Well, another week here and gone in the blink of an eye. It's so crazy to think I'm almost 1/3 done..... and still not in Brazil, haha. It's okay though, I'm loving it out here in LA, except it's starting to heat up and that means a lot more sweating on the bike. I guess I'll just be a bit thinner when I get back home, haha. Anyway, enough boring small talk, on to the good stuff.
Tuesday was a fun day due to transfers. I thought Elder Richeson didn't exist for a while because we couldn't find him after about half an hour of waiting and seeing EVERYONE in the mission but him. Elder Richeson is a pretty swell fellow from Nashville Tennessee. I would send a picture but my camera died so I'll just tell ya that he is about 6 foot and looks like a swimmer. He says he played soccer and water polo in school and bass in orchestra and jazz band. He's a good Elder and I see a great transfer ahead of us. We really didn't do too much that day because I kidna sorta lost my wallet..... It's all good though. We ran around a bit trying to find some less actives and not a whole lot else.
Wednesday was packed full of good stuff! We started out with Temple service at a bright and early 6:30am. We did a lot of yard work mostly, laying sod, breaking up top soil, carrying canvas bags full of yard waste... the works. The cool thing about it was that I had a chance to catch up with a whole bunch of missionaries I hadn't seen in a while, and a few I hadn't met. One of them was Elder Coffman. He served in my current area for about 10 months and finally left so we had a ton to talk about. He's a great Elder and was pretty worried for the people here. It was a really cool opportunity we had to serve the Lord.
We got home, showered, ate and took back off to start teaching some people. We met with one girl, Crystal, at her friend's house for a lesson. Her friend is a member so we like to use that little bit of leverage as much as we can. She's the one we took to the Visitor's center Saturday. We had an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! It was a great lesson and we saw her on Sunday at church too! She's reading and praying and everything! BBBBWAAAA!! It's great!! We had dinner with Chino too that night. That was fun as always, haha. He's a great guy. But the real fun happened on the way to his house. We were on our way biking and we ran into Elders Perez and Lui. It was cool to see Elder Perez because he used to be in this district and he's a fellow visa-waiter. They told us to wait for a second and then we met a woman they were teaching who actually lived in our area. Her name is Carol and she is amazing. She's about 60 years old and blind in one eye but makes up for it with her spiritual ones. She reads the BoM all the time, is already coming to church, loves the doctrine and is the most thankful woman I've ever met. She has a baptismal date for the 20th of April.
Thursday we had our weekly lunch with Anthony, but there was a nice little twist this time. We got to Burger King as usual and went and got our food, but decided to sit outside for once. It was a nice 70 degrees so we went and sat down at the tables they had set up out there. As we were eating a family came up to us and said "Hey Elders, mind if we get a picture?" It always blows my mind how cool our members are. We're just two boys out trying to do the Lord's work and people think the world of us. It's a great refresher from the day to day rejection I guess. If you ever seen missionaries, do something small to show your love, it'll make their day, I promise. We finished that day with some planning and a dinner with some cool members and an eterna-gator.
Friday was packed full of goodness. We met with a lot of cool less-active members and had a lesson with an investigator named Shante. We were teaching a lesson and her friend Lorenzo was being more than a little difficult. We tried re-explaining some of the principals to him but his heart was just not open. After a while we got sick of it and finally just bore testimony to him of the power and reality of the Book of Mormon and a seemingly tangible wall of the spirit hit the room. He sat back and looked at us silently, not making any noise for the rest of the lesson. It was kind of a strange and sweet spirit. I felt happy on one hand that the Lord and silenced him, but sad on the other that it was necessary. We had a good lesson from there on out and we went home for dinner after that.
I'll skip over Saturday for now but suffice to say it was good.
Sunday was even better. We met with a new investigator named Jessica and her boyfriend Henrique. They were pretty cool but have some issues in their lives. They are 17 and 18 respectively and already have a daughter named Bella. Jessica was super open and ready for the message but Henrique seemed a to be there really only because his girl was. Never the less we had a good lesson with them and they want to be baptized on the 13th of April!
We then met with a man named Aquiles. He's a good guy that is less active because he has been offended by the church more than once because he is black and he feels people often judge him for it. Sadly, he is right. We gave him a blessing and the spirit in the room was amazing. He said that we had really helped rebuild his testimony through that blessing and that he was ready to start coming back to church soon. I love to see the spirit in people's lives!!
Okay, quick spiritual thought here. Read Isaiah and study it. I know that sounds crazy but just do it. It's a powerful book of scripture and has really taught me a lot as I have been reading through it.
That's all for now. Got an interview with the president soon. I hope God bless you all and you have a great week!
-um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
No comments:
Post a Comment