Week Two in El Sereno - March 17, 2014

Hey Everyone!

I hope you have all had a great week and that you all remembered to
wear green today! This past week has been very exciting and full of
opportunities to learn and to grow. El Sereno is really confusing and
difficult to navigate through the streets, but I am making progress.
The highlight of his week was definitely Myra (Elder Knight's
investigator) getting baptized! Here is he week in review:

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014:

It felt so nice to have a normal day to work again. We have had so
many things lately that have been eating into our time that it doesn't
feel like there has been time to work. Elder Steffen and I put in
records into the Area Book app; we are getting very close to
finishing, and I don't anticipate needing more than about two or three
more days to finish. During the afternoon, we found two new
investigators named Stan and Gloria who welcomed us right in. Stan is
quite the drug addict and wants to change his life around. Gloria has
family members who are LDS. It was a really good, short visit in which
we talked about the importance of prophets. They graciously accepted a
return visit for this Thursday. We later went to go have dinner with
Silvia and her son, Jose. Elder Steffen and I were each a little bit
worried that the meal might be a little bit awkward, but it ended up
being fantastic. I love that they really like to get to know the
missionaries as people; they remind me a lot of the Ramirez family
from Chino. We are going to go with their family on Thursday to East
Los Angeles to see about getting the marriage license all figured out.
Once they are both married, they should both be about ready to be
baptized. To conclude the evening, we stopped by Alex Varela's house
to see how he has been doing. The more that I am around Alex, the more
that I love the man. He is down to Earth and is extremely happy with
his decision to be baptized, despite the recent economic struggles
that he has been through. We talked to Alex for a little while about
the importance of exact obedience. He then told us that his brother,
Abel, has actually been baptized into the Church before! If Abel is
actually inactive, that could change everything about how we go about
teaching the family. It could also help the son, Chris, get baptized
sooner. It will be really interesting to see if President Muriel can
find Abel's records.

Wednesday, March 12th, 2014:

The morning was fairly routine, and we spent a little bit more time
putting in records into the Area Book. During the early part of the
afternoon, Hermano Velasco called us to request our help with helping
Hermana Salazar move some more furniture. We went to help for about
thirty minutes. It was a really easy service project, and Hermana
Salazar gave us a free desk that she no longer needed or wanted. I
gladly took it, so I am now using it instead of those annoying plastic
tables that every other apartment has. We rearranged a few things in
our apartment during dinner; it is amazing how much better everything
now looks. After dinner, Elder Steffen and I went to visit Hermano
Magdaleno. He is an older man who served a mission and is now
less-active. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon with
him. I was honestly quite surprised how much he still remembers, given
how long it has been since he has read or come to church. It was also
kind of funny to visit with him because he wanted to talk about a lot
of deep doctrine relating to the Book of Mormon. He seemed to be quite
fascinated with how the ancient American civilizations could be the
peoples talked about in the Book of Mormon. To conclude the evening,
our whole district went to the church for mutual to continue planning
for our upcoming Noche de Hogar activity with the branch on Monday.
Almost no one was focused during the planning, so I am a little
worried that we won't be able to get everything in order by Monday. We
have some awesome ideas; however, it will require some work and
additional planning to pull everything off.

Thursday, March 13th, 2014:

In the morning, we went to district meeting at the church. It was a
little different with Elder Knight teaching it. The zone leaders
joined us for the meeting. During the afternoon,
Elder Steffen and I went to East Los Angeles with Silvia and her son,
Jose, to learn how she can obtain a marriage license so that she can
be baptized. We had to wait in line for quite some time, but we
obtained the information that we were seeking for: Silvia will be able
to get married wife we can get her birth certificate translated into
English and obtain an ID card for her from the consulate of El
Salvador in Los Angeles. It may take a few weeks to get everything
done, but she would then be able to get baptized. She has been an
investigator for three years, and we have chance to help her enter the
waters of baptism. We met up with Elder Knight and Elder Turner to eat
dinner with the Perez family. I really enjoyed spending the time with
them and getting to know all of them better. Angie's younger sister,
Liz, couldn't believe that I am still only eighteen. Everyone says
that I look like I am at least twenty. It's interesting how living the
Gospel as much as we do changes not only our spiritual side, but also
our physical appearance. At night, we shared a quick Bible video (due
to a lack of time) with Stan and Gloria about the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. They were really excited to see us and learn more about
Christ's life. Gloria may actually be a member, so we will have to see
if her records can be found. Due to the bus, we ended up getting home
about an hour late; however, we had a couple of quality contacts on
the way home.

Friday, March 14th, 2014:

Time has seriously been flying by. I feel like I just got here
yesterday, and I have already been here for almost two full weeks. We
have had a couple of absolutely fantastic weekly planning sessions. I
normally despise weekly planning because of how long it is, but that
hasn't been the case here. Elder Steffen is very effective with
planning, and it gives me the opportunity to learn more from him about
how he does it. I also feel like we are able to give one another
positive and constructive feedback, which really helps me grow
personally. It always seems like we are in the right place at the
right time, too. We ran into Isabel, one of our investigators, on the
bus, and we also ran into Gabriel Martinez, a potential investigator,
while walking along the street. It always seems like we encounter
those tender mercies of The Lord after we have devoted the time to
have an effective planning session -- in this case, a weekly planning
session. We had dinner with Hermana Caceres. She is such a humble and
sweet lady. I really enjoyed talking to her and getting to know her
better. Every member of this little branch that I have met so far
seems to be really nice and devoted to The Lord's work; I love it! At
night, our weekly correlation meeting was canceled, due to both of the
ward mission leaders being busy. Our district still decided to meet up
at the church to plan more of our Noche de Hogar that is coming up on
Monday. I think the activity will really leave the branch inspired to
go out and do service. The best part about that is that all service is
essentially missionary work, too.

Saturday, March 15th, 2014:

There were two more Hermanas who were serving in El Molino last
transfer, which caused the areas to be drawn a little bit differently.
Those two Hermanas are no longer serving here this transfer, so there
was a chunk of our area that was added back that neither Elder Steffen
nor I had visited before. We had a couple of people that we needed to
visit in that neck of the woods, so we started walking. It was a lot
farther than I would have expected, but we got to see some awesome
views of our area from the tops of a couple of different hills. We are
really close to the heart of Los Angeles; it is really cool to look
out into the distance and see the skyscrapers and all of the nearby
cities. It was really fun to basically get lost in the new part of our
area and explore what is out there. As far as teaching is concerned,
we were unlucky in that we did not find any lessons to teach. We did,
however, find a couple of return appointments with potential
investigators. We also happened to be walking by a couple of different
people on the street who needed our help. They were both very thankful
for our acts of service, and one lady had told us that we came by at
the exact right time. One thing that I have noticed since being in El
Sereno is how often I seem to be in the right place at the right time;
I never used to feel like that in Chino. At night, Elder Steffen and I
went to stop by the Varelas to see how they have been doing. Alex
wasn't around, so we visited with Abel and Chris for a little while.
Abel said that he wants Chris to show his desire to be baptized by
trying hard in school; Chris has until the end of this month to show
his desire to be baptized by doing well in school. We shared a quick
message with Abel about the Holy Ghost and the blessings that it
brings us. I think Abel wants Chris to get baptized, but he wants
Chris to see how big of a decision he is really making. I was really
the one being taught there. True love also includes teaching a person
about the gravity of a choice, even if both people know that the
desired choice is the correct one.

Sunday, March 16th, 2014:

Church was a little hectic to begin today because no one was around to
teach one of the primary classes or the Gospel Doctrine class. I ended
up filling in for primary by assisting Hermano Muro with teaching, and
Elder Turner taught Gospel Doctrine. Meanwhile, Elder Knight and Elder
Steffen were busy running around and making last-minute preparations
for Myra's baptism. Myra has been an investigator for quite some time,
and (the former) Elder Pickett made the trip from Utah down here to
baptize her. Elder Knight arranged for everything to have Myra
baptized by Elder Pickett. The baptismal service itself went smoothly;
there were no hiccups in the program, and the Spirit was very strong
during the entire baptismal service. I was also quite surprised to see
President Becerra at the baptismal service.  After the baptism, all of
us (the Elders in the district) invited a lady into the church for a
tour. It was weird trying to have a tour and lesson with four
missionaries, but it went okay. At
night, Elder Steffen and I set up a return appointment with our
investigator, Elias. Baptisms use up a lot of the day, but they make
everything that we do as missionaries all worth it.

Today for P-Day, all of the Elders in our district will probably be
going mountain biking with Alex and also play a little bit of
basketball. I'm so excited to actually have time to do stuff here on
P-Day! .

I hope everyone has a fantastic week and is enjoying the warming
weather! I appreciate all of your love and support! I hope you all
have a fantastic week!

Love,
Elder Gabriel Valley

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