That's right! I'm living in the Hood! Ok, not directly in compton I don't think. My area is called Willowbrook. It does cover some of compton.
Let's start with the airport. It was a really good flight, by bags equalled eachother out, which is good, cause I was worried about that a little bit, actually a lot bit. Infact I was so worried that in order to make everything equal in weight, I accidentaly moved a lot of liquids to my carry on. So I lost my shampoo (sorry Elise) mouth wash, face wash, toothpaste, sunscreen, and I think thats it. As far as contacting people, everyone I talked to before the plane were memebers and I only sat next to Missionaries on the plane. :( OH well, an Elder did give out a Book Of Mormon so at least one of us were effective.
So we arrive at LAX and we see President and Sister Blackburn waiting for us along with the two AP's. We grab our luggage and take off to a church parking lot where the trainers are waiting. We were randomly matched with one of them, given a bag with proselyting material and an Area to go to, then we left. Unfortuanatley I ended up in a richer area, so they are not as willing to listen to strangers at there door. No sucess yet again. We went back home, Mission home, and did some Orientation things for the next 4 hours! Boring!! I guess it was important though. After that was all done, President had all the Interviews, we were given our new companions. Mine is Elder Amundsen from Sandy Utah, go figure. After that we walked down the street to the LA temple and got pictures taken. I'll send one of me and my comp. then one of me and the Mission President and his wife. So we had our picture taken, walked around the Temple to get to know our companion, had a great BBQ then took off to home.
Our area is from about 120th Street to Rosecrans. Then the 110 freeway to Alanada. So we have a little bit of Compton in there. The people are so cool though! My companion already had a couple investigators of course. One person, her name is Debroh, he had only contacted and given a pamphlet to. She was an HQ referral, which means she called the MTC to get a free DVD or something and asked to have reps come. That's me! So he only gave her the item then set up a return date. We returned, taught her the first lesson, gave her a Book of Mormon, and invited her to church. That was thursday, saturday we stopped by to just check up on her and she had already read, and wrote down some questions!! WOoOot! She came to church on Sunday, stayed for RS,SS, but left in the middle of Sacrament. We called her later and asked her why, she said she was expecting the Pastour to speak. Don't worry, we have another appointment to teach her again, with a memeber. She loved church except for sacrament. ( Don't blame her the speakers went 15 min. over) But that's Debrah!
Mithchell, he's about 16, and will be baptized on sunday! I don't really know much about him, since I've only taught him a couple times.
All our other time is spent with Rosy, she is from Mexico and hasn't gotten baptized yet because she is still legally married to her husband in Mexico, so if you know anyone that can figure out all that legal stuff, have em write me how!
I'm so lost when we go see her, because the whole thing is in spanish! She makes really good food here! I had some water yesterday that tasted just like I had a watermelon in my glass. It rocked! So my spanish isn't that great, and I get a headache at the Spanish ward cause I don't understand it, other than that things are great!!
Well, I'm just about done, as far as mail and that goes, send it to the Mission Home. Our ZL's get it every friday and give it to us that afternoon. I love you all, hope WJ is doing all right without me! Mom, if you thing your ant problem is bad now, just be glad you don't find them in your retainer case, They are everywhere here!! I have to constantly flick them off my scriptures when I'm studying. Other then those creatuers I haven't had any problems here, I really like it here, a lot of spanish which is exactly what I need. Until next time. Keep the Faith!
Elder Groves
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
July 8
Elder Groves did not send a letter on July 8, but he called home from the Salt Lake Airport just before he boarded a plane to Los Angeles.
July 1st!
Uno semana mas! One week more!
Wow, what a crazy week! Lets start with the apostles.
So we sang for them Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. It was incredible! I bought a tape recorder and recorded most of our songs. I only got a little bit of one song and that was because the tape ran out. I also commented after every preformance. I'll send that to you before I leave this week. Throughout the course of these four days we sang for all 15 Apostles and Prophets. Sunday was by far my favorite one, the second prefromance. It was their sacrament meeting and there were 14 of the 15 there. The only one who didn't come was President Packer. That's because he was doing some other assignment. Wow, I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life! We sang and it was awesome. There were about five or six tenors that, because President Monson wanted to podium in the center, had to stand on the stand with the apostles a sittin about two feet behind us. Thanks for my height mom, it was the short tenors that got that oppurtunity. Because I was the shortest tenor, I was the last one off. We're leaving and I'm just beaming looking at all the Apostles and Prophets as everyone else in the choir is leaving. Some mouthed thankyou, some gave me the nod of approval,, and Elder Holland even gave me a pat on the back. Wow, that will be one of my biggest spiritual wells, something I can look back on and remember how I felt and how I have a solid knowledge that those men are called of God. After we sang we even had the oppurtunity to sit in another room and they broadcasted President Monson's talk to us. Yes!! If I had a choice between "listening to the prophet talk" heaven and regular heaven, I'd choose prophet heaven, MMM BOY! He talked a lot about how the Mission Presidents our the missionaries parents, in proxy. It was really cool, we did have to leave early because we had to get to another meeting.
Other news, I leave in a week! Wohoo!! Am I ready? Spiritually, maybe. Spanishly, not even close! Am I nervous? You bet! I leave wednesday the 8th. My flight leaves at 8:30. Which means sometime before that, they say I can call you! So I'll call the house and whoever wants to listen can. I don't want to spend too much time talking to you, sorry, but I want to spend a lot of time contacting in the airport, plus I don't know how much time I really will have.
It's crazy, we will go from knowing everything of the MTC to knowing nothing of LA. Sweet! I can't wait to start teaching real investigators, and to be with a companion who has more experience then I do, so I can learn a lot from him.
It sounds like everything is going well at home, glad to see the show went off alright, even though the swine flu hit it pretty hard. We call swine flu "Puerco Muerto" Pig Death. It's calmed down a lot here. There aren't as many missionaries in quarantine and we can almost do everything at Gym again. We still can't shake hands, so that will be something wierd once I get to the field, being able to shake hands again. I hope mom is enjoying summer break. Say hi to Elise for me, tell her I met the girl who played the piano for her last summer. I've also seen Collin Grant, James "Jimmy" Bush the 2nd, and Douglas Westwood. I hope to get a picture with all three sometime before I leave. Well that's all for this week, I don't know when you'll be getting my next E-mail, it may not be for awhile. Talk to you then, Love, Elder Groves
Wow, what a crazy week! Lets start with the apostles.
So we sang for them Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. It was incredible! I bought a tape recorder and recorded most of our songs. I only got a little bit of one song and that was because the tape ran out. I also commented after every preformance. I'll send that to you before I leave this week. Throughout the course of these four days we sang for all 15 Apostles and Prophets. Sunday was by far my favorite one, the second prefromance. It was their sacrament meeting and there were 14 of the 15 there. The only one who didn't come was President Packer. That's because he was doing some other assignment. Wow, I have never felt the spirit so strong in my life! We sang and it was awesome. There were about five or six tenors that, because President Monson wanted to podium in the center, had to stand on the stand with the apostles a sittin about two feet behind us. Thanks for my height mom, it was the short tenors that got that oppurtunity. Because I was the shortest tenor, I was the last one off. We're leaving and I'm just beaming looking at all the Apostles and Prophets as everyone else in the choir is leaving. Some mouthed thankyou, some gave me the nod of approval,, and Elder Holland even gave me a pat on the back. Wow, that will be one of my biggest spiritual wells, something I can look back on and remember how I felt and how I have a solid knowledge that those men are called of God. After we sang we even had the oppurtunity to sit in another room and they broadcasted President Monson's talk to us. Yes!! If I had a choice between "listening to the prophet talk" heaven and regular heaven, I'd choose prophet heaven, MMM BOY! He talked a lot about how the Mission Presidents our the missionaries parents, in proxy. It was really cool, we did have to leave early because we had to get to another meeting.
Other news, I leave in a week! Wohoo!! Am I ready? Spiritually, maybe. Spanishly, not even close! Am I nervous? You bet! I leave wednesday the 8th. My flight leaves at 8:30. Which means sometime before that, they say I can call you! So I'll call the house and whoever wants to listen can. I don't want to spend too much time talking to you, sorry, but I want to spend a lot of time contacting in the airport, plus I don't know how much time I really will have.
It's crazy, we will go from knowing everything of the MTC to knowing nothing of LA. Sweet! I can't wait to start teaching real investigators, and to be with a companion who has more experience then I do, so I can learn a lot from him.
It sounds like everything is going well at home, glad to see the show went off alright, even though the swine flu hit it pretty hard. We call swine flu "Puerco Muerto" Pig Death. It's calmed down a lot here. There aren't as many missionaries in quarantine and we can almost do everything at Gym again. We still can't shake hands, so that will be something wierd once I get to the field, being able to shake hands again. I hope mom is enjoying summer break. Say hi to Elise for me, tell her I met the girl who played the piano for her last summer. I've also seen Collin Grant, James "Jimmy" Bush the 2nd, and Douglas Westwood. I hope to get a picture with all three sometime before I leave. Well that's all for this week, I don't know when you'll be getting my next E-mail, it may not be for awhile. Talk to you then, Love, Elder Groves
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