Hello Bostonia!

Found out today that Elder L. has been assigned to the Bostonia Ward in the Santee Stake. It's a neighborhood in El Cajon, CA.

Shoes

Elder Kiser and I have a shoe problem.

Goodbye Sweetwater!

So I just got the call that I'm getting transferred tomorrow! Pretty crazy. I have only been in Sweetwater for 4 1/2 months. Kinda sad about it all. I wanted to be Elder Kiser's last companion and I wanted to see Elder Kiser and Elder Nielsen leave but its all good. I'm going to go where the Lord wants me to serve.

We had a pretty crazy week this week. On Tuesday we had a Mission Conference with Elder Clarke of the first quorum of the Seventy and President Donaldson from the District 2. The Mission Conference was about iPads and what they are for. I learned a lot of good stuff that I'm going to apply to this work. 

On Wednesday I had a District meeting and I taught about something they talked about in the mission conference - having a vision for yourself and where you want to go. I had a senior couple come the district meeting and they helped us think of things we should put in our "vision". Then we spent some time writing it out and hanging it up so we can look at it daily.

Friday was a pretty crazy day. Elder Nestoryak went home this morning. On Friday the missionaries that are leaving spend the whole day with president Schmitt and they go to the temple. So while Elder Nestoryak was with President his companion, Elder Harrison, was with us for the day. I went on Exchanges with Elder Schroeder. It was a pretty crazy exchange but it was such a good day. Elder Schroeder is one of my Zone leaders and we saw a lot of cool miracles. We ended up teaching 7 lessons that day and adding 2 new investigators from Nigeria.

On Saturday, we exchanged back. That morning Elder Kiser and I were going to the bus stop and we see this guy that looks pretty sad and Elder Kiser asks how he was doing in Spanish. He responded by saying not very good in Spanish so I said "Oh your not doing to well?" and he was like "How did you know?" haha. He ended up being drunk and he told us he got kicked off the bus for drinking so I was like "so your drunk?" and he was like "How did you know?" haha It was pretty weird so we walked away across the street and we are waiting there. Five minutes later the guy walks across the street too and comes over to us again. He was telling us about how he is an orange picker and in the middle of it he starts singing "I've seen fire and I've seen rain" haha. He keeps talking to us and a guy walks by and he was like " Sir could you spare $100 dollars!" Elder Kiser and I were trying to hold it together but after that we lost it and started laughing. After we finished laughing we try talking to him about how he shouldn't get drunk anymore. It was pretty sad :/ He ended up going to jail 3 times last week. We tried helping him but we really couldn't because of how drunk he was. It was pretty sad.

On Sunday Tom and Em came to church! Em has had 2 strokes and her health isn't doing so well. 1/3 of her brain doesn't work anymore and so sometimes she says some weird things. That morning she heard a rooster and every once in awhile she would think she was a rooster and scream COCKADOODLEDOO!!!!! She did it in the parking lot once and I told Tom that there was a room outside the chapel that has a window looking into the chapel where she could go. On our way to the room in the Church She started screaming COCKADOODLEDOO!!!!!!!! It was pretty embarassing but she didn't know she was saying it. Because of Em's health issues we were wondering how accountable she really is so we had President Hunt (1st counselor in the mission presidency) talk with her and he said she is good to get baptized but he is going to do the interview which should go well! Tom joined the church 43 years ago but inactive after 10 months so he only became a Teacher. He is working with the bishop to get ordained a Priest so he can baptize Em! Which is exciting! 

Yesterday we had a pretty good day! Bishop has a pool in his backyard and he has a pool party two times a year for the ward so we had lunch there yesterday. But no swimming of course haha .

Well I think that's it for this week! :)

Love you all!

Elder LaRochelle

Blessings From Being Diligent

From May 18th...

Hey everyone. So we saw some pretty cool miracles this week. This week we saw something really cool happen with one of our investigators Em. Em has had 2 strokes and now has a hard time remembering things and her husband Tom has been less active for about 40 years now. They were street contacted by some Spanish sisters! They are really nice people and this week Tom called us and told us that Em had a dream that she was with Jesus. He told her that she needed to baptized again because she wasn't baptized by the right authority and then Jesus baptized her the way that he was baptized which was sweet!.

On Thursday we went on MTE's (missionary training Experience) I ended up going with a missionary that also served with Elder Arney his name is Elder Bascom. We had a good day. We didn't really see any cool miracles until the end of the day. When we were walking home we passed by a house and we both had a prompting that we needed to go back and knock on the door. When we did we met a guy named Jesus Lopez and he told us that his brother is meeting with missionaries and helping him get off drugs and that his mom was a member which was pretty cool! We didn't get a chance to really teach him but we set up a return appointment which was cool! After that we had like 10 minutes before it was 9 and we were about to go in and I felt like we needed to be diligent and try a potential investigator in our apartment complex that we have tried a billion times before and no answer. This time he answered and we were able to get a return appointment. Definitely blessings of being diligent!

On Saturday we went to the Mormon Battalion with Tom and Em and they loved it! Our tour guide was a sister missionary I served with in my 1st transfer and now she is going home next transfer! That's pretty crazy! All the missionaries I know will be leaving soon which stinks.

Yesterday we went to a mission Presidents fireside in Poway. Elder Kiser was playing a musical number there. It turned out to be super hard to get a ride up there since we don't have a car! We ended up getting a ride with President Hunt from the mission Presidency! He is pretty cool and he knows the Barnes from Ohio!

Tomorrow we have a mission conference with a member of the Seventy and President Donaldson about iPads  which should be pretty sweet!

That's all for now! Love ya and hope you are doing well!

Love

Elder LaRochelle

Mormon Battalion

#TheBusIsRough

FROM TUESDAY, MAY 12 ...

Things are great here! Me and Elder Kiser are getting along great! a lot of cool stuff happened this week and also some weird stuff. My first week of walking (no car) hasn't been bad. We have seen a lot of blessings and have gotten a lot of rides with people!

On Wednesday morning we were going to do service with Brother Beebe and it got cancelled so the member said they were going to take us to lunch so we got in the car and he actually took us out of our area! Pretty crazy! We tried to tell him we couldn't leave our area but he really wanted to take us to get the best fish tacos in San Diego. They were pretty good.

On Thursday we talked to this guy in a scooter at the bus stop and he seemed pretty nice. Then he got in an argument with the bus driver and started swearing at her #TheBusIsRough. Then it took an hour and half to get home at night and we were stuck at sketchy bus stops #TheBusIsRough #ItsAllGood #ImFromTheHood. 

On Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Hirst and had a blast! We were in Lemon Grove and I didn't see a single Lemon Tree. I picked to a good time to leave the area though. It's rained like 4 times since I have been in Sand Diego and it rained when I was in a car area whoo hoo.

On Sunday I made my second call home! 2 more to go! We had a really good dinner with some members that night they wanted me to tell you that I am being well taken care of haha.

Yesterday we had an amazing day! We had a little bit of extra time before our next appointment and we were trying to think about what we should do so we decided to pray. As Elder Kiser was praying Kiara, an investigator we have, came to mind. Usually we meet with her and her son but her son was at school but I felt prompted that we needed to go see her. So we walked over there and she answered the door and she seemed a little sad so we asked if she was okay. She said she wasn't and we asked if she wanted to talk so we sat down and talked for a while about things that are going on in her life. I told her that we felt prompted to come see her and she started crying and said that right before we knocked on the door she was praying out loud to her Heavenly Father to help her. This is a miracle from our Heavenly Father! He loves us all and answers our prayers! I know that without a doubt!

I hope you all had an amazing week hope to here from you soon! Love you all!

 

Elder LaRochelle