Week 15 in LA--No Letter From Zach This Week--(J/K He Sent One Today (12/20)) Christmas Fever

Hey Everybody! It's not beginning to look like Christmas out here but the season spirits are high. This week has been pretty eventful, so I got to sing in the LA mission concert at our Temples Visitor Center. There were so many people there and I was kinda nervous but everyone said I sounded great. We have gotten in contact in all of our investigators which is good and we are supper happy. I get to go to the Temple this Tuesday and I always love going to it. We also have gone and sang Christmas carols to people in Care homes and they loved it. We also had the ward party which was fun, they asked us to be the wise men in the still nativity scene and that was fun. We also had a member give us a professional companionship photo. The area is nice and the members are too. We are supper excited for the coming weeks when our investigator will be getting baptized. I hope as you go through this Christmas Season that you remember that Christmas broken up is Mas Christ (more Christ) and remember that he is the reason we celebrate this holiday. 

Love Elder Cox 

This is a first for me. Zach didn't send a letter home on Monday. Luckily for me, his companion's mom emailed me her son's letter and gave me permission to use some of it on the blog.

From Elder Halverson:
"So today..... holy freak stuff happened. Well it started out with us going to my doctors appointment. Traffic was horrible and we were a half an hour late. Super stressful. My blood pressure was high ha ha. ( So Austin's mom does not find this very funny, since he actually has high blood pressure, and I don't know if this was a joke or if he measured high....I am assuming no news is good news) Well they did their tests and all that. What was interesting is i was having a normal conversation with the person doing my ultra sound. Then we had a convo about the restoration and when it got to the Book of Mormon, he nonchalantly said the Book of Mormon is just plagiarizing the bible. Well that was too bad. Well we drove home and did our studies. Then we rushed over to brother Garcia and had ward correlation with him. After that, we went home and got the food that we received yesterday and took it to the church and ate it, as we waited for Eric to show and also brother Rampton. We met with them and told bishop where we were so he could come say hi. So we talked for a sec then then bishop came in with brother Jones, so we had three guys in there talking with Eric. It was great. When they left, we got to teaching, and then he had a question about the god head and it all kinda went down hill from there. What I mean by that is it derailed from what we were going to teach, and it was going into some deep doctrine. When that was over, we ended the lesson and they left. Then we walked outside and one of the members were talking to a man and he waved us over, and the guy was a non member from Iran.

Today we  woke up and did our normal stuff. We then went to a lesson with a less active. It was okay, but it was still an inspired lesson. She fed us sandwiches, chips, and juice. After that we went to the church and posted something on facebook and I practiced my training I am giving in district meeting tomorrow. Then after that we drove home and got our suites and then headed up to the visitor center. We also stopped and had some lunch. Then we went to the visitor center and my companion practiced, and then the performances began. They were all so good! I saw the Edmundsons there. They were so glad to see me. After that we went home. I was surprised we made it home just a minute late. So ya that is the day. Wish me luck tomorrow.

Today was okay. We went to district meeting and I did one of the trainings. I borrowed a couple of ideas, and it went really well. After that we dropped of elders Whitmore and Williams to their apartment. Then went back and ate lunch. We did some weekly planning and got some things done. Then we went to dinner, and it was pretty cool because they had a skillet out on the table. Mongolian barbecue style. Then we went and taught Ivan with the Yamazakies. We went over his baptism. It was a good lesson and ya that is it.

Today started out not so good then finished okay. We woke up and I did my in-bed work out. Then i made some oat meal and we went to the church and did a couple of things. Then we went to the Knob Hill building. After that, we his the street and prosolyted. We checked out the Luceros, but they weren't home, so we saw some more people. Then we checked on the Luceros again and they were there!!!!!! It was awesome. After that we worked around dinner and then went to dinner and helped them with their Christmas decorations. After that we synced our ipads and then went home.

So today was good. We went to ward council as usual and did the normal waiting around for our church to start. Church was good, but Eric did not come!!!!!!! Gosh dang-it Eric!!!!! Well that Persian guy came so that was cool. Then we joined the elders Quorum lesson and guess what... the lesson was on the gathering of Israel. Yes! So after that we did stuff after church also synked and sent in our numbers. Then we went and had dinner with the Spring family. They were funny. After that we tried to think of stuff to do, so we went and visited the Persian guy. That was cool! We also visited a new recent convert move in. She is super nice. Then we stopped by a member to let them know of the recent convert, and went home to do companionship inventory and companionship study. Ya. That is all."

Pretty good summary of their week and I am beyond grateful that Elder Halverson's mom is so amazing and shared this with me. She also sent me one picture--it's kind of blurry but it's better than nothing.