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 🐡

Week 75 January 15, 2018

Sorry this email is so short! I was really bad with my time today. This week had its ups and downs for sure. The first day of the week my old companion in Eastmont came back on exchanges and we went and visited some recent converts and other people we had taught together. We also visited some people that’s taking the lessons right now. It was kinda sad, we stopped by to see why they didn’t come to church and they had a pretty bad incident happen with their family. By the end of they week they were doing better and getting over it. We also had a baptism scheduled this week but some people got in the way and it didn’t happen. Things might change this week.

Week 74 January 8, 2018

This week was sad finding out that the Prophet had died. A member let us know the night it happen and we woke up in the morning and saw his text. I had a meeting that morning too and of course we sang, We thank thee, O God, for a Prophet.  While we sang that song though a part really stood out to me when we sang the the 4th verse and at the very end it said “While they who reject this glad message will never such happiness know”. That part really hit me and it made sense. Before being on my mission I had a different sense of what happiness was. I’m very thankful for going on a mission and to be sharing the Gospel with other people. 

    President Oaks came and spoke to our Mission. He really threw down and I learned a lot from what he had to say. He talked about the difference between what makes a good teacher from a bad teacher. Recently I’ve been studying PMG in the hopes to help me become a better teacher so I took notes like crazy when President Oaks spoke. He’s also a really funny guy. He roasted everyone.

     Also Elder Xu and I have been having a frustrating time recently. We're probably gonna start dropping a lot of people. I don’t have too much to say about them because there has been no progress.

Our district went to the driving range today for P-day and that was really fun. 

The camera guy also caught me trying to peak over the Sister missionaries so that I could see President Oaks when he walked in and he put it on Facebook.

Elder Madsen 🐡

Week 72 December 25, 2017

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I just talked to most of you so I’ll just send some pictures home this week. 

The first picture is me holding Shaq’s shoes.

Week 70 December 11, 2017

I’m sorry I didn’t write an email out to everyone last week. That’s my bad, but to bring you up to speed on whats been going on with me. This is what’s up. A couple people we’ve been working with for December baptisms are gonna get pushed back to January. I'm talking about Candy and Crystal. They’re here half the time because their parents are separated so we can’t see them as much as we would like to. They love going to church but they are with their Dad on the weekends so it’s kinda tough. They’ll get baptized but it just needs time. They’re a super cute family. 

This week we also had the Ward Christmas party and it was pretty fun. Some investigators came and had a good time. I participated in the nativity with the primary kids and also got a picture with Santa. 

I’ve also been reading the Book of Mormon and the New Testament at the same time instead of focusing on just one. It’s really helped me to learn more by comparing them and something else has recently stuck out to me as well. It’s how the Prophets in the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ chose to act through their trials. It’s cool to see how they always go to Heavenly Father for protection or to be comforted. I thought that was way cool.

Ok to bring you guys up to speed on the car situation. We won’t get the car back until Friday and I got my driving privileges taken away also... Kinda sad I know, hopefully my driving skills don’t get any worse when I get home because it’ll be awhile without driving a car.  Since we’ve haven’t had a car this last week we’ve been on bikes and some other Elders have been kind enough to let us use theirs because they don’t use them.

This morning our Zone went on a hike and it has been awhile since I’ve done anything close to that. We took our investigator and her husband and they had a blast too. That pretty much sums it up for this week.