ELDER MATTHEW LEBARON...12/19 - The ghetto, drunk people, and lost faith in public transportation

Hello friends and family!  I would like to start off by saying that I love my new area, it is seriously the coolest. It's got some nice areas in it, but for the most part, it's pretty ghetto, with a lot of ghetto people, but the cool thing about it, is that ghetto people listen to you. Also, I would like to say that I love black people, black people are the coolest. We are teaching a family that is black, and they are so ghetto, like seriously, I've never seen anything like them in my life before. We are teaching the husband named James, the rest of his family are members, so we have been working with him and his wife to get ready for a baptism date that he can handle, he has a problem with drinking, and smoking (most people do out here) and most of the time when we leave his house after a lesson, it smells as if we were smoking too, with how strong the smell is in they're home. You know people are ghetto when people use the word finne (fin-a). I'm no grammar expert so I'm still learning how this word is used, but as an example James will tell us "yeah, my wife, she ugh, she ugh finnen ta dew some-a dat ubering today, to make-a money" its really a completely different language, there are still many words that I am learning from this family. His wife, sister ketchens likes to tell us that they speak nigerese. I am still working on my nigerese but alas, I was called to serve English, so speaking ghetto is a big step for me. Their family is so crazy, they could honestly make a tv show about them. I love them so much, they are one of my favorite families that we are teaching.  This area is a ton different than my last, and I have been feeling so happy, the entire week that I have been here, I have felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, joy, and accomplishment, something that I haven't experienced very much on my mission. Something that I have come to realize, is that white people are the worst, seriously though. I have seen such a huge contrast working in this area, and just having people listen to us, sure they might not be interested, but they listen, and are super nice most of the time. It's weird, it's kind of like people out on this side of town just have a respect for us as missionaries, a lot of people will tell us, "God bless you guys!" Sure there are a lot of people that still cuss at us and flip us off, but it seems a lot less than when I was In Glendora. Also my companion makes a huge difference too, E. Crane is awesome! He is just a really easy going guy which makes missionary work pretty fun! Talking on the streets with all the interesting people has been a blast, you don't even know what's going to happen moment to moment in la Puente, and that's probably the best part. We had zone conference on Friday, and so me, Elder Crane, and the two other elders we are rooming with decided to go on the bus, because it seemed like the most easy and convenient thing to do, not to mention, sometimes it gets tiring asking for members to help us, because a lot of them are super busy all the times. So we went to the designated bus stop, and waited... and waited, waited some more, and when we got tired of waited, we waited a little bit more, and then the bus came.  It was raining pretty hard that day, and so all the busses were super behind, we only ended up being about 30 minutes to zone conference, but it seemed like everyone else had been there for a while. I won't forget the stern look of president as he pointed to two open seats, as we rushed in. Luckily though, we have an awesome mission president, and he was super understanding about the whole situation, after that, we went and waited for the bus some more, and it took even longer than the first bus to get there, when we got back it was already time for dinner, man what a waste of time. I haven't used the busses very much on the mission yet, but that pretty much killed it for me, I'm done with the California public transportation system, thats right you heard me, I'm done. Even I know thats not true though, give it a couple weeks and I'll be on one of those busses again. One night when we were riding our bikes home, we heard a man with slurred speech yell out, "Hey! Missionaries!" We immediately stopped and looked around, nothing to be seen, it was really dark and hard to make anything out. Thinking we heard a ghost me and my comp got on our bikes and started to ride away, then we heard something again. This time it sounded like some kind of Spanish, but not any Spanish a fluent speaker could understand. We looked to the left and saw a small mexican man slumped over next to a fence. "Oh, Hola!" I replied as the poignant smell of alcohol filled my nostrils. He replied in some sort of slurred Spanglish, that nor me or my companion could understand. Me and Elder Crane looked at each other puzzled, not sure what to say to the small drunk man. "No espanol" I said, and I began to lift my leg to get on my bike, "buenos noches!" I exclaimed. The small drunk man did not find this amusing, and began to scream in his alien language until I put my leg down. "What do you want, huh" I asked with frustration in my voice. He began to go on some sort of tangent in his inaudible speech. We sat there for a few minutes considering if we should just leave listening to his drunk troubles. E. Crane pulled out a pass along card and said "picture of Jesus  Cristo? "Jesus Cristo!!" The man exclaimed as he snatched the card out of my companions hands. "Si, Jesus Cristo!  Beuno!" I responded. This pleased the drunk mexican man, it pleased him very much, soon after looking at the card he slumped over even more falling into some sort of drunken unconsciousness, and we were free to walk away. What a weird night. We have a baptism next week, with a girl named Luvvia (Uvia) she is getting baptized on Christmas eve, so me and E. Crane are super excited for her, she is fifteen, and so solid. This area is awesome, and the people here are awesome. Like I said before, I'm not sure if I have been this happy on my mission before, and I definitely haven't experienced this much continuous happiness before my mission. Missions are really hard, but one thing that I have learned for sure, after the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, is that your Highs are way higher than your lowest lows. I know that this truly is Gods work on the Earth, and I'm so grateful that God has given me an opportunity to have a front row seat to his miracles, and wonders. The church is true, and If i know anything at this point in my life it's that. I hope that all of you have a great week, and that you take advantage of this Christmas time to share with someone, the good news of the restored gospel, its a pretty miraculous message.  Elder LeBaron