Dang, you know you're getting too used to being a missionary when you have to check which week you sent last time to know which one this is! Can you believe I'm pretty much done with 1/4 of my mission? And that for almost the rest of it I won't even be in the same place or speaking the same language? It's so cool to be able to say I served a mission in two places!
Anyway in news this week my companion is actually Elder Watts. President Weidman actually said he woke up in the middle of the night and made the change Monday. He said that something was just not right about it, so he changed it. Elder Watts is a good ol' boy from Texas, making us quite the pair. Two Elders from the bible belt, who would have guessed it? Anyway, I'll have a picture with him for next week but I think you will all be surprised how similar we actually look, haha.
Anyway, on the subject of transfers, President Weidman told the funniest story. He said he was at the airport picking up the Greenies (I can call them that now) and he stopped to talk to the woman in the parking booth. He told her about our church and introduced himself and asked her about her faith. Then the worst happened, she was a Jehovah's Witness (dun dun dun!). But President Weidman just replied "Really? That's cool, we have a lot of ex-Jehovah's Witnesses in our church". That's being bold right there, haha. President Weidman is the man. After he told the woman to take care of his wife in the next car because she is the most important person to him on earth. He then promptly got in trouble because she told us that he forgot to paid her parking.
After transfers we had to actually go to a bike shop because some jer... I mean beloved child of God slashed my tires. I had to get the tube and the actual tread replaced so this week I will need to be frugal in shopping. The man was pretty cool though and we got a better price than I expected. We spent the day out at appointments and contacting as always but there was nothing really to report.
Wednesday was a very long day indeed. Sister Pumphry needed help building what I like to call "The Wall of Jericho". It's really a terrace for her garden but we didn't really get the idea so we spent half the day building and rebuilding it until it was right, and then the rest of the day carrying all the cement back down to where had got it from. Lots of heavy lifting and hard work but we got the job done finally. We hope not to spend so much time there this week.
Thursday was really weird actually. First of all it actually rained! What?! In LA? I think it's rained maybe 3 times since I got here for about 15 mins but that day it came down with a vengeance all day! It was great because there is actually a serious draught out here and the saints have been praying and fasting for rain, so it was a miracle really. We actually had breakfast that morning with some members named the Spellers who are some of our greatest friends here in downtown. We have actually eaten there 3 times this week, but on that particular meeting Sister Speller had injured her ankle and needed a blessing. We were happy to help.
When we came back home we decided to knock out weekly planning before our next appointment which was a late lunch with one sister Randolph. She made us some good BBQ chicken that actually made me a bit homesick. I know as soon as I get back to MO I'm gonna need me some good BBQ, haha. We took off into the cold rain again to try and find some member who had just moved in but to no avail. Since we were right by Union station we took the subway home and from there we got a ride to correlation. After that we actually had dinner with Brother Belcher too, so we had all 3 meals covered that day! So we were, full, wet and cold that day.
Friday we had our first district meeting with Elder Parsons as district leader. He actually makes a great leader I think. He reminds me a lot of my wraslin' coach back home in a lot of ways. He did a great job re-vamping the beaten-to-death old district meeting and gave a great training on contacting 20 people a day. That number actually comes from a challenge extended from Elder M. Russle Ballard and since we have begun it we've seen miracles. That day was actually really good because we actually fulfilled that challenge and got 2 new investigators! One was a referral but I'll take it. We really have started to get a very full schedule here since we have been working hard.
Saturday was great and I wish I could tell you all the awesome work that got done that day but it would take another hour to type all that out. Suffice to say we had a lessons all day and barely got anything done. I'll tell this one funny story though:
While we were meeting with one of our investigators at a place called ---- where he lives. His friend decided to listen in to the lesson. We were out in the open at a park-like place so there was room enough to spread out, so he stole Elder Watts from me and they began talking. I was talking to Jesse about how important church was but in the background we suddenly heard the friend start shouting like an old school preacher. He came over to me and read a section from Ether and asked some questions and then told me I was a good, smart man in his preacher voice. Then he walked around preaching out of the fresh copy of the Book of Mormon he had just been given by us and talked to random people walking around. It was pretty funny and as we left the lesson I shook his hand and told him it was nice to meet him, to which he replied "You're a good bunch here. My name is Akeem, it's a slave name". Haha, oh the people you meet in LA....
Yesterday was pretty cool too. We went to church and had a good time there and there was actually a baptism too, but we couldn't stay because of an appointment. I hear it was really good though. Our appointment fell through actually so we walked around talking to people, well at least I did anyway since we were in a Spanish part of town. After that we had a dinner with the Spellers again and they made a TON of spaghetti. I accepted the challenge but only downed about 2 plates. There was still enough to feed all of us again after we had eaten, haha. They had brought a friend over and we all watched a church movie called Legacy. It's kinda of out dated but not that bad. I don't really like the man who plays Joseph in it but it was still good.
That pretty much wraps up my week. I don't really have any mind blowing revelations to share but I will next week for sure. Elder Watts had this talk called "The Mortal Christ" which has been mind blowing so far and I can't wait to finish it and study more on it. I will get back to you all on that next week though so we can have some uplifting thoughts there. Love you all! Have a good week and feed your missionaries!
-Um no Exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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