Rain = Clear Skies = Sick Pics

Good little week we had! All is well, we still have all our fingers and toes! 

Missionaries watched the World Wide Missionary Broadcast. Elder Oaks, Bednar and Anderson and others had a little council about missionary work and gave us some tips. Now time to apply. :) Applying the things you learn is where you make all the money, where all the magic happens. 

This week was definitely slower as far as the teaching pool goes. It seemed like everyone we have been teaching was either sick or not home at all this week. However! We have found some new people and we are excited to reach out and start teaching them. 

BelAir

They decided to "give" us some of Beverly Hills/Bel Air to help the sisters out, and to allow us to teach everyone we find (not just serve as referral generators) which has been cool. Weve been trying to visit potentials and members we dont know and its been paying off in the little time weve had the "new" area. We found this cool less-active lady who has 3 kids and is married to a non member and she was all for having us come back for dinner :) Sick! 

Beach Pano

We also were asked to help out with the "Missionary Music Night" here in LA. That was a neat opportunity to play different hymns and arrangements. I miss the bass though.. :) 

Interesting thought: Christ took upon him the sins of all of us. As He atoned for us, he stood as the proxy and suffered for all of our mistakes, sins and shortcomings. Thus, He stands as a Mediator between us and God, and will grant us mercy as we come to know and follow Him. One of the many things we promise to do when we follow Christ is to serve others, to love them as He would love them. Isnt it interesting to think that others are placed in our lives, to stand as proxies for Christ as if He were here? 

(Matthew 25:40 "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.") Serve others, love God. Love others, serve God. Life. :) 

Mission rocks. Its the best and I love being a missionary. :) Have a great week! 

Also, the first and only time the CLAM will take a pic together! 

CLAM 2017

"Ohh, I gave you my address...??"

Morning!

This week it rained a lot. We got wet. I realized that after a while on the mission, shoes begin to loose their traction and when its wet, you go slippin and sliddin, lots of fun, but all in all, very good week! 

Had the near opportunity to have dinner at our ward mission leaders house with our good friend Mahyar. Turns out he is quite the horse-rider back in Iran, who knew? It was awesome to have the members take in a fellow brother like that and just have a good time. It even helped our WML want to start learning little Farsi phrases to better connect! 

So, about a year ago, we were meeting with this young man named Hamed and he was awesome, just a stellar guy. He got super busy with school and work and just lost contact, but out of the blue this past week he calls and asks if we can meet up! Absolutely! So we had a real sit down with our bud Hamed and got him fired back up about doing the daily things to keep us in tune with Heavenly Father. We are stoked he is back. :) 

Amir and Hanieh, our good friends. Man, they are great. We stopped by and Wednesday, they had company, but they were like, "Come by tomorrow!" So we did! We read out of Enos with them, talked about prayer, repentance and serving others and before you know it we were on the Word of Wisdom. <Persian Culture Time: Very polite to ask the guest if they want tea, and then coffee, and then water> Overall, great lesson, and Amir committed to come to church on Sunday. :) 

Friday! Drive-to-Torrance Day. We have tried this guy, Hamid a couple times and he is never home, but HEY! Upon arrival, he was just walking outside, we asked, "Are you Hamid?" And he goes, "Ohh, I gave you my address huh?" "Yes... gotcha!" But Hamid was super nice, invited us in and we taught him the Restoration. He was curious upfront about the Book of Mormon, especially that it about the people that lived here in the Americas. He goes, "You mean, there was people before the Native Americans? We call them سرخپوستان (Red Skins)" and then we turned to the Introduction in the Book of Mormon and have him read about where it came from and right there at the end of the second paragraph it reads, "and they are among the ancestors of the سرخپوستان". Book of Mormon is inspired (or translated correctly, or both )

We also met with this man named Majid, who after we gifted him a Persian Book of Mormon, thanked us and gave us each about 3 hugs haha. We excited to go back and read with him. :) 

Went on exchanges with E Ancheta, one of the American Sign Language elders here in the CLAM, we rode the bus all day, had an interesting experience standing next to all these people going to downtown to protest/march for womens rights/equality/etc. lets just leave it at, LA has some interesting people. :) But, none the less, we got to teach and I brushed up on some of my signing. :)

Amir came to church, he loved it. :) There was also this new lady Mehrnoush who came with her mother (who turns out to be a member) and she said she is interested to learn more about the church, and her mother told us that she wants to become a member, so we will see. We think we charmed her with our Farsi skills during gospel principles but it couldve been the spirit. ;)

Are the things you and are I doing bringing us closer to God? Are we actively choosing to progress? Life is full of patterns and routines, which can have its pros and cons. If we use the routines of life to dig deeper into the more important things rather than worrying about the little things, we can learn and progress a lot more. However, if our routine makes us numb, passive and we just sift through the motions, we wont learn anything. Have habits? Good or bad? Keep the good ones, focus on the lessons you can learn. Break the bad ones, replace them with good ones and stay faithful until you can focus on other things. 

God loves you. He wants the best for you. :) Let him know how He can help and be willing to do what He wants you to do first. Seek answers from His word. Remember Him. Everything will work out in the end. :) 

Have a great week!

Culture Time

Hello! 

Here are some things that have happened!

1. Elder Wiedrich had a birthday! 
2. Ate at the Ward Mission Leaders house 4 times in 5 days.
3. Had breakfast at the W Hotel.
4. Had Chinese/Mongolian food with Persians.
5. Helped translate Priesthood interviews for Persians in Sweden.
6. Taught English to Persians, Africans and Chinese friends.
7. Had interviews with Mission President.
8. Went on exchanges with the Korean elders.
9. Played Peace-maker between some Persians.
10. Taught an awesome Afghani Persian the Plan of Salvation.
11. Ate Hawaiian raw fish with Koreans. 
12. Met a cool UCLA Researcher who wants to learn more about who God is.
13. Started teaching our Persian Recent Convert.
14. Went finding in Beverly Hills.
15. Visited some rug shops in Downtown LA and talked to Persians.
16. Spoke Spanish to someone from Africa who speaks Portuguese.
17. Had 4 people come to church!
18. Ate cookies with a Jewish lady. 
19. Met a baptist lady who was standing at a bus stop. She turned and said, "You know, I know ya'll are Jesus people because I could feel it when ya'll walked up. You know what, the spirit just told me, "People gotta get off Facebook and start looking for Gods face in His book!" " And then stepped on the bus and left. 
20. Had a great week! (2 weeks) 

Have a great week! 🏼

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year! Hopefully looking back on 2016 brings good feelings, if not, you got this year! :) 

Saeed (second from left), Yousef (front standing), Karo (back between Elder Weidrich and Elder Ekberg pictures)

This week was good! Big news is Saeed, Yousef and Karo were baptized! They are 3 guys we have been teaching via skype for the past little bit and they passed their interviews earlier this week and on Friday were able to be baptized! Cool opportunity to be able to reach people outside of LA.

As far as the work here in LA, it goes! We started the year off strong with 4 investigators at church. We had our long-time good friend Maryam come as always, Mahyar, Erfan, the son of a member who recently got married and Victoria, our friend from English Class! 

New Years Eve was super exciting for us, we had to be in by 6, and after planning for the week, E Wiedrich and I played guitar until we dropped. 

I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve, especially around the holiday season. 2016 was great, this will be better. The Lord loves you. :) Have a great week! 

Also, if you're feeling into the Christmas spirit, check this out. Recognize anyone? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWsR83B5SAM