Email: July 9, 2018 - LA: The Surface of the Sun

July 10, 2018

Email: July 9, 2018 - LA: The Surface of the Sun

Well, ladies and gentlemen. If you have ever wondered what it is like to try and sleep in an oven let me tell you it is not fun at all.

Let me explain

Monday: P-day was pretty good. We started it off by doing some district sports in the morning followed by some breakfast. Which was then followed by a haircut and a trip to the Crenshaw mall.

We were on the hunt for some district ties, but we weren't able to find 6 of the same tie. But we found a clearance box in the back corner of Macy’s that had $50+ ties for like 6 bucks. So, I grabbed a couple.

When then went to the Museum of Tolerance. It was interesting but really depressing. It is a holocaust museum and they go into some intense details. I learned something about the Nazis I didn't know before, and it just makes me hate them more. They even had a replica of a gas chamber that you walk into.

Tuesday: Not much happened on Tuesday, but we had a lot of fun at Spanish class. So, to kind of explain what happens in the classes. We have one of the Spanish missionaries teach it and Elder Kreger joins in the class so he can build relationships with these people that we could possibly teach, but more importantly so he can learn Spanish. As that is happening Elder Franco and I go out into our area and set up flyers and hand out cards for our classes.

Wednesday: Happy Independence Day America! It's weird not celebrating at home, but let me tell you LA doesn't disappoint. Even if people here aren't the biggest fans of the US at times, they will still shoot off fireworks, because they are fireworks after all, and who doesn't love those. Our neighborhood was crazy. It honestly sounded like Vietnam. There was constantly the sound of an explosion and some fireworks also sounded like guns. There were constant flashes in the night sky and the sounds of planes flying over. I felt like was in the middle of a war zone and I was waiting for a Roman candle to come flying through the window.

The only damper to the night was I got a tad sick so that kind of sucked

Thursday: District meeting was a lot of fun and we got a lot done. Elder Kreger got a tad sick today too, but we worked the hardest we could.

We are teaching a new person as of today and it was one of the best-taught lessons on the restoration that I have been a part of. We had some VC sisters join us over Facebook since they gave us this referral and it went super well.

Friday: I'm done. If this what summer is gonna be like all the time, then I am out. No thanks. To start off our day we got a text from the mission president’s wife. The text told us to be careful today because it was gonna be really hot and to drinks lots of water.

So quick LA fact for you all. The inner city is 10 degrees hotter than the coast since the heat just bounces off the buildings and radiates off the asphalt. So, when I saw the weather report say that today was going to be 105 I didn't think much of it.

As soon as I stepped outside and felt the ray coming from the sun, I stepped back inside and decided that we are gonna freeze basically everything.

Well the heat doesn't stop us from working so once we were officially ready, we embarked and my goodness was it terrible.

When we got to the area we wanted to work at we knew it was gonna be rough. It was almost noon at this point. The air itself is hot. Whenever a breeze came along it was like a blow dryer just spraying warm air in your face. There was no escape. So, as we were working we were just running from shade to shade.

Well, when we finished weekly planning and decided to head back out on the Lord's errand the sun decided it really wanted to get our attention because it was 115 degrees outside at 4 in the afternoon. Why? Because California sucks. I have never missed rain so much in my life. There wasn't even a single cloud in the sky to try and save us.

By the end of the night (after finishing up our work in the hilly section of our area), when we got inside at 9pm, it was still 100 degrees outside. Like, come on man, the sun is gone and it is dark outside yet it still feels like a desert.

And the worst part, we don't have air conditioning in our apartment. We just have some portable fans, which again, would throw hot air rather than cooling things down. So, our apartment literally felt like a sauna. I did not get a good night's rest.

Saturday: The heat is not as bad today, but it is still over 100.

We decided that people are probably super thirsty, so we bought a bunch of water and we set up a stand next to our church building with a sign for free water. We attached pass along cards to the bottles and we had our Spanish class flyers and Books of Mormon out.

At first, the street was just empty. Understandable nobody was out with this heat. But slowly people start appearing. Slowly more and more we're out and about. People in the cars began to notice the water and would pull their car over into the metered parking, jump out run up and grab one and run back to their car. And just when I thought it couldn't get better we had an entire metro double bus pull over and the bus driver hopped out to grab one and passengers also followed. And just as fast as they appeared, they were pulling away back on their journey.
We were fortunate enough even give a Book of Mormon away at the stand so I would call it a success.

Also, the LA Galaxy Mormon night game was tonight. We couldn't go unfortunately since we had nobody to take. I heard the Galaxy won 4-0 and people had a lot of fun, which was awesome.

But I know Heavenly Father had different plans for us because we had to go give a blessing to a nonmember who was struck by a car yesterday morning. We were fortunate enough to be in the area and were able to drop by.

Sunday: Sunday was interesting. Sacrament meeting ended about 30 minutes early since one of the speakers canceled and Elder Kreger couldn't stretch his talk long enough, but he gave his best shot.

We also got invited to the wedding of a part member family which is awesome because they can now be baptized if they desire it.

Also, our friend Russell had his baptism interview done today. So, he is on track for next Sunday

-Bon Bon Chavo