HELLO!

Well this week has been very long. Thanks for the Jacket. Monday night as we rode to they **** it started Pouring! so needless to say I got soaked. it was an interesting night. Tuesday was interesting, My companion had a little training thing so for 3 hours i just sat in the hall of the church building reading and talking with other Elders and trying not to fall asleep. Then the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, our Appointments that we had planned all week and scheduled most of them didn't happen, and we ended up having lousy Numbers. And no I'm not playing the Numbers game, but when you make plans and prepare for an hour each day for each of the lessons you are going to teach, and then you end up no teaching it gets very frustrating. Wednesday was alright other than having a crazy dinner. A Less Active called I thought to confirm the appointment, but it was actually to change it to 7, but we have weekly coordination with the ward at 7 at the other end of the area. needless to say, he convinced me to order a pizza for us cause we wouldn't take the money he was trying to give to us to buy food, cause were not allowed to take money from Other People. the pizza ended up not getting ordered somehow so we were late to the meeting and still hungry. he made it up for us and bought us a pizza after the meeting. Thursday was uneventful. We have our normal studies but we also have the 2+ hour weekly planning session that is always held right after lunch. Oh and since it was Halloween President wanted us in our apartments by 6pm as you can see there isn't much time to do anything. so we got our bikes from the house that we left them at, then taught a lesson, and ate dinner at the same house then went back home! the rest the night was boring. All the other missionaries were calling and trying to occupy time by talking to us, most of it was time to relax and read conference addresses. and I found a new Favorite Speaker. Elder Christofferson. I have found his talks lately to be my favorite. and I cant wait to get this months Ensign. Thank goodness my Companion has years of conference addresses sitting next to his desk. Friday was Exciting, and super tiring. We had our regular District Meeting, but with very Important news. Los Angeles English Classes are starting up in our zone.

LA English was created by the Mission. It is super professional, and very planned out. There are 3 classes, beginning, intermediate, and advanced. The purpose behind these classes are to 1 Teach and 2 most importantly Get Referrals! Here are some statistics about the Program. In the Arcadia Mission right next to us. A similar program has reported that in some areas approximately 90% of all baptisims were referrals from the English class.  WOW that surprised me a lot, then Statistics from LA In South LA and Inglewood Cities, the Hispanic population is between 40%-50% depending on the area. Lots of people that don't know English. So now instead of walking up to people and doing street contacting if a Hispanic person is walking well pull our English class card out and tell them about it. What Hispanic in LA doesn't want to learn English,  and its Free even better. So the last 3 days in the early afternoon when people are usually not available that's what we do, walk up and down streets taping signs with pull tabs and giving people cards. We hope it will have great success.  Because we are walking a lot and its hot and sunny, it definately wore me down. I was so tired, and it was fast Sunday so yesterday until about 4 it was hard to keep walking, when you have no energy left at all, bu you know how they say work is good for you. I Believe it as soon as we started to ride bikes and walk I seemed to have a little bit more energy and it definately woke me up and kept me going till about 5 when we had dinner. But there is one benefit from Day light Savings time. The Change happened Sunday Morning, which meant we got one more hour of sleep that night. It was good me and my companion were both super tired and the extra hour did me good and refreshed me, but the extra hour only happens once a year so still no sure its worth it. I was just getting used to of it being dark when we wake up and now its light again. Oh well.

Other than that Language study is hard. it happens only 5 times a week, for an hour, definately not enough. I understand 80% of what people are saying but I don't talk much at all which is a problem. I'm not saying its my companions fault but he's a native Speaker and he doesn't have to think about it so he can just ramble off whatever he wants. so sometimes I hardly get to answer questions and talk other than where I'm from, how long I've been out here. so understanding is alright but speaking is hard. Oh and its a super small world! so in our ward there is a guy  named Ivan. he looks American but from Mexico. Super nice guy and Guess what! He's from mesa. he speaks fluent Spanish and decent English and also graduated from Westwood. I remember the first time we met and I told him was from mesa he was like " don't tell me you went to mountain View" oh well he's super chill.  He got married right after high school and about a year ago he got a divorce. So at his rock bottom time in his life he decided to come back to church. and has been active for a year now and has definately changed his life around. But he has a 2 year old son who lives in mesa so every 2-3 weeks he goes back and visits his son for a week. and this was the week so at church he came up to me and was talking about Mesa and they showed me a picture of him at Backyard Taco! he says that is uncle is the manager. So then i told him that they church building right across the street is my building. and i live right down the street from it. He was super wierded out that we have so many connections, and how we probably crossed paths multiple times. he said he grew up by Mesa Dr. and University and I told him that I have a bunch of family there and I told him the name Lamoreaux but he didn't recognize it.  so yeah super weird and awesome.

A scripture I found this morning Mosiah 5:15. Steadfast and immovable. I've always like that phrase and this scripture has an awesome promise if we are steadfast and hold to the rod. Keep up the good work everyone. thanks for all your prayers and love that you have. I  love you all and hope be able to write you soon, now that I finally got addresses. Oh and that super cool that Katie Holt is going on a mission, to Puerto Rico! if you see her before she leaves tell her good luck for me. And Thanks again for all your examples that you were to me growing up.  Hope you all had a fun Halloween!   Love you all and I'll email you next week, as the last email of the transfer, hope my companion or me don't get transferred from this area cause its awesome.

 

Love,

Elder Hollingshead