Hello one and all! It's crazy to see my list of recipients grow so much and I love all the friends I've made out here! This week has been another fun ride in the life of Elder Teela but this Library only has one hour usage so I will need to type like possessed man to get this all in!
Anyway to get started I've got into this new area this week and it is super cool. We have a downtown business-y area with tons of people going everywhere that I am sure are just dying to hear the gospel. We also have the fashion district in our area, lots of open air markets and Latinos really. This area also has The Alley in it. It's basically a super-cheap-for-a-reason type place but it's pretty cool. A man named Tony the tie guy works there and we get ties for $6 a piece so that's pretty cool. W al have a place called Little Tokyo and you can basically guess what that is like. One cool thing there is a Buddhist temple. Finally we also have Skid Row, basically homeless central. It's a very sad place that I wish I could help more but can't do much about. Such a sad situation.
To start off we had splits right off the bat on Tuesday. I went into the USC student ward area with one Elder Davie. He's a quite man but he's pretty cool once you get him talking. We locked up our bikes at the ward/institute building and basically walked around the campus (not into it) for all day. I checked my watch and it said we clocked just under 20 miles! That's Brazil numbers there.
Anyway we spent the whole day contacting and didn't really get too much. One cool miracle that happened though was around 3pm. I was getting tired and a bit down with how little success we had that day. I prayed to God asking him for one meaningful contact so that we could at least have something to show for the day. Shortly after this prayer I started listening intently for the spirit. After about 5 mins we walked by a man and he called out "How goes the work Elders?" Needless to say we quickly turned around and started talking to him. He said he had seen Elders around the campus but never really talked to them. He said he was in a rush and had to go but asked us for a Bible. We didn't have one or a Book of Mormon (how great missionaries we are) but invited him to church tours the next night and told him we would have a Bible then. I was so grateful to have such an immediate answer to my prayers! We started up again with a new vigor and had a great rest of the day.
The day after we went straight onto more splits! How fun is that? This time I stayed in my own area with Elder Manning and Lee this time. The only problem was I didn't know the area! The good thing was Elder Lee is actually Korean called and we live right next to Korean town so he knows the area very well.
We headed back to the apartment only to find that Elder Phelps still had the main keys to the building! I had our room key but that was it. So, being the intelligent man I am, I immediately, and without any apparent grace, jumped a gate to get in. Only to find the door behind it locked as well! What's up with these people being so secure? Anyway I went back out and found out there was a call box so we called an old investigator to let us in. How fun is that?
Anyway right after some quick lunch we headed out to an appointment with an investigator that actually isn't ours. His name is David and he actually belongs to one of the other two missionary companionships in the ward (3 total). He is an older black man honestly searching for the truth and seems super solid. We talked all about Jacob chapter 2&3 and invited him to think about a baptismal date.
The next day we had interviews with the mission president, Pres. Weidman. We were supposed to be in and out in about an hour but ended up waiting around there for about 3 or 4. It was kinda annoying but, as good missionaries do, we started practicing our contacting and reading scriptures. It was a really good time actually and I learned a lot. When I finally got in with Pres. Wiedman it was great. He asked how many areas and comps I had and laughed pretty hard at the response. He said "I guess The Lord wants you to get a full tour before you leave". We talked a bit about language study and my knee mostly. He said he wants me to be smart about this so I can still go to Brazil. I understand his concern and feel it too, we decided to pray on it and continue on as normal for the next few weeks. I think it will not be a problem. We spent the rest of the night weekly planning.
On Friday, MY BIRTHDAY!!!, we had Zone Training Meeting. It was really good and we talked about become consecrated missionaries. It was a talk I really needed and I feel there are a lot of little things I can improve on. But we all know little things become big things very fast. It was a very good council that we had.
After that we all went and had zone lunch together at Chick-fil-a, which I was particularly happy about because I have $30 in gift cards to there. I got a nice milkshake to celebrate and almost instantly regretted it honestly because I was super drained in about 20 mins. but it was super good and worth it. I spent the rest of the day in USC zone again but this time with Elder Wright. We did more of the contacting and visited a few people by surprise just to mix things up a little. We ran into this one man, Roger, who is super prepared. He hailed us actually while we walked by his delivery truck, the 18-wheeler kind, and we stopped to talk. He said he had a lot of respect for missionaries and would love to meet some time. I was pumped until I learned he lived in another area again. It's okay though, he'll get baptized either way and will attend our ward.
The next day we went to got meet an investigator that lived in a Rotary home. Not sure what it is exactly but there were a lot of people there and a lot of preachers. We met one who was actually talking to Jessie, our investigator, and when we tried to teach him the preacher would just talk over us and would draw our conversation to him. We figured we shouldn't try to contend with him since the spirit wouldn't be there so we let him rant. In the end he talked a lot about how we don't need works to be saved and all this apostate stuff we could have bashed over but we figured it wasn't worth it and that we would set a different time with Jessie. It was funny cause in the end he said a prayer with us and "saved us". Haha, poor guy didn't know we could have ripped his arguments to shreds, but like I said, it wouldn't matter if the spirit couldn't be there.
I'm almost out of time so I'm gonna go to my spiritual thought. This week I've been reading in PMG about recognizing and following the spirit in chapter 4. I did the personal study ideas in the back and they are so great! I challenge you all to do the same. One that I particularly liked was a paragraph from Elder Dallin H. Oaks along with some readings from D&C. It talks about how sometimes the Lord doesn't want to give us guidance in absolutely everything. Sometimes he expects us to use our best judgment because he knows that we know what we should do. It's not always about getting an answer, sometimes it's about doing what you know to be right.
Well that's all for this week. I hope you all had a good one too and that the Lord blesses you with everything you need. Read that section if you get the chance and respond! Ficam doce
-Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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