Troy Bolton

What a week! I have sure seen a lot of blessings this week. My companion is “stellar”! He has a super optimistic and ultra friendly personality. He’s super excited about the work and is really easy to get along with. He is close to the spirit and really great at being obedient. He’s also a super athlete. He played soccer, tennis, and cross country in high school. He was also into drama and was in several plays including high school musical (he was the main character Troy Bolton). He has a super voice and we love to sing together. I sing the melody and he sings tenor, then he sings melody and I sing bass. We love to do it at lessons and even tracting. Most mornings we go running. He’s been running six days a week for the last year so he’s in pretty good shape. When I’m too worn out I just ride bike and he keeps right up with me on foot.

We’re working on following the spirit more in our lessons so we don’t have it set who will say what—we just follow what we feel. It’s been incredible to recognize the spirit working in me. I just start talking and end up saying things I never meant to say and/or never thought of.

The apartment is nice here, though the laundry is a lot more expensive lol. It’s crazy how many rabbits are down here in So. Cal! We see them all the time. Our downstairs neighbors have a little garden so there are always little birds in there. At the top of the fences are planes of glass so whenever we leave the birds try to fly away and one usually smacks into the glass :D.

This area is amazing! We have super solid investigators! The Weig family is super close to baptism. We taught them 3 times last week! They should be ready by the 12th or the 19th. Their names are Hans and Rozlynn and they have four kids under 5.

Hailey Tweeter is 17 and we taught her yesterday. She is already friends with the young women and young women leaders and she even went to girl’s camp up in Garden Grove. He best friend lives up there and is a member so that’s been a big help for her. She has a date for the 19th and is on the way there.

We also taught the Moaddeli family. They live right under the brand new bishop. He invited her to church on the day he got sustained (last Sunday) and she accepted to have the lessons. She also had them in Japan so she is also preparing for the 19th. We had her husband sit in on the lesson so we weren’t alone with her and at the end he said he was interested and wanted to be baptized. It’s a huge thing for him though because he’s from the Middle East and was previously a Muslim. He’s not ready to set a date yet but we are okay with that for now.

Other people you can pray for we are working with but who are not as close are John Geyer and Jocelyn. We had 7 investigators at church on Sunday. That’s the most I’ve had my whole mission!

The new bishop is great. He’s only 34 and is tall and skinny. He’s super nice and really mission work oriented. The ward is great and it’s pretty big. UCI is in our area so there are a lot of people in the ward who go to college. I think there are like 5 nurseries! Sacrament is pretty loud because of all the kids but it was still good. Saturday we went to a high priest BBQ. It was held at a part-member family’s home. They have a lot of money :) As do many others in the ward. I’m definitely not in a third world country! Hopefully I can still learn and grow from the experience haha.

Last evening we went to a baptism of a different ward. Elder Grange knew the kid (15) getting baptized so he spoke. They asked me to play the piano. We even got Hailey to come and she really enjoyed it. She said it was “really inspiring,” and indeed the spirit was really strong. Anyway, I’m super excited for this transfer. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Love,
Elder Curtis