Elder Jeremy R. Teela

Elder Jeremy R. Teela

Monday, July 28, 2014

Week 49-- Elder Teela knows how to make pie!

Bom dia! But not from Brazil still.... 

Anyway this week has been a little slow work wise. We've been trying to get in contact with all the referrals that we get but everyone always says "Oh, we're busy. Maybe some other time" so we're gonna have to start letting some people go sadly.  We all also need to shift our focus back to a 20 conversations a day goal that Elder Ballard left with us not too long ago. I think if we spend more time finding things will go better. It's just a bit harder YSA, looking for people in such a specific age group. 

A quick shout out to my Rendando 2nd friends! We got to go back to the are for a bit and help Elder Lui get his side bag/bike/whatever else to his new area and it was awesome to see you all again! 
To Nina and her family: We'll hopefully be back sooner than later, good to see you all again! 
To the Sizemores: Thanks for all the help with Elder Lui, I would say we can come over again but you two aren't exactly young or single, haha

So I have some earth shattering news everyone.... Elder Teela now knows how to make pie! Go ahead and read that sentence again, I'll wait..... Did you? Because it's true. We went over and helped an old widow make them for a social that was held at her house. 





She has all the knowledge to do it but with out us she said it would have taken all day, so we were glad to help. We made chocolate, banana cream, lemon marang and good ole apple. It was all going great and fun and then her 21 year old granddaughter walked out in nothing but a towel and it got awkward real fast, haha. She just hauled right out of the room so it was all good but we had a good laugh of it. Everyone was pretty surprised we made them to be honest but apperently they turned out good. Maybe she saved a bit and we'll be able to try some Thursday when we have lunch with her. I'm attaching photo evidence. 

Like I said it was a pretty slow week so that's really all we have to report on... So I'll share a cool lesson I learned Sunday from gospel principles. The topic was work but somehow we got around to the idea if you are an owner or a servant. If you are here to be an owner you will own a car and a house and you will want to own everything you can. You will seek riches and the things of the world purely because you love having them. But a servant will get all these things and use them not only to improve his own life, but the lives of others as well. You will have these things to serve God and your fellow man, just like Jacob tells us in Jacob 1:19. Seek to serve, not self-service and the Lord will make you great like Solomon. Just don't go and get 1000's of wives and worship idols like he did. 

Well, that's all for now folks. I'll write again (like always) next week! God bless you all! 

-Um no exercito de Deus 
Elder Teela

Week 48-- Never ignore a prompting

So first thing to talk about I guess is transfers. Got some weird stuff going down here in SoCal... Me and Elder Phelps are staying in the YSA ward but we are also covering our other ward with some other missionaries now. So before the ward was split in half and there was a set of missionaries for each half. Now there are 4 missionaries covering the entire ward together, no split, but mine and Elder Phelps main responsibility is to the YSA ward. We're only gonna help in Carson ward in transitioning our investigators/members to them and if they need us to cover an appointment. They are actually technically closing our area in the family ward that we were in. So we'll still have to go to two sacrament meetings and pretty much do full work in both wards, but we'll focus on one more than the other.
 
So I've got a seriously awkward story about this week. We went to go see a referral that the zone leaders (Spanish elders) gave us. We went over there around 8:45 since it was right next to the apartment and would be our last stop before heading home. We just wanted to set up a return appointment and get out of there. We knocked and this old lady answered the door and started talking to us in Spanish and invited us in. I started to explain we didn't want to come in but Elder Lui stepped in and said "gracas Hermana" and so we went in. I got a feeling we really shouldn't go in but, like all too often, I ignored it.
 
When we sat down on the couch we told her we were looking for her granddaughter and she was pretty put off by that. She started getting mad and telling us how she doesn't like it when three random men show up to her house and ask for her granddaughter. All still very hard to understand Spanish still by the way. We then tried to tell her we were missionaries and that she had talked to other missionaries when she asked if we spoke English, which made us feel a bit relieved. We said yes and she said she did too.... and then dove right back into Spanish! She then started all over again about us asking for her granddaughter.
 
By this time we figured it was time to leave so we told her we'd have to get going at which point she got really mad. We got up to leave and she started explaining where her granddaughter lives and we told her we wouldn't be going there, but that we would have to stop by tomorrow, seeing as it was about 9:10. She asked why we needed to leave and we told her we were tired and needed to go back home to sleep. I'm not sure why this woman we just met did this but she started saying things like "Well on one can sleep on the sofa and the other on the (I assumed air mattress) and one can sleep in the other room" and then started clearing the couch of cushions.
 
Finally we started for the door and she shuffled over there and just blocked it out and said "No, you can't leave". I was SO confused at this point, she kept rambling off in Spanish and I had no idea what she was saying, so we called the zone leaders and tried to have them explain but that still didn't work, but it got her away from the door, so we slipped out and started toward the gate. She realized this and yelled out "Wait! Do you do bible studies?" I said yes and she launched off into another string of unintelligible what-not. We ended up literally just walking away while she was talking, saying "Sorry sister, we'll send the Spanish missionaries over soon!" It was all bad, haha. Never ignore a prompting... ever.
 
We also sang Acapella (can't spell it! Without instruments) in our family ward this Sunday which went pretty well. I kinda messed up the first chorus of "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" But after that it was pretty spot on. The mission president just so happened to stop by for our sacrament meeting also to do an interview and he loved it, so that was good I guess. We might being doing it a bit more now, people seem to like it. We've been working on my singing so I'm not all that bad now.
 
We also gave talks in the other sacrament meeting that day too, so you could say we had a full day.
 
So I guess today I wanna talk about consistency. I think the reason president and, by extension, the Lord wants to close down this area is because of lack of work, but it hasn't always been that way. About 2 transfers (3 months) ago there was a ton of work to be done. It was a pretty good area but then an elder who was going home soon showed up and for a month straight, didn't leave to apartment except to go to meetings and dinner. That was it. Literally all the work died in the area. Now we've come back and tried to revive the place but we have to start from scratch and it isn't going well. The other elders have a long way to go now that they'll be covering both areas. I think it will split again some day but it may be a while.
 
How much easier is it to maintain than to start all over again? If this hadn't happened I think the work would be going a whole lot better. I've never let an area die in my care but now that I've been on the receiving end not once but twice, I will never let it happen. The same goes with our testimonies. If we maintain them we will never have to rebuild them. Is it easier to patch a hole or surface a sunken ship?
 
That's really all for this week, I've got to get back to the work. Have a great week you all and may God bless you!
 
- Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela

Monday, July 14, 2014

Week 47- Kissed by a drunk Mexican woman...

So first thing to really talk about this week was our baptism! Bobby made it to his baptism on Saturday night but there was a bit of a fuss to get it to all work out. We get the interview done Tuesday and set the time for 6pm Saturday and it ended up being anything but. We called the building coordinator and they said we couldn't have the font till 7 (after we had already sent out the mass text) because there was an 8-year-old baptism that night as well. So everyone showed up an hour early and then all left again. When 7 rolled around Bobby was nowhere to be found and it turned out they had gotten a flat! So he ended up being baptized closer to 8 than anything, but it happened and it was spiritual, that's all that matters. Sunday he was confirmed too but was half an hour late and giving our bishop a bit of a scare. They traffic was awful so almost half the ward came in late too. On top of that the man who confirmed him had never done a confirmation either, so we were all wondering if he was even an elder. But like I said, all's well that ends well.
 
So for a few funny little stories I wanna tell you about this lady we met on the street trying to contact some referrals (people that they're friends tell us to go teach). As we were walking up to the apartment complex this very drunk looking woman stops us on the side walk and starts talking to us in Spanish. I didn't really get much of it, mostly things like "God bless you" and something about angels. She said God was in her heart and some other stuff about needing us to help or something. We give her the Zone Leader's phone number and told her to call if she wanted them to come over. As we were saying good bye she wraps her arms around me neck and tries to pull me in to kiss me! After freaking out and getting over my shock I told her "Sorry, I can't" and she was really sorry, haha. She then took our hands and kissed them and looked at me and asked what I assumed was "Is this okay?" I told her yes and we kept on going on with our day... I don't get why I attract all the wrong women! Why can't the models do this kind of stuff?! Haha.
 
Oh the people in ward got me another man-skirt too! I love Carson ward!
 
I know there's more that happened this week but I can't really remember any of it, haha. I got a little food poisoning so my mind is a bit foggy. Next week is transfers so we'll see what happens there. I don't really know if we'll stay merged or not now that the world cup is over. We'll see if the visa comes soon.
 
For a little splash of spiritual stuff I think I'll talk about accountability. I'm sure most RM's know this but a lot of people don't, missionaries are completely unsupervised. You literal only have the Lord and some leadership to be accountable to and they trust you, so you can lie and they don't really mind. If you and your companion really wanted to you could do anything you wanted (and far too many have). It really makes me stand back and wonder how this work keeps going (aside from the hand of God). But it's really comes down to this one question, who are you when no one is watching? What do you do when no one will find out? It's tricky and I'm glad we are able to keep on the straight and narrow (more or less :) ). I hope we all have the integrity to keep ourselves clean and strong.
 
That's all I can really type this week. Outta time! Have a good one!
 
-Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela

Monday, July 7, 2014

Week 46-- It's okay to make mistakes as long as The Spirit is there

Hello again peoples!
The fist thing to mention I guess is that the boy we baptized this week got confirmed yesterday! Nothing went too wrong this time so we only had to do it once luckily, haha.
In other news we have another baptism this weekend in the YSA ward with a guy by the name of Bobby. He's a really cool guy around 26 who "hangs out" (I think they're dating but they don't tell anyone) with a sister from the ward about the same age. He came to a "break the fast" the ward held yesterday along with all 3 hours and he said he likes it a lot (He's been going to a family ward). He's already given up his smoking and drinking before we even knew him and he already keeps all the commandments so he's very prepared.
The trio is doing pretty great but we're still getting used to each others teaching styles and teaching in a group of three, so it's a work in progress. We always like to make fun of Elder Hepworth on the district when he says "It's okay to make mistakes as long as the spirit is there" but I'm finding out he is actually spot on, cause we messed up pretty bad sometimes and people still seem to feel the spirit and invite us back.
Speaking of messing up, I've got a story to tell! We went over to this little 4th of July party that an older couple in the church was throwing and had a HUGE lunch. I mean there was more food left than the 30 or so attending actually ate. There were a lot of non-members there and we thought it'd be good if we left a good impression on all of them. We spent about 45 mins of companionship study working on our singing so we could sing a song for them with 3-part harmony. When we went to do it though the other Elders in our ward wanted to join in and they..... hadn't been practicing (to put it nicely). So basically it was a train wreck. We started to share a good message but another Elder cut us off and added on a bit that was.... interesting. We fixed it all up though when the 3 of us just did our song though. When we went back to finish the food off the next day (which we fail in) the sister told us that people had called and commented on us, so we were happy.
So in spirituality this week I'm gonna tell you about this cool thing we decided to try out. It's called the 40-day fast. We each fasted this Sunday to be inspired on things we need to do to be better missionaries. We then wrote them down and have promised to keep each other honest in our goals and, over the next 40 days, break our bad habits. In light of this I re-read one of my favorite talks ever, by Elder Ballard called, Do Things That Make a Difference. Here's the URL:https://www.lds.org/ensign/1983/06/do-things-that-make-a-difference?lang=eng . If you haven't read it I challenge you to. If so, re-read it! It's so good. 
I hope you all have a great week and that you had an awesome 4th of July! God bless and stuff!
-Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Week 45--Elder Lui ate a June bug

Well this week was pretty good, a lot of crazy changes happened. The foremost of which I think is we had an emergency transfer. I'm still with Elder Lui but now we had an old fried join out little duo and formed yet another trio! Elder Phelps is back! Not sure if any of you remember me writing about him about 6 or 7 months ago but he was my first companion in down town. He was covering the YSA area with another Elder who went home and so they merged him with us and now we cover 2 stakes together. It basically means we can go anywhere we want in the south half of the mission, Muw-hahahaha! since we're covering such a big area now we got their car too! It's kind of funny with all of us stuffed together in a one room apartment.
The other awesome news is that our baptism went through! We baptized a 17-year-old kid named Vincent. He was a member referral and we've been teaching him for about 3 weeks. He was super prepared, and extremely real too. When we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity we were worried that he wasn't living them and when we committed him he seemed a bit hesitant. We told him he could tell us anything and we wouldn't judge him and asked what we be holding him back. His response was "I don't know, I'm a kid, we screw up. It's, like our job". That got some good laughs.
At the actual baptism though we were pretty stressed out. We went to go him and his friend who was baptizing him, both of whom are super skinny and short, but there was no clothes that fit them. So we went over to the stake center for our YSA meetings and checked there and luckily found some small clothes there. We left just before sacrament meeting ended around 2:10 with the baptism starting and 2:30 and got here at 2:28. Guess who was waiting there for us? Good ol' President Weidman! It was a bit embarrassing but he didn't seem to care too much. We helped the boys get changed out and started around 2:35. It was pretty stressful with all the back and forth non-sense.


Oh, and when he was actually baptized, the other elders we asked to fill the font filled way too low, so he basically had to lay down in the water.... 4 times! We went over how to do it and everything and gave him 2 or 3 copies of the prayer but he was a bit nervous. Before he baptized him the 1st time he actually tried to do it with his left hand to the square (rather than his right) be we managed to fix that up. The first time he messed up the prayer a bit and didn't manage to go all the way under. The 2nd time the bishop said his foot came out and told him to do the wrong prayer. The 3rd time he did said wrong prayer and we had to whip out our white hand books and correct the bishop. Finally the 4th time he got it all right though. He won't forget that anytime soon I bet :).
What else.... Oh, Elder Lui ate a June bug with a YSA girl we go visit! She was smashing em' all over the place and her mom dared Elder Lui to eat it. He said he would and picked up 3 of em' and pretended to eat them and they all started screaming and laughing like crazy (It was us Elders, 3 YSA's and one of their moms). He showed them that he didn't actually do it and then the girl called him out, saying that if he ate one she would. After about 5 mins of debating who should eat it first we finally got them both to do it at the same time and they almost both threw up! It was pretty great, gotta give them props for that.
Other highlights, we went to the temple with 2/3 of the San Fernando mission and their President. They had some deaf missionaries so we did an ASL session with them and that was pretty cool, super old school. We actually filled out the rooms too. They seat about 300 so that was a feat in it of itself! It was packed, never thought I'd see that. Never thought I'd be here for 10 months either but the Lord has a way of surprising you.
For spiritual stuffs I think I'll go over something we were talking about last night. We were talking about random stuff and somehow ended up on the subject of how the future doesn't seem too bright for the world. If you give revelations, D&C 29, 130 or other sections a read we now there are troubling times ahead. A lot of people get discouraged when they see that. When they see "The jaws of Hell gape the mouth wide open" they falter and don't want to continue. I don't let that happen. If we live life in fear it will kill your spirit, for fear is the opposite of faith. Moroni says:
"....Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."
I like to substitute the word "love" for "faith" here, because the two are practically the same, but that's another rant. In 2nd Timmy 7 it says:
" For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
And to round off the quotes I'll go with a song we listen to a lot:
Be strong in the Lord, and
Never give up hope
We're gonna do great things,
I already know
God's got a plan for you, so
Don't live in fear
Forgive and forget
But don't forget why you're here
Ha! trick play! I've got one more from the play Ceaser:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once"
This one takes a bit of explaining. If you sit there and live in fear, you'll stress out over whatever it is and worry about it all the time. If you enjoy the time you have though and live without the fear then you can enjoy all the time before it, rather worrying your life away, or as it is put here "die many times".
That pretty much says it all right ther'. I know this church is true and I know that God has called me to His work. I hope you all have a great week and keep on keepin' on. I'll write more next week!
- Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela