Hey family. Sorry I couldn’t write you yesterday. Supposively all of the LA libraries around here are not open on Mondays. So I think I will be writing on Tuesdays instead for this transfer at least. Please still write on Monday’s just in case. So let me fill you in on everything. I am in an area called USC. My boundaries are the 10 freeway (north), 110 freeway (west), Slauson (South), and Western (East). It is a pretty good sized area. Flush training is a pretty big deal. It is when they take out the old missionaries that were working in the are and they put two new missionaries with one of them being a brand spanking new missionary from the MTC. So I and my Greenie companion are flushing the USC area. The only thing different with my situation is that there is two elders that are still working my area because one of them leaves in a month. When he leaves then the whole area will be ours. It is nuts. They are still working with all their investigators and less active members and we get nothing. So basically we are finding people with all of our time. They gave us about half of the formerly taught people out of their area book to use but that is basically it. So me and my companion are just talking to everyone. No worries about the spanish thing. Even though I am not in a spanish ward I can still talk to people that speak spanish. I am just looking for people that speak english because we work with the Adams ward. So they moved me from a spanish speaking area to an english speaking area. It is ok. I have used my spanish a lot because their are a ton of spanish speaking people in my area. My area is either USC students, latin, or black. Nothing else. haha. The other elders that are in my area are working the University ward. When they leave we will get both wards and probably a car. So that is pretty cool. Transfers are a little bit shorter this transfer because the departing missionary group want to get back before school starts so transfers end on December 29th. The next transfer will be 7 weeks instead of 6…. Ok now for my companion. Elder Lee. He is brand new in the mission english called. So he does not speak spanish. He is from St. George Utah. Elder Lee reminds me of a few different people compiled into one guy. He eats like Landon Brough eats, he is loud like another elder that I know out here, and kind of has a similar look to Garret Mcgee. He is pretty cool. He is the opposite of what a greenie usually is. Usually new missionaries are shy and quiet trying to soak in the whole missionary thing. Elder Lee is not shy. He is a talker thats for sure. He is has a lot of fire underneath him. He is ready to work. haha. So we have been talking to everyone and it has been a lot of fun. So things are going well. We live with another companionship again in the biggest apartment in the mission. It is a three bedroom apartment but it is pretty nasty. We will be moving to the other apartment where the other elders live that work our area next transfer. So, there isn’t enough beds to go around because the mission is full so Elder Lee and I sleep on air mattresses. I feel bad for Elder Lee because his deflates through the night and he ends up waking up in the morning on the hard wood floor basically. Its pretty funny but he doesn’t mind. Plus our heater chooses when it works and when it doesn’t work so sometimes its freezing when we wake up. It has been working well lately so its not a real big issue. So we are having a blast just trying to find people. We actually found this awesome guy named Lamarr. He is black and is super cool. He has quite the story. He is 27 years old and played football for a college team in San Bernadino. About a year ago he got shot by a mexican gang in the arm, his wife left him with his two kids, and he was homeless with no job. Today he has a house, two cars, is working as an automobile mechanic, and finally has communication with his wife again. Then we came along and just talked to him like we would talk to anyone else and it turned out to be a 45 minute deep conversation about prayer and blessings from God. We then set an appointment the next day (Saturday) and taught him, and on Sunday he came to all three hours of church and loved it. So after only being here for 4 days with no investigators or anything, God blessed us by putting Lamarr in our path. It truly is a miracle. I am excited. So he is our main investigator right now. We are still looking everywhere for more people but Lamarr is our main focus.
This place is crazy. There are a ton of homeless people and crazy people that we talk to. It is insane. It supposively has some gangs and stuff. The sirens are always going. The best and nicest part of the area is right around USC. It is pretty sweet. The football field is in our area. The Colloseum. It is huge. I will have to get a picture with it and send it home. Oh and Staples Center is just right outside of the area so thats pretty cool as well. I am write next to down town LA. My apartment has a pretty cool view of downtown. This area is super cool.

Well it sounds like you had a good thanksgiving dinner once again. That is good news about Aunt Louise. Thats great. All the family came and the dinner was the best ever? NAthan teased Jodie? haha awesome….. We didn’t have an appointment because it was the day after transfers and I got flushed in so I didn’t know any members. So we called our zone leaders and someway or another we ended up eating with President and Sister Baker and Sister Baker’s family. I know we were pretty lucky. It was so good. So our thanksgiving was pretty good. I might need some kind of beanie too to go along with the gloves. It is absolutely cold riding a bike at night. It is chilly.

So you took the family picture and held a picture of me? haha. I want to see it. That would be cool. I show a lot of people that we teach a picture of the family.

Well I don’t have much time. I am glad everything is going good at home. Happy 1 year anniversary to hillary and mitchell. I don’t know why I remember that but its on the 5th. Sounds like the moving process is taking a while with them. Also it sounds like the priest quorum is totally new. I love you family and I will write to you next week.

Love,
Elder Kevin Jones