Busy

Pictures are from his new area. From the rooftop of his apartment.

Below is Korea town.

This has been a super crazy week for me! We have been doing lots of trainings and meetings, so it has taken a lot of time out of our area, which is a bummer. We take every chance we have to talk to people. Our teaching pool is kind of small right now, so we are in the finding stage. My new area "Los Feliz" is really neat! We have the church building in our area, so it is really nice. We are in the eastern part of Hollywood, so it's not quite as corrupt as the west side. We have Thai Town and Little Armenia in our area, and lots of Phillipino people. The are tons of Spanish speakers though, so lots of potential. Our area is right next to where the Hollywood sign is. The top part of our area is Hollywood Hills, and those are super ultra rich poeple, so we don't go up there very much (never). Our ward is awesome! It is called Barrio Cuarto (Fourth Ward) and the members are great! We have eaten with a few of them this past week, and they are all really willing to help with missionary work.
Elder Jacobberger is an awesome companion! This is his last transfer, so I will be his death companion. He is awesome! We get along well and work hard. He is from Medford, Oregon, and is planning on being a firefighter! We teach really well together too.
Soooo, today is Halloween. Halloween is not a good day for missionary work, so they are having all the missionaries retire from work at 5. But since today is p-day and p-day goes till 6, we won't get to go out and work today. Our zone will be having an activity in the LA Stake Center tonight. We are presenting the zone goal for the month of November. Then we will play games and sports in the gym until 7:30, then all the missionaries have to go back to their apartments and be locked in until all the wickedness of the world ends the next day. It should be really fun. We are having everybody in the zone bring food, so we will have a feast too!
Welp, things are going really well, but please pray for success in our area. We need more people to teach.
Try to say this phrase really fast "Cuento cuentos y cuenta cuantos cuentos cuentas." Then say this one "El mono le lame la mano a la mona y la mona camina comiendo mani." Then try to conquer this one "Siclopejico parasimpaticolitico de fosfato sodico de meta meta sona de motina de magiato con closferinomina."
I love you all and I know that this church is true! Take lots of luck! Hasta la vista!
Elder Watkins

Big News

This has been one of the most interesting weeks of my whole mission! We worked hard and "M" got baptized!!!! It was a really nice baptism! Elder Reichman performed the ordinance! It was his first baptism! It was really awesome because we street contacted her in Elder Reichman's first week in the field! So we got to see the tasty fruits of our labors! She is doing really really well. She loves the church, and she hasn't missed church since we started teaching her.
Yesterday before church I got a phone call from the assistants to the president. They asked me to go to a meeting at 5pm at a chapel in the middle of the mission. So Elder Reichman hopped on the freeway after the baptism and headed down to see what the meeting was all about. The meeting was composed of a bunch of the missionary leadership and a few future leaders. Then President Baker started telling us about some big changes that would be happening in the mission. We currenty have 7 zones, but the zones have been getting really big because of the increasing amount of companionships in the mission. So as of Wednesday (transfers) there will be two brand new zones, the Griffith zone (which is composed of Hollywood, Downtown, and surrounding areas) and the Athens zone (which is the "ghetto zone", made up of Watts, Compton, Inglewood, Lynwood, and surrounding areas). Then President held a few interviews after the meeting. He assigned me to be a zone leader in the Griffith zone with Elder Jacobberger! I was really excited! Elder Jacobberger has been my zone leader for about 4 months, and now I get to be his companion. That also means that I will be serving in the city of HOLLYWOOD!!! Don't worry, it is still a Spanish area. They have a really good Spanish ward up there, and I'm really excited to go and serve! But that means I will be leaving Jefferson Park...and Elder Reichman will be left to fend for himself and try to find his way around the streets haha! But it sounds like this will be my fate for the rest of my mission. I will most likely spend my last 3 transfers in this area. The area is called "Los Feliz". I'll let you know how it is next week!
I was really grateful to have such a great last week in this area. In total I have spent about a year in this ward! I will miss the people, members, investigators, and the food. But the work will keep moving forward. This area won't be in Griffith zone, so I probably won't be seeing Elder Reichman around very often. But now I will be able to write the recent converts in this area.
I'm really grateful for the Lord's work. I know that this is God's kingdom on earth. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of god, and that this is THE restored church. And most of all, that we can be saved through the atoning sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ. That's some pretty good news! I love you all! Have an awesome week!
Elder Watkins

Temple Day

This morning at the temple.

L.A. Temple before sunrise this morning!

Ross making a "Zillion Pound" hamberger.

Wow! Crazy Week!!!!!!!! We had an awesome weeek! We have been doing tons of finding, and we have been finding lots of success! Since we have p-day today instead of Monday, we went out and had a regular work Monday. And it ended up being the best Monday of my mission!!! We went out and taught lessons all day and found a whopping 6 new investigators!!!! It was crazy! I couldn't believe it! The Lord blessed us all day long, and we were wiped out by the end of the day! Missionary work is really tiring.
I wish I could tell you everything that happened all week, but there is not enough time. We had a nice FHE with our investigator and we had her come over to a recent convert's house for the FHE. It went really nice. She loves coming to church. We found out about her coffee addiction, but that shouldn't slow her down. Pray for her! We also had really good food this past week. Some rooster soup, and tons of pupusas! J L should be getting married this weekend, which means she will be baptized the following, on the 23rd! We found out that she has been investigating for a total of 10 years!!! And we are the lucky missionaries that get to hold the baptismal service. She is super strong. This next week we are going to focus on setting baptismal dates. We have a huge teaching pool right now, and we just need to teach them all and help them keep commitments so they can be baptized.
A couple nights ago we had a nice experience with a new family who is investigating. We went to the door for our appointment, and the two ladies inside invited us in. We had to explain to them that we can't be in the home with them unless there was another adult male wtih us. So one of the women went out into the yard and grabbed her husband and had him come in for the lesson. The lesson turned out being focused on the husband because he enede up being the most interested of them all. And he didn't even hesitate when we asked him to offer the closing prayer. He offered a nice prayer, and the Spirit was definitely there! I guess that's what we get for following mission rules!
My companion is doing really well. He is picking up Spanish really fast. He is really obedient and smart. It is good for me because I always forget things, and he remembers EVERYTHING! He is like a walking computer! Hey dad, I made a zillion pound hamburger for lunch yesterday, and I've been making fish for lunch too. I AM A MAN! And my receeding hairline is getting more defined, and I'm proud of it!
Welp, I love you all and thank you for your prayers! May God be with you and bless you! I know this church is true!
Love, Elder Watkins
The temple pictures are from this morning before the sun even rose! We got to do the 7:30am session!

Time just seems to be flying faster each week. We had a great week. We got to go to all the sessions of General Conference. I loved Priesthood Session! Saddly, we didn't have time to go to ice-cream afterwards. But after the first session a bunch of us missionaries went to a Mexican place called "La Barca" and ate massive burritos (which were very Americanized). I took tons of notes and stayed awake the whole time. It was really good. I really liked the message that Elder Callister shared about the Book of Mormon! We have been trying to hand out a Book of Mormon each day this past week. The Book of Mormon is TRUE!!!! That is some good news. It's old news, but not everybody knows about it yet, which is why we are out here. Our new investigator came to the Sunday morning session!!! It was the perfect session for investigators! It was really clear, simple, and bold. Perfect. She is doing really well! She has a baptismal date for October 23rd! Please pray for her. She is running solo on this one. Her husband isn't interested. We are trying to involve members a lot in her conversion. We are having her over to a member's home for FHE this week so that she can get to know the members and feel of their good spirit and happy families. We also set a couple "iffy" baptismal dates with some new investigators.
We had a neat experience the other day. We were on 5th avenue checking a house, but the person we were looking for wasn't home. We were about to drive off to another part of the area, but then I had the impression to knock a couple doors just down on the other street. We knocked the first door. Nobody home. Then we went to the second house and walked in the front gate. A few people were outside, so we started talking to them. Then the mother of the home told us to wait as she went inside to get somebody she wanted to talk to us. Then somebody walked out and saw us, then ran back inside like he was scared of us haha! So the mother invited us in, and we started talking to the guy that ran back inside and his fiancee. It turned out that the man was baptized a few years back when he was a kid! His fiancee turned to him and said "you didn't tell me you were MORMON!" haha! The mother wanted us to talk to them because they are going through really bad relationship problems, and they are planning on getting married in December, and they have a baby on the way. They were really nice. They talked to us like we were marriage counselors, but we would respond like missionaries. Theyseemed really interested in coming to church! And said he would be happy to return back. It felt like another miracle finding! God definitely guides us where He wants us to go.
Today we went to In-N-Out for a district activity. As we were waiting outside for some of the missionaries to show up, a man from Turkey started talking to us. He explained that he was Muslim. He was really interested in learning about what we believe. At one point there were six of us missionaries standing in a half-circle talking to this man as he ate his burger and fries! There were a bunch of people staring at us through the glass of In-N-Out, and one lady took a picture as she laughed. It was a funny looking scene. But it felt good to be preaching the gospel, even on our "p-day".
Welp, that's all for this week. Lots of other things happened, but you'll just have to read my journal to get it all. Adios until next week. The church is true. No doubt about that! I love the scriptures and the organization of God's true church. Be good, it's worth it!
Elder Watkins