Audio Letter: December 31, 2018 - Excerpts from Recorded Message

Happy Year New everybody.  It is New Years Eve and with it being New Year’s Eve, the mission is going on lockdown tonight, because everyone is going to be smoking weed and drinking alcohol and just breaking a bunch of commandments. So, we figured we might as well just stay inside, at least that is what Pres. Haynie says. So, we will be in by 6:00 and no proselyting today since it is our P-day, as you all know. Yeah, it is going to be fun. The Chinese elders will be having a little party with us tonight.

This week was quite the interesting week. So, Tuesday was Christmas.  In the morning we did our studies, in the afternoon we went to a member’s home.  I got to call my family. It was amazing. We also had an awesome meal with the Hornes as well as Bishop. We had prime rib and it was so, so good and they had a ton of Dr. Pepper.  I am trying to cut down on soda, but I’m not gonna lie, I had two cans. Anyway, after this member dinner, Elder Kim was singing in our Korean choir at the Visitors Center. The event started at 7, but we had to be there at 5:00 for rehearsal, but everyone was showing up late, so the rehearsal did not start until 6. But the rehearsal was pretty good. I got to hear to whole event with no audience and it was pretty nice because everyone was not as nervous. They were just there to rehearse, and it sounded really good. Then 7:00 rolls around, and honestly, about 300 people showed up. There were so many people there on Christmas Day and the Visitor Center has a rule where if there are missionaries in the crowd and people don’t have a place to sit, the missionaries get kicked out. So, I got kicked out. They sent us to the overflow and we nearly got kicked out of the overflow as well because that’s how many people there were. But honestly, Christmas Day was amazing. I got to see so many of my missionary friends and catch up and see how they are doing.  I got to see Elder Mora again and he is loving his third transfer with Elder Walker in Lawndale. I still miss Lawndale a little bit, but it’s okay, Northridge is amazing as well.

Wednesday morning, we found a new friend. His name is Jason. He has met with missionaries in the past and has been kind of off and on with them. So, we talked to him and he’s like “you know what, I have been off and you with you in the past, but I’m ready to be fully committed this time.” He’s having a lot of hardships at the moment, so he was asking us if there was some knowledge or a book that would be able to help him. So, obviously, we brought up the Atonement of Jesus Christ, as well as the Book of Mormon. So, he is super interested in meeting with us again. We kind of just dropped by unannounced and he happened to be there, so we were able to set some appointments with him, and once some medical things get cleared up, he wants to come to church. We visited with a lot of people and it was super effective because we set up three appointments on Wednesday when we were out and about.

On Wednesday night, we went on exchanges with Elder Montgomery and Elder DeLyn. I stayed here in Northridge with Elder Montgomery.  I love Elder Montgomery.  I first met him when I was serving in the Adams Ward area forever ago. So, we were with each other for Thursday. Thursday is normally our day for weekly planning, then Elder Kim has English class, and then we have volleyball with some members so honestly, we don’t have a lot on Thursday. Since we had exchanges now, our Thursday was really open since we didn’t make any plans for the following week, it was just Elder Montgomery and I out in the streets, knocking on doors and just walking around. We saw some pretty strange things. One of the strange things we saw was in the neighborhood we had finished knocking on doors. We were about ready to go get some lunch and as we were walking to our car, we noticed a gentleman. He was probably about 20 feet behind us on the other side of the street. He was blasting rap music, was wearing all blue, had a skull bandana covering his face, was wearing sunglasses, and he had a baseball bat which had barbed wire wrapped around it. He was just kind of swinging his bat around. Elder Montgomery and I tried to get in our car as fast as we can. But the thing is, our car key battery is kind of dying, so you click the button a bunch, but it doesn’t do anything. The guy ended up passing us, but he didn’t end up saying anything or give us any trouble, which is nice. But, as we were pulling away, a parking enforcement officer saw the guy and had a very concerned look on his face and pulled over, but that is when Elder Montgomery and I left so we don’t know if anything actually happened after that.

The rest of Thursday was pretty uneventful. We did volleyball with the members, and we missionaries finally won a volleyball game. That was our first win ever. We are pretty terrible at volleyball and we always lose, but somehow, we won. We pulled out a W that night which was awesome.  We then exchanged back with our companions.

Friday was our weekly planning day. We saw a lot of success on Friday as well just talking to people and setting return appointments. Elder Kim and I have actually had a lot of success here in Northridge since we have been here. We have found a lot of new people to teach, it is more a matter of getting them to progress now and come to church because that is where we are really struggling, but finding wise, we are doing really well. It really has been showing just in general as we have been going out working hard, being outside as much as we can.

Saturday was also a really good day.  We talked to a few people and set a couple of return appointments, but as we were walking in the street, there was just nobody outside. There was nobody on the streets for us to talk to. We knocked on one of the creepiest houses I have ever seen in my life. So, it’s this pretty old house that’s run down and has a bunch of dead weeds in the front and some really creepy statues. We went and knocked on the front door, but nobody answered and as we were walking away, we saw this like older dude, I would say he was in his 40s with this huge beard. He opened the back gate and just stares at us and it was kind of creepy. In a surprisingly higher pitched voice than I would have expected from this dude, he just says “hello” and then he walks inside. So, we ask him if the person we are looking for is there and she comes outside and tells us she isn’t interested.  Yeah, just a lot of weird things happened on Saturday. One of which was we were looking for a former named Kim. When we pulled up near Kim’s house, we could hear some really loud rock music coming from one of the houses. We were on the other side of the street and it was really, really loud. Well, we looked at the address we were looking for and, as you can probably guess, the house we were going to knock was where the rock music was. So, Elder Kim and I decide, you know what, let’s just go for it, let’s just have a unique experience today. So, we knock the door, we end up meeting Kim and she is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met in my life. So, we are standing there talking to her on the front porch, when the door opens again, and I am not sure if it was like her boyfriend or her husband or just somebody she knows, but this British guy, he likes sees us, and he is just like “Oh, not you guys, get out of here. We don’t want you here, you Jehovah Witnesses” so Elder Kim got scared. I wasn’t scared because I thought he was just joking and having fun, but it turns out he was serious, so Kim told him off and he went back inside. So, we talked to Kim, she was super nice. We were not able to set a return appointment because her schedule is really busy but, we have plans to contact her in the future. We left her with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet.

Saturday was just weird. There was also a creepy ice cream truck.

Sunday was pretty uneventful for the most part. Church was really good. We had Peter Johnston speak in Sacrament meeting.  He is the son of the first counselor in the Bishopric here in Northridge. He’s currently got a full-ride scholarship to the University of Utah, but he was in town visiting his family and one of the speakers didn’t show up, so they just called on him to speak. So, no notes or anything and he had to give like a 15 min. talk but it was really good.  I really enjoyed it and he gave us a little shout out at the end. And then on Sunday we found two new people to teach. We found Maria and Maria. So, Maria was a potential in our area book who had talked to missionaries in the past and she loves missionaries and she wanted to feed us and everything.  When I was on exchanges with Elder Montgomery, we gave her a call, but she was busy and told us to call her back. We got around to it and we were able to set up a dinner for Sunday. So, Elder Kim and I went over to this dinner and I am pretty sure this lady is like a hoarder because that house was disgusting. It was really gross. Fortunately, we ate outside because there was no space in her house to eat anywhere. We didn’t go inside, thankfully, but just like from her driveway, and from like what we saw in the doorway, you could tell it was kind of a mess in there. She cooked us up some fresh tacos that were actually pretty good. She made some orange juice that was not the greatest orange juice that I’ve ever had. I took one sip and did not take another after that, but we got talking to them about the Book of Mormon and everything. They are native Spanish speakers from Mexico so we are going to pass them off to the Spanish missionaries. They love the missionaries and we have an appointment to go back next week and we are going to make sure to bring the Spanish missionaries with us because honestly this dinner was kind of uncomfortable. Maria was being a little too friendly I guess you could say.  She did a bunch of nice things, but just the way she was talking was kind of weird. She was like, I love you all so much, and she like patted Elder Kim’s face which was weird. She kind of like caressed him which was really weird and a little on the creepy side. It just makes me appreciate sister missionaries more because they probably have to go through crap like this all the time.

So, that was pretty much our week. Elder Kim and I are getting along really well. This is the honestly the most functional companionship I have been in and we are finding the joy in missionary work a lot. We just kind of poke fun at each other back and forth and that is how we have fun.

Well, we love you all back home. Thanks for the support you give Elder Kim and me. We appreciate it, we feel your prayers and everything. It really does help us to go forward everyday knowing that our family is having us in their thoughts and not only are we being missionaries, but we are helping people to come back to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. We are all just one part-member family and we’re just all part of that family and we are trying to bring everybody home. That’s just what we are trying to do and that’s what matters

Again, we love you and thank you all.  Have a wonderful week.  Bye