News from Palos Verdes

Hey Everyone!

As you may have heard, TRANSFERRED!

Yep you heard right. I was transferred. Out of the ASL program. Right when they needed me the most. Well, I'm now in Palos Verdes, serving the Harbor 1st English Ward and the Cabrillo Spanish branch. I'm also in a threesome with Elder Spellman and Elder Hirschberg. Elder Spellman is from Dallas, TX and Elder Hirschberg is from SLC, UT.

We had a slow start, but things are going great here now! We just set 2 people with baptismal dates this week!

The first one is Beverlin, she is 15 and the daughter of a less active member. She has accepted a baptismal commitment for the 26th. Although we might need to push it back because she and her father did not come to church on Sunday.... argh.... it seems lile getting people to come to church is like pulling teeth sometimes......

but the second one, that one I am excited for!

Her name is Alexandra and we actually ran into her at the end of a long sequence of miracles.

We went to try and contact a less active member who lives in Palos Verdes, but they were not home. This left us with about a half an hour of time that we needed to fill. So, since we had nothing else to do, we went tracting.

We knocked all up one side of the street, getting NOTHING! When we finally got to the end we were thinking, "lets just move on. Nothing is working here." But then we all got the impression that we should at least tract back to our car on the other side of the street. We were all like, "okay whatever" and we crossed the street to the next door. A woman opened the door and made our classic door approach (if you dont know what that means, ask dad).

About 30 seconds in she interrupts and says, "latter day saints... isn't that like the Jehovah's Witnesses?"

*mental jaw smacks against the pavement*

not again......

"No. We are not the Jehovah's Witnesses. some people call us the Mormons."

"oh! m'kay. wait.... isn't that the church that has the 15 wives?"

*mental had smacks itself repeatedly against nearest solid object*

"no... that's a different church. we haven't practiced that in over a hundred years. What he are here today is going around sharing a message about Jesus Christ and about how god loves all of us, his children."

*awkward silence*

*more awkward silence*

*woman starts crying*

"its like a miracle or something....."

What had happened was that the day before, she had given up on God an thrown her bible away, saying that he either doesn't exist or that he hates her because she has had a hard life. Then, the next day she is talking on the phone with her friend telling her all of this when a knock comes at the door. She tell her friend that she isn't going to answer it because she was not in the mood to talk to anyone else. Her friend nonetheless tell her to go and answer the door. She relents and opens the door. and its US!

This was on Saturday. So we taught her about the love of God and that all the trials and struggles we have are actually for our benefit and it is how God shapes and prepares us to become the people that He wants us to be.

She was really happy and we give her a copy of the Book of Mormon and an invitation to church the next day.

The next day we are at church and sacrament meeting is beginning and, as per usual, NO ONE IS THERE.....

Thats kind of par for the course for us anyway. Getting people to come to church, as I said before, can be like getting a root canal without novocain. lots of pain.

Its fast and testimony meeting to the meeting move on as usual, sacrament is passed and the doors open again to let those in the foyer into the chapel to join the meeting and THERE SHE IS! and not only that, She brought her friend, the one on the phone!

I completely explode in happiness to he her there and move to sit next to her.

The testimonies begin and i am just praying my hardest that something weird doesn't happen. Testimony meetings are really good experiences because investigators get to hear the testimonies of other members, but sometimes things go awry.... again ask dad if you don't quite understand.

But this time it was REALLY GOOD. 2 members who actually are her neighbors, got up and bore their testimonies about how God has helped them get through recent struggles in their lives. Then a woman who lost her eldest son in a motorcycle accident got up and bore one of the best testimonies that I have ever heard in my life. Both of us were feeling the spirit STRONG!

She had a great experience at church and when we visited her today she accepted a baptismal date for Sept. the 26th!

YAAAYYAYYYAYAAYAUYYAYYAYYYYAYAYAYAYYYAYAYYAYYAYYAYAYYA
YAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYYAYYAYAYYAWYYZAYZAYYAYYAYYA
YAYYAYAYYAYAYYAYAYYAAYYAY!!!!!!!!!@!!!!!!!

*COUGH*

ahem.... yes...

so aaaaanyway thats what happened this week!

Toodles!

Elder Tritsch