and when we got there that funniest thing happened.  Pres. Wiedman forgot why he called us down! He just sat across the desk and stared at Elder Fry and said "So what can I help you with........ Oh, wait. I called you here didn't I? I can't think of what for." So we drove home and went through the rich part of Santa Monica and accidentally ran into a model shoot! That was pretty cool and we saw all the multi-million dollar cars you could ever buy there. 

So finally Sunday came around and we were surprised to find that the Featherstones had brought an entire family of investigators to church with them! We introduced ourselves and we learned Nina (30-ish), Dominic(13) and Oliver(8) were all looking to join the church. There are more kids but they are not of baptism age. They had just moved from Spain,their home of 8 years, about a year ago.

After church we went and had pancakes at the Featherstone's home and had a lesson with Nina. She apparently had a rough past with her ex-husband but is doing much better now. She had a friend that had a husband that was the same way who was a church member. She said that she impressed by her strength and family despite the difficulties.She was so prepared that she accepted to be baptized in the 27th of Oct! How cool is that?! My first transfer and we already have a baptism! I'm so excited to teach the other 4 lessons and meet her older children. 

She has a son that is a pro MMA fighter named Tommy. Her older Daughter is a talented artist. She showed us a couple of her painting and drawings and they were straight up amazing! Dominic can sing like pro and a surfer to boot. I figure he'll be quite the ladies man. Nina herself almost went to the 92' Olympics for freestyle skiing but got an injury in her ankle. Oh, and she sings as good as Dominic..... talented much?

Anyway that's my week. I'd leave you with a spiritual thought but I figure between Nina and those blessings that we have enough here. Can't wait till next week!

Fica doce!

Um no excerito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 1- California

Last Days at the MTC-- final pictures

 Elder Teela's new and impressive view

Elder Teela's California Mission President and wife

Oi amigos, familiha e todos outros! Como estao voces? 

So Cali is awesome, but I need to back up to tell some cool stories about my last day in the MTC.

Okay, so first we did choir practice which was down right awful. I alot of people had left Monday and I guess they were the only ones that could sing.  We did Lord, I would follow thee and I just about died because that is one of my favorite hymns. It wasn't all that great for the real thing either :/. 

On to brighter matters though! Elder Baxter of the seventy came to speak to us. Those of you in Missouri should remember about a year and a half ago when he came to speak in stake conference at the temple. I went up to him and talked to him about it and he totally remembered! It was great, we laughed a bit and he said that he was happy to show me how to really speak English more than once. 

Okay, on to the stuff you all really want to hear about. I got up around 2:30 in the morning to got to the airport. We got on a bus and took off to the tram station where we were immediately set to work moving all the luggage about 90 times. We got to the airport around 6:30 and I called my family (sorry I missed you little B :'/) and it was great to hear from all of you! 

Anyway I slept like a rock all till we landed and we were met by President Weidman (Mission President), President Shakespeare (Visitor center President) and AP Black. We drove down to the temple campus and had an orientation there and I met my temporary companion, Elder Light, and we took off for home around 4pm. We went to a BoM class that night and taught a cool man named David. We had bikes in this temporary area and I was pretty excited about that but the next day I was reassigned! I forgot my overnight bag with Elder Light too because HE told me I wouldn't be reassigned! OH THE LIES! I've had to borrow socks and work-out clothes for a few days. 

My permanent companions are now Elder Ogilvie and Elder Petre (like the pterodactyl on Land Before Time). They are the ZL's and Elder Ogilvie is the DL and they are training me..... We are SSSSOOOOO busy. And we now have a car so I'm a bit bummed about that because it's really nice here actually and you don't sweat too much on the bikes. Anyway, I'll tell you bit about my companions.

Elder Petre is a singer and is very tall. He and I really like to talk music and sing together and stuff so that's really cool. He's been out 14 months and is our driver. He's gotten really good at the California stop (yes everyone here does it) and he's pretty easy-going and funny. We have a guitar in the apartment and we jam around and that's really fun. 

Elder Ogilive (Oh-gil-eev) is a pretty cool guy as well. He's big into fitness like me and he was a swimmer and biker so we get into some conversations about those a lot. He's been out about 9 months and is more introverted than us two but he's a cool guy with a soft heart. 

On to the real going ons though. We met with the ward mission leaders on Thursday, the Fowlers, they brought two hee-uge pizzas that even the 6 of us couldn't finish. They are great! Brother Fowler has the fire in his eyes and is a large, impressively mustache-ee-od compadre who is easygoing and quick with the jokes. Needless to say we get along great. His wife and son, Raymond, are the ward missionaries with a few others. 

Sister Fowler is from the philippines and is a short thin women. She's super nice and actually holds a world record for her weight and age in deadlift (she's about 90 lbs and deadlifted 315!). She's really cool.  E temple way

Raymond is a surfer. He's 15 and pretty great, and he's not even annoying! He's like a mini-missionary and helps us out a lot. I think he will have a good mission when it's his turn to go.

They all live on a sailboat, how cool is that!? I haven't visited them yet but I figure it'll be really cramped and cool. 

Friday we had district meeting and it was pretty great. I was really dehydrated and tired so I almost fell a sleep a few times. There is where I met another person from Missouri! Sister..... um... what's-er-face. I'll get her name later lol. We also visited a lot of investigators/recent converts. I'll tell you a bit about all of them. 

Brother D. is a recent convert and just received the Aaronic Priesthood. He's a good guy and overcame some drug issues to join the church. He's strong but his ex-wife keeps leaving and coming again and pulling at his heart so it's rough for him right now.

Tony and his wife are some investigators that are golden. Their daughter died January last year and they really loved our message about families. He's missing a birth certificate (because he's from mexico..) though so he can't be baptized or officially married. Him and his two kids are really ready for this though. His wife agrees they need a church but has some doubts about Joseph Smith and the First vision.

We also played some basketball with an investigator that night but I don't know much about him. He's got some tats and is really good. He was swatting all of us and even dunked a few times. He brought his daughter Kayla (7) too because he just picked her up from his Ex-wife's house.

  

Saturday and Sunday were of course General conference so we didn't do too much there. But between the Saturday regular sessions the Fowlers made all our missionaries in the zone pancakes! Another reason to love them! That was awesome. Sunday between sessions them and the spanish branch made us a huge lunch as well! It was so good! I think I'm gonna love the people here lol. 

Last night we visited the Bishop and his wife. They are both around 40 and just got married 5 years ago. She's a pediatrician and he's a rocket scientist, no joke. They have some good cash flow. They made us these awesome salmon burgers (which I don't like fish so that tells you how great they really were) and we talked for a while. The bishop is a bit more introverted and was reactivated by his wife around 6 years ago. She's a very extroverted person with the fire and a great story and laugh. 

The spanish here is really confusing. I understand maybe 70% of it but that last 30% is really confusing. It's always entertaining to speak Portuguese at them and see their faces. They look really confused and don't really understand me.

One such case was Sister Alverez. She fed us dinner Friday night and is an immigrant from Mexico (legal). We told her I was going to Brazil and she want to hear some Portuguese so I started telling her about myself. She looked happy and kept nodding her head and smiling. After about 5 mins I asked her if she understood. With the same smile she said "No, but that sounded really good". That was pretty funny.

Anyway, I didn't take too many pics and hopefully I'll get a chance to talk some more next week and I'll send em' all. My new address is 1591 E Temple way, LA, California 90024 but we only get mail Thursdays. You can email me and I'll print em' all off and whatnot and read them and we have unlimited email time on P-day here so it's not hard to do that :). I'll still be sending letters home though to save time. 

I'll finish with a spiritual thought. I really liked Elder Neilson's talk. My favorite quote is "Freedom from self slavery is true liberty" That was very powerful to me. As long as we are subject to our own physical desires and appetites we can not draw close to God. Even cows can follow their base desires and if we do the same we are no better than them. I hope that we all can exercise some self mastery and draw closer to the Lord. 

Ficam doce

-Um no execito de Deus

Elder Teela

He's out in the field!!

He's in L.A.!!

Dear Parents,

We want to let you know that your missionary son or daughter arrived safely to the California Los Angeles Mission today.  We welcomed 29 new missionaries into our mission today, and they all looked happy!  

We will send an additional e-mail in a few days with more detailed information and pictures of your missionary with his/her new companion and with the mission president and his wife.  Be looking for it, but please know it takes several days for the Assistants to assemble the pictures and identify all the missionaries.

Sister B. and Sister V.

Mission Secretaries

California Los Angeles Mission

The last and final week at the MTC

Oi! Como estao mues amigos?! Mihna vida esta bom de sempre. Eu divenlho eu sou nao dificial pazar :). Eu vou consiguir os coises bem. 

So first off I would like to share a really funny story about Irmao W. He as a bit of thing for this defender on the BYU women's soccer team. Her name is ----. We call her ---- the defender of love to mess with him. But anyway at the BYU football game this Saturday the soccer team was honored at half time. Irmao W. was right by the tunnel for such an event. He saw her coming out of the tunnel and yelled in a very dignifying way "MARRY ME ----!!". He was also wearing a bright blue knitted beard to keep his face warm and this special hat he got form Portugal that is BYU blue. He basically looked like a possessed lumberjack. 

A few days later he had a friend who had just returned from his mission who checked her out on FB. He saw she was in a relationship and that was kinda disappointing. The worst part was with whom though. It's Taysom Hill. The starting QB for BYU and one of the best in the nation. But he is not discouraged by this. The man has a lot of faith lol. 

Speaking of Irmao W. he finally spoke English to us! It wasn't exactly mind blowing but it was still really weird to expect Portuguese and get English.

We had some mind blowing devotionals this week. I can't even begin to tell you 1/100 of the awesome things they said. But it suffices me to say these few things:

-When you consider in 3 Nephi 24 (I think) the savoir speaks about sitting like a purifier of silver it's actually a really cool metaphor. A purifier of silver sits at the furnace and holds the silver carefully in the fire because if it gets too hot it is ruined. If it's cool cold it won't be pure. And the way he can tell if it is done or not is if he can see his reflection. Kinda like receiving the Lord's countenance. 

- Elder Don R. Clarke said "The day a missionary is happy is the day he cares more about others more than himself"

And since it is my last week in the MTC I figured that I will send you all some tips about surviving this place:

1. Be to lunch early, if you every want to get food before you die of hunger be there early

2. Eat the salads. The food here is good but it's too good. You'll gain 40 lbs before you know it. Oh and never eat the fish. 

3. Speak you mission language as much as possible. If you let all you learn go misapplied it'll slip away faster than a greased pig. 

4.Do the choir. There is nothing that invites the spirit more than a good song and you get the best seats for the devotional

5. Just because people are missionaries doesn't mean they are mature. 

6. Take notes on absolutely everything. Not really, just mostly on devotionals and any sort of conference.  

7. Find Narnia holes. These are little stashes that previous missionaries that had your room stash jokes, goodies or notes. 

These are just a few of the things I've learned here and there is so much more to learn in the field. I hope these at least kind of help you future missionaries.

Well I hope that everyone is doing well and that I will get you all my new address by tomorrow (via my mom). I might even be able to use Facebook when we get out into the field. That'll be something else. Please don't try to message me or post all over my wall because that is not really supposed to happen. If you want to bear your testimony about something I wrote then please do or if you have a spiritual thought that's fine. 

Ficam doce! 

- Amor do execrito de Deus 

Elder Teela