Good afternoon,
This has been one of the longest weeks probably since my first week in
the field. California is a really interesting place, and by
interesting I mean that hardly anyone is interested in hearing about
the restoration, or Jesus, or any church for that matter. Most people
here are "Catholic" which means they sometimes go to mass on Christmas
or Easter. The weirdest thing to me is that white people are probably
the meanest people out here, it makes me want to go into Spanish work,
because basically every Latin American person that I have talked to is
super nice, even if I can't understand them. Throughout the week we
struggled to teach lessons, two days of which we couldn't find anyone
that was willing to listen to us. Luckily the last two days of the
week we were able to make our weekly goal by doubling our lessons ,
which is a huge testimony builder to me about goals. If you set goals
with Heavenly Father, he will always help you accomplish them, always.
If you are working your hardest, and exhaust all of the options you
can think of, the way always opens up.
On Wednesday, me and Elder Low got on our bikes and were just leaving
the neighborhood when Elder low stopped to talk to someone. At this
point I was completely in my own world, feeling groggy after 3 hours
of study, I only had a split second before I was going to slam into
the back of my companion. Acting quickly I swerved to the left and
could only manage to hit one of my brakes, unfortunately that brake
was my front brake, anytime that you slam on your front brake I can
guarantee that you're going to have a bad time. Before I knew what was
happening I was on my front tire looking straight at the ground, I
threw my right foot out trying to make contact with something, knowing
that my foot would be better than my face on the asphalt. Luckily I
caught myself before what must have been certain death, letting go of
my bike and landed on my feet. My bike flipped backwards and crashed
into the curb of the sidewalk. At this point everything was in slow
motion for me, realizing what had happened I looked up and saw a wide
eyed elder low and random stranger looking at me, embarrassed I picked
up my biked hearing the words "yeah I'm not really interested" and
tried to ride away, as my face turned a bright red seeing that the
whole neighborhood was staring at us. Quickly pushing my feet I felt
no resistance, and noticed that my chain was completely off. I began
to frantically scoot my way out of the neighborhood. As soon as we
turned the corner I threw that chain on and we were out of there.
The next day elder Low had to go to a meeting for district leaders and
so I went on exchanges with Elder Frandsen. Getting there was the
trick part. We had to bike to their area not being able to secure a
ride for ourselves, which resulted in biking through several different
areas of the zone and a 11 mile bike ride. When we arrived, me and
elder Frandsen went and did service for a old lady her backyard was
horrible in result of her husband being a hoarder. There was piles and
piles of trash filled with all sorts of random junk that you couldn't
believe. My first solution to this problem was fire, there is only one
way to take out this many weeds and trash, fire. Tempting as it was
seeing the gallon of gasoline she had given us for the weed whacker, I
decided that I needed to be a responsible missionary and get to work,
after 3 and a half hours of literal blood sweat and a little bit of
tears... Well it looked about the same, but I sure felt exhausted. We
went back to their pad and waited for our companions to get back, we
waited and waited, and waited some more, not being able to get in
contact because Elder Low had taken the phone, we got a member to call
and found out that they had been in an accident. It was only a minor
accident but enough to hold them for almost 2 hours extra in L.A
traffic. You can't take Elder Low anywhere, last time that we went to
the office we got in a minor accident on the way back home, it's just
crazy. I'm convinced that automobile accidents occur more frequently
in California because everyone drives crazy. After he got back we took
the long bike ride home and I was sure happy when that day was over, I
sure got a good nights rest.
The Day after that we were riding our bikes down the street and saw a
guys tire fly off of his SUV. The axial skid on the ground and sparks
flew everywhere, the car was surprisingly okay, but the road really
got messed up. It looked as if a T-Rex had attacked the road with his
massive claws. Like I said before, as a missionary you see the
weirdest things happen and the weirdest things happen to you. I'm not
exactly sure why that is, I'm still trying to figure that one out but
more weird stuff has happened to me these past 3 months than in my
entire life. Thank you everyone for all of the support it makes such a
big difference. I love all of you and hope that you are keeping up on
your scriptures and praying. It will make the difference.
Elder LeBaron
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