Posts
Riley #19 - Los Angeles, CA - Half-way House, English for a week, Elder Quentin Cook
May 20
Hey, Everyone!
All right, this week was a little crazy! To start it, Elder Casey and I went on splits with Elder DiPaolo, our Zone Leader, who is in an English Area. While I love learning Chinese, it is nice to be able to use English now and then.
While with him, we stopped by a "half-way house." Everyone there was dealing with a problem of some kind, but all were also willing to listen. Most probably they were just glad to have someone to talk to, but there were some that seemed like they were genuinely interested in the church. They all knew who we were and were happy to talk to us.
The biggest event that happened this week was that I was transferred. Friday afternoon. The Mission President called us and told me that I was going to be transferred to be with in an English Area for the rest of the transfer, for about a week. I needed to be packed up and ready to go the next morning! We had a devotional that morning with the entire mission, so I would be able to switch companions then.
The devotional was with Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve. He spoke on how the Lord will help us find those who are prepared to hear and open the hearts of those we meet. He also spoke about how important it is to work with the ward in missionary work. The ward plays an important part in finding those who are interested in hearing and in welcoming those we are already teaching.
 |
| Elder Quentin Cook and his wife, Mary, with President and Sister Baker |
After the devotional, I went with my new companion Elder Moore. He is a Spanish Elder assigned to an English area and also is a Zone Leader. His companion, Elder Black, was made the new AP (Assistant to the President), so he was transferred early to make the transition when one of the current AP goes home at transfers.
Transfers are just in a week or so, and I don't expect to be with Elder Moore very long. I expect that I will be back in a Chinese area after transfers, because there will only be four Chinese missionaries left, including me. In other words, two possible companionships.
It is a really different experience being in an English area. Compared to the Chinese Branch, the ward is enormous. It is weird to go from knowing everyone at church to not knowing anyone.
Considering the size of the ward, I probably wouldn't know everyone even after attending church every week for a month. Still, we now have people feeding us every night and plenty of work to do. In the Chinese area, we had to fill our time with activites to find new people. Here, we could keep busy just by following referrals, visiting less-actives, and meeting with people who have met with the missionaries before. There is always some work that needs to be done.
I attached some English class files. The last outline is outdated. It was the outline we were planning to use for the class before we collaborated with the Taizhong mission. Our current class, for a large part, adopted the organization of the Taizhong English class. The learning is serious and the documents are our own, so we came up with a logo for our program materials and posters.
 | |
| Different logos we drafted. We picked the first one on the second row. | . |
Love,
Elder Bowman
0 comments: