Hello friends and family!
I am glad to say that the rain has finally stopped here in
southern California, and things are as usual, sunny... well at least for now.
There are quite a lot of people that say that there will be more storms to
come. El Nino turned into El Hombre this year.
I have re-read some of my emails this week, and something
that I realized is how many mistakes I make. Holy cow. I would like to
apologize to all of my readers of the LeBaron weekly. I do have to say, I try
and fly through this email every week like a banshee on my mini sized
keyboard and for the the most part, it seems to work out pretty well.
As most of you know, there have been some changes to
missionary work all across the world. I'm sure that all of the changes have
flooded the internet, and you are all very aware of the new schedule, and key
indicator changes... well if I wasn't on a mission I probably would have no
idea what was happening, so kudos for you that are aware. As a missionary for
the last 8 months I have made my life revolve around 9 simple things known as
key indicators, and mostly my whole essence as a missionary has revolved
around teaching lessons, and getting members to come to those lessons, and
not to forget new investigators or baptizing people. In the California
Arcadia mission our president has been very number oriented and so it was
surprising on Wednesday when Elder oaks announced that there would now only
be 4 indicators, which include: investigators baptized and confirmed,
baptismal dates, sacrament attendance, and new investigators. For the last 8
months my very breath was lessons taught a week, and members presents,
because baptisms only come every once and awhile, even when you are working
your butt off. To my shock lessons were completely taken away. After the
conference I sat there eating lunch, and I wasn't exactly sure how to be a
missionary anymore, even lessons taught to recent converts and less active
members was taken away. It truly is a testament to me that the lord is
hastening the work even more, and its very liberating to not have numbers
rule your life, the first 6 months of my mission, I learned for myself the
importance of just putting everything you have in the field, and to not worry
about the numbers, yes, help them push you, but never let them discourage
you, let them enable you, not disable you. Not to mention they changed our
daily schedule. The biggest and most exciting change is that we have 2 extra
hours on preparation day, it now starts on Mondays. Also we will be daily
planning in the morning, which means that when we get home at 9 or 9:30 we
have until 10:30 to do whatever we want... haha well not what ever but you
get the point. This is something that I have been thinking about since
I first started, there is nothing more stressful than trying to plan for 30
minutes when you get home (most of the time it turns into 45 minutes to an
hour) and then rushing into bed not feeling like you got to do anything to
relax. Its definitely a blessing from heaven. One of the negative things is
now we only have 30 minutes for lunch, which will quite honestly be hard for
me to make food for myself every day, not to mention that means no more
naps..... or no more eating food? Honestly I choose not to eat food, naps are
a major key alert to success as a missionary.
We got to go to the temple on Saturday with Juliet, and
went to the temple visitors center to get her excited for her baptism on
Sunday. It was pretty weird because we crammed our trio in the back of a
little car, we got a sister in the ward to take us to the temple with Juliet
(its awesome to be in a trio, because you always have a third male with you,
so you can literally get in any house, and get rides with the sister
missionaries, or have sisters in the ward drive you on the spot) after my
legs cramped for an hour and a half we arrived at the temple, and the temple
sister missionaries took over, it was super weird to see other missionaries
teach our investigator. In the middle of the tour Juliet had a crises of
faith, and she told everyone that she didn't want to be baptized anymore. She
explained that her family was not even close to being as perfect as what she
thought most families in the church are like. After an hour, of reassurance
from both us and the sister missionaries she was back on track again, but man
that was a heart attack. After the tour we walked the grounds and explained
different features of the temple to her with our member, the spirit was so
strong, and we knew that Juliet was feeling it too. After that we went to the
west L.A mall, which is the absolutely massive, and got some dinner. Crises
luckily averted, Juliet was baptized yesterday, and she is doing awesome!
This area is pretty awesome, I have already baptized twice, and its only been
a transfer and a half.
We have been in a trio for a week now, and let me tell
you, its been awful, not that I don't like being with both of my comps,
because they are really cool, but the pad we live in is packed to the max.
The pad we live in is a good size for two people, but for the past week, we
have had 5 people... 5 people for one bathroom, ugh, its been awful, mornings
are something else. not to mention there just isn't any place to put
anything, and we stumble over each others stuff day and night, because there
simply isn't any room anywhere. One of the missionaries has an extra broken
bike that literally does nothing but take up space, and so we have a total of
6 bikes that take up our whole living room, just horrible.
Thank you everyone for all the love and support, if you
are even slightly tempted to send me things or letters, please feel free to
embrace that temptation.
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614 West Foothill Boulevard, Arcadia, California 91006
Elder LeBaron
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