Well Hello everyone!

 

How is everyone doing? LA is going pretty good. our area is picking up pretty good right now and we are having a blast! anyways  first things first. Thanks mom and dad for the watch! its perfect! and also the scripture cases! they area awesome, just what I was looking for. It was good to finally receive some mail! but yeah this week we still continued to find more and more people. But the best is Lucy and Abraham. They are super cool. Abraham is 14 and Lucy is his mom. She says she's married, but I haven't ever seen the husband and she says he's super Christian.  we taught them on Friday with our ward mission leader and he was awesome.  they seemed to understand the lesson and want to come to church. At the end of the lesson we invited them to the ward activity that we were going to have the next day at a local park.  So we arranged a ride and they came!!!! but they didn't come to church, but we will work on that next week! but yeah so the ward activity was great. we were there for about 3 hours. it was a fathers day activity and so we had a carne asada, and played futbol. So a couple of things i learned here. 1, I love futbol! its so fun. 2, I hate playing sports in missionary clothes.... i.e. super hot, uncomfortable, not move-able..... 3, LA is humid, and is getting hot. 4, chile de arbol is super spicy, like really spicy.  so yeah the activity was great we played for a good hour and a half of futbol. and it was just super fun. I'm still miserably horrible, but I got some things down. 

 

The Honduran family is slow but good. the only time they are all in the house is Sundays, but that is the day to do all the clean up. so we couldn't teach all the family and only taught the mom, Elsy, she is super awesome!  we didn't hardly have to teach anything. we would just talk for a little bit, then have her read and then she would just teach it back to us! WOW never had that happen before, especially to a latino. anyways, it was super fun! after we taught her, we helped the family out for like 45 min move some things around the house. and so we got a little dirty but that's ok its not like we have 10 other shirts just like it at home. those are the 2 families we are working on. it just seems like no one was home this week. we could hardly find anyone to visit on Thursday. all of our plans and backups fell through and it just gets frustrating and for my comp tiring. He has been super tired lately. but owell we work through it. This week we are having another missionary activity at the ward. we are doing a plan of salvation plane crash.... seems a little weird to me, but hopefully it comes out smoothly 

 

 But it sounds like you all have been busy. The flagstaff trip looked like fun! oh to be able to go back and stay there in flag! Anyways the kids looked like they had lots of fun! lots of running and games! And then grandmas bathroom looks amazing! like wow, you went all out for here bathroom. I hope she enjoys it!. When are you all going to go to our cabin again. You need it enjoy it while you can! at least to get out of the heat.... Well Anyways. I hope you all have a great week! You are in my prayers frequently and I hope all is going well. I'm so glad I'm out here on a mission and serving and working to help others find joy! I love it. Its not just a job we do everyday, its the work of salvation, and its a privilege to serve everyday! I love you all and Have a great week.

 

Love

Elder Hollingshead

 

ps. pictures from last transfer. yeah Elder Pollard is super tall, and then the family, are recent converts in the Cabrillo branch. hope you enjoy. Ill be taking a bunch of pictures from now on, I promised myself that so I will try to send a couple every week!

 

Torrance?

Well Hello everyone! 

 

This week has been pretty good! To start off, My companion. Elder Cranney. He is super cool. He actually had his birthday this week, so we got lunch from and investigator :) Anyways, He super cool. Hes from utah, la fabrica, and he has been out almost 18 months. He actually served a little over a year of his mission in Honduras! hes got super great spanish, and knows that culture super well. He came back because he got a few parasites, one of which started eating his muscles and doing weird things to his heart. So he stayed home a few months and then came out to LA to finish his mission.  Hes super cool and is willing to help me out alot on my Spanish.  yay! But yeah this week has been alright! We found 7 new investigators! and a family! super cool right. this area has been slow, pretty slow and hardly any work. most the people int he ward just know it as the slow area for missionary work and so its hard to find people to come out with us. But overall its cool. The area is big! it takes almost 40 min biking to get from one side to the other. And thats the only 2 Spanish pockets. The area itself is super nice. Parts of it remind me a lot of mesa, but then the more ghetto parts are like normal LA. And you are right its only like a mile and a half south of my first area. but the area is good and its seems to be picking up real good right now!  

I still dont know many names, but we have patricia and her family and they are investigating she is the closest to getting a baptismal date, also we have a few other former's that we found! Edwin is a super cool guy (bought us lunch) and loves missionaries. i think he could be baptized pretty quickly here, he remembers everything and came to church faithfully for a while. hes on disability because he had 2 strokes and cant walk really well right now. then we found a Honduran family yesterday who seem really cool and they connected with My comp really quick because he served there right where they used to live! They came to the states only 2 years ago, so still not very american, which is good! Anyways. We have a lesson set up with them tonight. Also we have a few less active families that we are trying to reactive. Some of them are super close but just never come to church. anyways im still trying to figure out names of people. other than that this area is pretty cool. The apartment is a mess, i spent a lot of my free time trying to clean up. and its getting there slowly. There is a big ant problem here in our aprtment and they other day i went to pull some gym shorts out of the dirty clothes and all of my clothes were covered in ants..... so i grabbed the most covered parts and spred them  out on the ground. then next morning all the ants were gone.... so i dont know why they went for my clothes but they were gone so i cant complain. 

 

So this week, the world cup started for soccer! and Futbol is everything to latinos... so we constantly get updates on who wins and so when we talk to people we can ask them where they are from and then, bring up soccer. its pretty funny how intense they get about the sport. so its going to be a great month trying to contact people and actually teach people. because the soccer games are always on in peoples houses!  Anything else, i dont think so. other than that my comp has lots of stories about honduras. Its supposedly the #1 most dangerous place in the world, and so he has some scetch stories. He got robbed 2 times and lots of other crazy things happen to him. the government is supposedly non functional and there is no such thing as police. The UN is there but they havent done much.... But its fun to hear stories of his mission. 

 

Anyways. It sounds like dad has been super busy between trying to finish grandmas house, and his new calling. Fun stuff. I still miss that sometimes doing projects with dad! You taught me alot!!! but it sounds like you all are going to have a fun trip to Flagstaff. I'm jeolous... i wish i could just leave the city for a while and go where its a little more peaceful, but nope LA Mission is more important right now, Its been great to hear from everyone, and to hear everyone is doing great. and no i didnt get the package. Mail just gets slower and slower around here. but it should be here next week. And thanks for ordering those scripture cases. And one more thing, i know you just sent a package, but my mind is slow and i forget things. So i honestly dont carry much stuff with me anymore, and i was wondering if you could send me my little bag i got from mountain man a couple of years ago. the little one i used to carry my scriptures in. I should be in one of those boxes i left with my stuff in them. Honestly i dont know if it would work or not, but i think its worth a try! since you just sent me a package, dont worry, you can wait until the next one to send it.

 

Anyways I love you all. Im thankful for all your support! I hope everything goes well for you this week. I have been studying the Conference talks from april, since i just got a hold of a copy. And there area  lot of talks that I really liked. One of my favorites was Elder Bednars, and elder Hollands about being a disciple and having to go through difficulties. I hope you have all had the chance to read them through again, because i have learned alot of things from reading them.

Have a great week everyone!

 

Love, 

 

Elder Hollingshead

 

Transfers!:/

Well Hello everyone!

 

How are you all doing? what  has been new?  well first off Transfers..... im  a little bummed but i will be moving.... to Torrance north stake in the hermosa liahona ward. its Spanish but a little bit of a richer area. anyways it will be good, i don't know who my companion is. we think he came from another mission about 5-6 months ago, so we shall see :) But this week was pretty slow again. School got out this week so people were just never available.  its hard but we work through it! anyways San Pedro has been alright... we set another baptismal date with **, she is so awesome but it seems like anymore as soon as we set the date we have no contact with them ever again. ** we had to drop because she would never answer or text us. we finally called and she answered but she said hello and then heard our name and hung up.... so i don't think she wants to hear us anymore.  ***, hes never in the house and when we do find him, he is always "busy". ** is just a teenager and is just flaky. we thinking of  fake dropping her, so she can decide whether to move on or stop coming.... she knows everything but almost refuses to progress. Super random though, Mari came to church..... she walked in and me and elder pollard were just super confused. and she left before we could talk to her. so we don't know what is going on there. lets just say it was a long week. not as bad as the one 2 weeks ago but it was just hard. I've gotten so tried of having "set appointments" all day and when we show up no one is there, and then our backup is also not there.... so frustrating. But other than that life has been good. 

 

As a zone there was some sort of street fair up in PV that we were somewhat invited to go to. it was mostly for family history stuff, but we were there to answer ?'s about the church and stuff like that. we were all assigned an hour, so we drove 25 min to the stake center parked walked for 20 min to find the place.... then did almost nothing for the hour then went back.... lets just say our hour was not very successful. other times were, but i think it was everyone dinner break so people were just not out.. So anyways that was our week, then we got the call last night so im packing again.... not very fun. but we got to do it.  Oh and Ruth had her Baby! that super exciting! I hope all will continue doing well with them! I wish all of you (family and friends) my Love, especially all my nieces and nephews;) I love you all and pray for you often! I hope grandmas Room gets finished soon! her house has just been under construction for months now, first the flood then the room and bathroom what next? I know i haven't sent many pictures this transfer, and im sorry but i wont be sending any today. BUT i will be taking a ton today trying to make up for it and send them next week! I'm really going to miss this area. its super nice with lots of cool people. Now ill be going to Torrance with lots Asians? and of course Hispanics :) Hope everyone has a great week! and Remember to Write me ;)

 

Love you ALL

Elder Hollingshead

Elder Ballard

Well Hello Everyone!

 

This week has been great! A lot better than last.  Like A lot. First off we start at the end of the week Yesterday! So we left early from church to go to Torrance to the stake center there. Basically this is the first and only time we will meet as an entire mission. And there are so many missionaries I do not know. Its crazy. There is about 270 missionaries, a bunch will leave this summer, then like last summer there are a lot that will come in. So it will still be a big mission. Anyways. somehow, I do not know, we fit the entire mission and senior couples in the chapel, and overflow.... still confused on how we did that. It was tight but everyone could see. that was the good thing. we waited there for about 20 min and then Elder Ballard came in. For some reason I thought he was tall, but we were wrong, he's like dads height maybe a little taller. we then all got the chance to one by one go up and shake his hand, and the other 2 70's hands whose name I forget. one was elder Acosta from last week, and the other was over the missionary department. Anyways we shook their hands then started the meeting. The spirit was so strong there. I learned so much and There are a lot of things I'm going to work on now. One of the talks was on repentance and how we need to teach people how to repent, not just teach them about repentance. There are so many people that get baptized without really truly knowing how to repent and that's why they fall and go inactive. He used the example of Nehor in the book of Alma.  this guy all around didn't preach bad stuff, he talked about Jesus Christ, and stuff like that but failed to teach repentance, and in chapter 15 when Alma is teaching the people, it says that the people were wicked because they were never taught repentance. Anyways that's a side note that I really liked. Elder Ballard talked about the spirit and its importance for conversion. He talked alot about how we truly need to feel the message not just teach it. The visit was Awesome, something I will always remember. 

As for the rest of the week, it was lots better. the week before we got I think 4 lessons..... yeah horrible. this week we ended up with 14! so we were busy! it was great. lots of new people. we were looking at our board of names and we realized that it was almost all new names from the beginning of the transfer 5 weeks ago. Anyways. we have about 12 investigators. Most of which I would say have lots of potential. *** finally came out and told us her fear of getting baptized. She doesn't want to fall and mess up after. so we told her to write down all her questions and that we could help her answer them. we also told her to talk to her sister who is a recent convert who probably had the same ?s. We found 2 others and set baptismal dates with them. One is *** she's 18 just graduated and we found her at a former's house that we were trying to visit. the former's really have no interest anymore, but she was very intrigued by our message and so we shared the restoration and she loved it  we invited her to be baptized right then and she said yes! She is super cool! were just  a little short of time because she leaves for the army in July... then also we found a super old guy named *** he's 78 and lives alone. super catholic but when we taught him he really enjoyed the lesson, loved the feelings of peace he had, and easily accepted a date. so yeah lots of cool things happening.  Over all I've been good. I got super stressed out a couple of weeks ago, and I don't even know why, read through the stress manual and that helped alot and I've set some goals and gotten alot better.  My companion is just super awesome. Very hard worker and loves the work.

 

well I love you all! keep up the great work. And Thanks for all the prayers in my behalf. Remember to read the scriptures always. its in them that you will learn the things that will make you better. It will be a continual testimony strengthener. Read the book of Mormon, its truly the keystone! its hasn't fallen yet, and it never will. I know this his the true church, that it has been restored! I love you all and thanks for all your support! and don't forget to write me letters ;) it always makes me happy! Hope you all have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Hollingshead