Week 89

(Monday, August 18, 2014)

Hello hello family and friends.  This week we had some super cool stuff happen.

Before getting to that, I am now starting my last transfer...what?!?! Elder Smith, Elder Trauntvein (past companions), and a ton of other missionaries I got really close with are heading home tomorrow.  I got to play basketball with Elder Smith last week and that was a lot of fun.  Seeing as there are not really any other Elders in my group of missionaries, I always felt like the group that just went home was "my" group.

At the "Despedida" (farewell meeting) last night, I got to see the Lopez family from Pomona AND Raul and Rosy!  Rosy is now the Primary president in Boyle Heights and is loving it!  The Lopez family is doing much better now. They are getting back on track.  I actually introduced Omar Lopez to Raul and told Omar how Raul is planning to get married in the temple. They connected super well.

Okay, so now the rest of the cool stuff...

1) We had two AWESOME lessons with Sandra and Alonso.  We haven't set a baptismal date with them yet because of their need to get married. Alonso was unable to come to church because of work.  Sandra and
Natalie (her 4 or 5 year old daughter) came to church!  A member family went and picked them up and they did so so well to make them feel comfortable.  We almost didn't even need to talk with them at church.  It went really smooth.  We are going to be doing everything possible to get that family involved in the teaching.

2) We were at a dollar store picking some stuff up and this lady says (in Spanish),

"Do you speak Spanish?"
"Yes we do."
"Are you Mormons?"
"Yes we are."
"Well why don't you come over some time.  I need this."

Umm...okay. Yes, I think we might be able to squeeze you into our schedule...maybe.  My goodness...it was so cool.  In my mind, I was thinking, "did LA just turn into Mexico?" Then we found out that she has only been here for 3 months and then it all made sense.  Haha. I've noticed that something happens to Latinos once they are in LA for a long time. Not sure what it is...  Anyway, slight downside to the story is that when we stopped by when she told us to, her kids told us she was in the shower.  We have tried a few times to catch her again without any luck.  We haven't even seen the kids again, but we confirmed that she does live there.  Hopefully we will be able to get that all worked out this week.

3) Remember Santiago? He called us on Monday saying he wanted us to come back.  We were super stoked.  We showed up and he was still struggling pretty bad with his addiction.  We set up a return appointment and had a great conversation and he was saying that he really wanted to stop.  Then he started canceling all our appointments again.  The ball is in his court at the moment, but we are going to keep sending him texts to encourage him.  It's such a sad situation to watch...

Love you all so much.  For any and all that have suggestions about finishing a mission strong in your last transfer, please let me know what I can do!  I don't know if you all remember, but I had the chance to be Elder Blanchard's and Elder Febbo's last companion. Both of them finished their missions so gracefully.  I'm really glad I got to see that example first hand to be able to try and emulate it.

Elder Christensen