Week 36-- Getting hit on by a prostitute

Hello again everybody! I'll be honest, I didn't like the letter I sent last week so that whole system is gonna go. I guess I'll just learn to type faster or somethin :). Anyway this week had been absolutely insane! I'll just get to it so you know what I mean....

So, starting with Tuesday. Basically all day Tuesday I was on the bus or sitting in a little class room in the church watching The District 2. It was Elder Richeson's 12 month training and I guess they had some top secret stuff to talk about because they didn't let us in on it. So to kill time we watched all of the District 2. It was fun enough I guess. I got to see Elders Froisland, MacArthy and Harris again, plus a lot of the friends I've made out here in the mission. We also drove right by Sister Rodger's house on the bus ride home and I almost felt like jumping off the bus to say hi to everyone back in Bell.

Wednesday we had 7 appointments.... 5 of which were all less-active members. It was the busiest day of my mission, bar none. We started off by doing some service in the area just south of ours right by USC. We were pulling some weeds and stuff for some old lady and what not while she told us a super long joke about a man becoming his wife or something. We then had an appointment in our area right after that, up in the northern parts. So we biked about 10 miles in about 20 mins (okay, not that fast) and had a meeting up there. We not only crossed our area but half of another, all going up hill. We were sweating like crazy by the time we made it to the park we were meeting at. We had no time to change clothes, so we just showed up in our service ones. After that lesson we crossed the area yet again to go to another lesson (thankfully downhill this time) still in our service clothes. After that we had dinner and yet again had no time to change. We were planning on changing after dinner but we got a call to go give a blessing half way through! Still in service clothes, we took off to there. After that we had our last lesson of the day with a sister who's about 65 and is unable to make it to church. As you probably guessed, we were not in our whites still. But that's not the craziest part of this story. The sister was complaining about her neighbors and me and Elder Richeson offered to go teach him about "the laying on of hands" as a joke. She looked at us dead serious and said "No need for that, I could get him. And I would only do one thing to him..." Elder Richeson in his funny way said "Give him a hug?" She fixed those aged old eyes on him and said, dead serious still "I would have his heart in my hand...." I just about chocked on nothing trying my hardest not to laugh. She's this little old lady who can't even walk up the stairs! It was just too funny!

Thursday was just disturbing. Well I guess only getting hit on by that prostitute was, but that really burned a nice hole in my day. What? You say you don't know about that? Oh, let me explain! Thursday, after our weekly lunch with Anthony, we rode home and were locking up our bikes when a voice called out "Hey there!" Not really looking up I just said "Hey, How's your day going?" The doer of dirty deeds said just about the corniest thing on earth "Good, now that I met you..." I had to look up at that point because  I thought someone was just pulling our leg or something, but no, it was a woman of the night dressed in nothing but something leather that looked like a shirt with short shorts attached. It was just nasty, she looked at least 45 too! It was just messed up. I tried to lock up my bike faster but that just made me fumble the keys more, so she sat there stroking my arm asking probing questions and using lines straight out of a bad sit-com. When I finally got my lock done up, the evil beast stroked my chin and I about just pushed the satan-woman into traffic! We bolted into the apartment without saying anything more. It was so gross..... I just wanted to go and take a shower I felt so dirty!

Friday was a day at the church. We had not one, but two baptismal interviews! It was SO good! We had one just before district meeting and one at 6 with a member of the mission presidency. It was just great to see the two people we've been working so hard with finally get the green light to enter the Lord's church! We had an awesome late lunch/early dinner to fill the time between with a part member family and their friends. We taught about the restoration and we look forward to seeing some of those fruits soon as well.

Saturday we finalized the details of Carol's baptism. The other person couldn't get work off, so they will be baptized this week. Elder Richeson was cool enough to let me do the actual ordinance, so we showed her how it was done and answered whatever questions she had. It was amazing to see though, we've been teaching her the last 6 weeks and the past 3 she has just exploded in her progression. I think you could have put the worst missionaries on earth with her and she would have still gotten baptized. We really didn't even hardly have to do any of the work, she studied and prayed and was just the greatest investigator a missionary could ask for, a real blessing!

Sunday was the big day. We had an awesome service put on by the ward and I didn't mess up too bad so I only had to baptize her once. She was so happy she was crying and actually called us this morning to tell us just how awesome she felt. But like I said, she and God did all the work, we were just here to be tools in his hands. We also got a chance to go to a departing missionary fireside with a part-member family. The father (the investigator) asked if our "leader guy or whatever" was there and we took him over to President Weidman. Let's just say we now have a visit to the visitor's center planned for Thursday, ha ha. Gotta love that man.  

For a spiritual thought I'm gonna talk about God, shocker right? But I just want to let you know that He really does know our lives and cares about us. There is no doubt in my mind that he knows exactly what I need and exactly how much I can take. He pushes the limits because He wants us to grow and learn and become like Him. I've seen his hand in my life so much this week I didn't even try to tell you half of them. I just want you to all know that I know for a fact that what Elder Holland said last conference is so true "Most of all, never give up on your Father in Heaven, who loves you more than you can possibly imagine". I hope all you have an amazing week!

-um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela 

Week 35-- I could find a way to be happy, even in prison

Hello one and all! How are you doing this fine Easter Monday? I'm doing pretty great as always. It's hard not to be with all the blessings we get honestly. That and I think I could find a way to be happy even in a prison.... knock on wood.

Anyways, I think I need to really work on cutting down my email time. In this mission we are allowed to email as long as we need/want to but I think my Brazil it might not be that way (from what I heard Pres. Wright runs a tight ship). So I'm gonna change up the emails a bit and try and focus more on the lessons I learned this week rather than do a weekly break down of everything. I think that would help us both out a bit more.

So I guess the first lesson I learned this week came Monday. We FINALLY had a normal P-day where we would have sometime to do something fun at the end. I wanted to do some sports like always but Elder Richeson talked me into seeing the space shuttle Endeavor at the USC science museum. I like to work out a lot to help cut loose a bit and games are all the better, but this was SO much better. They had some really cool stations set up and a whole movie about the ship, it's last voyage and how they got  it to USC. My favorite and by far the most awkward exhibit was the one about the astronaut toilets. Who knew that using a toilet without gravity could be so hard? Ha ha. Anyway, the lesson here I think is that we need to be ready to broaden our horizons a bit. In psychology they call it fixation. It means that you are so focused about thinking about a problem one way that you can't see the simple solution. I think I tend to really get "fixated" on stuff and this was a good eye-opener.

Another cool experience we had was going to help a Pastor Gattis (Gah-tis) put together food kits for the homeless for Easter at his baptist church. We went and put in two days of 10-2 work to help him out and it was great. Working with the 4 or 5 churches that were there was a great experience and it let others see us a bit too. We had us, the USC missionaries, the UCLA sisters and the YSA sisters all there plus about 5 members. It was funny to see so many missionaries among the group. At more than one time we were more than half the people there. But I was really impressed by the people of the church as well. They were really being a great light to the community and I had a bit of "Holy envy" for them.

So the next thing I guess is a bit of a rant more than an actual lesson. We did church cleaning like usual this week and by I us I really mean it was just the missionaries. We got it done just fine but it took two hours and only a few members showed up. Please people, let's keep our meeting houses clean. We're blessed to have them and shouldn't take them for granted.

The last lesson I want to talk about was one I learned about happiness. On my planner I have taped "the steps to succeed in life" that were in the ensign a while ago. The number one and two things on that list are: 1. Establish principles to guide your life and 2. Don't make exceptions to your standards. I think that it's cool that those are the two very first things that we are told will make our lives happy. They sound pretty secular if you don't look at them right but if your principals are based on Christ and his teaching and you never make exceptions from those principals than you have the gospel in a nutshell! I sat down and decide to do this one day and wrote down about 7 things that I want to guide my life and how I will live it and it was a pretty cool experience really. I suggest you all look up that article and give it a read, it's so good and you will find a little more guidance in this crazy life we lead.

As for questions this week:

Q: What was your favorite part of conference?

A: Well, my man Jefferey R. Holland killed it as always but I think my favorite is like in a 5 way tie.... It's hard to say. Elder Christopherson gave a great talk, as did Elder Halstrom, Elder Eyring and so many others! I guess not to be a cop out I will say Elder Halstom's talk was the best.

Q: I want to take Elder Ballard's challenge and become more familiar with Preach my Gospel, but where do I start?

A: I really like the Chirst-like attributes section. I think as members and missionaries that if we have those qualities we will be great no matter our call. I also find the how do I study section really helpful.

Well, that's it, short and sweet. I hope you all have a great week and that the Lord blesses you.

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 34 -- 8 Months!

Well, well well... this is just crazy. My mission is 1/3 over already! Not like I'm counting or anything, ha ha. It's actually isn't because I think I might extend at the end and I'm not sure how much longer they'll give me but for now it's at the 1/3 mark and still no sign of a visa. It's okay though, the Lord know's better than I do. Enough about that, on to this week in the harvest of the Lord!

So the best place to start is Tuesday I guess. As we were leaving the apartment that morning I felt strangely that I would need my wallet. I put it off thinking it was me just thinking about how I just got my debit card back, but I should have listened. We took off and I noticed my back tire was bent, but that's wasn't anything too bad. We have a bike shop right next to our apartment and I figured we'd get it fixed up when we got back. We went and had a lesson with a funny old less-active lady and then while we were on our way to our next appointment I ended up making the bend in the tire worse and then popping the tube. We were about half a mile away from where we were going and only had about 5 mins to get there but that just wouldn't happen on foot. We called ahead and it was fine, but we spent the next hour or two walking home after that. So how does this relate to the wallet? Well there were about 5 bike shops on the way home but guess who didn't have his money? Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! I felt pretty dumb about the whole thing but at least we got some good contacting done in that time. Oh, and there was a crazy naked guy in the middle of the street on the way home, who would wanna miss that?! But the really frustrating part? Later that night the tire popped again! I had to go get it replaced too because the patches didn't work at all. It sounds frustrating but really it was a good day all in all.

The next day was spent in a lot of service. The good ol' Pumphries needed help with their garage and it was high time we got there to help. We rifled through boxes, moved them around and fought spiders for the next 3 hours or so and came up with a way they could look through most of it without our help; so it was time well spent. One of the things I ran across as we were working was this magazine that said something to the effect of "Women, The Mightier Sex" I couldn't help but take a look and it was the funniest thing I've read in a while. Most articles use scientific evidence or logic to present their facts but this one was just straight up awful. It used this kind of half-science-half-madness to tell us men why we are just awful. It said that because men have a "Y" chromosome we are only half complete and some other crazy nonsense, ha ha. We enjoyed the service too, but that was really the highlight.

We went over for dinner at the famous Sis. Randolf's home after that. She is famous for her cooking and beans mostly. Her granddaughter Liberty was there and acted like a wild child for a bit but it was a good visit. We haven't seen her for about a month because she skipped off to Vegas to visit family.

The next notable thing I guess that happened was a visit was took to an eterna-gator's home that night. We knocked on the door but I was a bit too timid because I thought she and her "husband" (long-term-less-active-member-boyfriend) would be asleep. As we walked towards the exit gate we got a call and stopped by the window of their home. After the call somehow this sister got the prompting to check the window and tapped on the glass to get our attention. She later told us "Your spirit talked to my spirit, and I just knew you were outside" It's a small miracle but it was just enough for God to remind us who is still in charge. We had a cool visit and we have lunch with them this week! God is great!

Oh! One really thing that has been happening this week. People keeping telling us about weird spiritual things that happen in their life. A less active guy and this YSA man told us all about exorcisms and how we need to have the authority and worthiness to do them. Another man told us about how he's had visitations from people who have passed on, whether seeing them, feeling their presence or hearing them. Then, this older LA woman told us about how she is a medium. There are a few more I can't remember off the top of my head but it is wwwaayy bizarre. I would laugh it all off but the spirit was strong those times they told us about all of it so I can't really ignore it..... I wonder what's coming our way....

The last thing I guess was another really cool prompting we got. We were up way north in our area, which is far so we only go there if we plan a whole day of work there, and we were about to head home when I looked through the mobile area book and a name stuck out to me. We had been seeing the man around but hadn't really visited him for a while, so we figured it was a good idea to see him. We biked up to his home and he showed up on his bike about 30 seconds later! We were surprised and he let us in and let us sit while he went and got us some KFC. It was incredibly funny and cool that it all just "happened" that way. We all know that it never just happens though, God had a plan and just let us in on it.

So questions need answering! Here are a few:

Q: How do I help someone that is falling away form the church?

A: I would say, be their friend first of all. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. After that, be kind and loving but blunt with them. Tell them how much living the gospel blesses you life and be ready with a testimony.

Q: Are you going to get your visa?

A: No, I'm gonna get a puppy

Q: Where did you get that ugly purple shirt?

A: We were doing service for the good ol' Pumphries and she wanted to give us some shirts to cover our whites. See the purple, how could I resist?

Q: Is it always sunny in LA?

A: Yes, yes it is. You think I'm joking but It's only rained 3 times since I got here and 1 of those times it was sunny out.

That's all the ones I've really gotten. If you have em' I'll answer em'.

For a spiritual thought I just want to tell you to trust God in your life. It seems so easy and dumb, but how much do you really trust him? If you look at this like a trust fall, do you let yourself fall all the way into His arms? Or do you stumble and try to catch yourself and crash into the ground? Just think of that and let it sink in a bit. Men like Alma, Ammon, Moroni, President Monson are the kind of men that let themselves fall knowing God will catch them.

That's all for now! Hope you all have a good week and that God blesses your lives! Everyone give a shout out to my favorite Irish family! Claudia
is turning 18, happy birthday!

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 33-- Gotta love kids

Hello one and all again and all that good stuff! Had a pretty good week, especially since it was conference this week! Man, I could write about that all week long! But I think you all would get bored of that kinda, so I'll stick with the same-old. 

So I guess the first real big thing I can write about was on Tuesday. We went over to a member's home to confirm some service for the next day but, when we got there we found that the daughter that speaks English was gone. She had run off to the hospital for some reason or another and left her elderly mom at home with her neighbor that only speaks Spanish. I was mostly okay with that but ended up doing all the talking for both of us. As we talked things got weird fast. She started telling us our bikes would get stolen so kids can buy drugs. She then went on a rant about how kids can get drugs in anything these days and told us about some kids who bought a pizza from LA Pizza Loca and how it was apparently a marijuana pizza. Like I said, it got weird fast. The old lady that lives there kept answering the phone and immediately hanging on people too, including her daughter in the hospital, haha. She was getting a bit frustrated and finally the neighbor took the phone and answered it for her. 

The next day we went back to the same home to help transplanting a tree and some other yard work. Thankfully the daughter was back and we had a bit more success communicating. We dropped our bags in the house and set to work, and then, they left!  They locked the house and everything! Our bags and phone were in there! We finished up the work and waited as long as we could to see if they'd come back but they never did. We went over to our dinner appointment around 7 and had to get them in the morning. 

For dinner we went over to the famous Chino's. We were in service clothes so he said "Whoa, are you guys off the clock? Teela, you look so skinny!" Oh Chino, love that guy. We had an awesome little dinner party will about 20 people including us. Some of our investigators and members showed up and we all had a great night. Some of the people in our area came and brought their kids which was fun because Chino made his signature aborted-baby-duck dish and told me to demonstrate for everyone. The little girl started saying I was like a mommy now because I had a baby in me and the boy was like "How could you eat that!?" Gotta love kids, haha. It was a good night and we had a good lesson to finish up the night on a good note. 

The next morning we took off and picked up our bags from the home of those ladies. They made us some good breakfast and we had a little lesson to make up for missing each other so much the last few days. That night we actually went over to the home of the member/investigator with the kids. They made us some awesome dinner and the kids we still super grossed out by the whole duck thing, haha. Those kids are crazy and hilarious.

Friday we had our Zone Training Meeting for the transfer. It was a great meeting and we spoke on cleaning up our lives in the small ways we always can to let the spirit abide that much stronger in us. We did our exchange right after and me Elder Mandaza took off for the day. We visited one of my favorite people to go see, a man by the name of Jason DeCastro. He spent about a year and a half to two years in Brazil so he gives me the low-down on all the culture, language and food. On top of that he's just a really cool guy and he gives us food. We had a good lesson and talked about sacrifice and how we need to still sacrifice to the Lord today, just not in the form of doves and lambs. 

Saturday was GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! *Que angelic choir* It was SO good. Right off the bat they got my personal favorite speaker Jefferey R. Holland to go, which was just the greatest thing ever! It was a great conference really and I wish I could tell you all the great things I learned but that would take years! I'll save some of my thoughts for the end of this letter though. 

For lunch Saturday we were taken out to Chik-fil-A by this recent convert woman named Lisa. She is pretty cool, especially since she took 4 hungry missionaries out for lunch and payed for them! We pretty much just hung out at the church for the rest of the two days. Conference took up about all of out time. 

So one talk that I really liked was given by Elder Hallstrom in the priesthood session. Sorry if you missed it ladies but you should really check it out. It's about how changing ourselves is what the gospel is all about. About how if we ever say "That's just the way I am" it's showing an extreme lack of faith in God and in ourselves. I think I have really come to realize how much about myself really needs changing out here so far. I feel like I have fully list of things to do when it comes to self-improvement and change. The first attribute we need to change all of that though is humility, something I feel I lack a lot of the time. I guess I'll start there and work my way up, haha. 

I hope you all had a good conference weekend and if you missed ANY of it I suggest you go back and watch it. It was all SO good and I don't think I didn't like one of the talks this year. I know that sounds bad, but we all know it's true. I would recommend starting with that talk by Elder Hallstrom, Elder Holland, President Monson..... just pick one I guess, haha. Have a good week! Until next time

-Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela

Week 32-- Three hamburgers in one day, that's a good day!

Hey guys! How goes it in the world? I'm doing better now that I'm over my little cold I got. It's been a week of change out here in LA., and I've got a lot to cover so I'mma just get started. 

So Monday last week was spent on buses mostly as we headed down to the mission office to get me a temple recommend interview with Pres. Weidman. It went well and I did pass so we were good to go on that. On the way home things got pretty interesting as this man-woman started yelling at some poor man for no good reason. I felt bad for the guy but Elder Richeson is a big pacifist and started freaking out. He kept fidgeting in his seat and looking back towards them. Finally the guy walked away and let it end. After we got off the bus Elder Richeson was like "I kept waiting for someone to pull out a knife or a gun or something!" It's not THAT ghetto here, haha

Tuesday was fun because we planned to move into our new apartment that day but didn't end up doing so. We spent all morning cleaning and packing up (BTW I need to send a lot of stuff home, haha) and then took off to our new place in service clothes. After waiting for a while we got a call from the office Elders if we could reschedule the move till tomorrow. We were a bit annoyed but hey, what else can you do? The day was a bit wasted but we had a dinner and some cool appointments that night. 

The dinner especially lifted our spirits. We had dinner with some LA's named the Henriques. A.K.A., my mission family. Usually Bro. Henrique works a lot so we don't do much more than sit on the porch and eat, but his time he was home and we got to in.... TO A FEAST! Bro. Henrique had made us both a full rack of ribs and mashed potatoes and  veggies. It was ssssooooo good I could have died! On top of that they and their kids are pretty awesome. They have a crazy 3 year-old daughter Lizzy and a 1 year-old, Mozzy. They are an awesome family. 

Wednesday was temple day! We had out session at 10:30 and it was wonderful. The spirit was strong as always and we hung out in the Celestial room for a while just enjoying it. It was such a good refresher and a break from the all-too-common worldliness we get caught up in. 

We then actually moved into our apartment but had no time to unpack or set up because we had dinner and a lesson to get to. The lesson was with one of our most enthusiastic, prepared and awesome baptismal dates you could ever imagine. She scheduled to be baptized the 12th of April and I have no doubt that that will happen and be a great experience for her.  

Thursday was SO good. I had 3 hamburgers that day. That's how you know you've had a good day. 3. The first was actually this crazy thing called a chicken teriyaki burger and it's as good as it sounds. Anthony took us to a place for lunch that has awesome american and Chinese food called Golden Teriyaki burger. It was about 7 bucks for the meal but was pretty darn good for fast food. Anthony was fun as always with his crazy stories from his gangster days and blind jokes. He's always a bright spot in our week. 

I then got a little frustrated because all of appointments fell through and I just was tired and sick. Thankfully Elder Richeson is a great man and took all of my crap without killing me. I think I would have beat me up if I was acting like that..... Not my proudest moment. We then went and weekly planned for a while to let me calm the heck down for a bit and eat.

We then went and had our other 2 burgers at the house of a part-member family of a dry-mormon man. He is super cool and there are about 20 people in the house at all times and it's as hot as summer back home in the home. We got there and promptly scared his 2 year-old nephew to tears, haha. You know how scary we missionaries are. We had a good lesson that week about how he needs to marry his girlfriend and his spiritual progression. 

Friday was interviews with the mission president, and he blew my mind. I can't really type all the cool advice and some of the forewarning he gave me but, suffice to say I'm more than certian the man talks with God. 

We then went on spilits and I got Elder Eddy into my area. Elder Eddy looks like Tom Cruise (according to a man on the street) and is humble and fun as all get out. We went to a dinner/service project with Sister Pumphery. We thought it'd be easy enough but it ended up taking 2 and a half hours. We were trying to transplant a tree and it didn't go so well.... I got some fun pictures out of it I wore a purple woman's shirt. My mom should have a picture of it up soon enough, haha. 

Saturday was cool. We had tons of good appointments and some good miracles happen. We got to an appointment early and deiced to contact around. When we were about to go in we talked to one last guy who turned out to be an investigator we have been trying to get in contact with since I got here three months ago! Isn't that crazy! The Lord was good and lead him and us together and we finally got in contact! 

We had dinner again with The Henriques and this time Bro. Henrique deep fried us some chicken... about half of one each to be exact, haha. It was SO good! He also made deep-fried bananas which actually just taste like potatoes but are slightly healthier for you. While we were there we did some pictures for my momma's birthday (everyone say happy birthday!) and they were nice enough to send em' off that night for me! Such an awesome family!

Sunday was great! We had a powerful fast and testimony meeting and a baptism in the ward! It was a great way to top off my spiritual bucket after the temple. I can't wait till we have one for ourselves with one of the great people we're teaching. We spent most the night studying. 

So for my spiritual though I will direct you all to the Ensign. There is an article called "Lasting Happiness" I want you all to read. That is your home work. Do it or you fail the class, haha. 

Well, not a lot of time left. Got to go and save some souls. You all have a good week! 

-Um no exercito de Deus