Week 49 (11/25-12/2)

 IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS!.. Okay not really but after this big week of Thanksgiving and many a decoration put up in my new apartment, it kind of has a Christmas feel to it! Even though it is still sunny and 75+ degrees... But anyways this past week sure felt like a whole new transfer! And to think we get our actual transfer calls this upcoming Saturday. I have no idea what will happen. Will I go back to Armenian work with President Morgan's announcement of a Branch in the coming year? will I stay here in South Pas? Will I go to spanish work?? Time will tell.. But it was a fabulous week and a wonderful and filling Thanksgiving so I'll tell you all about it! Before I forget, our new mission address is: 614 W. Foothill Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91006. So basically just send all mail and post to that address until further notice.

     So last P-day was.. interesting. Kind of confusing with the whole ET (emergency transfers) and knowing that at the end of the day I'd be with a new companion in a new part of our area. But at the start of the day we had to drop off Elder VanDuren at the office so he could help move the office to the Foothill building and such (I learned that if you take time away from President Becerra's P-day, he'll take yours away! Kinda funny.) After that we came here to email and that is when we found out that Elder Mabey would be taking the spot of Elder Mendoza in La Verne and I would now be with Elder Garner.. So the rest of the day was kind of a blur. Grocery shopped, had to go back to pick up Elder Van Duren from the office and then headed straight to our FHE with Hector and the Oka's! It was quite nice. Seriously every time I get to see Hector it astounds me with how just awesome he is. I think it blows all of our members away that he isn't even baptized yet. We had a nice lesson on what we are thankful for and added them to their 'Thanksgiving tree' which I thought was adorable. After that, Elders Haslam, Van Duren and I rode down to meet with Jacqueline. We couldn't find a member unfortunately but we had three so it's all good! We started teaching her the rest of the commandments and got her ready to have a practice  baptismal interview next time. It was funny. We taught the 10 commandments using little kid hand signals and she asked if she needed to memorize those to be baptized. Sometimes we forget how long we've been around stuff like that and that it is new to others! We ended the night by heading back to the pad to pack all of my stuff.. oh man do I have a lot of stuff. We called nate to come help transport it all and he was making fun of me about how much stuff I had.. I had to explain that Mom thinks I need a new outfit every now and again. Thanks Mom! :) But I was kind of sad leaving Elder Haslam. He had to leave and take Mabey and Van Duren to La Verne and pick up Mendoza so we parted ways there. It was a good 4 weeks with him. So the new pad we are at is behind a Jack in the box dumpster in the more lively and culture filled part of town.. I miss my little garden! 

     Tuesday was a new adventure. After what seemed to be a long morning (I now have to finish Elder Garner's training, thus adding another hour to our studies). So we didn't head up to the stake center until later than usual. But for some reason this week people have been SUPER receptive and excited to have me talk to their friends and coworkers about what we do as missionaries/answer questions they have/follow up with commitments that were extended over facebook! so I got a ton of referrals that i've been trying to keep up with all week. Not complaining at all because it was AWESOME. It took a little longer than usual so we headed back and then called up Brother Mouri to see if he had some free time to take us to get some grub. Brother Mouri is this hilarious older member who loves feeding the missionaries (wife isn't a member). He took Elder Garner and I out to this place called shakers where Brother Mouri started off the dinner by asking the waitress when the floor show was going to start.. confused she replied "I"m sorry Sir, floor show?" Brother Mouri then started to tell her that she needed to sing for us. She laughed and said that she wasn't a singer. "Oh. Well we do! And we are having a choir performance at our Church in the upcoming Sunday and would love to have you come to Church!" ... It made us laugh as she took our card and said she'd try and make it. Oh Brother Mouri... after dinner we went and stopped by the Arandas. Which was actually really frustrating. The next mourning we had a conference call with Salt Lake that we needed to be to early and decided we'd take the car to el sereno with us so we could save time. So we went to the other elders pad to find that elder Haslam had taken the key. as we were going over to meet them Elder Garner got a flat tire. We walked to the car to find that the pin that holds the bike rack onto the car was not to be found and probably left in La Verne when the others made the trip out there.. so we were a bit late to our lesson which was already having to be cut short because they were in a rush to get out the door. We show up to teach the three children who want to be baptized and the less active mother. Right after we said the opening prayer the mom and non member husband say they need to leave, forcing us to go teach the kids outside due to the three man rule. It was similar to trying to get kids to eat their vegetables. trying to set up a schedule of when we could come back for the next three weeks to help them be baptized and come to Church. Because I was 'so down to business' one of them said that I wasn't as fun as Elder Mabey and that they missed Elder Mabey.. well that is what happens when the previous Elders weren't completely on task with the family! But no matter.. the rest of the night we stopped by some people. I got to meet the other family that one of their children is investigating. The mother is less active and just had twins named Axel and Rose and all their boys have long long black hair that make them look like Slash. It is pretty awesome if I do say so myself! 

     Wednesday morning Elder Haslam and I drove through a rain storm to the mission office to have our conference call with Salt Lake. Which I was expecting to get info on getting iPads but definitely was just as awesome getting iPads! We had a call with President Donaldson who was a mission president while they were filming some missionary training DVD's. They are changing the way that we teach! Our lessons are now going to go from 45-60 minutes to 5-20 minutes. All lessons from now on will be less than 30 though. And it is so simple and based on the need and questions of those people who we are teaching! It is great! So we left the meeting just super stoked to try out this new teaching method and get to work. Elder Haslam and I stayed together and did internet proselyting for quite some time again. We met back up again with the other Elders and went and had dinner with the Colmenares who fed us things called bean boats that were really good. but we helped her make them by scooping out the center of hogies while she told us about her conversion, her falling away and it was actually really inspiring to hear her desire to raise her seven kids in the church and going through so much to give her family the best even if it meant sacrificing time with her kids. But anyways then we had Brother Campbell join us with his adorable daughter Kate. We used this new way of teaching from the pamphlets that we have always had but just asking different kind of questions and it worked really well with the little kids! Then he drove us to Sister Pumphrey's house.. who is a very interesting person to talk to! Bless her heart. She has some seizure issues and I think some past problems with addictions. But we got to talk to her and tell her that because she has now started coming back to church for a good while that we'd be passing her off to the ward. And she also gave us some referrals! 

     So because Elder Mabey was the district leader, and I took her spot, I took over the position of being district leader as well as staying zone leader.. double duty! But It was the first time that I have ever taught a district meeting. Kind of weird not having a wing man to help me teach but I thought it went over pretty well! It could have gone better but I have noticed that I need to do a better job of teaching application better. The doctrine comes out fine but I know that as missionaries we like good ways to apply the doctrine. Just good little ways to do it. So gotta work on that. OH! Totally forgot that Thursday was Thanksgiving too!! So Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope it was a good one! After the meeting, we went with the other Elders to their investigator Peyton because she had made us a pie! a home made pecan pie! And by that time we were starving so we actually devoured it by the time we got back to the church to get our bikes and head over to Brother Philips house to help with dinner! On our way we stopped by a member who we didn't know and we caught him getting ready to smoke his turkey. Also turns out that his parents are senior missionaries in Armenia! So that is a small world. But then we headed on down and it was a delicious dinner. Very very delicious. There was a delicious Turkey. One of the best I've had. massive amounts of sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, and all the good stuff! Not only that, but we had some of the best apple pie and coconut cream pie I've ever had! But after a few hours of chowing down, we had been previously invited to go to the Waltons for dinner as well... oh and all the while we had a contest of who could gain the most weight from dinners. My starting weight before the philips dinner was 160 flat. So then we headed up to the Waltons and seriously I was so unbelievably full.. it wasn't even funny. Then I was trying to force more roast beast, ham and jello. I couldnt' finish my plate. Then we spent some time with their family as I took the title of champion of the fusbal table. We had to go back to Philips to grab some more pie and do the final weigh in... how much did I gain you wonder??? 7 POUNDS. I weighed in at 166.9. So proud of myself. I outate the rest of them! Even though I weighed the least :) It was kind of miserable but oh so sweet. After dinners we stopped by some less actives to try and see if we could give them some left over pie but no one we tried was found to be home. It was an awesome day though. 

     Friday was busy to make up for the lack of lessons we weren't able to get the day before. Online I was again very successful by teaching a few people and gettting many more names of those who would be potentially open to asking some questions! It was awesome. so if y'all have people like that, send them my way! It was raining again that day so we had found a key from someone to just use the Clerk's office and attempted to do some weekly planning as well.. wasn't very long before Nate showed up to take Elder Garner and I to Costco to see if we could pick up a few things as well as contact people on the mad Black Friday which I hear really started right after thanksgiving dinner for some stores.. crazy.. but we did get to talk to some very nice people at Costco! It wasn't as crazy as I thought never having shopped on black friday. But I'm sure the madness goes on in the wee hours of the morning. But I did get a chicken bake so no worries! After that we went back and we decided to head down to make a visit to Shelly down in El Sereno. She was home but seemed really not herself. She told us it wasn't a good thing that we were there. That we shouldn't have been there. Then she came outside and closed the door behind her and she just started crying with her face in her hands. We weren't really sure what to do. She just started talking about how the guy Kamar who lived there was up to no good or something like that. Couldn't really make sense. But she told us to come back another time so we left. Confused. We again stopped by Sister Pumphrey again to get some more names to visit and contact on Facebook.

     Saturday we had some problems. After studies we had planned to finish weekly planning... but we got a call from the Assistants saying that there was a planned get together with the district down in Eastmont and potentially some people from other Zones.. so after we met up with the other Elders and had to drive down to a wingstop in East LA only to find that it was just the Elders from that ward out to lunch for one of the elders who hit his 18 month mark.. so we just explained that they weren't to have district lunches anymore. Then we headed back up to Pasadena to do some internet pros when we got a message from a spanish sister from down in that area saying that she had seen the elders down there at the library multiple days that week on the computers while she was doing facebook time.. so we had to try and figure out all of that. Just kind of a mess. People don't realize how some dumb decisions affect other missionaries. But the rest of the evening kind of was a dud. we had three lessons cancel on us and left us trying by people the rest of the night. Nate met up with us that night though to go out and make rounds of visiting our investigators to make sure that we would see them at church the next day! We ran into a brother of a less active and got to teach him a lesson as well. 

     Sunday was awesome. we had 9 investigators at church between both companionships! Robert Souget even came which was so awesome to see :) so we had all the colmeneres come, the arandas came (Billy had to borrow one of my shirts) and then Nora Lew came! It was awesome!! Then we had two lessons right after church, I taught the Arandas and Elder Garner taught Nora Lew. We had some time to finish weekly planning and then Nate came and picked us up to go teach his neighbor! He took the approach that he needed us to teach more lessons than we already were and that he needed to help us out. So we went over there and first off, this guy was super intelligent. Harvard grad. CEO of his own company. Very well rounded. So it was kind of different because he was kind of grilling us as to why we came out and getting us to really focus on that moment that we needed to share with people to get them to really FEEL what we had felt. Which was really good advice actually. But all the while he was making us dinner which was really good. But overall he said that we were more than welcome to come back with Nate anytime. So we got somewhere! After that we went to the Banks to have another dinner and have him help us teach us this upcoming week. After dinner we had him come out with us and contact people on the street! gotta start having more people feel the missionary spirit! After that he decided to go and invite his neighbor to our christmas party that we are having this upcoming Saturday! Should be good. AFter that we stopped by Shelly's again but she wasn't feeling well again so we taught Shannon a lesson really quick and talked to someone on the street who was actually really promising. We were talking to her about church and such and she said she didn't go but she did pray. So I asked her if she read the scriptures and she said if she was already a good person, why would she need to. Then I brought up that Christ read from the scriptures and that we need to go from good to better and better to best. She ened up saying "Oh... well maybe I should start reading my scriptures. would you be willing to help me?" SURE! AFter that we had a bit of a mix up. Brother Staten came and picked us up at our pad and we were going to stop by Carlos again but Nate sent us to the wrong Carlos.. but we ended up sharing a thought with the member carlos who has gone through a rough life but pretty inspiring in how he is still working towards going to the temple. Gotta love the temple :) 

Well that's all folks. Next week I'll be with a new companion. We'll see how it goes! I love you all very much. I hope you have a beautiful and safe week where ever you may be! 

Elder DeBry

Week 48 (11/18-11/25)

 Well. This has been one of the busiest weeks I've had thus far in the mission. One of the most satisfying as well. And to top it all off. We got put into a threesome mid week. And just barely, we got a call from the Assistants to let us know that Elder Mendoza is going home early for school, Elder Mabey will be going with Elder Mendoza's companion as a zone leader, and I will be staying Zone leader with Elder Haslam but we are going to be split up. I'll be moving down to El Sereno with Elder Garner and Elder Haslam will be with our third wheel, Elder Van Duren. Whom I will explain more about later on. CRAZY THINGS ARE HAPPENING TO ME! Ain't no doubt about it. But anyways, let me begin to explain the wonderful week that we have had! 

     Last Monday was actually really fun. We had another zone activity and it was almost the entire zone that showed up! After playing basketball for a while, I went out with Elder Finlinson to slackline outside the church building. Definitely got me hooked and since then, I've been hooked and trying to walk in straight lines since. We wrapped up and headed over to the Goodwin's house to have some dinner and a quick message to continue have our members be better missionaries. Not that they already aren't, but there is always room for improvement! The rest of the night was kind of a bust. We had planned to go find some people down in El Sereno. We crossed over to south of Huntington drive (the more ghetto part of El Sereno) to try by a former investigator. In that neighborhood about every yard had a dog fenced up that looked very, very fierce and not very puppy-ish. I guess a good tell-tale sign of a rough neighborhood! But after not finding who we were looking for, we started walking back to Huntington and we passed a guy who was pretty rough looking. And I honestly was a little afraid to talk to him but I knew that he needed the gospel too. So I asked him if I could give him a card and started talking to him. He turned out to be really friendly and told us to go sit on his porch while he finished up pulling these shopping carts full of scrap carpet onto his lawn... we were invited in and got to meet his wife Shannon and his friend Shelly who we got to talk to on the porch and she actually broke down in front of us as we were testifying of families. It was getting late so we didn't get to teach very long but we set up another time to stop by again and teach them more. Shelly who expressed interest in coming to Church wasn't feeling well so didn't stick around for our teaching moment. 

     Tuesday after studies we had the two girls that we met Sunday night stand us up and give us a false address.. lame. So we headed back up to Pasadena to do more internet proselyting! It was super good that day. I received two referrals and contacted one and taught one that day! It was a brother of a member from the singles ward who had grown up in the church but always doubted and had a lot of questions to it was very good I got to talk to him! Later that afternoon we had Robert Soquet give us a call and cancel both appointments that we had set up with him for that week.. so as we were in that area and tried by Elizabeth and some other formers, we ran into our favorite drunk, Paul and Rita! Outside Rita's apartment again. We started talking with them and Paul was going off again, beer to the side and just saying that what he really needed was to just go to rehab. I guess he had come into some money after some workers comp cases and some money he got from getting sick in prison for whatever he did.. so we dropped him and said we'd see him around. funny enough, we saw him the other day and he pretty much ignored us... oh some people! We had another appointment cancel, Robert's neighbor, Anabell who we were excited to teach because her father was a pastor of another church. But we had Brother Caffall come get us and take us to his house for a.. interesting and first time dinner of spaghetti squash noodles. Not saying I didn't like it! But it was just.. interesting!! But after we enjoyed the meal and brother caffall told us about his hunting stories and having a certain part of the deer made into a gear shifter! Even better was the Caffalls inviting their neighbor over, Mrs. Lake, who was this older black lady from Arkansas and had been a grade school teacher for a very long time and worked with a lot of LDS families! She was awesome and we invited her to help us teach our ward missionaries how to teach the missionary lessons. So we just need to teach he first and then she can teach them! Brilliant in my opinion! After that Brother Caffall assisted us in teaching Jacqueline who is just progressing splendidly! She is reading, praying for us and coming to church! And she has some great insight and comments during our lessons. She had some questions about tithing even so we got to address those and teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Following that lesson we went over to Richard's house. the guy who belongs to the Church of Christ with the message of Elijah.. and the record of the Nephites.. it was a very interesting conversation. He was probably one of the more stubborn/not willing to listen english speakers I've taught and I was getting very frustrated. Especially as he was saying we had no doctrine behind baptisms for the dead and then proceeded to show him the scriptures from the Bible.. so we invited them to meet again but they weren't having it. So out we went without even a slice of pizza that they offered! take that! That night we met up with the El Sereno Elders and went on exchanges. Elder Mabey came into our area with me and Elder Haslam with Elder Garner. Found out that I really don't know the area that well still! so I was humbled very quickly. 

     Wednesday after some studies we headed into the office where we realized we had to wash the car for zone conference the following day.. so along with getting supplies we took the time and washed, vacuumed and even waxed the car in the gloomy afternoon, hoping it wouldn't rain. But alas.. later that night it did and I was very disappointed! Oh well.. because we didn't plan to wash the car we were behind schedule. Ontop of that, we received a call from Kristy Lewandowski telling us about some family problems that were going on and she requested that we come with the bishop to give her daughter a blessing later that evening. We weren't sure when we would acutally give the blessing so we had to stick around south pas to make sure we could when the time came. So we went to the library to do 30 min of proselyting which was really stressful because of the count down that shows up on the screen. After I finished (Elder Mabey just had to sit and watch). We talked to some people who were willing to listen as we were around the library then we got another call from Brother Lambourne (cousin of my math teach from skyline, small world eh?) saying that he had talked to his friend that he was going to school with and he had agreed to listen to the lessons! so we had to go run up and visit Thomas Albano to visit before we got picked up by Bro lambourne to teach his friend Jason Beck who was going to dental school with him. Jason was super cool and open to listening. Seemed pretty active in his southern baptist church and definitely fit the part with his southern Georgian draw. But Elder Mabey and I taught him the first discussion about the apostasy and the need for a restoration. Brother Lambourne had told us that Jason agreed to meet with us because we were 'newer' in the field and needed the practice of teaching and told us that we probably shouldn't invite him to be baptized.. but after Elder Mabey recited the first vision and the spirit was there, I couldn't NOT invite him and he actually said yes if he came to know that it was true. It was awesome and I think better than Brother Lambourne had expected it to go. Then he drove us over to Sister Whittmore's house to meet with her and Kristy, Alex and even Hector who has made a friendship with the family. It was awesome to have Hector be able to expound on the doctrine that we were teaching concerning the plan of salvation and Kristy seeming to learn more from him than she did from us. AFter that, it was getting pretty late so we rode to meet with the other elders to exchange back as it began to pour. Love being a missionary in the rain! 

     Thursday was ZONE CONFERENCE!!! OHHHHH man it was amazing. It was held at the Central building back in Glendale and I was never so excited to actually drive back to Glendale and see all the Armenians walking the street again. We got there early (after stopping by CVS for me to buy a new notepad and talking Armenian to the cashier :) ) and started setting up. Having to struggle finding enough tables for everyone to fit. Everyone straggled in as it was pouring rain outside and things didn't get started until 30 min after it was supposed to start. But it was awesome. Seriously the best zone conference that I've been to. Sister Becerra set the tone of the meeting by talking about high expectations. Followed by President Morgan of the la crescenta stake addressing us about how he was going to call a NON MEMBER TO BE THE BRANCH PRESIDENT OF THE ARMENIAN GROUP!! MEANING THAT IT WAS GOING TO TURN INTO A BRANCH!!!!!!!!!!! All of us Armenian Elders were in sheer awe as he said that! So stoked. Don't even know how to contain it all! Anyways it was awesome. Then we did some real plays and actually went out and found people on the street to talk to. I went out with Elder Cook and got to contact ALL THE ARMENIANS. It was rough. Really rough. but I managed a few phone numbers/addresses. so I still got it! The rest of the meeting was more roleplays with the Assistants and then President addressed us and followed up with all the things that Elder Ballard gave us to do such as talking to 10 people, asking everyone for referrals, ending convos on purpose. As always, he knows how to get us all pumped up!! After the meeting/cleaning up/handing out supplies, we stopped by Abril book store to pick up myself an Armenian dictionary that I've wanted forever but could never get myself to spend the money on. But I finally did and it is AWESOME! Funny story though, we ran into Nate Philips' coworker who is Armenian and was taking her kids to Armenian class at the store! But then we had to speed to dinner with the Astle family and then dip early to go have a lesson with the Jensen's before they took Hector to the Farmers market. they were late getting back though so we just had to teach a quick message and then go to our next lesson with PEYTON! Totally forgot to tell you about her. so she called us last p-day and told us that she wanted to meet with us and learn more because she had gotten a blessing from some Elders in the hospital and she was super excited and basically said she wanted to join our church... so we had an AWESOME lesson with her that night with Nate at the church. We got to get to know her a little bit more and she told us of some of the things that have gone on in her life that have caused her to look for more of God's guidance including past relationships and such. We taught her about the Restored Gospel and got to invite her to be baptized. She said she wanted to come to church but that she would pray about it. She is awesome. Almost as enthusiastic as Hector. And then our final lesson was with Mark Newport who is the husband of a member in the ward who has been meeting with missionaries for the past year and a half. But I felt like we needed to change it up with him and tell him to set a date for himself to work towards, but then to follow moroni 10:4-5 and pray to know if these things are NOT true. He said he had never done it that way and that he would! So that was awesome. i was skeptical at first because he had been coming to church every week but not making much progress but I liked teaching him. Maybe it was because he has a European accent. 

     Friday we again forgot to plan time to weekly plan... so we had an early lesson with Sister Walton and her blind friend, Lisa which was pretty rough. We taught a great lesson but because we couldn't find a third male to come with us, we had to have the lesson outside and it just so happened that the lawn was being mowed and the grounds upkept.. so that was very distracting and hard to feel the spirit. But she didn't quite understand the message of the apostasy because she still felt like all different churches were true.. after the lesson we stopped by McDonalds for the first time in a LONG time for me and we had some mcbreakfast. Which was very delicious. But then we went back and had our studies and then internet sturff. We finally got to do some very brief weekly planning session before we went and gave a blessing to Kristy Lewandowski to help her get over her cold with Brother Staten. Then Brother Luker came and picked us up and drove us out to have a lesson with Hector at his house where we discussed all the things that he was reading in the scriptures and got to talk about all the ways we have applied the things we've learned from our studies. Then back to El Sereno to teach Jacqueline about the Word of Wisdom! We weren't planning on teaching her that but she had brought up the question of caffine and so we got to teach her that. She brought up the fact that she had a bit of a smoking problem but that she wasn't worried about overcoming it. But it sounds like things have been going well so far so that is good! And finally last lesson (yes we taught a lot a lot of lessons this week) we stopped by Kumar/shannon/shelly's again to teach them about the plan of salvation because shelly brought up her concerns of why bad things happened to her when she wasn't doing anything wrong.. at the end of the lesson we got to invite them to be baptized. Kamar said he was happy with being muslim but would still learn from us but shannon and shelly both accepted and just asked 'well how can we be baptized?? Is it okay that we have already been baptized??" then we left them with an invitation to come to church as well. BUSY BUSY BUSY!! 

     Saturday was a curve ball. We got a call mid personally study telling us that we would be getting a third companion, Elder Van Duren from Colorado who was coming from Claremont on the eastern most part of the mission. All we learned was that we'd have to pick him up that morning and that we had to keep an eye on him. So we tidied up the pad a little bit, finished studies, wondering what we'd do with a third companion and then got another call from President to tell us to come pick him up from the office. So we went and had to wait around for him and his companion to be interviewed/talk to President before we had to go run an errand for President by emptying the van. I guess he and Elder Plewe had been up all night becasue there was another bicycle accident where a sister missionary got hit in the crosswalk and the driver didn't stop. But she is doing okay and will be able to stay out here and work. So us three did as we were told and then headed back to the pad to finish our weekly planning which we had to rush on. We also had to try and figure out how we'd fit three elders into the little cozy pad that we already have. But it all worked out.. sort of. guess it will work better now that I'm moving out again.. don't like moving! Anyways, we were invited a few nights before by some random younger woman to come over for an early thanksgiving dinner just up the road from where we were. She said she had family that who were members of the church and that we could stop by. So we did but found out that dinner wasn't quite ready yet. So we got to meet them and find out that the grandmother was a recent convert but had fallen away from the church some odd years ago and wasn't interested in going back.. but they also showed us that some people deep fry turkey's??? never seen that done so they showed us out back. Before we knew it we had to go with no early dinner for us but an invitation to come back and have another dinner with them. So off we went to find something else to eat and then have our member Brother Beaumont come and pick us up to go out and visit some people for the night. We stopped by Robert again but he wasn't home, neither was his neighbor Annabel. so we got to street contact and the other two were off doing their thing I was with Brother Beaumont who was a pretty cool guy. We did get to have a lesson though with Peyton and it really showed how golden Peyton is. She showed up having taken notes and the things that she had read, other questions she had from reading and from other things that she had heard or had been asked to her. One of her questions being 'how can I repent of my sins'.. she was so awesome. Seriously love being able to find people who are just WANTING to hear the gospel. Makes things so much more enjoyable! 

     Sunday was a miracle. We had four investigators at church. Jacqueline. Hector. Peyton and Mark. Shelly didn't come because she wasn't feeling well but oh well.. FOUR INVESTIGATORS!! Ah! And it was just awesome. Our sunday school class was half investigators. So awesome. After church we went over and had a lesson with the lewandowski's, hector and alex's boyfriend, Jesse, who came to church the other week. We stopped by the convalescent home and visited Thomas and Cornell again who had some people he wants us to start teaching in the home. Then we rushed to the Waltons for a dinner that was quite nice and fun. Home made cinnamon rolls at the end and a minute to win it lesson to get them wanting to share the gospel. After dinner we stopped by Sister Watsons to visit her and have some rootbeer floats and hear how she was doing and to make sure she got the sacrament. then we stopped by the lopez's to set up a time this upcoming week to teach them. Just an awesome day/week. 

So overall we have four progressing investigators. we taught 20 lessons this week. 8 new investigators. Our area is booming. It is incredible. and now i'm off to this new adventure with Elder Garner.. oh and it is thanksgiving this week! So happy thanksgiving everyone! I love you all very, very much. I am very thankful for this Gospel and for all the support from you. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season :) 

Elder DeBry

Week 48 (11/11-11/18)

This week has been full of miracles! Not that all weeks aren't out here in the wonderful California Arcadia mission, specifically here in South pasadena, but this week has been one of much hard work, sacrifice and we have been able to see the promised blessings as such! This includes: seeing our baptismal goal of 5 before the end of the year as very possible, having 18 appointments already set up for next week, and picking up a new family to teach last night as we were headed home! So without further a do, let's get down to business!

     Last P-day was quite fun for once. After emailing and some chipotle burritos, a bunch of us from the zone headed down to the south pasadena ward building to play some basketball and have a pie eating contest. Surprisingly I lost. Only becasue I couldn't make it past the first few bites of the pumpkin pie.. not a fan. at all. blehhh! But it was good to be able to wind down and get to know some of the zone a little better. We even  had some of the sisters join us. We finished up and we had our 6 oclock cancel on us so we decided to go contact people in the grocery store while we bought some milk. Then we headed off to the Steven's household for a family home evening with Hector! It was awesome. Hector is seriously the man. He brought families for the wife to show his appreciation for their invitation into their home.. what a chivalrous man! But we enjoyed dinner and then shared an object lesson about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Then the kids wanted to play Spiderman Operation. We were picked up by Nate to go meet up with Elder Oldroyd and go over our weekly planning (which thankfully we got around to finishing the night before!) So we went over what we had going on for the week and how they could help us out. Unfortunately Elder Oldroyd was going out of town and wouldn't be available to go out with us but we had some good ideas with following up with the lost sheep activity we had. Things are happening here in South Pas! 

     Tuesday was exciting! After studies and finishing up our internet proselyting (which is stumping us as to how we can really use it efficiently.. any ideas or referrals would be excellent and needed!) we had a conference call with President and the other zone leaders to discuss how our zone training meetings went and how the rest of the zone seemed to have accepted the message and vision of everyone baptizing in the month of December! There were some zones who had companionships bring up their doubts but for the most part, people seemed to have caught the vision and seem to be enthusiastic and our weekly numbers seem to reflect how everyone had accepted our teaching. Like I said, things are happening! We also talked about the upcoming zone conferences that will happen this week and what we needed to do to prepare such as fast and come prepared having studied certain topics and with our investigators in mind. I'm super excited for it. Hearing from President is always a highlight and I look forward to it. It's like listening to an Apostle! Seriously though. But after the call, Elders Hall and Velasquez met up with us here at the stake center to start our exchanges. I went with Elder Hall to work in his area. But it started off slow because we had forgotten to report numbers the day before and had left our sheet at our pad. And while Elders Velasquez and Haslam had to go to the office for an interview, we went back to South pas to get the sheet. That is when Elder Hall requested help on how to have an effective weekly planning session. So we did just that! Surprisingly I had a thought to do that with him anyways. So we spent the next few hours discussing how to have a good weekly planning session! Following that we went and had a late lunch/early dinner and then headed back up to Pasadena to get to work! They didn't have much planned but we got to contact quite a few people along the way between plans. Elder Hall I learned lost his dad a few months ago (right before he came out) and that before his mission he was preparing to go to medical school at 19 (finishing high school at 15). He is a great Elder and made it look easy to speak with people on the bus. As we went around we talked with this one guy at a bus stop who said whenever he ran into Elders he had to make fun of them for the fun of it but was actually really sincere about learning more at some point in his life. Later after trying by a referral they had received, we rode past this lady who was pushing a stroller and I felt prompted I couldn't let her go unspoken to. So I turned around and started up a conversation. Turns out she had two children, one on the way, was moving back and forth between her parents house and another relative, and was looking for a church to raise her children in. We got her number and headed on her way but for some reason this week I have just been going off promptings to speak with people and it has been a major testimony builder. We had to head back to the church for a recent convert class that they attend and then headed home up a mountain. Seriously, they live with a member who lives up the canyon and we had to bike up (mostly walk). It was brutal! 

     Wednesday morning after only getting to personal study we had to go to the Foothill building because the District Leaders had their quarterly meeting with President. So we all had to meet up there again and I got to talk to Elder Twleves while I waited for Elder Haslam to show up and he told me about the new Armenian Elder that had arrived the day before. Still haven't met him or talked with him. But he sounds... like I need to meet him! But after all that jazz we made an office run for supplies and then did some more internet sturff. Following we had a great lunch/lesson with Brother Hector Pasillas who is the man. When we showed up he had made some sandwiches for us! So we got to hear a little bit more about him and his family and even some more details of who he was before he was incarcerated. Probably a little more detail than I would have asked for but it is seriously so incredible to hear all the stories and then to see who he is today. The Atonement is real, Brothers and Sisters. We spoke more about the cleansing power of the Atonement which was great because it led into our lesson with him that we had on Friday. As we were on our way to our dinner appointment, we were taking busses and riding and I just felt the need to talk with everyone I could! I don't know what it was! The first person I sat next to on the bus, got her information. Next lady I jumped over to sit next to, had a good convo and gave her our info. Got off and biked and talked to this guy who refused to take a copy of the Book of Mormon. No dirt off my shoulder. Continued on as Elder Haslam and I were riding up Fairoaks on different sides of the street and contacting everyone. It was bomb. BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST! When else can you just strike up random conversations and relate them to the gospel as directed by the spirit? So it was great. You all should try it sometime this week! Just strike up a random conversation with someone and relate it to the gospel. Challenge accepted. Anyways, we had a lovely dinner with the Astle family and Sister Scanlon and talked about all the times we've seen the adversary at work with our precious investigators. Again, continued to invite them to fast with us this past Sunday. Then we were on our way to have another member lesson with the Israelsen family. Shared a good lesson with them and then was on our way just like that! We started walking around again while we waited for Nate to come pick us up for visits. And guess what?!? We walked past this dry cleaner and I see that one of the workers is Armenian! So we went inside and I got to talk to her. Totally made my day. She said she'd even give me a discount because I spoke it :) Then we went out with Nate to visit some people and I can't remember who we visited so...

     Thursday after dropping off supplies to Pasadena and south pas, we went down to the Eastmont district for district meeting which was interesting. All the Elders down there are pretty close with eachother and things tend not to be as serious as they should be... but it was good. We had some good roleplays going on about contacting because the district as a whole seems to be struggling with finding. As we were about to leave the district leaders asked if we could give them a ride to the office to pick up a phone that was left there after the district leaders meeting. So sure enough we played taxi for them very lovingly and then headed up to do more internet sturff. Which wasn't very pleasant because one of the ladies who work here in the family history center was very angry with us for multiple reasons.. all of which seemed pretty petty and not even on us. But oh well. Later that afternoon we had a lesson with our new investigator Jacqueline who Elder Haslam and Velasquez picked up while on exchanges. She lives in a care facility kind of place (part loony house/transitional home for those who just got out of the big house) and her story is pretty interesting. Long story short she grew up around the church but her father wouldn't allow her to be baptized. Her father was a member of the KKK and she was shot in the head when she was young by some black members of the freedom fighters. But her father just recently passed and now she wants to get baptized on 15 December! So that is awesome. We had a lesson with Sister Richards afterwards which was awesome! She had been reading and had some great questions about Mosiah and actually came to Church on Sunday! Woohoo! Since we had Brother Caffall with us we had him come with us to our next lesson with the Lewandowski's which was seriously about 5 minutes becasue Brother Caffall had to go home to babysit.. but following that we had to run to the Brady's and follow up with them fasting with us this past sunday as well. Their kids are still adorable. Liv and Roran. Then we were off to the Figueroa's for dinner which was a birthday party for their oldest daughter Larissa.

     Friday was a little all over the place. During studies we got a call from some Eastmont elders asking if they could use our car to run an errand for the office and so we decided to just do it for them and save an unnecessary trip. So we went and picked up their mini fridge and dropped it off at the office. So much fun.. then by the time we got back to our pad we didn't have the full time of weekly planning so we had to make do. On our way to our dinner and a lesson with the Hilton's and Hector I was shut down hard core all the way as I was trying to talk with people. I had this one lady roll down her window to ask if she wanted a card for mormon.org. She declined and I asked if she had ever spoken with missionaries and if she knew of anyone who would want to meet with us. She again declined in a rather rude tone and then said I don't speak english. So I referred to the only spanish I know and asked her where she was from and how long she had lived here. her reply was again in english "20 years" as she rolled up the window. Some peoples children..But my mood was cheered up with an awesome dinner and an even better lesson with Hector. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ which really hit home with him. As we taught repentance we referred to Alma 36 I do believe and it really stuck with him that God forgives us and our joy can be sweeter than our pain. He is so golden. So much that the Hilton's commented on our lesson the following day at missionary correlation. After the lesson Nate again picked us up to go try by this guy that he had met on the street the last time we went out with him and found out that he was a dud.. we waited around for him and he finally showed up only to tell us that he wasn't interested in learning but didn't understand why he was meeting with us.. so we had nate drop us off again at Elizabeth's house and we stepped inside to teach them a lesson and got talking about the Plan of Salvation. We committed them to come to church but they never came.. and they couldn't give us a ride home because the brother and oldest son weren't in the right state of mind to give us a ride.. 

     Saturday morning we went to this pancake breakfast our ward was ahving a pancake breakfast for the scouts and we went with Hector who ended up cooking the breakfast for most of the time. Went back home. Studied. Met with brother Astle to update the stake on the zone. Did internet sturff. Elder Haslam bought me a big shake from the corner pharmacy. Finished weekly planning. Stopped by a bunch of people and set up lessons for this upcoming week. Had a lesson with Jacqueline and Brother Israelsen and invited her to Church after teaching her the plan of salvation. Nothing super exciting! 

     Sunday was awesome. We got to tell the correlation that we had 18 appointments set up for this week and we needed members at most of them. Then we met with Nate to talk about how we are going to achieve our goal of 5 before the end of the year. Jacqueline came to church with the Hiltons. Hector showed up in another new suit. Our bishop had one of their friends come to church with their kids and are setting up a time for us to have dinner with them and teach them. So awesome. Had to give Sister Watson the sacrament. she is regaining sight in her eye. Stopped by the Lewandowski's again and answered Kristy's questions about the Plan of Salvation lesson we had in Church. Went and taught Thomas Albano who said he was going to die very soon and we shared some scripture to combat his negative thoughts of him being hopeless. Went and broke our fast with at the Figeroa's bbq they had for Larissa and had their family there. Found Paul and Rita out talking again and invited him to come on a Church tour but he bailed again.. says all he needs is rehab. We were stuck and needed to find three new investigators so we said a prayer and when we finished walked up to this mother and daughter who were walking and asked if we could meet with them and they said yes. So we taught them on the street right there and set up a time for next sunday to stop by and meet the three daughters. So prayer works! Then met up with Nate to tell him all about it over some hot coco and then did the tour de france to get home on time. 

So this week was awesome. I'm super excited to see what this next week has in store for us! We have zone conference this Thursday and I'm super pumped. We're seeing miracles! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week where ever that may be! 

Elder DeBry

Week 47 (11/4-11/11)

My Nearest and Dearest!

     Well happy 11/11.. will be 11:11 at some point while writing! anyways! this week has been another busy busy one! Looking back I'm not sure how the time went by so fast.. But it was a good week! Full of changes and progress! 

     Monday evening after a pretty slow P-day, we had dinner with the Brady family whose children are ADORABLE. I don't know what it is but missionaries+toddlers (2-5)= a mad house. It was great! throughout the week we have been meeting with members and having them fast with us this upcoming Sunday to hasten the work and for all the families to have the opportunity to share the gospel as well. After dinner we were riding our bikes to go visit a former and none other but Cody Caffall drives past and tells us he has some time before he had to go home so he'd come out on a lesson with us. So we went and taught Lauren Parma who was super open to listening and learning more about the church! I guess the previous missionaries had dropped her because she teaches teachers to prep students for the SAT and has to travel a lot. So we went in and had a really good lesson. Invited her to be baptized and she said if she found out why she needed to be baptized that she would! So it was a good night! Also, it was totally Elder Bangerter's birthday and we were so busy that I forgot to wish him a happy birthday.. felt bad. 

     Tuesday we had MISSION LEADERSHIP COUNSEL!!! It was BOMB. Not that it isn't always but this time especially. Our mission president is seriously the most inspired man I'll probably ever know. He just really knows how to rally the troops! So what he basically taught us about was what he heard from Elder Ballard and some other members of the Seventy at the mission president seminar that he had been at the week previous. The basis was baptizing monthly. We listed all the concerns we have as leadership. After that President taught us that all these concerns such as obedience and lack of planning and desire/motivation would be changed if we baptized monthly. Totally true. So that was just awesome. Then the big one was the reveal of internet proselyting!! I'm sure most of you have seen me now on FaceBook and wondering why and hopefully none of you thought to tattle on me! But yes, we can now get online and talk to people and teach them about the Gospel online. We can even pick up new investigators and receive referrals from people to contact and teach! It has been really weird.. I'll get to that later though. So yeah!! Also, had to say goodbye to Elder Mendoza who leaves on the 26 to go back to school early in Spain.. going to miss that kid. I've learned a lot from him and hope I'll get to visit him in espain! After our meeting we had to go to the office which took forever because the doors were locked and we had to wait for Elders Bangerter and Lloyd. By the time we got back it was time for our 'Lost Sheep' activity. In which we went out in companionships with members and visited people that were on our ward list that we didn't know! And it was a great success! Elder Haslam and I went out with one of the mission presidency in our ward, Elder Oldroyd who is awesome! He's the man. We stopped by a few, made some return appointments, he hopped a fence and was scared half to death by this massive next door neighbor dog that he thought was in the yard. Pretty funny. Gotta love these dogs in the ghetto parts of town! 

     Wednesday was the first day of internet proselyting! What a weird experience.. after studies we had the long travel up to the pasadena stake center to use the family history center. It was overwhelming being back on Facebook. Having to go through all my pictures and make sure that to everyone in my ward and investigators and such who go through them will still see me as a representative of Christ. So that was a long process! Still not sure how to really do online missionary work so if all y'all have people you want me to talk to online and answer questions please let me know! We can also use our emails and such so I'll be checking it every day! After that was over we had a lesson with a less active man named Robert Scharfe who only gets to see his children on Sundays and that is why he can't come to church. I guess he was electrocuted while on the job and is going through some legal stuff to get workers comp. I guess he died twice while on the way to the hospital. Crazy! I got to relate to him pretty well and taught him the importance of having spiritual priorities. When we finished we went on a scavenger hunt to find Paul.. who was thankfully hanging out around Rita's place (his wife/ex wife), still drinking a beer. He seems to be using us as a way to show Rita that he is trying to change and stop drinking. So he asked us to pray for him again and we started teaching Rita about what made our church different. She had excellent questions about why we had the book of mormon, Joseph Smith, and finally how we baptize people. We set up to have a tour with them thursday but they never showed.. but we took the remaining beers that he had at the time and got to dump them out. We missionaries do it all! Saving souls, one beer at a time haha. We ran into this other character though who was hilarious. His name was Chistopher but his friends called him 'Carlo'. His house had just burnt down I guess and now he was homeless and was "like Adam and Eve, eating fruit off the tree naked." The characters we meet in El Sereno! The rest of the night was jam packed though. We had dinner with the Erickson Family who was super cool and their daughter reminded me of Lindsey Reemsnyder. Anyways. Then we had to rush over and share another/same message with the Isrealson family about fasting with us next Sunday. Thankfully they were able to drive us down to the Figeroa's for our weekly reading the Book of Mormon with them. Unfortunately their less active daughter was there.. busy! 

     Thursday was ZONE TRAINING! And it was actually really, really good. Well, at least I thought so. We were graced with having the Assistants presence. Gotta love Elders Bangerter and Lloyd. But I felt like the zone was pumped up and had the vision for all of the mission to baptize in December! it's not just a goal anymore, it is going to happen. so yep! AFter the meeting we waited around for Paul and Rita to show but... to no avail. We headed back up to do more facebook and it was actually pretty productive! Kind of am trying to figure it out. I like being able to talk to friends about the gospel. We headed back down and tried to meet up with this lady Elizabeth who has just moved a few months ago from up north and her and her daughters are members but her oldest son isn't! even though he introduced them to the church.. she was busy running errand so we weren't able to have a sit down lesson but we got to introduce Sister Erickson to the girls. The rest of the night we went out on visits with Nate and talked to quite a few people! Nate was on fire, talking to everyone that we didn't and people able to take the casual member approach to it all. It'll be awesome being a member missionary. We stopped by the same lady that we did with Elder Oldroyd and jumped the fence again but she again didn't answer the door even though we saw her through the window. As we were leaving she came outside to ask up "why we jumped the fence." Not thinking we'd get into trouble just for sharing the good word! Nate saved the days though and was able to make a connection with her and she said we could stop by if we ever needed anything. But the HIGHLIGHT probably of the week was the following lessons. After talking to all the interesting characters down in lincoln heights, we drove out to Alhambra to have our lesson with Hector Pasillas. Who had just gotten out of 11 years in Folsom Prison. He had found a Book of Mormon two years before he got out and paid $15 for it even though it had pages ripped out. His social worker I guess was a member but couldn't reveal it to him but she was able to help guide him through this spiritual refining and process and he is now a golden investigator. Never would have thought he had served time. But he is on parole for a while so he can't get baptized until he is off but we set him with a date for as soon as he is off parole in a few years :) Seriously, he is awesome. He is so fun to teach!

     Friday we had another lesson with Brother Pasillas as we call him. So we biked down to Alhambra and had a lesson just us three and went over the Restoration and showed him a mormon message that had the closing scene of a quote that said "truth has been restored." and he said "Truth HAS been restored and it's beautiful!" If that gives you any more of an idea of how awesome he is. After the long bike back up to the area we did more internet sturff and it was typical. Nothing too exciting.However, the rest of the afternoon was supposedly packed with stuff to do but most of it fell through and weren't home.. like Robert who we haven't heard from in a while. We had dinner with the Larsens and the kids were rambunctious again but adorable as always. had to eat and run to a lesson with Sister Richards and brought brother Ray with us who is a USC dental student and was willing to help her out with some cheaper dental care. But unfortunately we had our last lesson bail again which was all the way down in the corner of our area. One of the more ghetto parts. Elder Haslam got to skate with some of these kids and showed them what was up. it was great! 

     Saturday... not even sure what happened with our wonderful plans! WE had two lessons set up for the morning but they both weren't there. So we went with Brother Cafall to teach some of his lost sheep families and ran into this part member husband who said we could come back to get practice teaching but he wasn't too interested in converting.. but we ran into this other guy who was from the Church of Christ and he said that they use the 'Record of the Nephites' which is basically the Book of Mormon and whatnot... never had seen that before! So I think we are going back this next week! We had another meeting with Brother Astle, the high council rep for our ward to get an update of the zone, even though we met with the stake president the following day. We headed home after more internet proselyting (which I felt accomplished because I got a referral!) and we finished weekly planning which had to be condensed because we had dinner with Sister Harmon who took us to Carrows. Saw some interesting people there as well! The rest of the night however was spent back up at the stake center finishing the stake report on baptisms which took forever because certain companionships weren't answering...

     Sunday was awesome. We had a great missionary coordination. Which led to my first ward council in south pas which was much more productive than any other ward i've had! And then to top it off, we had Hector show up to church in a new suit he had bought and he was a stud! He was asking questions, making tons of acquaintances and having people set up lessons with him. It was so great! He loved it and would have stayed all day if he could. AFter church we had our meeting with the stake president and had Elders Brown and Turek come to represent the chinese portion of the zone. Followed by Sister watsons visit and following up on how her surgery went! We had dinner with the Banks family who were hilarious and a great family. he is a pediatrist and served in Albania. Then we went home and finished weekly planning. Good day! 

Well my time is up for the week. I love you all and hope all is going well! 

Elder DeBry

Week 46 (10/28-11/4)

 Well! Hello again! It is a whole new world of missionary work here in South Pasadena! Lemme tell ya!! I also don't think a week has ever flown by this fast in my entire life!!...but seriously it was an awesome week. Full of adventure, a lot of hard work, rough areas and adrenaline while sharing the gospel! What more can I say! 

     So last monday went by way too fast. I moved into my new little pad (and I mean little) that is the bottom half of the back house of the Muhlstein family. Unpacked a bit and got to meet Elder Haslam a bit who is a great guy and an excellent missionary. He's quite the character. But anywhosers. After we emailed y'all we got to play basketball (which is not my forte in life) and then headed back to the pad. I was then told that we never had to go grocery shopping for any major items of food because the ward we serve in take care of us whenever we need something!! I was dumbfounded to hear that! Not that i'm complaining but seriously! Elder Haslam says that he hasn't had to buy groceries since he got here... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Sounds like a pretty awesome ward to me! But anyways, after having to take the train home we didn't have much time to do much else so sorry for the lack of letters this week. We headed over to the Statton home to have a family home evening with some recent converts of Elder Haslam. Brother Statton works at JPL tracking weather with math and they have four very rambunctious children. The recent converts that came over what Kristie Lewandowski and her daughter Alex. As well as Kristie's mother Reynolds Whittemore who has just recently come back from inactivity. It was a bit awkward especially having them sing some primary songs that I wasn't familiar with... But Brother Statton gave me a free bike tune up so that was sweet! After that I wanted to go out and meet some of the ward mission and bishopric. So we stopped by the Jensen home to meet the assistant ward mission leader Dillion. (Oh and most of the ward are USC dental students or very young, recently married couples. A lot that come from G7!) But they seemed really cool and wanted us to come for dinner some night. And they asked us what we needed from Costco so... milk and cheese please! Next stop was kind of a trip. We stopped by this convalescent home and visited this guy names Thomas Albano. He I think is still a member but not sure where his membership stands... he fell away from the church a ways back when he started acting on his homosexuality and he now has AIDS and is on his death bed here in South Pasadena... it was very odd. He feels the guilt of what he has done in the past but doesn't have a strong enough testimony of the Atonement to know he can be forgiven.. Maybe it was a weird feeling of lesson because I really don't like convalescent homes.. nope. They creep me out having all these old people ask us to let them out of there! We finished the night with a very steep bicycle climb to our ward mission leader's house to meet him. he's awesome. Nathan Philips. Works for Disney and Nokia and gets to travel the world. Very organized and gung ho about doing ward missionary work. So I think we have a ton of potential for getting work done here in South Pas! 

     Tuesday was very new and unfamiliar. I enjoyed it but just had no idea what to really do! Definitely out of my comfort zone but it was good. We tried to find some taco truck down in El Sereno (the bottom half of our area/the ghetto of pasadena..well it's technically LA county). We couldn't find an actual truck because it was earlyish but we did find some kind of expensive authentic tacos... still like my taco bell! Which we don't have in my area... But I don't even know what happened the rest of the afternoon! I was so turned around and most of the people weren't home so I didn't know who we were visiting. But I was introduced to a family in the ward named the Figeroas who take care of our dinner calendar. But they gave us a referral of this guy to try by who we did and set up an appointment for Saturday.. but he flaked. But I did learn that the major gang here in is the El Serenos Barrio... supposedly it used to be pretty rough a few years ago but has cleaned up a lot! But we tried by this guy Moses who is a member of the el serenos.. but he wasn't home. ANYWAYS! We did stop by this former named Robert and got to teach him a lesson! His brother a few months ago was beaten to death down in Mexico and he has been taking it really hard and has been depressed.. but we taught him about the plan of salvation and baptisms for the dead and committed him to a baptismal date of November 30. super stoked. But after that we headed up to visit Sister Watson who is this 86 year old, sweet as can be, west virginian little little lady who loves the missionaries. She's my new addition to grandmas for sure! We got called by the office though to run and do an errand for some other Elders who were in need of a fridge... so our visit was cut short and we had to go back to the pad and wait for the assistants to drop off a car to us so we could run said errand.. which took forever! Our zone is massive. But by the time we had driven to Alhambra and back to Arcadia the office was closed.. but we made it back to our lesson with Sister Richards who is a less active in the ward. We had Brother Caffel come and join us and got to teach her about Mosiah 2-5. Only one of the best general conference addresses! And the last stop was going by Mutual at the church building to meet the bishop who is really young but is fitting for how young the median age is in the ward! 

     Wednesday morning we had to wake up early and run around some study materials to the district leaders in the zone for district meeting on Thursday.. it wouldn't have been too bad but we have a district all the way down in Motebello... 30 min drive from our pad. sheesh! Seriously felt like we were running errands all morning though because after studies we ran to the office to get supplies, drop off this fridge for the Elders, and also pick up a bike for another Elder from his old pad in Monrovia.. not a fan but you gotta do what you gotta do. When we finally made it back to our area we biked back down to El Sereno to try and catch Moses again but had to go look for him at a mechanic shop down the street where he didn't want to talk to us there.. then headed to go try a less active mother and daughter and saw some gang members tagging up the streets with their "LSB" tag... only in the hood! But don't worry, I'm completely safe. They like us angels/church people. So we headed off to another sketch part of town and to no avail.. but instead had to again trudge up this massive hill again.. seriously! But one thing that has made me so sad to see down here has been all these big dogs that have obviously been bread and used to fight. Almost every other house has a big guard dog or a bunch of little yappers that are even more vicious! We had dinner with the figeroas that night and celebrated Brother Figeroa's birthday. One of the most humble, quiet spoken man i've ever met! And he even gave us a ride home so we didn't have to go on Locke street at night! 

     Thursday was Halloween!! We had to wake up early again to run supplies out to the district leaders but this time we knew how long it'd take to do it! But it still took longer because we got lost.. it doesn't help to have two missionaries together who have only served in one or two areas and have them drive somewhere in the unknown.. We made it to district meeting which was probably one of my favorites because our district leader, Elder Maybe, was rather funny and unique in the way he presented the lesson.. which wasn't exactly what he was supposed to teach but it was his district meeting, not mine! He even bought us donuts to celebrate :) Even though it wasn't a super festive day. Funny though. We went to lunch at this burger place and ran into two less active members who Elder Haslam wasn't aware of. One guy who served a mission but fell away because he didn't like the church's view on gays and he was gay. It seemed like an abnormally long day because we ditched the bikes and walked/used buses all day.. we stopped by Moses again and dropped him basically because he wasn't looking for it. But that kind of set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. We were walking all day trying by people. not having much success. more hills. But just as it was getting dusk we got another referral from the figeroas and when they said no to having us come by another time, we ran into their neighbor who was another less active member who said we could stop by! The Lord is just placing people infront of us!! But Elder Haslam was getting pretty discouraged and thinking nothing was going to come of the night but I wanted to try by one last former we planned in the area.. on our way we passed by these three guys. one of them bellowed out to us to come talk to him and after some talking he wanted for us to say a prayer for him right there after expressing to us that he was an alcoholic and wanted to change and he'd do anything to turn his life around... so I probably said one of the most sincere prayers for this man Paul who after the prayer was in tears and we were able to bear testimony to him and teach him of the changing and enabling power of the Gospel. He was saying all the right things and had one of the purest intent of anyone I've seen to listen and learn from us. We set another time we could stop by and closed with a prayer. One of the more powerful experiences I've had out here. So on our way out of that area, trick or treating had begun and so as people passed us, we got a lot of compliments on our hilarious costumes.. followed with the question of... you're not real, are you? But we made our way up to Sister Watson's to have some pizza and help her pass out Halloween candy with mormon.org cards in the baggies we were handing out! On our way home though from her house it was ridiculously busy with trick or treaters! Like worse than harvard-yale area busy! Basically all the people from surrounding areas came to our street. So that was fun!

     Friday we started off by riding some buses back to good ole Glendale to pick up a package that was waiting for me! (p.s.Thanks Mom!) I miss Glendale.. It seems so distant that I was there already. Struggling to keep up my Armenian with no one to talk to or even listen to... sad face. But we had a long afternoon of studies and weekly planning which was actually very productive because much planning was needed to be done in order to keep us on purpose! But we had called up the Elders quorum president and had him take us out to dinner to get to meet him at Sinor Fish (very delicious) and then went back and shared a message with him and his wife about how we could work with them to share the Gospel with their friends and family. But it was solid! After we rode down to visit this guy Tino who was kind of an investigator according to Elder Haslam. I can definitely see how they got stuck teaching him! Super talkative and friendly guy but wasn't willing to really listen.. so I kind of had to keep talking over him and almost argued with him but restrained and kept the spirit and we dropped him! Love dropping lessons! No time to waste! On our way back to South Pas Elder Haslam for the first time on the mission, crashed on his bike! Long story short, I decided to obey the law and stop and a stop sign and he almost hit me but hit the brakes and yep! pretty funny! I felt bad though. Oh well! But I decided to buy him a shake at this really cool retro pharmacy that reminds me of Jolleys but cooler. 

     Saturday we got called up to help clean the church building because no one was going to show up.. but it's squeaky clean now! And every Saturday morning this family has almost expired food delivered to their house for people to pick from and we got first dibs! Lost of breads and sweets and such! Then we had some people not show up to our lessons down in El Sereno.. but we did see some people doing drugs at some bus stop and we saw Paul! I guess we had just barely missed him that morning and we invited him to church the next day and we'd pick him up. Had a meeting with our stake representative about the zone which was super helpful and then grabbed some in n out before we finished our studies.. then we had the fernilius family take us to dinner with these massive pastrami burgers.. not as good as crown burger though. But then we had Kristie call us up and want a lesson so we met her and her two young boys at the park and I found out that the missionaries are her legal counselors for some reason.. so that is just what we did! Kind of weird  but that is basically what we do on a gospel standpoint anyways, right? Then we stopped by Thomas again and boy was he not doing too well. He just kept saying he was hopeless and could never be forgiven.. it got to the point where he was basically asking for us to repent for him. sorry guy, doesn't work that way. 

     Sunday we forgot it was day light savings time.. so we missed out on getting to sleep in an hour. how sad is that? I was looking forward to it for the past month! Oh well.. we had mission coorelation at Nate's house which was super fancy with a projection presentation to all the new ward missionaries and auxiliaries and  everything. But church was great. I bore my testimony which I haven't done in a long time and I loved being able to do that. Even though I had to follow two adorable little girls that went right before me. But it gave me teh time to be introduced so that worked out! After church Nate had us over to break our fast and made some grilled cheeses but then we got a call from the other Elders dinner appointment and they told us that we'd be having dinner with them... so we had to rush and give Sister watson the sacrament and a blessing because she is having eye surgery today and wanted to make sure all would be well. But then we had to rush to the Jaeger dinner (pronounced like Yager) and they were a super cool family! Wife is a member and husband isn't. She works for NBC and is a newscaster. Might start teaching him. Then we wanted to go see if we could find Paul because he wasn't there that morning to take to church and we found him and taught him a lesson in a super sketchy alley and committed him to be baptized December 22!! It was another super powerful lesson. One I'll never forget that is for sure!

Well I gotta go so sorry to end this abruptly! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Hajo!! 

Elder DeBry

Week 45 (10/21-10/28)

Well... this is a new adventure! Ontop of a totally awesome week I have been transferred... get ready for it... I'm opening a new Zone here in Pasadena and will be training a new Zone Leader, Elder Haslam from Acworth, Gerogia who has been out a bit over 6 months!...Crazy right? No Armenian speaker has ever left the La Crescenta Zone! I totally thought I'd be transferred to go back to Armenian work but I guess the Lord has other plans for me... hopefully I can accomplish all I need to while I'm here! But let me give a recap of this awesome last week! 

     Last Monday after emailing we had to run to the office for Elder Whitney to be interviewed by President on some personal matters which took longer than expected so we headed back and got to clean our apartment kind of! Hooray for cleaning! We had to wrap up and head to the Prieto's for dinner which was a first for me suprisingly enough! All 7 of us really do have way too good of a time having dinner together. I think I'm going to miss that the most now that i'm transferred... but anyways! After dinner we hauled down to the church to do the G7 FHE which consisted of Elder Whitney teaching everyone about family history work and how to do it and prepare names for the temple. Pretty informative! Could definitely tell he was in his element! Then we made some carmel apples which were pretty tough to transport home on bike.. but we managed! 

     Tuesday was very eventful!! We were informed that morning that all the zone leaders were going to have a conference call with President and the assistants in the morning. So Elder Winfield and I did that while Elder Whitney taught a lesson to this kid, AJ and one of his friends and his sister who was recently baptized! But the reason why we had to have a conference call with everyone was because our numbers were down and President wanted our input with why we thought that was happening. The best explanation we had was because our zone isn't consistently finding. That has been the key difference in our work at least! But after talking with everyone for an hour we finished up, Elder Winfield, Elisse, some of her friends and I went up to campus to do a blitz with the booth to try and talk to as many people as we could in and hour before lunch! It was actually really awesome to have the urgency and know we had to use our time to its fullest potential! And then during lunch, one of Elisse's friends did probably one of the coolest magic tricks i've seen in person. It was a card trick where he had this other guy cut the deck a few times and then pick a card out of it and put it back in. Then he took us outside and he threw the cards up in the air but he was holding the kids cards. Pretty cool but nothing spectacular. but then the real kicker. (so mind you he was eating a random apple he got from the institute this whole time). He took the kids card and ripped it up and threw it away somewhere and then all of a sudden smashed his apple on the ground and lo and behold there was a card amongst the apple sauce on the ground and it was the kids card all put back together... blew my mind and got apple all over me because it was so awesome I didn't care. After that Anthony our investigator we picked up after church rescheduled for later in the afternoon so we went up and studied and brought Kelvin along with us while we waited to teach. We actually found out that he hasn't gotten his Patriarchal Blessing yet so we taught him how he could get one and why he should! Love Kelvin. But after studies we taught Anthony with Elisse and it was such an awesome lesson! We taught him about the restoration and focused on the apostasy. He followed along perfectly and was asking great questions/observations and understood the scriptures we used explaining it. We invited him to be baptized December 1st and he said he would set it as a goal but he wanted to continue to pray about it.. fine by us! After that lesson we made our way back to the pad and then realized we needed to get to dinner forever away.. so we took the bus for a good hour and then some to get to where we needed to be to have dinner with the Garcia family. It was rushed because we were going to play dodgeball with the young men in the ward... Sister Garcia took Elders King, Llewelyn and Winfield to the church while we waited for the AP's to come pick us up and that is when we got a call from the assistants saying that Elder Whitney had been emergency transferred and that he would be leaving right then to go pack up and meet the Hacienda Heights elders at the office to go be companions with Elder Bell in Creekside while Elder Beard would come back with me and be with Elder King and Llewelyn for the week until he went home the next week (tomorrow). So that threw us for a big loop! The ap's drove us to our pad and Elder Whitney had to pack up and then I had to drop him off and pick up Elder Beard. Funny enough, I guess Elder Dicus was with Elder Beard for a transfer in Glendale. Small mission! I guess Elders Beard and Bell weren't being the most diligent Elders in their area and abusing their car privledges/not taking being told what to do very well! But I didn't ask to much about it. Very sad to have Elder Whitney gone though :( 

     Wednesday was full of errands lemme tell ya. We got a call from Sister Lee/Sister Brown to give Sister Lee a blessing who had been working through some sickness but finally got to her. So we drove up there and gave them a blessing. Since we were up there, we decided to go do companionship study with the Sunland Elders to see how they were doing which was fun and good time to really get to know those elders better. Then the usual office run in which we realized we'd have to drive up to the north again the next morning..After that we had a marvelous brunch with the Crane family! They picked us up and we had breakfast for lunch! Homemade waffles, eggs, bacon and some OJ! I don't think I've had a full breakfast like that since Original Pancake house the day I went into the MTC all that long time ago! mmmmm bacon! After that we met up with Russ and had him drive us back up to GCC to have another lesson with Cherry who showed up late and we ended up just having to teach her more about the Book of Mormon and commit her to begin reading it daily to prepare her for November 24. The rest of the night however was rather frustrating. While we were around the church we stopped by some people and then had some difficulty with dinner plans with Sister Sowby. Her plan was to take us to La Canada for a fund raiser dinner. But long story short, the ap's couldn't come, Elders King, Llewely and Beard were forever away and we couldnt' go pick them up nor drive with Sister Sowby because there were only two of us... but it worked out that the five of us met up at the church 45 min later than planned and went to the fund raiser where I guess sister sowby was going to write a column in the paper about and have us as the picture! That was kinda cool! But I was stressed the whole time because we had to follow up with President Morgan with how the less active lessons were going/how working with the Bishop was going to have more less active lessons. Stress! But it turned out okay. We just had Stuart come pick us up back at the church to go to his lesson with Julia at her house. Which was so awesome and the spirit was so strong. He shared with us some of his concerns and doubts going on a mission. Saying that he wasn't sure if he had received an answer and that he was expecting it to be some big thing because he had been doing everything he could think of and that we asked to receive an answer. We taught him how he would receive an answer using many examples from the scriptures. I shared the mind blowing example from Ether 2 in the Book of Mormon and tied it in with Genesis 6:16 with the stones and all that jazz. So awesome. Then to top it off Julia shared her scripture she liked about the atonement in 2 Ne 10:25 I think that said it just made her realize that that explained why she is randomly happy. As we were driving home, Stuart told us that after the first time that Elder Winfield, De Spain and I taught him at his house, he felt an emptyness after having had a wonderful lesson that he wanted to call us and tell us to come back. I thought that was pretty cool. I think I've enjoyed teaching Stuart more than anyone else I've taught so far in English work. he's just the man!

     Thursday we had to go run out supplies to everyone super early so they would have the assignment that Elder Sitati wanted us to do in preparation for the Mission Conference/tour the following day. So we were errand boys for the morning! I felt like I was back working at grandpa's office as a runner. And since we didn't have regular district meeting, us and the Armenian Elders had Tina the potential investigator who gave me my steamer, cut our hair for free so we'd look our best for Elder Sitati! It took waaaaaaaaay too long though because she was talking to us so much! But it was good because we got her to talk to us about her church that she goes to which is some methodist church or something where she believed in the apostasy so we got to explain our belief about that as well! Funny story though: after we all had our hairs cut, she said that now that we looked so sharp, she realized how ugly our ties were and that she'd need to get us some new ones! She really bagged on Elder Twelves' tie. Oh elder twelves. following we headed up to GCC for our lessons with Glenn and Anthony... both cancelled last minute when we were already up there because their class got cancelled... boo that. thankfully we got a ride back with Bruno and Elisse. Next stop was the Sheffields a little early to follow up on how their invitations were coming and I guess they held an open house to invite all their neighbors into their home and get to know them a little better! Which was awesome! Hopefully something soon will come from them that will be promising! Brother Flake then picked us up and drove us down to the Sinors for a lesson finally! They are struggling spiritually. They seem to get caught up in the worries of the world and not have priorities with God first. And now Zach the older boy doesn't seem too interested as he was a few months ago.. It all starts with the parents though especially with those boys. We struggled to get them to focus on the short lesson we had about doing the little things like reading/praying daily. Makes me sad to see them not doing well. Especially because I knew I'd be transferred.. I just didn't know where! Our dinner was with the Velasquez family which was good and after we got to stop by Trea and Natalies since they were home and it has been about 3 months since we taught them last. We taught them about turning their house to the temple (comparing to Mosiah 2) and I got to tell the story of Mom and Todd taking lessons, baptism and in the near future the temple. Natalie wants to enter the temple for time and eternity but they both aren't willing to give up the church-free lifestyle to make it happen. But Trea had some good questions that I think Elder Winfield will follow up on with teaching them. the rest of the night was kind of a dud. Stopping by less actives and have them pretend like they weren't home or peek through the windown and not let us in... so funny how people think we are that dumb! come one I wasn't born yesterday...

     Friday was the mission tour with the member of the 70, Elder Sitati from Africa. He. Was. Awesome. Seriously it was so informative and from on high! The first hour he taught just he zone and district leaders and had us come up with all our concerns reguarding our districts/zones. Then he taught true doctrine that answered all of our questions. He taught us that it is our responsibility to help our zone be converted. It was just so awesome. TEaching out of Matt13 with the parable of the sower, he went through and compared each grown as different levels of conversion. Then President Becerra taught us how we are to minister unto our zones and lift them up. It was powerful. The rest of the afternoon he taught our purpose. giving us ways we can enhance our studies and baptize more because of it. then he tied it all together by teaching us/reviewing with us the exercises we did in Alma 32/1Timothy4:12-16. Talking all about the mission not being the opportunity, but just a step in the right direction of achieving all the blessings we can from our opportunities we receive out here. I wish I had more time to explain about it all. But it was awesome. Y'all should be jealous. After the meeting we went home and had some dinner. Luke then drove us around and visited less actives with us.. none of which were home. But we did scare some girl who was the neighbor of a less active. She was being super awkward when we opened the door and it was during an silence when Elder Winfield piped up and said "Don't worry, we aren't cops!".... Ohhhhhh Elder Winfield. Gotta love his goofiness! We were supposed to have a lesson with Forest but he bailed on us so we stopped by Gina's and she is in a knee brace and a possible torn meniscus! We were asking if she wanted a blessing but she was being weird about it and saying she wasn't ready for one... then I noticed in the background that Forest was there in the bathroom from the reflection off a picture on the wall... broke my heart. At least be honest with us. No need to lie. So deep was my despair that I needed Taco bell so we had a late night snack with Luke before we headed home. 

     Saturday morning the La Canada sisters had us come up and help them teach ESL and tutor koreans that have been coming the past few months to use the building as a finding tool. Awesome idea. Just needs more structure becasue when it turns into a babysitting kind of deal, doesn't work out so well. President Lew was kind enough to drive us there and back and we got to discuss the work and his ideas on how we can improve. He dropped us off to have our lesson with Robbie who looked like death because of the lack of sleep and amount of work he has been doing for the past month and a half. Between his closed captioning job and now hollywood horror nights, he has worked some 20 hour days... ridiculous! And so thus he is worried about his commitment/conversion to the church and so we got to have a good long lesson about that with him and how if he continues to do those little things, he will feel better about it all. After some lunch with him we started our weekly planning which was too short and never actually finished... oops! But we got a call from the Chavez's asking where we were to help with cleaning up their Halloween party which I guess had been going all afternoon so we rushed down there to help clean up their actually scary backyard! then head all the way back up to the church for the trunk or treat event for our ward! although it took forever to make it up to the church by bus, we made it! there was actually a lot of people! Trea and Natalie came as well as Mike and Bridgett from the Group!! Bridgett's family goes to the g2 ward. It was pretty awesome. then we got transfer calls... man was my mind blown. Never thought I'd leave Glendale! I just hope I go back to the Armenian Group at some point...

     Sunday was bittersweet. Natalie actually came to sacrament with Daniel and her Mom. I had to say good bye to some of the families I had gotten to know. But what was even more sad was in the singles ward. No one came to church and on top of that people were actually sad I was leaving! I felt so loved! But I know that it will be a good change. I was transferred here for a reason even if I don't know it yet... we had dinner with the Kosanavich family who are moving to Poland soon for his job which is awesome. then we went out again with Brother Flake to visit more people and catch them home. We stopped by the Jones-Ravenswood home and got to teach a second lesson with them! It was such a good lesson to end the night with. Brother Jones (Stanley who looks like steven tyler) brought up the book of Mormon and we went right into the restoration. Which Linda (his wife) totally already knew and when we asked why we had the Book of Mormon, she began to explain/teach the apostasy to us! All the time being absolutely thrilled that we have the Book of Mormon! Then she said, "I know it is all true. All of it. I just don't know what I need to do about it."....uhhhh serious?! So we immediately jumped into baptism. 3 Nephi 27. Teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and Baptism being the gate. Then after the first vision, I invited her and her two daughters to be baptized. she said, "After all this time that I've loved the church, no one has asked me to be baptized. I am so honored to be able to be baptized. Thank you." I've never heard a response like that and I've never been so thrilled for a family that I am for them. We set them with the date of December 8 to be baptized. All three of them. 

It was a wonderful week. Certainly will be an adventure this next one. I love you all so very much and hope you have a wonderful week! Be safe and happy where ever you may be! 

Elder DeBry