Email for Week 4 (2nd in the field)

2nd Email from the field

For the Blog

I will grace the hills around us with the title "mountains" they are pretty dead. You know "arrowhead" bottled water? We can see that mountain from our area, the "arrowhead" is made from a rock slide. But it doesn't look like the one on the bottle. I also doubt people would drink it if they knew the water came from San Bernardino...

We've taught 20 lessons this last week. We have a lot of investigators, recent converts, and less actives to teach between the two wards (most are in the poorer 1st ward though).

We have a baptismal date (Aug 18) for one of investigators, her name is Yvette. She is married to a member (they are both my age) and is progressing well. This week we are going to go to the temple to take pictures and talk about sealing. 

We have several investigators who are older. One of my favorites, "Red"(he used to have red hair) is 85. He believes in the BOM and Joseph Smith but doesn't know if he should get baptized and isn't thinking that he's getting answers to his prayers. We have some other interesting investigators but I will have to talk about them later.

We were at a less active's home in our apt. Complex the other day. They were really happy to see us, and invited us back for dinner on Saturday. He got a $30 rib roast and made it into chili with jalapenos, and hobanaros. It was really good. But very Hot!!! So hot my nose started bleeding... (never going to hear the end of that one)

Our Mission was promised by Elder Ballard that: if each missionary got 10 OYMs (Open Your Mouth, or street contacting) aside from tracting a day (so 20 per companionship) we would have a baptism a month. Elder Clark and I have been doing our best, and are improving.

I've had a couple interesting OYMing experiences. No dogs have chased us yet (not counting when they chase us on their side of the fence. We grade dogs on how much effort they go to bark at us and following us down the fence line) But yesterday we met a guy from Manhattan (thick accent). He wasn't overly interested, but he was fun to talk to. another guy, Ignacio Jr., we OYMed into and got a return appointment. it took a couple of tries but yesterday we found him at a time he could talk. He's 25. at 15 he moved out of his house with his 14 year old girlfriend (now wife) and have been basically roughing it. However, he caught Giardia and nearly died. While he was in the Hospital they found out that he had thyroid cancer (or something similar). He can't work anymore, and smokes medical marijuana (we're in Cali). We called our Mission president to find out what the church's stance on that was and he said that if they have a perscription from a reputable doctor and get it from a legal pharmacy they can get baptized (Didn't know that, did you?) But while we were talking to him and giving him the lesson he lit up right there! We were like "uh..." (he wasn't rude about it and kept his smoke and stuff away from us) but yeah, I've now seen someone smoking weed haha.

Elder Clark and I had a "miracle" experience the other day. We had a lesson planned for a RC. She's a single sister so we needed someone to come with us. We called and called, but no one was available. So we prayed for a miracle, that things would work out. So we went over there, and she had a male friend over (from another ward) who sat in with us. Also we were there right when she needed us. Lisa lives in a trailer park with a Nazi homeowners association and her manager has been picking on her for small things. We were there right when the manager was saying some stuff and was able to calm Lisa down and teach a good lesson about charity, and long suffering. She kept saying thank you and how the things we were saying was just what she needed. It was pretty cool.

I have lots of favorite scriptures now but Alma 7:11-13 is probably the one I use most. It talks about the atonement, and what Christ did for us.

Overall, Life is good, the work is good.

May the Spirit be with you and write me letters.