Hi Erdmanns I love you all and miss you much! It sounds like you all had an awesome week which I am glad to hear about! You definitely know how to have work hard and play hard. Sounds like the girls are spoiled as usual. I cant wait to go and do all these things with you again haha but at the same time I can.
So this past week was super good.
Monday night we went out with a member of the ward and visited some people.
Tuesday we started going by a list of people given to us by some of the leadership in the ward of people who they didn't know if they even still lived at the address. Later that day we went by Charles who is one of our investigators - I am sure I have mentioned before - he is in his 50’s, African American and really enjoys our church. We had a good lesson with him and we are preparing him for his upcoming Baptism. Later that night we went and picked up Elders Sanderson and Renguul and drove Elder Renguul over to Cypress for an exchange with an Elder in that zone - the reason for the exchange is that Elder Renguul is Micronesian as is the other Elder but the other Elder was super new in the mission and isn't used to American culture and was struggling so Elder Renguul went to help him out for a day, which meant that Elder Sanderson was with us for 24 hours which was a lot of fun. He is a super cool guy.
Wednesday was a mix of appointments in both our area and Elder Sanderson's area which made things interesting, but fun, because it was a change of pace - which is always good. Also big news! I finally am in an area with an Arby's which is probably the best thing ever haha. I haven't been able to have Arby's since I left on my mission and Arby's is one of my favorite things ever so that made me happy! Later Wednesday night we went to the church where Charles had a Baptismal interview that he passed, which is super cool, especially because he has some mental handicaps which can make things a little tougher, and he lives with his Mom, who is a very strong Southern Baptist, who doesn't like us very much haha. Then at the end of the day we went and got Elder Renguul and took them back to their apartment.
Thursday we had zone meeting which was pretty good and then weekly planning. Afterwards we went out and did missionary work as usual - nothing to exciting happened.
Friday was the fourth of July which meant it was crazy most of the first part of the day and afternoon was really slow because of the holiday and it was really hot and I decided to not drink water so at about 4 I had heat exhaustion - but I drank a bunch of water and went back out and worked and felt fine afterwards. The evening was the crazy part - everyone in California has big mortar fireworks that are illegal and shoot into the air and go boom and make all the car alarms go off so it was like being in a war zone. It was cool though. We were teaching a lady in the ward who is a recent convert and we couldn't go into her home, so we were having a the lesson out by her apartment complex pool and at the end of the lesson a Spanish women came up to us and started talking to us in Spanish - which we didn't understand - but our recent convert did haha. It was actually super cool - she was a member of the Spanish branch and she was having a super hard time. She was in alot of pain and she found out that her daughter has terminal cancer and her mother is close to passing away (that isn't the cool part) but she had been trying to get a blessing but her home teachers and everyone she tried calling was out of town for the fourth of July so she just kept praying that somehow she could get a blessing and all of the sudden she looked out her window and saw us out by the pool - so we were able to give her a blessing and the Sister in our ward was able to translate for us so it was pretty awesome. The rest of the night was spent driving home trying not to get hit by random fireworks.
Saturday was super cool too. We spent the morning with Charles helping him to get totally ready for his Baptism which was on Saturday. His mom came out and expressed her unhappiness about all of it but Charles still made it to the Church and was Baptized at about 1:30. It was a really cool Baptism and he seemed really happy, and the people who gave talks did a super awesome job so it was really cool. Later we went to the Stake Baptisms one of the girls in our ward who was getting Baptized invited us to come.
Sunday was also really cool. Charles was confirmed a member and also two of our investigators, Eva who is in her 30’s, and Dawn who is 16 (they are related) both came to church. We had been teaching them through out the week and they really enjoyed church and have been doing super well. They have been taught a little in the past and then lost the missionaries, but now are super excited to be learning again. Dawn wants to be Baptized already so that is super cool. The rest of Sunday we went by and visited people. We gave a blessing to a lady in our ward who is from Haiti and speaks mostly French and then visited Brother Fanene who is Samoan. There are a lot of Islander peoples in this ward which I really like - they are awesome people. That pretty much wraps up my week though.
Anyways I hope you all have another super awesome week and thank you for sending the care package again. As far as if there is anything else that you can send in it, umm I am sure I could come up with a lot of things but they would mostly just be wants and not things I need haha. If you can send some of those envelopes so I can send home some more pictures that would be good. Other than that I think I am ok right now. Pictures are always super awesome too! Stay safe and happy though you are always in my prayers!
Love Elder Jensen
