Another Busy Week

From September 6 ......

Hey everyone! This week was pretty slow. We have been spending a lot of time finding new people to teach. We have also been dropping some people that weren't progressing. It's all good though it was a good week!

Last Tuesday we went bowling. We invited a less active and a couple of recent converts to come with us, but the less active ended up having to take his mom to the hospital. It what was fun though.

On Wednesday we went and volunteered at the food bank which was fun. They always give us a box of food after we finish helping them which is pretty cool.

So we had a strange thing happen this week and the story starts a couple weeks ago when Elder Callahan and I borrowed a car for the night. We had some people the high priest group leader wanted us to go see. We pull into this mobile home park and we were trying to contact a less active that lived in the park but we didn't have the mobile home number so we just asked the first person we saw and asked if they knew this girl we were looking for. When we asked this guy he told us that the girl we were looking for lived at that mobile mobile home which was pretty cool. He went to go get her and Elder Callahan and I looked at each other and we were like this is a pretty sweet miracle!

When the girl came out we told her that the high priest group leader asked us to stop by and see her and she looked super confused. I saw that she was confused and was like do you not know who the high priest group leader is and she shook her head no still looking confused so I was like do you even know who missionaries are and she shook her head no and was like I think you have the wrong person and walked away haha it was really awkward.

So this is when gets even more weird. Later on Wednesday we get a call from an unknown number asking if we could help him move a pool table. I was like sure...? Haha so he comes and picks us up and he ends up being a member of the church from Jamul. He told us that his brother in law lives in our ward and that's how he got our number. So we are driving and we pull into the same mobile home park where the girl lives and Elder Callahan and I look at each other like "there's no way it's the same place." There are like 100 mobile homes and there's no way it's the same one. So obviously we end up going to the same exact place with the girl that had no idea who we were haha. It was pretty awkward. No one said anything about it though. We all just avoided the situation haha. I feel kinda bad that we didn't bring it up. We were probably brought there to talk to her about the gospel. If it's meant to happen maybe we will run into her again haha.

On Friday we had zone meeting which was pretty awesome. Elder Callahan gave a "stepp" talk which is a short talk we have to prepare every month on a certain topic that President Schmitt decides. "Stepp" stands for scripture, testimony, experience, preach my gospel quote, and a promise. Elder Callahan did a great job for his first time though.

After zone meeting we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Godby came to Bostonia with me and Elder Callahan went with Elder Binkley. Elder Godby said he was pretty excited to be in a biking area for the day. Because of how our appointments were scheduled we ended up biking A LOT. At the end of the day he was like "I want to go back to my car area" haha. We had a really good day though. We saw quite a few people. One cool experience we had was when we were biking we passed by a less active's house that I have been to once before, and I felt like we needed to turn around and go see him so we did. When we stopped by the dad came outside and talked with us for a little bit and he told us that he had been struggling lately and he was glad that we came by and he said that he really needed us to come by and talk with him. I thought that was really awesome :).

We had dinner with the Beitlers that night and we taught Taylor about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about how God gives us so many blessings like the ability to repent and be baptized and to have the Holy Ghost with us to help us. After we were done teaching her we asked her if she had any questions and she asked "so if God gives us so much how can I show my appreciation back to him?" My jaw dropped haha, I couldn't believe that a 10 year old just asked me that question haha. The Beitler family is so amazing! I just want to take them to every appointment and just have them see all the less actives and investigators we are teaching just tell them listen to the Beitlers haha.

On Saturday we had an interesting experience, we were riding our bikes and I put my bike in 1st gear because we were going up a hill and the shifter ended up inside my bike tire haha It's a little messed up now but I pulled over to the side of the road and I told Elder Callahan that I was going to ask the person that lives in the house that we broke down next to if I can use her tools real quick. I walked up to the gate and there was a lock on the gate but it wasn't locked so I took it off and went into her yard and Elder Callahan was like we probably shouldn't go in her yard but I felt like it was going to be OK. I walked up to the front door and knocked and there was no answer so I walked around back into the back yard and we found an older lady there. We asked if we could use her tools and she was like "sure!" Haha she told us to go on the other side of her house here is a shed where we can get some tools so we walked over there and borrowed some of her tools and talked with her for a second and she told us that she has family that is part of the church and we talked a little more and offered to help her do service. We are going to go back sometime soon and drop off some cookies and see if we can talk to her some more.

Sunday was a pretty good day! Sister Beitler told us how she feels like no one really knows who she is at church. So we told her that if she bore her testimony then everyone would know who she was haha. She was like yeahh I'm good, so we told her that we would bare our testimonies if she did and she was deal! We bore our testimonies first and then she went and she did an awesome job! Brother  and sister Beitler both have very powerful testimonies. Don actually got the priesthood on Sunday and both brother and sister Beitler got their temple recommends on Sunday which is awesome! After church we went over and we set up lds.org accounts for them and got them started on family history. Don put his grandfather's name in and then it expanded out a lot which was awesome! It got them both pretty excited to do more family history haha. Nhulong also got the priesthood and his temple recommend on Sunday which is awesome.

Yesterday the ward had a temple trip. The temple is usually closed on Monday but they opened it yesterday for Labor Day which was cool.  The ward scheduled a couple of endowment sessions and to do baptisms for the dead so we went with the Beitlers and Nhulong. The temple was SUPER busy yesterday but everyone had a good time and there were a lot of people from the ward there which was awesome.

Things are going great here in Bostonia! Hope you are all doing alright. Hope to hear from you soon :).

Elder Chris LaRochelle
7404 Armstrong Pl.
San Diego, California 92111
Just in case you forgot my address ;P


-Elder LaRochelle