Hello family, friends, and fellow-citizens in the Gospel!
It is the beginning of a new transfer here in the California Arcadia
mission, and somebody decided it would be a good idea to let me be a
district leader in the newly created Hacienda Heights North zone.
We'll see how that shakes out. Hopefully not too bad. I have the
korean elders and zone leaders in my district; all of whom are among
my favorite missionaries in the world. So that's cool. One of the
Koreans was my district leader when I first got transferred out here.
So we appear to have come full circle.
Monday 2/24- after an uneventful pday, we taught Carolyn who we
contacted the night before. She was an investigator several years ago
but for reasons unbeknownst to us and her, she was dropped. We taught
her the restoration and she really liked it. She said she would be
baptized. What was cool was what happened after she prayed. Her first
question was, "i have to quit drinking and smoking don't i?" We had no
idea she did those things, but the spirit did. Stuff like happens a
lot actually, and it's pretty sweet. That's when you know your
investigators are receiving revelation.
Tuesday- so there's a family in the ward whose dad is traveling for
the government all the time, and they move a lot. They have a million
kids and the mom is a super hero. They are moving internationally this
Friday. Sound familiar? Needless to say, I have always tried to keep
tabs on what we could do to help out this sister (it has ranged from
getting cupcakes for her kids at a baptism to singing in sacrament
because she wanted me too). Knowing that they were gearing for a move
to Egypt later this week, we went by to offer what service we could.
After cleaning some carpets for them, they also emptied some of their
fridge on us. It's a bummer that they're leaving, but I'm glad we were
able to help put a bit. After visiting them we went to a less active
and had a short lesson with her. We got to hear her conversion story
and will be working with her from now on to help her come back to
church. She says she lacks motivation, but that's code for she was
never fully converted.
Wednesday- in the morning we taught Carolyn about the Book of Mormon,
and committed her to coming to church. In the afternoon we taught a
younger guy named Adam. I may have mentioned him a few weeks ago.
Anyways, today we taught him the restoration, and he really enjoyed
it. We helped a sister in the ward fix some bikes in the evening
before going to dinner with the family we lived with during Christmas.
That was gooooooooood. And I don't even like food.
Thursday- we taught Adam, Albert, Virgil, Adrian, and Laura and Sarah.
It was nuts. I've never taught that many lessons in one day before.
Adam, Albert, and Adrian all went well and are doing pretty good in
the gospel. Virgil has taken to deflecting "inspired questions" with
politics. We are trying to figure what to do about that. Laura and
Sarah dropped us. "The whole prophet thing" was just too much for
them. You'd think hardcore Catholics would be okay with that, given
they have the pope. Oh well.
Friday- Thursday night it started raining. It rained all day Friday,
on and off on Saturday, and a little on Sunday. Parts of the mission
were super flooded and sliding off the mountains. We were okay in that
respect. It did rain pretty hard though. A little bit of hail too. We
did our weekly planning at the church this week so we could eat the
leftovers the snyders gave us on Wednesday. (We left them in the
kitchen so we didn't have to carry them home. The snyders are close to
the church). Those were still delicious. In the evening we visited a
less active member, bro. Erbe. His power went out while we were there.
It was creepy. But we made it home alive, so that's nice.
Saturday- because of the continuos rain, we walked all day Saturday.
We walked a long ways too, and nobody was around. It was a pretty big
bummer. But we had dinner at the assistant ward mission leaders house,
so that was good. He is young guy who might be playing at USU next
football season. I think that would be cool. Anyways, we had
correlation over dinner. That night we awaited transfer calls, but
instead of a transfer, I was notified that I had been chosen as one of
the district leaders. That was a big surprise.
Sunday - on Sunday we had TWO of the seven people we are currently
teaching at sacrament meeting, Adrian and Efrain. Efrain actually
brought his baptist sister who looked pretty uncomfortable, and made
him take her home early. So that was a bummer. But Adrain stayed all
three hours, participated in classes, the whole shebang. He really
liked it. After studies, we taught Efrain about the word of wisdom. It
took some convincing from the spirit, but he eventually committed to
live it. W are teaching him again tonight.
Love you guys! Have an awesome week!
Elder Brett Whitney
