So this past week has been a whirlwind of adventures. Don't even know where to start. So I'll begin with Monday :)
After a kind of bitter P-day from having to run errands for our zone to prepare for the new Armenian missionary, we saw a miracle. We first had a lesson with our good friend Josh in the stairwell of his apartment. We brought Anthony along with us (who is such a stud. but i'll talk about him more later) We were having a great lesson with him about the introduction to the Book of Mormon and then he got a call from his dad who is a deacon in his church and he started yelling at Josh for whatever reason. We could hear him from a few feet away if that puts it into perspective. Which we felt terrible for and it made Josh break down. He said we had to go and we had to leave without ending the lesson. On a brighter note, as we were walking back to the car Anthony decided to just go up to some guy on a bus stop and give him a Book of Mormon. Missionary? Yes? So then we headed off to Family home evening at the singles ward which was actually pretty awesome. Everyone brought some kind of 'Instrument' meaning pots, pans, toys, anything that could make a noice and they split up into groups and then performed their piece. I was thoroughly impressed as all the musical and not so musical talent performed with their not so great instruments. We even got to hear a B.I.G. song. Yeahhh buddy. But that wasn't the cool part of the night. As they finished and we were getting to know people better we were talking to this guy who was investigating and had come for the past few weeks. He came up to us and told us he wanted to be baptized into G7 that Sunday....huhhhhhh??!?!?!? We found out he had been meeting with some missionaries in Burbank but he wanted to come to our ward. So that was AWESOME. We were super excited and met with him almost every day this week.
Tuesday I got a out of the norm request to come translate some Armenian for one of the singles ward members. Turned out to be a letter from someone and that's all I'll say about that! We had some lunch with the senior couple in the family ward and then we went out on the town to search for more apartments for new missionaries... lets just say looking for apartments with only a road map, a very general area and being confined in a car for the majority of the day is not a very fun activity especially with two other guys... but we ended up finding one bomb apartment that we were ready to move into if it was for us... but no it wasn't. We got so caught up with searching we almost forgot our appointment with the Sinor family who haven't been coming lately because the boys haven't been wanting to come... lame!! So we read some scriptures with them and made it super exciting. Relating it to Spiderman and what 8 and 10 year old doesn't like spiderman? Later we had a lesson with Robbie, the guy we met at FHE who wanted to be baptized, at some park near his apartment in Burbank along with the missionaries who were teaching him at the time. Turned out to be the missionaries we ran into at the border of our mission not to long ago. Small world right? But anyways we got to hear more about Robbie. Turns out that he was Aetheist before the missionaries, a series of events including having a crush on a mormon singer and other bizzare answers to his prayers all lead up to him wanting to be baptized! The way he tells the story is much better. We are trying to have him type it us because that is what he does for work. he does closed caption for TV. Which is boss. Then after that lesson we had a game night activity with the G7 members/missionaries to get to know everyone better which was really fun! Got to play spoons. Love spoons!
Wednesday was crazy. I don't know why Wednesdays are always crazy. But we had a lesson with Anthony first thing about missionary work and committed him to turn in his papers by December 31 of this year :) he is so stoked to go. We gave him a Preach my Gospel and he loves sharing the gospel and is ready to change his life through a mission. Did I mention he passed the sacrament to me last Sunday? Very proud of that man. That afternoon Brother Prieto had us go to his office to pick up some maps that he had his secretary make for us to know where some of the new people who had just moved in were. Still very talking down to us but I'm over it. So we did that for the afternoon. No one was home but we did get to talk to one of the people's neighbor who was a model from NYC who was just housesitting for her friends. She said she loved studying about religion but she would be gone visiting her mother in San Francisco. But we'll get her when she comes back! After all that we headed to the office to make the office run of supplies and then to a lesson with Melissa. When we showed up we were a little taken back that it was already evening because we didn't feel too prepared for the lesson. And it showed because it wasn't that great of a lesson. But we made up for it later in the week. On our way back we got a text from a new potential less active to work with asking if we were still going to come over which we spaced. So we got to meet with Stuart, a guy from Arizona who stopped coming to church after his parents got divorced. But he feels like he is missing something and he recognized maybe it is the church and so he got in touch with us! He's a stud and even came to church yesterday with his friend. And then that night we went on a little split. I went with Elder Twelves and Elder Cook ( the new Armenian Elder who came in on Tuesday. From Provo, Utah. Pretty funny kid. Kicks butt at Armenian) and we went over to their investigator family and taught them a lesson. man it was so good to talk Armenian lessons again! I have really appreciated being able to learn how to teach in English though. I feel like I can better address the needs of the people now and how to go about teaching and such. But I just miss the Armenian people. The treats they bring out in lessons and their humor and their hospitality in general. I love the Armenian people.
Thursday we went up to a BOMB district meeting with Elder Montgomerey in La Crescenta. Man if only he weren't so stubborn and was more obedient of an Elder then he would be so successful. He gave a great lesson on what we really want people to understand when we teach them the plan of salvation. I wish I could have received that inspiration! We had a bit of a slow afternoon after having more companion study for Elder DeSpain and then towards the same time as usual, things picked up and got a little hectic. We ended up going on splits again to go to two lessons that somehow got pushed to the same time. Elder Winfield went with Conor Turley and I went with Elder DeSpain to teach Josh. Our lesson was awesome and we really got to answer some of his questions. Well I shouldn't say me because it was Elder DeSpain who kicked butt in the lesson. I have really appreciated having him as a trainee. He's very humble, hard working and a great Elder. I hope I was that way! then we had dinner with the Velasquez family who made us some delicious steak. NOM. It was kind of funny, after dinner we were going to go to G7 soccer but then Brother Prieto showed up at the church dressed to go to a meeting with us. Forgetting that it was Thursday, he expected us to be there to have coorelation and to actually go on splits with him and Juan Carlos. Elder Winfield and I went with Juan Carlos to visit some people that we had been to visit before. And the last person we visited was actually the Velasquez family who we had just eaten with. It was just funny because Broter Prieto wanted us to make sure to get to know the people thinking that we honestly didn't know anyone in the ward... silly him. We then met back up and he told us some things that made us just more frustrated with him that were along the lines of we don't love the members and we can do this all on our own and we don't need to pray to baptized every month...
Friday was very long. and very interesting. We had a kind of a bed bug scare. Still not sure we had them but we might have but we took every precaution to take care of it. including washing our clothes, putting them in black garbage bags and letting them sit in the sun to kill all the bugs. Oh and we also heated up our apartment.... to 140 degrees to kill everything else in the apartment. Don't worry none of us got cooked :) and no more bugs!! so hooray for that! Then we took a break and got some Island burgers to treat ourselves with Elders Twelves, Jewell and Cook. We then put our apartment back together and got to do weekly planning and then we actually had a bike day... which was hot and miserable but that is what builds character. So we show up to dinner sweating, then we have to bike another six miles to our next lesson, sweating. It was just a fun day! Robbie got his interview that day though and it was awesome to have him tell us he was already in 3 Nephi... for the second time since Easter. Crazy. Then we went on another exchange. Me with the Armenians to teach Ragned and invite her to be baptized next Saturday. her mother also gave me a purple tie because I said I liked my pink tie that I was wearing the other day when I saw them. So nice! And also because we had a bedbug scare we couldn't do exchanges that day.
Saturday we had an early Bomb lesson with Melissa. Teaching her the things that we were taught by Elder Montgomery and she said she was a little hesitant still about being baptized but at least she is progressing. We ended up helping a guy move the rest of the day and it was brutal and hot. But it was good to be able to do some service for once! That night we went to G2 picnic and had some delicious turkey sandwhiches and got to play some catch which I haven't done in FOREVER!! But later we got another call from the office that we needed to look for more apartments that night... so elder DeSpain with with the ap's and we went to look. Not super fun but we did find a shop that just grew Marijuana. Must be California!
Sunday was AWESOME! K got the ordained to the priesthood and it was so cool to have him pass the sacrament yesterday. We had Robbie's baptism and it went very, very smoothly. He got up and bore his testimony after telling us more of the stories that lead up to him being baptized which were all hilarious in the way he told them. Just a solid day. K is also going to Salt Lake on Thursday to go to the temple and do baptisms. Wish I could go with!
Well I have to wrap up. I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!
Elder DeBry
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