One Year Mark!

Hey Everyone,

    This past week has been great, but it’s going to be quite monumental this coming week. On Friday Feb 8th I hit my one year mark on my mission. WHAT! Some days I can't believe it’s been a year already, other days not as much. But nonetheless it’s been a fantastic year, by far one of the best years of my life.  Looking back and see the changes I've made in my life to grow and the experiences that have refined to get at the point where I am. I give thanks to all my family, friends here in LA and at home who have helped me and prayed for me. I'm excited to know that I still have another year left to make an impact on the great people here in Los Angeles. The highlights of this past week is on Tuesday we had a zone activity here some missionaries got together to play sport and a little obstacle course game that the Zone Leaders set up. I was nice to do as many Elders in the zone were going to move to different areas the next day. Our zone did great work this past month, and thing seem to keep looking better. On Wednesday we had a great lesson with a couple Frank and Alicia again. We attempted to teach the Restoration to them but something prompted us to focus more on their understanding of the gospel. Frank shared with his life experiences that has helped him to God especially after being in Jail for 15 years. Alicia talked about her brother who was a drug addict who overdosed was dead for a week but stayed on life-support, came back to life, fully recovered and now is a Christian pastor. They had so many stories to share and I felt like we have gotten closer to us and trust us by sharing those stories with us. It was a cool story how the Elders found them. Well first, Alicia has a friend who is a member in Long Beach and for Christmas, she invited Alicia and her husband to a Ward dinner. They enjoyed it their time there, but no arrangements were made to send the missionaries to teach them. Then on New Year’s Day, Elder Low and his companion before me, Elder Harper, we driving up to the mission home to drop off Elder Harper, because he was being sent home because of his health. Before heading up, he told Elder Low he needed to tract one more street before he went home. They so happened to knock on Frank and Alicia's door. They were stunned because they thought someone from Long Beach sent the missionaries to them. We told this story to them and they know that we are teaching them for a reason. Tomorrow we have an appointment with them and their friends from Long Beach are going to accompany us to the lesson. I'm so excited and I hope it breaks the ice for them to progress towards accepting the gospel. Also we taught Jose again this week and he for certain he needs to be baptized but he's not fixed on a day yet. He's coming along he's just been stressed out with his health and working on selling the house. We did service for him on Friday to clean his back porch and help him assemble some screen for his windows. Super fun. Then on Saturday we when to a ward baptism for a young girl in our ward, Elder Low baptized her. Alicia one of our solid investigators come to support as they are close family friends. Afterwards we tried to set a baptismal date with her but she still doesn't want to commit to a date. Grrr. but she will be baptized soon. Anyway , Things are just going great here. I'm loving the mission right now. Great new things to come! I can't wait!

Missionary Quote of the week: If you treat a man as he is he will remain as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and should be. –Goethe

It's the truth we must see everyone as sons and daughters of God and they must be treated as such. If we want to help our friends to become more Christ-like, we must act Christ-like to them and be an example of the believers.

Well, I will see you all in a year!

Os amo tanto

Elder Marrott

Influx of Missionaries and Senorita Merida

Hey Everyone!

    

        I hope you've all had a great week! Sorry I didn't email yesterday, there's been some changes in the transfer system in the mission. Because of the influx of new missionaries, the Mondays before transfers become normal work days and we receive the transfer call that evening. Elder Low and I will staying together for another transfer. Then the Tuesdays before transfers will be p days, so that is why I'm emailing today. The mission is starting to figure out how to do things more smoothly so things are starting to get less hectic. I'm excited to work with Elder Low more because we have a lot of good things coming our way. But I really loved last week because we were able to go sightseeing again but this time in Palos Verdes. I swear its paradise over there with beautiful views, mansions, and the weather was absolutely perfect! I sent some pictures home. There's one view that I was able to view the whole city of LA. It was funny to look over the past area I've served in. It was a start to a great week. Later that night we held a Family Home Evening with Cynthia and her family. She has 5 young daughter so we had to make it interesting. We ended out singing some primary songs like Snowman and it got everyone excited. We played a fun game called the Spirit game where someone hides a piece of candy in the room and some has to look for it blindfolded. Everyone in the room yells at them to tell them where to go but most are telling in the wrong direction. There's only one person who actually tells them the right place to go. Sometimes the people know who it is and sometimes they don't. But it really helped Cynthia help her family learn how to listen to God telling them the right things to do. They are an awesome family, but unfortunately they couldn't come to church because their whole family is down with the flu. I hope you can send out a prayer for them. Then on Wednesday we got a surprise breakfast given to us from a referral we received. Her name is Senorita Merida and she's from Mexico, but she learned about the missionaries by watching the PBS documentary about Mormons. She said she cried when it told about the missionaries that serve and she's wanted to find some of us so she could feed us. She cooked us some mean pancakes and sausage. I was to die for. Apparently she's an seventh day Adventist, but has admired the work that we do. She's quite the knowledgeable lady with a wonderful family. She was a teacher in Mexico and she's quite the reader especially about European history. She chewed our ears of about the Vatican and the Spanish Inquisition, it was quite entertaining. I'm not sure how receptive she would be to us teaching her, but she's quite the opinionated woman. We hope to stop by again soon. But missionary work is going great with investigators coming to church. Things seem to be running smoothly. I'm loving it. I love my Ward Mission Leader because of how missionary oriented he is. He's given us a referral every time we come over. Unfortunately he's not been feeling well and work is super stressful. Send a prayer out to him as well. Well until next week!

Os amo tanto!

Elder Marrott

Cynthia's Family and Introducing Elder Benkhe

Hey Everyone,

       It's been quite another eventful week again here in North Lomita. Probably one of the most successful weeks I've had in the mission. On church on Sunday, we had about 8 investigators at church which is the most I've had at church before. The members in the ward have been great in befriending everyone and having great lessons at church. We had a break through with Cynthia's family as she and all her 5 kids came again plus Nicole and their mother! Which I was super surprised to see her mom there. We had a lesson at Cynthia's house and her mom was visiting. As we were reading 1 Nephi 10 with Cynthia, she came in and started listening. She's quite an interesting lady who has had, I guess you could say, an "exciting" lifestyle. Cynthia would always say "she needs God more than I do, and that's saying something." She had a lot of questions about the church, so we gave her a summary of what we believe and she seemed very stunned as we said it. She said that she was coming to church, but Cynthia didn't believe her. They ended up coming to Gospel Principles and Nicole and the mom said the prayers. It was very surprising. It was an inspired lesson at church because our ward mission leader Bishop Madrid taught about eternal marriage, because Cynthia, Nicole and their mom need to get married. I finally think it's gotten them to understand. Hopefully we can make wedding plans this week. Maria Garcia also came to church, the referral we received from mormon.org, and we didn't know if she would be able to ask off work, but she did. Hermano Rodriguez got her a ride to sacrament and the relief society president gave her a ride to work afterwards, she's being befriended very well. I had 2 really good lessons this week. One with Jose Morales who is the old man with one leg. This week he was concerned about his health because he went to the doctors to test if he had cancer in his esophagus. While we were reading the Book of Mormon, the doctors called and said he didn't have it. He looked so relieved, and he felts grateful for the chance to talk with us. He feels God is blessing him for listening. He would have come to church if he didn't have an open house because he's selling his house. Lastly, we had a lesson with the Castillo Family. The mom and their 2 kids are members, but not the father Miguel. We had splits and Elder Benhke came in to my area. He has an awesome story as he's a convert as of 2 years ago. He's from Minnesota, but the missionaries taught him when he was in Utah for school. He has the strongest testimony I've ever heard in my life of Christ and the Book of Mormon. Anyway we had a family home evening with them, but at first Miguel didn't come out of the room for the lesson. I was praying at the beginning that he would come out because the goal was to initially teach him. While we were playing a game, Miguel came out of his room and starting listening. Their came a point in the lesson when Elder Benhke taught the atonement super powerfully and Miguel really felt the spirit testify to him that it was true. Elder Benkhe then invited him to be baptized, and he accepted. His wife got a little emotional because she's been working on him to be baptized for a while. It was cool too because he invited him to be baptized on Feb 17 which happened to be his birthday. WHAT! He says he will try because he's got some bad habits he needs to get rid of. It was by far the best lesson I've been a part of. I have a testimony that people can change when we strive to help them and invite them to do so.

Os amo tanto

Elder Marrott