#20...months??

20 months... whoa. That honestly makes me feel so old. I remember earlier in my mission, looking at a missionary who was 15 months in and thinking he must be so experienced. Now here I am, 20 months along. I'm old.

Apart from that, this has been a good, nevertheless, short week. Since I emailed you all on Tuesday I have one less day to talk about. If I'm being honest right now, I'm at a lack of things to say. But there's always plenty to say about those we are working with. So here goes.

D**** is fantastic. She's nice, willing to learn, always keeps the commitments we ask her to keep, and is ready to be baptized. She is still on track for this coming Saturday, the 5th. She's nervous, but ready. This last week, we had a really great lesson with her. We had previously assigned her to study Alma chapter 7 and prepare, with her aunt, a little lesson about the Atonement of Jesus Christ based on this chapter. We gave them about a week to do it, and when they presented it went very well. They included pictures, videos, and an activity! She created a word-search based on the vocabulary in this chapter! That was the most surprising thing. Of course I completed it first and got the prize ;)

D**** showed up to church and was able to be confirmed by her father. It was a special experience. She's such a smart girl and comes to the table with the greatest questions. She's great at thinking things through very well.

We're working still with the Jimenez family, to help them continue in the Lord's path. They had a little step-back, which included a visit to the hospital and a cast, but now they are doing well. We hope to take them to the temple soon and do some work for their ancestors. The father got the Aaronic priesthood yesterday, and he should be able to bless and pass the sacrament this upcoming Sunday. We are super excited for them.

Well, I'll close out this letter. I know this is the work of the Lord, and he is involved in every Jot and Tittle. He cares about us and loves us, so much. That is why we are out here as missionaries. To help spread the love that God has for all of us.

Have a great day all!

Elder Horton

Hike today

Hike we took today

Temple from last week

My companion

#TempleBlessings

Hello everyone! What a pleasure it is to write you! 

It might come as a surprise that I am writing on a Tuesday. We had the opportunity to go to the temple, which us out of the mission. We only get to go every 6 months. So it is a fantastic opportunity. But since it is so far away, we have to change our p-day to the day we go to the temple. If any of you feel that you should be partaking of the blessings of the temple more often, I recommend that you go. Going to the temple brings a certain sense of peace, love, and a hightened perspective on life.

We also had the chance to go with D*** to the Los Angeles temple visitors center this Sunday. It was so much fun! We were able to help her learn about the work we do there, and to do it in an interactive way. Afterwards, we took a tour around the temple and took some pictures. I will send those pictures. Also, D*** pushed her baptismal date up to be baptized the 5th of May. She is very excited and a little nervous.

It has been really warm recently, and so being on bike has been good/bad. Good, because I'm getting tan and getting excersize! Bad, because... well it's HOT. I need to get accustomed to it again. Que me echen porra.

Not sure what else to say, and it's getting late. So I'll leave it at that. I'll give you all a lot of pictures so they speak a thousand words.

Con Amor,

Elder Horton

#BikeLife

Hello family and friends, I can't believe P-day snuck around the corner again, and I'm here writing home again. Time needs to slow the heck dooowwwwnnnn.
So this week we had another baptism! Her name is D***. She's 11 years old, she's super smart, loves to play around, and asks the deepest and most profound questions when we are teaching her. Most of her family are members, and her dad was able to baptize her. What an awesome opportunity! She was actually taught about 5 months ago by another companionship of Elders. But her family suddenly picked up and moved to Connecticut. Buuuttt, they didn't stay too long. And when she came back, she wanted to be baptized again. She is way awesome.
As my title mentions, we are back on the bike life! There is a companionship of missionaries who needs it way more than us, so we let them have it. I'm already getting really tan! Well... missionary tan. Arms and face. That's it. But it has been HOT this last week. I think Pico Rivera tried to skip Spring and went straight to summer! Oh my goodness. But now, it's cooling down. Thank heavens! 
Another note: people are way more calm drivers here than in my last area. We don't get in as many near-accidents. So for all of you concerned about my safety, there you go 
Here's a fun experience for you all. Hope you enjoy!
So we were looking for a potential named P***. We knocked on the door, to have a lady named R*** tell us he's changing and we can wait if we want to. So after waiting 15/20 minutes, he comes and stands in the doorway with a beer can in his hand. In his backyard was playing music. While talking with him, a good song comes on. I tell him I like the song, and so he brings us into his backyard where he has family. He turns the music up 100%, to the level where we cannot even hear each other speak. He starts dancing and tells us it's his birthday. He grabs a can of beer and offers it to us, then hands us water when we say no. If this moment wasn't awkward enough, there's a baby in a stroller in front of the speaker... so things start to calm down real quick. He lowers the music, we sit down, and start to talk about the Gospel a little bit. We start talking and he likes what we're saying about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but finally the rest of his family shows up with the 30 pack of Bud-Light and we figure that's our sign to leave. So we picked up and headed out.
I think that's about it for you all. It's been a week of bikes, sweat, and blood! Have a good week all!

Con Amor,

Elder Horton

Baptism

Que la muerda!

Basic Hispanic meal

#Transfers/Miracles

Hey all! I hope this last week was good, as was mine!

The biggest announcement is transfers. Drum roll.....

I'm staying! and my companion is staying! This means a lot for me, because this will be my first "white" companion I have who I'm spending more than 1 transfer with, and this is my first area where I am spending more than 3 transfers. My mission has been pretty crazy up to this point, but now I can cool down and work hard.

As I mentioned in the title, we have seen some miracles lately. In what form did these small miracles come? In the form of new people to teach. But not just that. Let me explain.

This last Thursday, my companion and I decided to try praying more than normal. Every time we were about to leave the car, we said a quick prayer, asking the Lord to help. Thursday, we left the apartment at 6 for the last 3 hours of proselyting time. For each person we went by, we asked the Lord for his help. In those 3 hours, we ended up finding 4 new people to teach. That's miraculous. It's been done before, but the level at which these people seemed to be prepared for the Gospel is fantastic. We look forward to working with these people in the future. Along that same train of thought, anytime throughout the rest of the week that we prayed before we left the car, something great happened. It's meant to be. "ask, and ye shall receive."

We also had the opportunity to offer a lot of service this past week. Once to our recent convert family who rents out chairs, tables, and party supplies. Any time these chairs come back from a party, they must be washed before they can be loaned out again. So to show this family we love them and to save them some time and money? We washed these chairs. It was interesting, and something different. They appreciated it so much. We also helped another recent convert in our area to pull some boxes out of her storage unit. But these boxes were tucked away near the back of it. So 3 mattresses, 20 boxes, a piece of furniture, and many random items later, we had what she wanted and were able to put everything back in the unit. All in all, it took about 3 hours when we planned it to take 1.5. So yep.

Now I'm not going to lie. This week also had it's downs. Saturday, we knocked so many doors and got a lot of rejection. I was quite down. It took a lot of faith to go out and do the Lord's work. But we have to take the bad days, as well as the good days. That's how it is.

I'll leave it with that. It's been a very good week in the vineyard of the Lord. I'm just working away! I hope you guys have a good week, stay out of the heat, and enjoy Spring!

Con Amor, 

Elder Horton

#Conference

Hello all! This past week has been a very inspiring one with all the talks we heard from Conference! I hope you were all inspired as much as I was. We heard many inspired messages. One thing that impressed me is that each of the members in the first presidency got up and spoke about recieving personal revelation. Coincidence? I think not!

On Friday I went on exchanges with the companion of my district leader, Elder Chambers. He is 5 weeks out from the MTC but he is such a great missionary and has lots of great ideas. It was awesome to work with him.

 

My week: very good! we had interviews with President, so I got some good guidance and council for my investigators. I told you about the 3 dinners we had yesterday. So I'l give more detail. The first was with D and fam. They invited us to the Sunday afternoon session of conference, and told us they would feed us too. We assumed this meant during, before, or right after. Nope. They finally had the food ready around 4:30. Then, we went to dinner at 5:30. It actually ended up being ready around 6. So we ate until 7 and they gave us dessert. This member loves to give us a TON to eat, and tells us multiple times throughout the meal to keep eating. He always gives us great food and vegetables. Oh vegetables. Mexicans don't make a lot of those. Then, our last dinner was at 7. We got there around 7:30. I was full, but ate the whole plate. I was full, to say the least. It felt like Thanksgiving 2016.

Conference: One of the biggest impressions I came away with is the enthusiasm of President Nelson. The priesthood session was powerful, with the hymn we sang. I was able to watch 6 of the 10 hours in Spanish. And though I understand about 95% of it, it is more tough to take notes because I lose the train of thought I had. It's okay, though! all inspiring. They also use very big and educated words. It can be tough sometimes. I felt bad for my comp. It seemed like he really had a struggle understanding, because he took so very little notes in the Spanish compared to English. Also, it was a pleasure to participate in solemn assembly. I don't remember doing that when I was 10.

The rest of this week wasn't too eventful. Just a big buildup to General Conference.

Have a great week all!

Con Amor,

Elder Horton

Doorbell in the middle of a door...