Elder Gold's Weekly Update - 26 Oct 2009‏

Dear Family:

Taylor is still three pairs off of the pace to pass me up in the shoe collection category. His 33 pairs are a nice silver medal finisher, but 36 is the winning number. He'll probably pass that up by the time I get home, so I'll try to enjoy the race while I'm ahead. I'm going to have to take a look at the shoes he's been buying to see if they're the cheap clearance rack shoes that have all sorts of crazy designs and unique color schemes, or if they're legitimate-looking shoes. Hopefully he has good taste.

BYU vs. TCU...ouch! They've been outscored 70-14 in the past two seasons combined. BYU will continue having problems beating fast teams until they find some secondary players who can keep up with the horses running down the field on the opposing team.

Elder Gentry and I went on a "zone tour" this past week to the Peninsula Zone, which covers the southern-most part of the mission and gets up into the richer parts near the Pacific Ocean coast.



I worked with a companionship of Elders on Thursday and it was a rough day. Their apartment was filthy so we spent 40 minutes cleaning it before we left the apartment at noon and I felt like a baby-sitter asking two kids to clean-up their messes. The apartments looked like it hadn't been vacuumed in weeks and possibly months, and it was a real leap of faith to walk around bare foot. Throughout the day I felt like I was doing a lot of training and coaching. These Elders just didn't seem to understand how to work, nor did they grasp the concept of working hard. One of them has been out on his mission for 11 months and the other one for 9 months. Teachings skills and confidence while talking with people were absent. I made it out in one piece, and got through the first day.

On Friday I worked with two Elders in the city of San Pedro, which borders the shipping docks for the L.A. port. Most of the coastal cities in L.A. are considered to be rich areas, but San Pedro has a large urban population and feels more like the sketchier parts of Aurora (in Colorado). There are some more wealthy people as you get into the hills though. This day was much better than the previous day, and the Elders I worked with had a better grasp on what it meant to be a missionary. One of them was a recently called District Leader (Elder Gustin), who I left very impressed with, and his young companion (Elder Cruz) did a pretty good job too. They're apartment has a balcony on the second floor so they left the sliding glass door open all night and it felt great in the morning. I was able to sit out there and write in my journal in the morning for about 10 minutes while the other two Elders were getting ready. It was great.

On Saturday I worked in Harbor City, which is just north of San Pedro and shares most of the characteristics of San Pedro, but it's a bit nicer in quality. I worked with one of the Zone Leaders (Elder Furner) while Elder Gentry worked with the other Zone Leader (Elder Gardner) for the day. I had a good time knocking doors with an Elder who has a "pro-tracting" mindset because there seems to be a trend that has been going around the mission that advocates "checking" on less-actives and members instead of knocking doors or street contacting people. This new mindset generally is found with a few of the younger missionaries who still fear talking to people and prefer avoiding it if they can (to be frank). Saturdays on "zone tour" are usually our favorites because of the high caliber of missionaries we work with (Zone Leaders) and because it's fun to have four missionaries to chat with after planning and studies.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a baptism. We had been teaching him off and on for the past three months and he finally decided to reach the pinnacle of his progression in learning about the Church. He was happy and enjoyed the baptismal service. He's the most unique investigator that I've taught on my mission by far.

There was a baptism down in the Hermosa Liahona Ward (Spanish) from my old area in Gardena where one of the investigators that I had taught for 1.5 months decided to take the "leap of faith." We taught her twice per week for six weeks while I was in Gardena and other Elders had been teaching her since then, so it's been nearly four months of investigating the Church for her. She's a great person. Her husband is a member too, so everything is looking good for her future.

Happy Halloween to everyone this week! We have to be back in our apartments at 6pm that night so we'll probably end up doing something fun over here at the mission home in addition to writing some letters. Thanks for everything! Have a great week!

Elder Gold

Here are photos from Elder Gold's P-day to USC Stadium. Anyone who knows Elder Gold, knows he LOVES sports, especially football!