Sunny California

HELLO from sunny California. The weather feels like it is almost summer. It definitely makes tracting and street contacting really nice.
We had a week full of miracles! We set a baptismal date with a sister! she is set and ready for this sunday, the 12th! Dad, we will be baptizing for your birthday! We taught her in the church twice this past week. The second time her husband came, and participated a lot in the lesson. He is a Seventh Day Adventist, and likes to "discuss"
doctrine. But something chnaged in his heart this week, and he decided to come to church for the first time! They both stayed for all the services! They stayed for a child baptism after church and they both cried! It was awesome! He has some serious potential! I was amazed when I saw him come into the church! He tells us that he loves the Book of Mormon! I think he reads more than his wife. She will have her baptismal interview tomorrow, so pray for her.
Two teen investigators also made it to church with their less-active mother. We got to teach them a couple times this past week. If they do their part, they should be baptized before the end of the month!
That's some good news!
We have a couple other investigators that the English Elders in the Hollywood ward were teaching, but the investigtors decided they want to go to the Spanish ward instead because it is easier for the mother. They made it to church as well!!! She is from Nicaragua, and her son, was born in the USA. She came to the Book of Mormon class on Tuesday, and nobody else showed up, so we ended up teaching just her. She really wants to be baptized soon. She already knows a lot about the church. She is dating a member in east LA. That's a plus!
Other than that, things are still going well. My companion and I did some trainings in Zone Conference on Tuesday and had a good time.
Tomorrow I will be going on splits with one of our District Leaders, Elder Maddox! He was one of my companions in the MTC! Should be fun!
I love the church and am really grateful for this work. Love you Elder Watkins

Teaching Like Crazy

This has been an awesome week! We have been teaching like crazy this week! About time! The people we have been finding and contacting are finally working out! And it looks like we may baptize next month!!! We are really excited about next month!

I have been praying for a miracle lately, and it looks like God has answered my prayers! We have been trying for weeks to contact and set up an appointment with a less-active sister in our ward, because she has two daughters that aren't members. Things kept falling through, but finally we had a lesson with her! We taught her one of the lessons and invited her to come to church and bring her daughters. Guess what? THEY CAME!!! They had the chance to go to Disneyland with their dad, but they came to church instead! One of them came to the USA less than a year ago from Guatemala, so she doesn't speak much English. They both really liked church. The best part is that the mother is really supportive. So it looks like some good news in the future. We are going over tonight with a member that is from Guatemala, and we are going to teach them and invite them to be baptized next month. Pray for them!

Tomorrow we will have Zone Conference at the LA Stake Center. Elder Hernandez and I will be giving a training for the zones in the breakout meetings.

I love you all and hope you have a great week! I love the gospel and am really grateful for the blessings it has brought us!

Love,

Elder Watkins

LAST TRANSFER!

Hello family! Transfer calls came in..............and.............I'm staying and training a new zone leader! This is my last transfer, and I will be staying in the same area "Los Feliz". I'm glad I get to stay. My new companion's name is Elder Hernandez. He is from El Salvador! He is pretty good at English because he has been out for about 18 months. And, of course, he is helping me a lot with my Spanish. It is funny because most of the people in our area are from El Salvador. So every time we talk to somebody my companion goes off talking about where the person is from. There have been a couple times where they know some of the same people from El Salvador. Elder Hernandez even went to the same school as one guy. People just kinda brush off the gringo though. They aren't very interested in where I'm from haha.
We have been working super hard this week! Lots of hours out on the streets contacting people. We found a couple people that we thought were "golden", but then they turned out to be a little more bronze than anything. But we are still on the lookout for that golden investigator! It will happen this transfer, I know it will! We have been meeting with an investigator. She was going to come to church on Sunday, but is seems like something got in the way. Pray for them please!
Our bishop texted us the other day asking for me to play the piano at a funeral. We showed up Friday morning, and they told us that we were going to perform a special musical number too... Yikes! So I volunteered my companion to sing a solo while I played the piano for him, and it ended up turning out pretty nice. He has a really good voice, so he wasn't too scared.
Yesterday we had stake conference! It was really awesome because I have spent my whole mission, except one transfer, in this stake. So I got to see a bunch of people from South Gate ward and Sexto Ward! They are all doing well. That is music to a missionary's ears!!!! Wow! It was a huge boost to see all those people there! WOOHOO!
Since it is my last transfer I get to start inviting people to my Departing Missionary Fireside, which is held down in Torrance. It is a farewell for all the missionaries leaving this transfer. They do it each transfer for the departing missionaries. So they allow us to call people from our old areas and invite them to it! It will be the last Sunday of the transfer, just before we leave. So I'm pretty excited to start calling people and invite them to come!
I love the gospel, and I'm very grateful for the Savior and all that He does for us. This is all possible because of Him.
Love, Elder Watkins

Fire, Ups and Downs

The new mission home up in flames Saturday night.

The new living quarters of the mission president was basically unharmed.
A few of us from the Griffith Zone.
A great family!

Helloooooooooo!!! It is good to hear from yall in form of printed text. It sounds like things are going well. I'm glad to hear there is snow on the ground. Winter in Vernal isn't the same without snow and frozen windshield wipers.

This week has been a really up-down week! By that I mean really good and really hard. We had a couple rough days, but they seemed to end up in miracles! On Saturday all our appointments ended up falling through with our solid investigators, so we were stuck on the streets. So we went to work. We walked and tried talking to people. Knocked some doors. Thought a lot about where to go. Wondered when dinner was going to come around. Then BAM! New investigator!! We had decided to track a certain apartment complex near our apartment and we found a woman crying because her day wasn't going too well. We sat on some chairs by the porch and taught her a little. We found that she had stopped going to church when her mother died, and her family was falling apart. We taught her a little about the Plan of Salvation and she happily accepted a return appointment! It was a success! It showed us that sometimes God waits to see how faithful we are before He pours out the blessings. But when the blessings come, it makes all the hard work worth it! Then Sunday rolled around and we were expecting our investigator to show up for church. We called her before the services and she told us that she wouldn't be coming and that she had some things she needed to talk to us about. YIKES! That is the last thing a missionary wants to hear. She had a baptismal date for this next Sunday, but we will see tonight when we go over to answer her questions. Her husband seems to be questioning the credibility of our teaching. We think he might be playing a part in her doubts. She has a strong testimony though. PRAY FOR HER!! She needs it. Pray for us too. We need it! Then, after church we got to see one of the nicest baptismal services I've seen on my mission! A sister from Mexico was baptized! The elders in the area next to us have been teaching her. Her family from Mexico came up to see the service. Her grandson baptized her, and her son-in-law confirmed her. The second she came out of the water she starting crying "gracias, gracias!" because she was so happy to have finally joined God's fold. She bore her testimony to the group afterward, and she is a truly converted person. Wow! All the women (and some men) were crying. It was great. I think my eye-ducts have gone dry. I haven't worked up a tear in a while. Maybe all the smog has glogged the glands that create the tears. Who knows.

Welp. That's just a sliver of what happened this past week. If you want the exhaustive story you will have to read my journal. My brain can't remember all the good things that happen every day, and it chooses not to remember the bad things that happen. Life is great. The mission is awesome! I'm starting to get nervous for my last transfer. I'll let you know next week what's going to happen. I hope I get to train! I love you all and thank you for your support. Hope you have a good week shoveling snow while I get a farmer's tan!

Elder Watkins