I AM IN HOLLYWOOD!! Well more like Holly"back"wood. Its a little sketchy here but the people and the ward are awesome!! And we can see the Hollywood sign from our apartment. ALSO I AM DRIVING!!!!! We have a brand new 2014 Corolla and it only had 77 miles on it. It doesn't even have license plates and yet they give it to me to drive in this crazy place!! Driving is actually fun...parking...not so much!!!
So saying goodbye to everyone was really hard! I miss my district and my teachers so much!!
But besides all that, this week has been amazing! It started out at the airport. We pulled up to the curb and a taxi pulled up and a lady got out and asked us if we were missionaries. We said yes and we established that she would be on the same flight as us going to LA. We checked in and everything worked out fine! Except I had to put my towel in Elder Ross's carry on. We finally got to our gate and the lady that we had meet on the curb was sitting there and so we started talking to her and immediately she asked for a blessing because she has been having health issues and was feeling really sick. Of course our elders agreed and went took a chair and went into the far corner and Elder Ross and Elder Amacher gave her a blessing. It was so cool! Then we finally got on the plane and about halfway home when I woke up. I mustered up the courage to talk to the grandpa sitting next to me. He didn't speak one word of English so that was fun. I shared a lot with him and got his information so that he could get missionaries in his area.
Once we landed we were met by one of the APs, Sister Weidman and Elder Kelly. They walked us to the parking garage and we got to put our suitcases in a truck! That truck was the best thing I had seen in a long time! But unfortunately I didn't get to ride in it. There were 24 missionaries that arrived that day. There were 2 sisters who are waiting for visas to Russia!! It was really cool to talk to them about that. One is going to Rostov and the other one to Saratov (the place where the missionaries got kidnapped). They drove us back to the mission home and we had lunch. Then we each had interviews and stuff.
The biggest part of the day was that they divided us up into groups and sent us out street contacting. It was so awesome!! The first people that would listen to us were Hispanic and they were refurbishing their front door. I talked to them and they gave us their information. The next people I talked to were 2 cousins who were landscaping and one was wearing a John Deere hat and I was like hey my dad works with them. Anyways, they also gave us their information.The last really cool story was that we were walking to the corner and there was a black guy sitting on the bench. We started talking to him and he was like "Don't you guys have another bible or something" So we gave him a Book of Mormon and told him where the church was. It was really awesome!! After that we went back and had dinner at the Weidman's. Then we all shared our day's experiences and then we walked around the temple. You can see our entire mission from in front of the temple. Afterward we went back to the mission home and we stayed the night with members. I stayed with the White Family. He is a counselor in the mission presidency. I was companions with Sister Roding from New Zealand. Her accent is awesome and she is a visitors center sister. She was very sweet. The next morning we went to transfer meeting. That previous night I woke up feeling sick and then we had eggs for breakfast and I was not feeling good at all. As we were waiting for the transfer meeting to start I was feeling awful so I asked Elder Amacher and Elder Ross to give me a blessing. It was the most beautiful blessings I have ever received!!!! I had so much gratitude that I had met all my district at the CCM and that they were willing and able to give me that blessing. The meeting started and they assigned us our companions.
My companion is Hermana Monroy. She is AWESOME!! She only has 2 transfers left so unless they make me train she will be my companion until she goes home. She was born in Mexico but has lived in Fresno since she was 9. She is amazing and I have already learned so much from her. We also had a mini missionary this weekend!! Here they have a program where youth ages 16-21 can sign up for mini missions and they go with missionaries for 3 days. It is a really cool program. Her name was Hermana Valenzuela. She is originally from Lima, Peru.
Another cool thing we do here is teach english classes. Every Wednesday and now Saturdays. It used to be Fridays but not very many people came. But I teach the advanced English. So far I have only had one student and his name is Yarik. He is from Ukraine and is a musician here. He is super awesome but kinda looks like count dracula. Also our apartment has a massage chair and well I pretty much have a date with it every night!
Another crazy thing...we were waiting at the stoplight and all of the sudden some 200 people on bikes go riding by. I guess they are called THE RIDERS and they just go all over town in huge groups. I have never seen anything like that! Only in Hollywood.
Also one last crazy story!!! We were leaving the bishops house and out of nowhere this cop car comes through the intersections and stops and calls us over. I was so nervous!! He rolled down the window and was like are you guys tracting over here?? We said no. He asked if we had an appointment and we said yes and he was like ok sisters please don't tract over here. Its not safe. He went on to tell us that he served his mission in North Carolina. Anyways he was just being friendly and helpful but I bet my face was priceless.
Ok just a quick review of the people we are teaching. We are teaching un abuelita (a cute little grandma). She is so sweet and she reminds me so much of Grandma Montgomery. She has really bad health and just had surgery to take a vein from her leg to put in her heart. We go over to her house and sing hymns to her and read the Book of Mormon with her and one day her house cleaner sat and listened too. She will be baptized as soon as her leg is better. Then we have un abuelito (a cute little grandpa). He has a baptismal date for Feb. 23. Hopefully he makes it if not March 2. He is really cute and he came to church yesterday so that was really awesome. We also have a sister who should be getting baptized any time now. She is really funny and reminds me a lot of Rocio (my aunt). Also there is a sister in our barrio (neighborhood). She is 25 and wants to go on a mission so she comes with us a lot. She is really sweet and has been a member for 3 years. Then we have una familia . They just got to the US about 3 months ago. We watched the Restoration with them and taught them about how families can be together forever and we found out that they have 2 daughters that they left behind and they are trying to get them here. We told them that we would come by every night at 6:30 to pray with them. They are a really sweet family. After english classes we give tours of the church and the other night we gave one to a couple and they agreed to be baptized!! It was so awesome but then we found out they are in the other elders area so we had to turn them over but they have a lot of potential. The last story...the first day we were walking down the street and on the corner I saw a lady holding a baby boy so we stopped to talk to her. We gave her a flyer for English and then we saw that she had groceries so we offered to help her carry them home. So we did and she let us in and we talked to her and gave her a copy of the family proclamation. She told us that she wanted to learn more but she wanted to talk to her boyfriend first. We called her on the day we had planned to go back and she told us that her boyfriend didn't want to learn so she would wait for him to be ready. It was a really cool experience but sad too because she really wants to change so that she can raise her son with faith in Jesus Christ. So until he is ready we just keep praying for her and calling her to see if we can do service for her.
Anyways the work is going good and I love it here! Thank you for the packages!! They were awesome and I have hearts all over our fridge!! :)
I hope everything is going good at home and at the CCM!
Love,
Hermana Montgomery
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