Week 88 April 16, 2018

WHEEEWWW! Today was so busy. This morning we got a ride from a member to take us grocery shopping but they were late and then they took us to help his brother. Then we had a lesson with Shane today because that was the only time he could meet. Then we had to go back to the grocery store because Elder Cheng didn’t get his cookies... now I’m back though. The week was good anyways.

The work is slow but it’s getting there. We’ve been finding a lot through the members which is really good because I believe the Lord prepares people that are around people that know the Gospel. Shane is doing really good but he’s still just super busy. Elyse is doing great but she’s been sick so we haven’t been able to meet with her. I love teaching the Dowel family, they’re super funny to teach. We haven’t been teaching them too long so I don’t really know what to say about them just yet. There’s also the Hagg family that we’ve been teaching recently and they are getting their lives together.

I used to serve in the Alhambra Ward and when I was there I taught a guy named Michael Opiola. I taught him almost a year ago. His baptism is sometime this week! I’m so happy for him!

I’m sorry this email is so short. I want the chance to talk to all of you guys!

          Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 87 April 9, 2018

I’m sorry I didn’t write too much last week. I was super tired. Hopefully this email will be better.

One of the cool experiences this week I think is something I figured out about feeling the Holy Ghost. Actually a better way of putting it would be how I know I’m feeling the Holy Ghost. I usually always feel the spirit in Sacrament Meetings, in lessons, and especially in General Conference. There’s two things I feel when I’m feeling the spirit and that comfort/peace and a determination to do better. 

Doing missionary work is stressful at times. Sometimes I stress out on the “what if’s” in  missionary work. Just kinda over thinking things sometimes. Whenever I feel the spirit though, there’s a lot of peace that comes and comforts me. It reminds me that I’m just the tool in the Lords hands to deliver his message to the people. Sometimes I forget that, and think it’s my job to make the people ready for the gospel. When In fact it’s not. That’s how I know I’m feeling the spirit.

Also I know that I’m feeling the spirit when I feel a determination to do and be better. That's what I felt while watching General Conference. It’s not a guilty feeling that I’m not doing good or enough but it’s a feeling like I want to be better. I want to raise above where I’m at right now and be better. Haha I know I’ve said better a lot in this paragraph but that just how I can explain what I’m feeling. I see that a lot too when people start learning about the church and start keeping the commandments. They want to change and repent, and be better. 

Other than that our teaching pool is getting bigger. We have a couple new investigators now so things are getting better.

Elder Madsen

Week 86 April 3, 2018

I really don’t have too much to say about this week. General Conference was huge and I loved it. Elder Cheng and I got matching haircuts and he hated it. I was also so excited to go to the temple I had to get up at 3:30am to get so I ended up spending most of my P-day sleeping.

Week 85 March 26, 2018

We got haircuts by a member today.

Week 84 March 19, 2018

Hey guys! This has been a pretty exciting week. Transfers came and
Elder Cheng and I are staying together. This is his last 6 weeks and he
has been saying how he really wants to go all out with the time that he has
left. I’ll probably have a lot more to talk about this up coming
week.

Shane came to church again. He’s really busy so we haven’t had too
much time to meet with him. Every time I see home though, I get more
impressed with him. He’s totally changing his life around, and he has
a lot going on in his family life so it’s cool to see that he puts
everything aside and comes to church. Our members are really doing a
good job of going out of their way to help him out too.

Elyse’s baptism is on Friday. We just taught her at the Peterson home
yesterday. We finished up on teaching her about families and temples.
I really like teaching about temples because there’s a whole new
attitude towards everything. Of course the spirit is there but I’m
talking about when you first tell people that they can be with their
family and loved ones after you die is a whole new thing that people
don’t get to hear about.
That’s what it was like teaching Elyse yesterday. It’s always super
fun anyways because they make fun of each other and us the entire time
we’re there. A lot of stuff goes over Elder Cheng’s head though. They
speak too fast and he doesn’t understand American jokes.
Anyways her baptism is this Friday and she picked the entire Peterson
family to participate in one way or another. A couple Sister
missionaries that taught her before are pretty close by so they’ll get
to come too. It’s going to be a cool experience for Elyse.

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 83 March 12, 2018

Hi guys! I had a pretty good week this week. It rained a lot which was awesome because we don’t get that a lot down here. I savored every moment of it. Besides the weather though Elyse did not get baptized on Saturday because sadly a relative of hers passed away and the funeral was on the same day as her baptism. We decided to pick a different day which is understandable of course. She’s ready, we just need some time.
I don’t remember if I told you guys much about this kid named Shane either. Well he walked into church two weeks ago and we later found out that he lives in a different area. And he’s YSA. That’s two different wards he belongs too and not ours. We tried to explain to him this week that he would better progress in the gospel by attending the wards he was supposed to go to and he refused to go to the family ward which he lives in because he feels that he was guided to this specific ward. He’s kinda open to the YSA Ward though. He actually went into a long story about how he’s known about this church building for quite sometime and how he’s always felt like he belonged there. I can’t really argue with the guidance of the Holy Ghost but I know it would be a lot better for him to go where he needs to go. Great kid, I love being a part of his teaching experience, but I want the best for him.  We’re going to try to bring some YSA kids with us when we go and teach him. 

That’s pretty much it for me though. Oh and I gave talk in Sacrement meeting about the mission of the church. This week we also got smart phones. They’re too big.

Week 81 February 26, 2018

Finding the Elect...

I did a lot of tracking this week. Our map is a little outdated and there are new neighborhoods in our area that our Areabook hasn’t picked up yet. We decided to tract those first because it seems like missionaries haven’t had the chance to be there before. It was kinda rough, a lot of people were pretty well off in life and weren't interested. Although all the Chinese people we tracked into were really open. All the Americans pretty much closed off as soon as we talked about Jesus Christ. The Chinese loved it and wanted to learn more.  

We’re also teaching this girl named Elyse. I don’t know if I said anything about her last week. She’s been taught for the past 6 months and we just finished teaching her all of the lessons. Her baptismal date is for March 10 so we’ll see what happens. 

I like my area I'm serving in.  Everybody knows everybody and all the members know the other wards missionaries.  This ward actually has 7 priests, that's the biggest I've ever had.  

The weather got cold for California.  We actually had to put on sweaters.  Everybody told us we were crazy for being outside in these conditions.  

I’m sorry this email is short.

Week 80 February 20, 2018

I don’t think I sent a group email home last week. That was my bad. I was pretty busy just moving in. The week before I left though I was able to see Sister Rolon’s daughters get baptized. Their super cute kids that loved learning about God. I think my favorite lessons were teaching these two. Whenever we would ask them a question they would scream out the answer and try to beat each other to see who could get the right answer first. Super funny and energetic lessons. Our last week we were able to take them to the temple and their Mom had some great spiritual experiences when we went. It was really could to see how the Gospel of Jesus Christ changed this family's life, and I will always be grateful to be a part of that experience.

This week has been interesting. We’ve been going by all of the missionaries contacts before and trying to clean out the teaching pool. We’ve already talked to a couple new people that we’ve found on our own. We had a lesson last night with a couple of members present and the lesson was awesome. This Ward hasn’t had too many baptisms for the past year but from as I can see the Members are super Missionary minded. Hopefully we can work together with the ward to find some people.  

That’s pretty much it for me this week. I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day!

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 78 February 5, 2018

So this weekend I’ve been kinda sad because I have to say goodbye to everyone. 

Glendora 2nd Ward is where I’m being reassigned. I haven’t heard much about it yet so I looked it up on the map and it’s the smallest area in the mission. I used to have the biggest English area and now I’m going to be at the smallest... I won’t be biking because I’ll be walking. It used to be a Sister’s area but another Elder and I are going to be whitewashing it. I haven’t whitewashed an area before, but it sounds like it’s going to be a rough start at first but that’s ok. It’ll be fun. 

This week my companion and I took a family we’re really close with to the visitor center. It was really cool and spiritual, it definitely helped get them prepared for their baptism on Tuesday.

We also went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A member works there and he took us on a tour and it was really cool. I’m sorry this email is so short but I hope all the

pictures make up for it. Next will be better.

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 77 January 29, 2018

This last week we found a couple cool people and more people walked into church. A guy from the ward has been teaching his girlfriend and introduced us to her last night. She’s super polite and has already started reading the Book of Mormon on her own. Her boyfriend is really smart and doesn’t really teach stuff onto her level of understanding. She decided that she’s gonna have to read it to understand it for herself. The guy that walked into church, his name is Chris, and he met with Missionaries in the past but he never could get baptized because he was struggling with the Word of Wisdom. Now he has overcome that so he came back to church to find the missionaries. That was a really cool story I’m glad to be apart of. We going to be teaching him so I’ll tell you more about him and our other investigators next week.
    We had interviews with our Mission President and during interviews he told me that it was getting time for me to be moved to a different area. I’ve been it this Ward for 6 months so he’s right but I don’t really want to leave. Eastmont is pretty cool and I’ve gotten really close with all the members. I’m gonna be pretty sad when I leave. 

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 76 January 23, 2018

Man this week was great! Shana our investigator got baptized this weekend. David her husband baptized her too! I love David and Shana, they're so cool, I’ve never had a closer relationship with any of my investigators than I have with them. It was the high light of my mission. 

I also had to give a talk on Sunday, that part wasn’t so fun. Even though I talk with people everyday 24/7, I still get crazy nervous giving talks at church. When I spoke on Sunday I said the same thing over and over again and all the words I said shot out of my mouth super quickly. Man it was not good.  I hope I get better at giving talks in church before I come home. 

      Speaking in church wasn’t totally a negative experience though. I used my talk on Sunday to invite everyone we’re working with to come and watch me. We got a couple people to come that haven’t been in awhile and that was really awesome to see. The people I really wanted to come though were Joanna and Nathan’s family. We’ve been working with them for two months and they’ve been progressing really well. They’ve been keeping all their commitments except for attending church. This week was kinda make it or break it for them. Elder Xu and I decided that if they didn’t come this week we would have to move on for more people to teach. Church started and Joanna and Nathan were nowhere to be found. Right before I stood up to give my talk I saw Joanna’s daughter, Adilene walk into the chapel. Joanna and her family came in late but they came! 

     I’m also moving out of Boyle heights. My apartment will still not be in my area but it’ll be closer to my area than before! I’ll be moving apartments most of the day so I’ll probably not be able to talk. I sent this email at the mission office when I went to pick up the truck. 

Elder Madsen 🐡