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
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