First Week

So this week was crazy, flew in on Monday and spent the night at the AP's and most of Tuesday at the mission office. My trainer is Elder Jennings and we are in the Ontario area (which is in the valley), we cover a YSA branch and a family ward so we have dinner pretty much every night. Also the mission is kind of split into two areas, the desert and the valley. The desert is super hot and dry and the valley is super hot and wayyyy humid so its kind of unbearable. Our area is really big and since we cover two wards we pretty much drive everywhere, which is good because I would die biking here, and plus they haven't given me my bike yet anyway. 

On Tuesday we had a lesson pretty much right after we were paired off, and my first lesson as an English-speaking missionary was all in Spanish haha. It was honestly the most weird thing ever, we had a YSA ward mission leader Eduardo with us because we cant speak any Spanish but it was so awesome. Jorge (the guy we/Eduardo taught) speaks a little bit of English, and they had been teaching him for a while before I got here. But after we taught Jorge on Tuesday we went to the Cortes' which is a less active family in this totally sketch area, apparently just a few days before we went someone was shot across the street soooo, yea, can you guess what kind of area I'm in yet? Super ghetto houses/apartments, pretty sketchy walking around some areas at night (are you scared for me yet mom?). Our apt is pretty nice though, the A/C actually works! that's a rare thing here apparently, its so dang hot. 

On Friday we had a zone conference and Elder Falabella? of the 70 came to talk to us. It was a good talk about inviting whole families to lessons instead of just single investigators. There was a lot more than that but I cant remember most of it. We expected it to only go until 1 but it went until 4 so we had to reschedule a bunch of appointments we had. Also at Jorge's baptism it was super funny because we told a few people to bring light refreshments like finger food but everyone brought a full meal which was hilarious and turned out great because that was the one day we didn't have a dinner appointment.

This week has been such a blur. We mostly visited LARC's (less active/recent converts) this week because we also had to plan Jorge's baptism for Saturday. We spent literally all day Sunday at church because we cover two wards, we head over at 9 and don't get home till like 4 or 5 which honestly doesn't seem that long when I typed it out but I almost/I did fall asleep like 5 times every hour. Luckily no body called me out haha. 

There is a member in the Rancho Park ward from Calgary though, Brother Merryl? (I think his first name is Steve?) but he said he recognized my last name. also there are like 3 other missionaries from Calgary or Alberta here but I did't recognize their names. Last night we visited Jorge's house, he lives with his member aunt and uncle from the Rancho ward, and his sister is visiting from Mexico so she said she would be interested in listening in on the lessons, but she speaks even less English and Jorge, so the Spanish Elders are annoyed with us because all these Spanish speaking investigator want to be taught by us haha. But yea first week, I feel like I had more to write but I forgot it all so I should probably start writing it down. 

Love Elder Ockey