13 Nov 2018: Yo casi morí otra vez ... y otra vez

Hola mi querida gente!

If you don't feel like pulling out the Google Translate again for my email title, here's what it means: "I almost died again...and again..."

Our district

Seriously it's been an awesome week! 

Transfer call happened last night, and....I am staying here in Washington Avenue! Yay! And elder troya is staying with me! Double Yay! And Elder Cluff, my MTC companion, is coming to my district from Blythe, California! Triple Yay!

We had three crazy experiences this week that I will share. 

1. On Wednesday night, we were just coming out of a Spanish class that we help with in the ward, and were about to head home because it's almost an hour walk some nights from the chapel, but we got a really strong impression to smart sort to see if there was anyone left to visit. We did, and found a lady on the list that lived at the farthest corner of our area. We walked over there, and the lights were off. We still felt strongly prompted that we should knock. We did, and no one answered. We felt prompted to leave a card with a note on it. We usually do this so it was normal. Then we start heading home. We were about to turn onto the street that we normally walk home on, but then I remembered that a small to medium sized portion of that street is not lit, and I remembered that the handbook says to walk on well-lit paths. So we decided to just walk down the main road, and then turn onto the street where we live. It would be a little longer of a walk but we had time. As we turned onto Nellis, which is our street, at the top of our area, all of the sudden a bunch of police cars and emergency personnel start speeding past us. All of the sudden we see a police helicopter searching the area with a big light. It was searching right near our apartment complex, and around where we were walking. Right as we get to the cross streets next to our apartment, we see the police taping off an area about a quarter mile in diameter. They taped off EXACTLY where we would have been walking had we gone our usual route. On Sunday on the way to church, we learned that a shooting had taken place right where we would have been, at the exact time we would have been there. The chopper was looking for the shooter right where we would have been walking. If we hadn't been exactly obedient to the mission rules, I honestly can tell you that the rest of the week would have been very very different for me. 

2. Last night, right before we got the transfer calls, we were in a very sketchy part of town. We were in the "projects" of our area, with a member of the ward, Brother Flanagan. He always talks about the Plan of Salvation. Literally just about everything he talks about is about the Plan of Salvation. He is a convert, and is awesome. We felt prompted to go visit the projects, to one of the guys we used to teach, ivery. He wasn't there, so we felt prompted to go visit Jolene. For those of you who forgot, Jolene is the lady who doesn't like me very much who we tried to give cookies to. She didn't answer the door. As we were walking back, I saw this lady on her porch, and I felt like I should go talk to her. So I opened my mouth, and it turns out that she has been looking for a new church, and help to quit smoking. It was such an awesome lesson. And we ended up committing her to be baptized! It was awesome! And she is coming to church! If I had not opened my mouth and followed the promptings of the spirit, we wouldn't have met Sadie. She was so excited to meet us! 

3. Yesterday night right after meeting Sadie, we were knocking doors right next to her apartment complex, still in the projects, and we knocked on this door. All of the sudden this woman starts yelling, and so we back away slowly. Then a loud man's voice says "Hey! Who's knocking on the back door!" Then Sasquatch walks out.

Just kidding. It was a 6' 6+ black guy, probably 300+ plus pounds of pure mean and ugly, and bling and a backwards red flat bill hat I think "Oh...I'm going to die" it's this big black guy, and he's going to step on me and squash me to jelly (where have I heard that before?) He stops in his tracks when he sees us, very sasquatch style, and he says "Y'all Jehovah's Witness?" Nah of course not! We had a discussion, and gave him a book of mormon and a bible, and a plan of salvation pamphlet. My philosophy was " Just keep him talking, and he won't eat you..." He warmed up to us, especially because the member we had with us could relate to him a lot. After we talked for a while, a guy walks out of his house, and James (Sasquatch) says to him "C'mere!" So the guy saunters over and James says " We gonna listen to these guys" "Nah man I gotta go!" So he leaves. I was so focused on not dying and preaching the gospel at the same time that I didn't notice the drug deal that happened between James' friend and another guy. No joke. And James said " Everyone listens to me around here" (I can see why!) Later that night, as we are driving home, Elder Troya told me, and the member we were with told me that James belonged to a gang called The Bloods, and the Crypts were their rival gang, and both gangs had members living in the area that we were in last night. And James, is the leader of the Bloods in this area. So I taught a gang leader, and will be teaching him tonight! 

So this will be a fun transfer!!

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving in a couple weeks!

Elder Lovell

Pics:

1. Our district in the order of mission seniority. Sister Garcia, who finishes tomorrow, Elder Rodrigues, who finishes this transfer, Sister cook, Elder Ozuna, me, Elder Troya, Elder Christensen, Elder Palmer. The last three all came out last transfer.
2. The Elders in the zone the day we went to the temple last week.