Los Angeles Temple at Christmas 2011
Desk where we worked at the L.A. Temple Visitors Center.
(Letter written by Dale November 29.)
Our visits and other meetings went so well today (our best so far) that we decided to tell you about it. There are times when I don’t feel so great when planned visits fall through and when contacts (miembros menos activos) don’t come to church as they committed to do. But there are other days that everything goes great! We had a meeting with Jaime Olasaba, nonmember husband of an active member, Victoria. We have been reading and discussing with him the scripture in the Book of Mormon that have the word ‘Jesus’ in a verse (There are 168 in the Book of Mormon.) along with adjoining verses that are pertinent. We were up to Helamán 3:28, so I decided to do a review of the teachings that we had covered up to that scripture. Most everything went well, but there were a couple of times when I was encouraging him to talk about why he was delaying being baptized and Victoria jumped in and wanted to force him to make some definite commitments. You could feel this was not the right thing to do. He told us that he felt that things were going well, but that he was not going to be baptized until he was sure of everything. We are meeting with again next week. (Here again, as you can see most of the teaching falls on Dale’s shoulders. He puts a lot of time and preparation in on the lessons he gives.)
We had some time before our next visit so we decided to call to see if we could motivate Matthew Perez to come to mutual. Fortunately he was home and the Grandmother (who has cancer) was feeling pretty well and they said come over right then. We had a good visit with them. However he does not want to come to mutual because he has to get up at 6:00 AM to catch a bus for school. They say that they would come to church on Sunday. (I am not holding my breath.)
Next we visited a non-member mother with her two member daughters. The elders gave them the discussion on the 10 Commandments. It went well. They also committed to come to church on Sunday. After the 3rd ward missionary correlation meeting we met with Obispo Estrada and discussed Hermana Beatriz de la Pena problem of having pre cancer not being to pay the $5000 cost. He immediately told us to have her come in to talk to him and he would probably be able to help her, but that he would have get approval from Presidente Chavez, our Stake President.
Our last meeting was with Hermana Evelin Ramirez and her boyfriend. This was first lesson on the restoration for him. She had received many of the following lessons with her sister Xiomara, so this got her caught up with Xiomara. I had the opportunity to bear my testimony of Joseph Smith, which is one of my favorite things to do. Connie also did a wonderful job of inviting them to read the Book of Mormon and asking Heavenly Father if it is true. It was especially well done considering that she did not understand anything of what went on before.
Finally we went to 21 Flavors, a frozen Yogurt place next to the campus of USC. We had gone many times and the girl who waited on us knew us and so asked her if she would like to receive a DVD about the Birth of Jesus. She said yes. Then just before we left a guy began serving so I asked if he wanted one also, which he was very happy to get. It was so easy to do at this time of year.
The Rest of this Week's Story
Just so you don’t think we have been translated—two days later all our appointments fell through so we picked ourselves up by the boot straps and kept working.
Friday we met Adrianna and Jaime Cruz. They have been recently baptized and have the cutest most well behaved kids—Brandon 8, Matthew 4, and Sarah 4 months. Brandon offered the nicest prayer without any help. The dad is going to get the priesthood so he can baptize Brandon. We are also going to work with them to get ready to go to the temple.
Sunday we met at the Visitors Center at 9 p.m. and the brother over security took us on a tour of the temple. We walked through the tunnel from the Visitors Center to the temple. We saw the assembly room that seats close to 2500 people. We went up on the roof and looked all over the city. We went inside the highest tower and saw where you can go up to the Angel Moroni. It was dark, windy and cold so no one chose to go any higher.
