Samuel's Mission e-mail March 17, 2008 and March 24, 2008

Everyone:
Well, we only have a few days of winter left. Of course, people here in LA don't know what winter is, but I just felt like noting that.
Tuesday of last week, we tracted, visited Melva, visited Morelia and Elsi (they're the non-member relatives of Mario), and taught Gabriela.
On Wednesday I was on companionship exchanges with Elder Harper. We tracted a bit, and then we picked up Miguel to go visit some people... and none of them were there, so we tracted more. We also visited the Vasquez family. They're doing ok--we set a date for their marriage and for Luz's baptism, but they couldn't get the marriage license on Saturday and they weren't at church on Sunday, so we're going to have to see what's happening with them.
On Thursday, we had interviews with President Blackburn, we tracted, visited someone we'd met tracting a week ago (and dropped them), and planned.
On Friday, we had District meeting, we tracted, and we visited the Vasquez family.
On Saturday, we helped out with the Roots Conference, a genealogical conference aimed mostly at the African-Americans in Southern California, that is hosted in the LA Stake Center. I was happy because I got to play computer technician to some of the teachers. In the evening, we visited Anne and the Aguilars.
On Sunday, we had our normal church meetings and visited Gladis.
Well, I don't have anything deeply philisophical that I want to add on today, so I'll just end here.
Elder Samuel Stephens

March 24

Everyone:
Well, this has been a week that's had some ups and downs. Let's see...
On Tuesday we helped Miguel's family remove a small tree from their yard, we visited Melva, we tracted a bit, we visited the Vasquez family, and we visited Gaby.
On Wednesday, we visted a person named Tanara, who apparently has met with missionaries before, we tracted for a while, we visited Gladis Matute, we visited a guy named Juan Alvarango we met on the street a couple weeks ago, and we tracted a bit more.
On Thursday, we had our weekly planning and we tracted. On Friday, we had our district meeting like usual, and then after that I was feeling sick with a fever so we went back to our apartment and I rested for a while. Once I was feeling up to it, we went out and stopped by Sandra's house, and then in the evening the Luz and Sidonio Vasquez got married! Huzzah! Luz is planning on getting baptized next Sunday.
On Saturday I still wasn't feeling too hot, but we went to our correlation meetings and checked some refs, and then visited Anne in the evening.
On Easter Sunday, we had our church meetings like normal and we tried to visit some people, but the only person who was home was Kimberly, who recently moved in next to another member of the LA 6th Ward.
Today in the morning we finally got some plumbers over to our apartment (we've had this wet spot in the carpet next to our kitchen that's been slowly growing that we called the apartment managers about a couple weeks ago), so we now have a hole in our wall, but the leak has a temporary fix on it. Hopefully, the management will give the permission for them to do what's necessary to make a permanent fix soon.
Elder Samuel Stephens