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| Me and Elder Reynolds on the way to the airport. |
Hi, all is going great! The weather is amazing here! I got here and we were able to take our suit coats off for the first time since being in the MTC (besides in class)! We left for the airport at 5am and then we waited through all the lines. I got to talk to you guys!!! and text Emily and Nathan!!! Then we had our two hour flight to Cali where I talked to some of the people who were also going there on temp assignments. They are going to Brazil so they were learning Portuguese but there is only one Portuguese speaking missing in the US that they know of and that is Florida. So they were talking in Portuguese and I was talking in Spanish and I could understand most of what they were saying but it all sounded weird. I found out they liked photography a lot so we talked about that for almost the whole flight there. One of them had a really nice point and shoot that you could adjust the aperture and shutter speed on. It was really nice.
Then we got there and met the mission president, his wife, the assistant to the president, and some of the senior missionaries. We then packed everyone in the cars (there were 36 new missionaries for this mission). We drove to the mission home where we had a delicious lunch! It was so great getting to eat real homemade food for the first time in six weeks. Then we all hung out for a little bit while the mission president interviewed each of us to decide who our companions would be and where we would go. Right after my interview he said he knew exactly who he was going to put me with, but I had to wait until transfer meeting to find out. Then we did some practice contacting with the APs and they told us some mission stories. After this we went to the stake center for the transfer meeting. They gave us an overview of the rules of the mission then we joined the rest of the missionaries for the main meeting. They called up each trainer and who they were going to train. I was one of the very last ones just sitting there waiting to hear who my companion would be. As it turns out I got put in a tri companionship again, ha ha I think they were doing that for all the temp missionaries because I was told that we will be pulled out right once we receive our visas. I got assigened to be companions with Elders Feinauer (FINE-HOUR) and Herrera. Elder Herrera is my official trainer and he is from Columbia. He doesn't speak very good english mostly just Spanish. He has been a missionary for nine months four in Colombia and five in the US. Elder Feinauer is from Lindon Utah and has been on his mission for six months. He is the designated driver for our car, yes we do have a car, ha ha. All the Spanish speaking missionaries get a car because we cover so much distance. Oh, I almost forgot We are serving in the Temecula area! It is really cool here! It is the rich part of our mission. This makes it very difficult to find and to teach people who speak Spanish! Elder Feinauer said that in his last area Mission Viejo that it wasn't near as rich, not poor, just not so rich and there were a lot of Mexicans and other Hispanics and they were all a lot more humble than here and they had six lessons a day. Here we are lucky if we have a lesson in each day.
We live in a rather huge apartment with a living room, a dining
area, a kitchen, two bedrooms one with a walk in closet, and two bathrooms. I
was really surprised how big it was. We live in an apartment complex that if I
remember right is called summer breeze. It is on top of a hill that is about the
middle of our area. Each morning we are required to run for thirty minutes by
mission presidents orders. The hill that we live on isn't fun to run :P the
area we live in is pretty much all hills, ha ha and to run in the morning we
have to run up a hill to get out of the complex then back down the hill to go
anywhere so we have to go back up it to come back :P but it hasn't been too
bad. Today however I have got what Elder Feinauer said is called jumper's knee.
Today while running my knee started hurting right under my kneecap so he said
we just need to buy some tape to help fix it.
Oh, so if you haven't gathered this already, I am Spanish speaking! which is great because if I wasn't I would forget it all, ha ha We speak Spanish pretty much all the time especially since Elder Herrera pretty much only speaks Spanish so all our planning and companionship study is in Spanish. I understand the overall idea and most of it but I have to have Elder Feinauer translate at times especially when he uses his errado Colombian words! We eat breakfast and lunch at the apartment with food that we buy each week and we eat dinners at members homes. The first night we got there we went to the Reye's family home for dinner. We had carne, frijoles, and arroz that fue muy picante! It was meet with beans and rice that was really spicy, but was good! Also we had tortilla to eat with it of course, ha ha the i think the second night was when we went to the Valtran families house and we had pulled pork and ice cream, that was really good. Their house was really nice! For most of the other nights we have been eating at parties of a group of members from our branch that consists of the Reyes, the Herreras, Hermano Saunders, Hermano Arones, an Hermana that I can't remember her name, and the ward mission leader and his wife who's names I don't know. I think that more than half the nights we've been here we have ate with them at a party of some sort. It often consists of many different things such as taquitos, arroz, frijoles, pollo, tortillas, etc.
Right now I'm not sure exactly how many investigators we technically have because a ton of people never answer their door here. Of people that we have met that I feel like are actually progressing investigators are S and C and maybe A and his son J. With S we just started teaching him the Restoration and invited him to church on Sunday but he wasn't there although I thought he would be. He seems like he is learning a lot. C we just barely met and started teaching he was one of the two lessons we had yesterday (two!) we have talked to him about the first half of the restoration and he is eager to learn more about our prophets and why he can't go in our temples which we told him we would talk to him about in our next lesson. He lived in Utah for a year so he know a little bit about our church but he has only hear a few things and has never had discussions with the missionaries before. I think that he is learning a lot also. A was the only investigator that came to church last Sunday. The problem was that he didn't feel the spirit and he had been told that he would. When we went to talk to him that night we gave him a lesson on recognizing the spirit and being open to receiving promptings. His son J actually wants to get baptised but A doesn't want him to :/ and the rest of the time we spend trying to get a hold of people and we either see them behind their peeping hole because they won't open the door or they try to avoid us all the time. I hope we start being able to contact more people! We spend the rest of our time tracting and contacting. I'm going to send pictures now because I'm running out of time but I will write more if I have time! Love you guy soo much!!!
Hi, all is going great! The weather is amazing here! I got here and we were able to take our suit coats off for the first time since being in the MTC (besides in class)! We left for the airport at 5am and then we waited through all the lines. I got to talk to you guys!!! and text Emily and Nathan!!! Then we had our two hour flight to Cali where I talked to some of the people who were also going there on temp assignments. They are going to Brazil so they were learning Portuguese but there is only one Portuguese speaking missing in the US that they know of and that is Florida. So they were talking in Portuguese and I was talking in Spanish and I could understand most of what they were saying but it all sounded weird. I found out they liked photography a lot so we talked about that for almost the whole flight there. One of them had a really nice point and shoot that you could adjust the aperture and shutter speed on. It was really nice.
Then we got there and met the mission president, his wife, the assistant to the president, and some of the senior missionaries. We then packed everyone in the cars (there were 36 new missionaries for this mission). We drove to the mission home where we had a delicious lunch! It was so great getting to eat real homemade food for the first time in six weeks. Then we all hung out for a little bit while the mission president interviewed each of us to decide who our companions would be and where we would go. Right after my interview he said he knew exactly who he was going to put me with, but I had to wait until transfer meeting to find out. Then we did some practice contacting with the APs and they told us some mission stories. After this we went to the stake center for the transfer meeting. They gave us an overview of the rules of the mission then we joined the rest of the missionaries for the main meeting. They called up each trainer and who they were going to train. I was one of the very last ones just sitting there waiting to hear who my companion would be. As it turns out I got put in a tri companionship again, ha ha I think they were doing that for all the temp missionaries because I was told that we will be pulled out right once we receive our visas. I got assigened to be companions with Elders Feinauer (FINE-HOUR) and Herrera. Elder Herrera is my official trainer and he is from Columbia. He doesn't speak very good english mostly just Spanish. He has been a missionary for nine months four in Colombia and five in the US. Elder Feinauer is from Lindon Utah and has been on his mission for six months. He is the designated driver for our car, yes we do have a car, ha ha. All the Spanish speaking missionaries get a car because we cover so much distance. Oh, I almost forgot We are serving in the Temecula area! It is really cool here! It is the rich part of our mission. This makes it very difficult to find and to teach people who speak Spanish! Elder Feinauer said that in his last area Mission Viejo that it wasn't near as rich, not poor, just not so rich and there were a lot of Mexicans and other Hispanics and they were all a lot more humble than here and they had six lessons a day. Here we are lucky if we have a lesson in each day.
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| Our apartment |
We live in a rather huge apartment with a living room, a dining
area, a kitchen, two bedrooms one with a walk in closet, and two bathrooms. I
was really surprised how big it was. We live in an apartment complex that if I
remember right is called summer breeze. It is on top of a hill that is about the
middle of our area. Each morning we are required to run for thirty minutes by
mission presidents orders. The hill that we live on isn't fun to run :P the
area we live in is pretty much all hills, ha ha and to run in the morning we
have to run up a hill to get out of the complex then back down the hill to go
anywhere so we have to go back up it to come back :P but it hasn't been too
bad. Today however I have got what Elder Feinauer said is called jumper's knee.
Today while running my knee started hurting right under my kneecap so he said
we just need to buy some tape to help fix it. Oh, so if you haven't gathered this already, I am Spanish speaking! which is great because if I wasn't I would forget it all, ha ha We speak Spanish pretty much all the time especially since Elder Herrera pretty much only speaks Spanish so all our planning and companionship study is in Spanish. I understand the overall idea and most of it but I have to have Elder Feinauer translate at times especially when he uses his errado Colombian words! We eat breakfast and lunch at the apartment with food that we buy each week and we eat dinners at members homes. The first night we got there we went to the Reye's family home for dinner. We had carne, frijoles, and arroz that fue muy picante! It was meet with beans and rice that was really spicy, but was good! Also we had tortilla to eat with it of course, ha ha the i think the second night was when we went to the Valtran families house and we had pulled pork and ice cream, that was really good. Their house was really nice! For most of the other nights we have been eating at parties of a group of members from our branch that consists of the Reyes, the Herreras, Hermano Saunders, Hermano Arones, an Hermana that I can't remember her name, and the ward mission leader and his wife who's names I don't know. I think that more than half the nights we've been here we have ate with them at a party of some sort. It often consists of many different things such as taquitos, arroz, frijoles, pollo, tortillas, etc.
Right now I'm not sure exactly how many investigators we technically have because a ton of people never answer their door here. Of people that we have met that I feel like are actually progressing investigators are S and C and maybe A and his son J. With S we just started teaching him the Restoration and invited him to church on Sunday but he wasn't there although I thought he would be. He seems like he is learning a lot. C we just barely met and started teaching he was one of the two lessons we had yesterday (two!) we have talked to him about the first half of the restoration and he is eager to learn more about our prophets and why he can't go in our temples which we told him we would talk to him about in our next lesson. He lived in Utah for a year so he know a little bit about our church but he has only hear a few things and has never had discussions with the missionaries before. I think that he is learning a lot also. A was the only investigator that came to church last Sunday. The problem was that he didn't feel the spirit and he had been told that he would. When we went to talk to him that night we gave him a lesson on recognizing the spirit and being open to receiving promptings. His son J actually wants to get baptised but A doesn't want him to :/ and the rest of the time we spend trying to get a hold of people and we either see them behind their peeping hole because they won't open the door or they try to avoid us all the time. I hope we start being able to contact more people! We spend the rest of our time tracting and contacting. I'm going to send pictures now because I'm running out of time but I will write more if I have time! Love you guy soo much!!!
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