Elder Dallin Espiritu: Week 2 in Los Angeles

YOOO what's up everyone!

Hope everyone had a sick 4th of July! Really fast week this week which is surprising because it wasn't as busy as we wanted it to be. We got to meet some amazing people and got to experience some very spiritual things.

We're still trying our best to figure out how to find some new people to teach or find some less active members in our ward that we could reach out to. Its really testing my patience for sure haha. We are lucky enough to have some people that the other Elders were teaching before we got here so we've been trying to focus on them.

Here's some experiences that we had this week!

Last Monday we were able to get in contact with the Bohanan family, and were able to do a Come Follow Me with them. Sister Bohanan is raising two kids at the moment and the kids are so sick. There's Hector he's about 13 and he's super funny. He likes playing lax so with the one year of me playing and my companion playing too we were able to talk a lil bit about it.

Then there's Sister Bohanan's daughter Petra and she's about 9. Super sweet girl. She's ranked 15 in the nation for gymnastics so she's a beast. We hyped her up over the zoom call.

Turns out Sister Bohanan called the Elders before us and said she wanted Petra to be baptized because she never was when she was 8. We've been trying to teach them a couple times. Monday we had a Come Follow Me with them and it was super fun. I love teaching kids cause it forces you to teach simple and that's what's so awesome about the gospel. It's just so simple! It was fun to be able to teach them.

The next day we had a lesson with this guy named Mike and the lesson was okay but didn't go the way we wanted. I was frustrated and got pretty discouraged. But later that day we called this lady named Maria Lolo.

The Elders before us called her once so we decided to try it out. She answered and we started talking to her and get to know her. We could tell she was from somewhere else cause she had a pretty strong accent. Elder Tennis looked at me and whispered "I think she's Filipina" and I was like nahh I don't think so. So he asked her where she was from and she said the Philippines!! I got so hyped and I just went off and tried to talk to her in Tagalog. She was so surprised!

We had a really good conversation about how to find joy. She actually referred herself to the missionaries and said this was the reason why. She wants to find joy in her life. It was actually one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had and it was over the phone.

I was able to testify to this lady in Tagalog that God loves her and how to find joy is through our Savior Jesus Christ. We're gonna teach her again tomorrow. On Wednesday we dropped off a Book of Mormon to her.

This experience really showed me how much our Heavenly Father loves each of His children and it gave me motivation to keep working harder cause that was the biggest tender mercy I've ever seen in my life. I really needed it exactly at that moment. Love this opportunity I have to be a missionary even though its different!

Even though circumstances are different now a days the gospel isn't different so we gotta continue moving forward as a church.

Hope everyone has an amazing week. Hit me up on with an email or a message. I would love to hear from you! Love ya guys!

Elder Espiritu