End of Transfer #9

A funny billboard found all over Los Angeles
Flour on my face after a service project.
In enemy territory at USC doing volunteer work.

This past week has been a good one. It was really nice to talk to everybody at home yesterday for mothers' day! Happy Mothers' Day mom!!! I wish we could have spoken longer, pero no se permite. Oh well. Everybody sounded the same except for Lindsey. I thought I was talking to Emily when Lindsey got on. She sounds a lot older! There were a lot of really happy missionaries yesterday, because calling home only happens twice a year! Saddly I didn't talk to Alesha. Hopefully she remembers me until Christmas.

For those of you who I didn't talk to yesterday, I have a story: Elder Cottrell and I went to go eat some dinner a few nights ago. As usual, we locked out bikes up to a street sign before we went in to eat. We used one of the combination locks that has 4 sets of numbers on it. We went in to eat, then we came out, and the bikes were gone. ROBBED!!!! It was even on a pretty big road with cars and people. But somehow they figured out the combination and took both our bikes. So we've been hoofin' it since then. I will be getting a bike from one of the Elders who is going home this week.

We had a really neat opportunity to go do some service at USC on Saturday! They have a big cancer walk each year at the USC Coliseum, and they always have one of the zones do volunteer work for a few hours. So all of us Metro Zone missionaries got to help with the event. It was huge! There were thousands of people there, and it was really fun. I got to walk around with a megaphone and tell people they could come to us if they had any questions about where to go. So we talked to all kinds of people and helped orient them to find things at the event. Then after that our district went over to our bishop's house to help him clean up his backyard. So we got to do lots of service!

So our investigator is doing really well! She came to church this past week and loved it! She even invited us to eat dinner with her the day before. The Nicaraguan food is really different from Mexican food. I was telling mom that they eat lots of fried plantains. They don't eat many tortillas like the Mexicans we eat with. We really hope she gets baptized this month. She won't accept a baptismal date, but she is warming up to it. It seems like she already has a strong testimony. She prays and reads the scriptures and she is now coming to church. She says she is still waiting for an answer from God, but I think she's already received it. We just need to help her recognize the answer. Her husband is interested now too! When we went over there for dinner, she was saying her baby boy was going to be an Elder someday! WOOo! That's a good sign.

Another investigator is going well too. But, saddly, he is moving back to Nicaragua this week. So tonight we are going to go to the Visitor's Center with him, Sister Munoz, and Dennis! Sister Munoz invited Dennis to come with us! So it will kind of be like a spiritual kick off before he heads out to Nicaragua. We are going to send the missionaries to his place in Nicaragua so he can get baptized down there! We had a really funny/frustrating lesson with him last week. We decided we needed to teach him the Word of Wisdom. When we told him he can't drink alcohol, smoke, or drink coffee he just laughed at us! He laughed really hard. We didn't think it was that funny. It was an obvious sign that he needed to change some things before he could get baptized. But he understood the doctrine and he said he would need to make some changes. He sells coffee, so that makes it a little more difficult. He tried persuading us that the coffee he sells isn't bad for you. But we just told him it was a commandment from a prophet, and he would have to live it. So we will see him tonight at the Visitors' Center!

It sounds like there are going to be a lot of changes this transfer. Our district is going to have lots of changes. I still don't know if I'm leaving or staying....I find out tomorrow night. I get nervous every transfer! I'll let you know what happens next week!

Welp, that's all for now. There's definitely more, but I can't remember it/it wouldn't be very interesting/not very important.

I love you all, and I'm glad to hear you're all doing well. Nothing worse than a bloody nose since Christmas is pretty good news. I want you to know that I KNOW the Book of Mormon is true. I know this church has been restored to the earth, or else I would rather go home. Preaching a restored church without a restored church doesn't make much sense. I'm especially grateful for the Atonement of Christ. It makes everything in the plan of God possible.

Love,

Elder Ross Matthew Watkins