Good afternoon,
This week started out well, but then we were in a trio for a
day with a Chinese Elder, we were baby sitting him for the Zls. He didn't have
a bike so we walked our whole area that day, and let me just say, I am so glad
I was not a pioneer, because my body did not do well with all that walking, I
stopped counting at about 5 miles, I have no idea how far we walked that day,
but it was an experience. I was completely fine until my legs started chafing.
I was probably quite the sight to see, just hobbling down the streets, and I
was pretty grateful when I got to the nearest pharmacy get something to
extinguish the flames. It was a pretty awful day actually, elder Chen was super
cool, even though I couldn't understand anything he was saying, although E.
Katanuma is from Japan, and E. Chen is from Taiwan, they seemed to have all
these Asiany things in common, and I was minority, which was super weird. I
just had two companions during that day that no one could understand, what a
weird day. Luckily for me the ZLs gave us a ride back to our pad, when we would
have had to walk a 3 mile walk back, so I was really thankful considering how
sore I was.
Every year they have a massive Christmas parade in Covina,
and the cool thing is the city asks the missionaries every year to help with
crowd control. So we showed up, they fed us lunch, we put on some bright orange
vests with "police volunteer" written on the back and just walked in
the parade back and forth for 3 hours and told people to stay behind the blue
line. All in all, it was a success, and also an awesome excuse to watch the
huge parade, which was a pretty neat experience.
After the parade we were walking back and found the local
park bathroom. There was 2 companionships in there including myself. All of a
sudden elder flowers just started talking, it was super muffled and distorted
because of how the building was built, and so I couldn't make out what he was
talking about. "Wait what?" I responded "Leroy, you know
Leroy?" His voice answered back. "No, I don't have any idea who you
are talking about"
"Leroy, he bounced, he left a couple days
ago"
"Okay, you're not making any sense right now Elder
flowers"
The conversation continued back and forth for a few more
sentences, I washed my hands and exited the bathroom, to my horror I saw elder flowers,
and all the rest of the missionaries outside the bathroom. It was then I
realized that I had been talking to a guy on his phone in one of the stalls. I
was welcomed by loud laughter as soon as the other missionaries saw me, they
were all listening intently to me and my bathroom buddies conversation. I think
the guy tried to explain. To me that he was on the phone a couple of times, but
because of the distortion in the bathroom, I failed to recognize the problem.
But you know what, whatever, if you know anything about me, that's exactly what
you can expect, for me to humiliate myself on the daily.
Other than that, the week has been pretty bland, one cool
miracle happened though. There was an older member of our ward who has
dementia, and a lot of other issues. We went and visited him and his wife. She
explained that his hip was hurting him a lot, and it was evident that it was
the case with how much noise he was making. The pain seemed to almost consume
him, and I felt very intimidated when his wife asked to give him a blessing.
They were going to take him to the hospital, but wanted first wanted us to give
him a blessing, because of the painful journey ahead, especially with his
frail body. We layer our hands on his head, my companion anointed, and I
sealed, as soon as my hands left his head a peaceful calm came over his body,
and the intense pain that has previously taken over his body had left, and he
soon fell asleep. I was dumbfounded, I have never had an experience like that
before with priesthood blessings, and as imperfect as I am, the lord is willing
to work through worthy men young and old. I know that there is real power that
comes from priesthood blessings, and it is just another testimony to me that
the true church was restored through Joseph smith, not only that, but that gods
power is here today to help us. I'm so grateful to be able to share these
simple, yet profound truths with everyone that I come in contact with. Have an
awesome week,
Elder LeBaron
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