HELLOOOOOO!!!!!

 

Hey everyone! This week has been long! Very long and very tiring seeing that the last 3 weeks have been extremely slow with Elder Tramel.  Anyways this area is AWESOME. I still miss my last area a ton, but this area is great.  There is a ton of work surprisingly. So basically the area is huge and covers the entire Palos Verdes Mountain. We live the furthest south in the mission, we touch the border of the mission on all sides but the north, and yeah San Pedro is not a very super nice place. If you want to look it up. We live at 37th and Pacific. Basically 4 streets away from the ocean. Yeah. Oh and on the other side of that is all the docks and LA harbor. It’s huge but not actually in the mission. Anyways. Surprisingly it’s been super hot here. Like even hot for all the people down here in Pedro. It’s been right at 93 degrees all week. But that's where we work. Where we live is almost 5 degrees or more cooler all the time. But it’s nice to wake up every morning and take a run to see the ocean and Catalina Island.  Anyways. San Pedro is a little crazy. Even though it’s not anything like Inglewood area. Everyone here is either a drunk, or druggy. The women on the street are very manly and everyone rides skateboards. We saw a mom with like 3 kids riding a long board around town the other day and it’s just weird. Overall the people here are nice, lots of crazies, but lots of nice people. I feel like there is a lot more Spanish speakers here in this area compared to my last, I have used my Spanish alot more. 

 

Well my Comp is cool. pretty quiet when it comes to just talking about life, but when it comes to work he’s by far my hardest working companion. He has run me to the ground a few times earlier this week because I really hadn't worked that hard in a while. He’s a great teacher and has helped me out in alot of ways. Sometimes I feel like I’m at day one again because I feel so new at everything. He was the Assistant to the president for 8 months and only has 2 months left on his mission. So more than likely I will probably stay here for a while. The area has a lot of investigators. More than I have had in a long time. We have mostly worked with ***. They are a couple who are friends with a recent convert named ***. She has been doing her missionary work well. Also we have another investigator named ** who is friends with **. ** is basically ready to be baptized. ** and ** are super golden and have been progressing really fast. She needs to get a divorce before she gets married which will slow this process down for a while, but overall they are awesome investigators. We are working with lots of youth actually. 4 of our investigators are teenagers like me. It’s been fun working with them and for me to actually see how they have changed. There is a big problem in this area with youth drinking and smoking pot. and these people are just trying to be good and stay out of trouble. It’s great to see that. Anyways. Almost 3/4 of the branch lives in our area, and Elder Pollard really doesn't do much with them. He prefers working with Investigators, so we hardly visit any members. like other than dinner appts, we have not visited a single member. I guess that's weird for me because that has been a big focus in my areas in the past, we have tried to work on Less actives.  But anyways part of it is that before E' Pollard got here the area was a mess and none of the Area books have been updated for a while. Our map for where members lived is super outdated and is pretty useless so we kind-of have to start from scratch for that. Overall I’m enjoying this area a lot. Our branch president is a super young white guy who served his mission in Guatemala. He’s super animated and loves his calling and does great with it. The Branch could soon be a ward I think, we just need to bring back some members and keep growing the area. The building we meet in is tiny, only the branch meets there and it was pretty full on Sunday. 

 

Well I hope you all have a great week.  Thanks again for all your support. It’s been a blessing to know that I know that there are a lot of friends and family that are supporting me every step of the way. When a day goes bad, and things get rough I just think of you and it gives me the refocus I need to keep going. I love you all and Hope all goes well for you. I pray for you always and am thankful for all your prayers in my behalf. 

 

Love 

Elder Hollingshead

 

Pictures!!

 My new area and b-day celebration