Week 18

Oh my goodness, I have too much to say! I'll fill you in on my week first. Monday we drove all the way to the fair to find out that it is closed on Mondays so Hermana Seanez felt bad and said, "ok we are going downtown instead!" so we drove to downtown LA (well the little part that's in our mission) and went to Little Mexico which was just this street with a bunch of stalls of people selling little Mexican artifacts, it was a cute place and pretty fun to go hang out down there even though everything was super over priced so I ended up spending $2 haha, biggg spender- not really. If anything the mission has made me more stingy- if that is possible!? Tuesday we had companion exchanges so I headed off to Sierra Madre with Sister Clawson for 24 hours. Their area was a little more ghetto than ours but there were lots of Latinos so it seemed cool. We hit the streets and I talked the wholeeee time, it was good cuz Sister Kang never pushed me so it was a chance for me to rise to the occasion- and I did and it was cool. Saturday we went to the Relief Society General Conference Broadcast- so awesome. Well mainly the prophet, the others were good but the Prophet kind of showed them up haha. He talked about not judging others and having charity- deff loved it and it made me that much more determined to apply it. Its hard to hold your tongue but I have deff seen how important it is here and in non-mission life, so hopefully Ill be remembering all these things I'm learning after the mission haha. Then Saturday the highly anticipated transfer call came and holy unexpected... I have been called to be senior companion!!! I didnt think it was even an option because no Spanish sisters have come in since me but I am now with Hermana Herrera who came out a transfer before me and I guess I have been called in my weakness because I feeling rather ill-equipped and anxious about the whole thing haha. I got called to be senior companion when I was still with my trainer, that is so not normal or cool! hahaha, I am so confused! So yeah- thats my life right now, just freaking out over here hahah, not really it'll be ok. Hermana Herrera so far (in our short drive from the office to our area- so 10 minutes haha) she seems nice. She loves to shop soooo I have a feeling that my p-day is about to get less fun haha, I lied and said I liked it too, kind of regretting that haha, oh well. She is from Venezuela but I kept speaking to her in Spanish and she responded in English soooo I'm not sure what language we will be speaking, time will tell. Apparently she has to have a very cold bedroom in order to sleep and I told her our house doesn't have air conditioning and that was a pretty big blow for her, hopefully everything will work out great and we will be best friends and do workkkkk. Anyways, we are teaching some wonderful people, have 2 baptisms coming up, Lorenzo we have been teaching for a while but he just recently built enough faith to get Sunday mornings off so he attended church this Sunday- hoooooray. Then theres this guy Ernesto who is super new and they both have baptismal dates so yayyyyy!!!!! I love this area. I am super stoked for General Conference this weekend!!!! It should be really good and it'll be a nice break, I need a catch up because I haven't been able to sleep since transfer calls haha. When the AP told me I thought he was joking and I laughed and I said, "I don't believe you" haha, but he wasn't joking apparently. Anyways, I gotta go but I loveeeee you guys. BESOS!!!! Laura

Week 17

All is well here in sunny california! This week pretty much was a disaster but it was fun haha so its all good. Monday we went to swap meet for p-day and it was kinda of funny to see the random crap that people were actually trying to get money for. There were a few stalls selling new stuff though so I bought some skinny jeans for $10 which I am excited about... for a year and a month from now haha. Today we got tickets to go to the LA county fair, we arent allowed to ride roller coasters or anything but it should be fun, we are going with the Seanez family who I adoreee, they are my favorites.

Tuesday we had that mini zone conference where we got a pump up talk about finding and a bunch of new rules. We are no longer allowed to eat with members- its so that they see us less as friends and more professional relationship. President was also really excited about us each having the oppurtunity to learn to budget and cook haha, he was the only one excited about it needless to say. Its all good though, everyone was pretty upset but Im not too bothered because Im hoping that everything here in the mission really is inspired haha, fingers crossed that Im right. Also from 5-7pm every night is "finding time" (code for knocking and street contacting), including p-day so we lost an hour of p-day which is tragic because its now 10:30-5. So yeah, there were a lot of little new rules too being inforced so its all very.. interesting haha. I think there were a lot of complaints though because we got were informed that they are adding $20 to our monthly allowance which they werent planning on doing.

We just got a new ward mission leader a few weeks ago and he just informed us that he is moving to Utah... so that didnt last long. We have very little support from the leaders- I actually think the bishop thinks we are completely incompetant, not me and sister kang, but like missionaries in general haha, yikes. We got in trouble for a hand full of things this week, from bad fellowshiper to a family coming to church that we assumed were members that apparently arent... etc haha, the mission is great.

I ate pig intenstines this week... needless to say I was not a fan.

So Alejandra's baptism was yesterday- YAYYYY!!! On the negative side EVERYTHING went wrong hahahah, heres the lsit of things that went wrong...
- we asked a young woman to speak and she was in a room some where in the building but we couldnt find her so elder quintero had to give the talk instead, so it started late cuz we were looking for her
- the english elders didnt reserve the font so they planned their baptism 30 mins before ours and they took the TV to show a DVD while they changed but we were planning on using it but they didnt get it back to us in time so we looked like total iditos cuz they got it to us at the last minute but without the remote so by the time we got the movie to start alejandra was already changed- I know my face was bright red, it was really embarressing
- the hot water was broken
- Her dads first time baptizing and it took 3 times (and to be honest the 3rd one wasnt even right cuz he didnt call her by name... but they passed it soooo.. I guess its valid in Gods eyes haha)
... and to top it all off President Pike and his wife and his coucilor and his wife decided to come join us for the baptism... so it was awful. Sister Kang said shes never seen him come to a baptism so lucky us he came on the day that everything went wrong haha. Sister Kang and I drive home to eat ice cream after cuz we couldnt go to McDonalds cuz it was Sunday... she has never cried once on her mission but she said that was the closest shes come... haha poor us. Anyway.. ya paso.. its all good.

Tuesday we are having companion exchanges and I am going to Sierra Madre which is the only sisters area in east LA zone (but its not actaully in east LA), so ill be there with Sister Clawson... should be good!? Saturday night of this week we will get transfer calls and then Monday we will have transfers- pretty anxious. Im fine with whatever, some people have been saying that sister kang and I will stay together a 4th transfer, that would be fine but Im excited to progress so we will see.

Week 16

That was weird putting Don's email address up there haha, welcome to the family by the way- we are pretty awsome so don't be too scared. So this week went by pretty quickly since pday last week was on Tuesday so I feel like today came quicker. This week we met a member who came up to us and seemed normal but we quickly found out was not and after talking to him for a few minutes he was pounding his fists on the hood of our car saying, "the Chinese didn't even know!" (he was talking about some war or something!?) we kindly told him we had to go then we got in the car and Sister Kang sighed and goes, "white people!" hahahaha, it was classic how she said it- I loved it. Later that day we went to the zone activity and it was volleyball so it was super fun, normally they play basketball which is not so fun. Every Monday night we have FHE at a member's home so Mondays are the best. Alejandra will be getting baptized this Sunday as Ramon is not progressing and she is ready to be baptized so we aren't going to wait. She is the bessssst, I love her! She is so smart and just gets everything we teach, obviously it helps that her parents recently got baptized so she had that foundation, we are just lucky enough to teach her! Today we are going to Swap Meet with Hermana Seanez for a few hours so hopefully that will be cool- find some cool second hand stuff!? It'll be funny cuz apparently Hermana Seanez has never seen a white or an Asian person there before- here we come! Next week we are planning to go to East LA to Little Mexico- hopefully it works out, we have to have a member take us if its outside out zone so we will see. The transfer is almost over though so we are running out of time cuz we are deff gunna get split up this time around.

Friday night we had a ward activity that was super fun, they all made food from their countries and put on talent show, it was cool. lots of people came so that was good. Our district leader is a pretty big tool haha, hes done a lot of "toolish things" but yesterday I was talking to someone after church and I guess he was listening and we were later pulling out of the parking lot and he flagged us down and I rolled down the window and he was like, "just so you know you don't use subjunctive in that context....blah blah blah" and I am trying to be Christlike but I couldn't help but be annoyed with his need to go so out of his way to correct me. But- whateverrrr! haha I was just laughing afterwards cuz I said "what a tool" and it took me 5 mis to try to explain what I meant to Sister Kang.

Tomorrow we have an emergency mini zone conference on finding, which is weird cuz thats what zone conference was on that we just had 2 weeks ago- so I guess we are not doing so hot. We are having a lot of success... at finding referrals for English elders haha. Its hard cuz you can knock for an hour and not speak Spanish once... there are different pros and cons to all missions though.

WEEK 15

Another week has gone by, its been a pretty good one, no complaints here! The weather is so much nicer and I am loving not sweating and being able to ride our bikes again (minus the whole manditory helmet thing). This week on Tuesday we had zone conference so that was pretty cool... literally the air conditioning was turned up so high that I thought I was going to get hyperthermia. We learnt some good things though, and I got to see Elder Maryinez (my home boy/district leader from the mtc), I was soooo excited to see him, haha probably too excited. So that was cool and we talked for a good while about life, he was surprised I was still with my trainer as he has been with a different person every transfer. There are less sisters though so we tend to stay together longer so it makes sense. He is doing good though and Ill see him later today again at the zone activity, which hopefully wil be fun- we are going to play volleyball so maybe Ill rise to the occasion. This week we had a tour with a man named carlos vasquesz, he has come to church twice but its been hard to set up tour with him so he hasnt been considered our investigator for a while but hes really nice little mexican man and he made me thing huge wall decoration thing out of wood and rocks and marbles and it weighs like 10 pounds haha, it was really thoughtful so that was pretty exciting. Ill send you a picture. We have been eating a lotttt this week- Alejandra, our investigator likes to go out to eat and she is really shy so we have been trying to get closer to her so weve been going out to eat with her, hence all the pix of me eating random stuff haha. Alejandra did my make up the other day and she did it like super blue and crazy and then curled my hair all tight and I looked pretty crazy, the elders were at their house eating at the same time and they got a pretty good kick out it since they took a pic and now keep bugging me about my "sweet makeover." She is going to be getting baptized this Sunday and her brther next sunday as he is prgressing a bit slower, its very exciting as they will be able to be sealed in the temple a year from now and Ill be on my mission still and will be able to go. We arent allowed to go with our investogators to the temple for baptisms- just endowments and sealings and only if we taught them all the lessons- so hopefully that works out. The other day I accidentally said 'He (talking about God) loves us depsite our infections"... instead of imperfections haha, maybe you had to be there but we got a kick out of it. My sense of humor is kind of depleating haha, I find everything funny now, Im a little worried. Sister Kang always says things and I say, 'yikes you are so missionary" then the other day we drove past this new cinema and it was so flashy and had all these lights and stuff and sister Kang goes, "wow, its so...worldly" and I actually agreed, so she was like, "oh no, youre actually turning into a missionary!" haha, it was awesome. This week I hit 4 months in the mission by the way, wow huh!? we helped this guy move the other night and I did some serious damage carrying a bookshelf that was apparently too much for my body to handle. So we are soar and dying. I had a lot of emails waiting for me today so I had to print them off so I didnt get to skim them but thanks for writing, Im excited to see how you guys are doing! I loveeee you so much and hope that everything is going good! Besos! Laura.