Spring in LA

I wasn’t sure what spring in LA would look like but there are definitely some things going on with some of the plants. This one has some green things spiking up. Can’t wait to see if they do anything interesting.

And here’s something new on these succulents.

Here’s a new plants I haven’t seen before.

We’ve had a great week and a crazy week. We went to a baptism last Saturday for David. He’s a former actor. He’s very excited to be a new member.

This Saturday we went to a baptism for Stella. I think I talked about her before. She’s from China. She’s 30 years old and is studying English here and then will start studying film making. She’s sooooo cute and so very excited about her new life as a member of the church.

When the Chinese students come here, they choose an American name they want to go by. Today we gave three students a ride to Stake Conference, two were from China and one was from Taiwan. Their names were Jobs, Mark, and Chow. We had a great chat in the car. I asked them questions about China. They are all still working on their English. Elder Johnson was driving and he changed lanes and Jobs said softly, “Take care.” Then a car honked at us because we almost ran them down!!! We told him if he’s trying to warn us he has to “scream” or say, “Watch out!” He was happy he’s learned a new saying.

Sometimes when I’m on my walk in the morning there are 20 or 30 trucks that pass by. I think they are going to a truck convention.

This week when we visited our friend, Mattie, a 63 year old black woman, Chris took some family history to show her. First of all, we’ve talked about it for a few weeks. Chris is helping her to get records on family search correct. He wanted to put her x husband in there but she won’t let him. We told her that the records need to be accurate and someday someone might want to look it up. She says, “No one will ever look it up!” We said maybe her great great grandchildren will want to. She says, “No, they won’t!!!” Needless to say, her x husband is NOT in family search now. So, this week Chris had a census record from 1940 to show her. It had her family on it. Before we went in, I told him not to mention her x husband and make her mad. Well, he made her mad! She asks him if he has copies of the family records to give her. Then he excitedly tells her he has a census record with her in it. She takes it and she looks at it and she says, “What are you looking all this stuff up for? Are you just plain SNOOPY!?” He says, “No Mattie, I’m not snoopy, I just thought you’d like to see this.” She says, “My mama told me that during that time the census people never ever knocked on a black family’s door. They just went to the boss and asked him the questions. And he don’t know nothing! This is not correct!” And she tore it up.

We haven’t heard from the Bey family for several months. They’ve just dropped off the planet. They never answer texts of calls. Then Thursday out of the blue we got a text and they wanted us to visit. We were having kind of a discouraging day, so their text was such a blessing. We visited them today and encouraged them to come back to church where they are loved and will receive lots of moral support.

Here’s a rose from the temple grounds to finish off this little snippet of our life in LA.