Tuesday, January 20, 2015

I Wanna Roll With The Gangstas #whiteandnerdy

What up! (I am working on my intercity dialect ;)

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND SENT ME TO THE GHETTO OF INDIANAPOLIS!!! I am in Crossroads AKA the roads. This is one of the sketchiest areas of the mission and honestly the funnest :) All I talk to is black people and it makes my life! So much has happened these past few days, it is ridiculous!


Super sad to leave Bloomington, but was able to come back down to B-Town to go to the temple with Radonna and Kayla, and the Krals. What an amazing experience. Brother and Sister Kral are both blind and Brother Kral wanted to baptize his wife for his family names so I got the privilege of standing in the font with them and helping Brother Kral baptize his wife! The ride for Radonna and Kayla took them to the temple then immediately had to head back for work so we fit 7 adults into a 6 passenger compact Nissan car.... They put me on a booster seat between the two bucket seats :) It was a wonderful experience and something I will hold dear to my heart forever (especially the car seat part).

My new companion is the one and only Elder Garrett AKA the beast. He was a swimmer in High School, is super ripped out of his mind, and is 6'6"! I feel pretty safe in the ghetto with him :) We both got double transferred into our new area, which is probably one of the most busy areas in the mission. So we are super stressed trying to keep the area going, but it is going better then we thought, thanks to Heavenly Father :)

So our new ward is pretty much the epitome of what a ward out in the mission field should be like. It is an intercity ward so there are people from all walks of life there. They are very missionary orientent and are great at inviting all their friends to things; for instance we had 14 investigators at church yesterday (that includes the other 2 sets of missionaries in our ward). 

There are some of the sweetest, most humble and loving people I have ever met here. The best example is my boy, Brother Ricky Lane. He used to be a street-side preacher and would bring people into his church by the bus loads. He used to be a crack addict and is now sealed to his wife in the temple and is the first counselor in the Elder Quorum, AND he has only been a member for just over 2 years! He is the funniest guy I think I have met (he rivals in hilariousness with Brock, no joke). He is a huge black man who is about 60 years old he is scared of bears and black people. haha! He always has the missionaries come over and stuffs their faces with tons of food. He is pretty much the best :)

Funny story about Brother Lane:our investigator, Lacoyla, texted us and said she was sick and couldn't make it to church but wanted us to come over and give her a blessing. So we went over with Brother Lane and we went in and Brother Lane went over and hugged her and asked her what was wrong. She told us that her family was being very rude to her about the church and other things and it caused her so much stress and sadness she got sick from it. Well Brother Lane wasn't gonna let that old serpent get her down and he started going ham on her! He was saying stuff like "Lacoyla, baby girl, don't you let Satan get to you. He is using other people to bring you down and don't you let him do it! You are doing something so good and Satan doesn't like that one bit, so he is trying to bring you down and lead you away from it, don't let him do that!" (for the record, when black people go ham on other black people, they love it. They eat it up! Man, I wish I was black...) So we gave her a blessing of healing and she said not to cancel her ride and she came! How cool is that!? Brother Lane is definitely an inspired man of God and is a valuable servant of the Lord.

Well my beloved family and friends, I love you all and hope you are all doing well. Please pray for our two investigators Lacoyla Wood and Demetri Gaskin who are getting baptized in a few weeks! 

Love you!
Sincerely,
Elder Young

From Jake's letter to his mama: 
Funny Story:
I am sitting in Transfer meeting. I have a pretty good idea of where I am going (I am pretty sure I am heading up North to be a district leader in Elkhart with a missionary by the name of Elder Larsen). Prior to the transfer meeting President decided not to do leadership calls, he just told us if we were being transferred or not. So I am sitting there and he starts announcing where everyone is going and the first thing he says: Alright Elders and Sisters, serving in Crossroads 1 as Zone Leaders, Elder Garrett will be serving with Elder Young... and I didn't even hear what he said. I sat there and Elder Garrett stood up and everyone was staring at me and President said "Elder Young, you here?" and I stood up and said "wait, me?" and everyone started laughing and President Cleveland said "Yep, you." I WAS IN SHOCK! It caught me off guard so bad, hahaha! So I am now a zone leader in Crossroads. Elder Garrett and I are both brand new ZL's and both got transferred into the area so it has been a super stressful couple of days! hahaha but we are figuring it all out :) So that is what has been happening to me. 

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