Hello everybody!

 

Man has this week been crazy. Tuesday was normal, and we had a few more people at English class. Wednesday was alright. We had dinner at Mario Martinez’s house and it was great then we had ward correlation and all the mission leader wanted to talk about was planning a ward activity. I guess technically it could be a good activity for missionaries, but I feel like the ward should be planning it not us! owell since they asked us to we are doing it.  Transfers were Wednesday, and so we have a new zone leader, Elder Haro, super awesome! people say he is probably one of the best missionaries in the mission. He had awesome ideas on how to get English classes in a better condition. we were all kind of lost. He has great leadership and knows exactly how to do it and what we need to do it.  We got 2 other elders. They are cool, just haven’t talked to them much. Also got a new sister. Her Spanish is awesome and she just got out of the MTC, then we asked her how she learned such good Spanish? she apparently has lots of years of classes. but she is super ready and has and awesome spirit of missionary work. Thursday was interesting. last minute President called all the district leaders to a training. so I thought I was just going to go with another elder in our zone for the 4 hours, but no as we were going to get picked up, I realized that I was also going. so yeah there went the whole afternoon. it started at 1 and finished around 3:30. The training focused on how to improve numbers. Even though Numbers aren’t supposed to really be our focus it should be on people. But He had a meeting with Elder Ballard recently and made a few changes to the mission. Instead of mission standards, he created Area standards. So we make the standards. In the next 3 months we plan to have around 5 baptisms, so with a little math supposedly we should have like 5 people to church, 6 progressing, and 8 new investigators each week.! talk about a major kick in the face! yeah our numbers and new people we have talked to are not even close. so lots of things to work on.

 

So yeah that was an interesting meeting. The drive there was long and even longer on the way back. usually we take the 405 cause it’s the closest. instead we took the city way. Let’s just say I forgot how nice LA can be! living here in the hood for 7 weeks now definaly changes your perspective.  And I hate Traffic. meeting got over at 3:30 we did not get home until a little after 5. usually it takes 20-30 min. so much traffic. Friday district meeting, went alright my companion is still not feeling prepared. So basically I’m his assistant even though that doesn’t exist. Got a letter from Ben and Hallie so that was super fun. Then we just had a normal day. Marcos is ready to be baptized. He just needs to move out. Monica is ready, just we can never meet with them, cause they are "busy". owell we have an lesson planned for Tuesday with them. We still a little stumped on how to teach a 10 year old the law of chastity. The only thing we came up with in District meeting was to talk with he parents before and have them as much in the lesson as we are.  Sonia and Max are super nice and kind old couple. They have lots of health problems and money is tight. He can’t read cause he had some sort of stoke and lost the use of his entire left side. she has horrible vision and can’t read the book of Mormon. so we are trying to come up with a giant BOM and or some way of getting it on their phone if they can. other than that nothing new with investigators.

 

LA English. Saturday we had 7 new people plus 5 returning, and a few members. And there is a family that came, and we gave them a church tour and they said that this is what they want for their kids. and they live in our area! along with 2 other referrals from The classes. One of them has a book of Mormon and said that she thinks god led her to these classes, and she is dedicated and took an hour long bus ride to get there. she’s in our area too. lots of cool things are happening. Then Last night there was a fireside at the Visitor center. Chad Lewis and his wife. He was an NFL player and a lifelong member. so we had to bring and investigator for us a missionaries to come. so we called Marcos, and he seemed very interested and told us he would take us. so when we arrive at his house at 6, he wasn’t there. :( something with some stray dogs and he called the police and took pictures then the owner walked up and started arguing and claiming he was doing something with the dogs, so he walked inside grabbed hymns and a Book of Mormon and drove away. so we started going to others houses on our backup plan and about 20 mins later he called and said sorry and told us that he was still ready to go. so we rushed back to his house and quickly got there. I mean quickly! for a clam mellow guy he drives like a maniac, and then the left arrow right before the temple took like 10 min to change. He said he would have run the light if we weren’t there... Owell we got there just has They started to speak. Awesome fireside. Talked about lots of experiences he has had. and the bulk of his talk was about a trip the NFL asked him to take with some recently returning military. 3 had artificial legs and one had depression problems because of things that had happened. They were to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro (probably just butchered that spelling) in Africa. 4,000 feet to 19,000 ft. in just over a week. Lots of stories of how some of them couldn’t make it. they were not required to be on oxygen, and that really took its toll on all of them. Between 17000 and the top was called the danger zone because of the lack of oxygen. it was so bad that one of the team members was so sick they had carry him down the mountain to go immediately to the ER, but as soon as they dropped out of the danger zone he was completely normal. So moral of the story is Don’t go into our danger zones! we know exactly what we should and shouldn’t do. don’t push the limits. That fireside was a changing moment I think for Marcos. He was glued to the speaker the whole time and within the last week his whole attitude and testimony has changed. I can’t wait.

 Other than that life has been good. lots of good and lots of long days. No matter how long the days feel like though, I feel and know it’s worth it. I hope I stay here for a long time. scripture I found this morning that I thought was good is Ether 12:4 look it up  and always have hope for the best, cause that means its hope in Christ.  Thanks for all your love and support. I pray for you all every day, and hope for the best with all of you. have a Great week!

 

Love

Elder Hollingshead

 p.s. squid is not that bad of a meal. all the Mexicans have the craziest food.