Happy Thanksgiving!

This transfer, I am staying in Chula Vista with Elder T. In fact, our entire DISTRICT is staying the same, which is quite rare, if I'm not mistaken. I've actually been stocking up on food, unintentionally. I just did an inventory of the stuff I have, and it's come out that I have enough food to keep myself and my companion fed for the next week. I'm actually quite surprised. I didn't think I had that much food lying around. I guess I just didn't want to get to the point where I was out of food.

Today, we're going to the temple with Bishop C, so I'm really happy with today. Bishop has quite a few gems of wisdom about the temple, such as when the Lord shows His finger to Mahonri Moriancumr, the Brother of Jared, Bishop said, "It's very interesting to notice that the veil was parted by a hand, and that when the hand touched the stones, they began to glow with their own light." And then he talked about comparing the section in D&C that talks about how to identify a true messenger of the Lord. So I'm pretty excited to gain some more knowledge today.

This week was quite interesting. Our recent convert, M L, had a double heartbeat, and her pulse was in the 140's and higher. She was rushed to the emergency room, and didn't see the cardiologist until the next day, (which she was quite put out about). We gave her a blessing that she would recuperate and be able to enjoy the holiday season with her family. And on that topic, we don't have any set dinner appointments for Thanksgiving, but we do have a couple of possible offers. We've actually planned a clever plan. We're going caroling outside of the stores that open early for Black Friday, because people are camped out in front of these stores with nothing to do. THEY CAN'T GET AWAY. (villainous laugh) And then we're going to give everyone mormon.org cards, because they'll all probably be on their phones trying to keep themselves entertained. All we have to do is call the store and get their permission.

This last week has been quite fun, actually. First of all, J and C were able to come to church. They planned on just going home after sacrament meeting, but a member, Sister Q, who knew C, snatched them away into Gospel Principles, and sat by them. And then we took J to High Priests. So they were able to actually attend! We'll find out how they liked it tomorrow.

On Saturday, we went all the way into the North Zone so that Elder T could baptize someone that he had been teaching before he came to Chula. I found out that San Diego is the #4 terrorist watch in the nation because of the high muslim population. 0_0 So...yeah. Never knew that.

Yesterday, Elder B, (my district leader), came and worked with me for exchanges. We walked around and talked to quite a few people, and we ACTUALLY GOT SOME RETURN APPOINTMENTS. One of which, was a man named S, who says that these are the Latter Days. *bing. Then he said that if the Holy Spirit touches him about something, then it must be true. *bing. And then he said that he wanted to know what we believed, because he felt that every church had SOMETHING good. *bing. And then HE set up the return appointment for this Friday, and even asked if he could say a prayer with us before we parted ways. So yeah...that was that.

Other than that, people have been generally grumpy, and haven't wanted to talk to us. But oh well.

And on Sunday, M ordained his son, M Jr., to the office of a deacon, and gave him the Aaronic priesthood. When we taught him about the Priesthood last Thursday, I was able to use my Priesthood Lineage card.

And I had a street contact with a man from India. His name is V P. He's actually in the library right now. He talked to us about so many things. When we contacted him, I noticed that he had the cultural red dot on his forehead between his eyebrows, which means he's married. He talked to us about how much he doesn't like muslims or Pakistan, he talked about how India is "a functioning anarchy", he mentioned a lot about science, sanscrip (an old language), rocket science, language, and quite a few other things. And then he asked us what we believed, and said that he doesn't believe in converting to anything. He says that men should just stay in their religion, and shouldn't push their beliefs on other people. (Sounds like he's referencing muslims). But his accent. OH HIS ACCENT. It was so luscious. His voice was really deep, and the Indian accent just made it that much better. In fact, he said "Those Mooslims (muslims) come here and build their temples so that they can build bombs to KEEL you." (a lot of emphasis on the KEEL). It was actually really cool. I'd say that is my favorite street contact of my mission so far.

Anywho, that's about all that I've got, so I'll talk to you next week! Have a great week!

-Love, Elder Crook

MTE or Missionary Training Exchanges

This week has actually been quite a bit better than the last. We've actually had people stop and listen to us on the street, even though we didn't get return appointments with many of them. We had MTE's this week, or Missionary Training Exchanges, and we had someone come into our area with us to help out in the work. Elder Y was his name, and we were a trio for a day. We started street contacting, and he would just introduce himself and ask the person's name right off the bat. And it worked really well. People started listening to us more than they did with just Elder T and me. And as we worked, we got down away from our apartment, and Elder Y had to use the bathroom. So we went to a Carl's Jr. nearby, and while he was in the bathroom, I noticed this man with a Sharp's hospital folder. I intended to ask him about it with the intention of trying to talk about the gospel in relation to whatever ilness he had, but before I could get a word out, he asked what church we were from. After introducing the name of the Church, he asked if we were a Christian faith. We said we were, and he asked what made us different from everyone else. After explaining about the Book of Mormon, and the fact that we have a Prophet nowadays, he asked us to tell him more, because he doesn't like his church at the moment. We taught the basics of the Restoration, and walked with him to the hospital, which was just down the street. As we taught him, he asked more questions, (the good kind) and promised us that he would read the Book of Mormon as he waited at the hospital. And when we got there, he gave us his information, his friend's information from the same church, and his family's information. And his family lives in Cuba. SAWEET. And then we found out that he's not in our area. It was a bummer. But we were able to talk to a lot of people and teach some powerful lessons. We've tried to contact a few of the people who we talked to, but we haven't had much success with them.

My plans for Thanksgiving? We don't have any right now. For all I know, I might be getting transferred the day before Thanksgiving. So who knows? Hopefully if I stay, we'll have an eating appointment with a member family. And if I get transferred, then hopefully there's still an eating appointment.

 

The missionary work is going well, for the most part. As far as teaching lessons in member's homes, or teaching investigators in their OWN homes, we haven't had much success. But we've been able to plant many seeds, and hopefully someone else down the road will be able to reap those fruits. 

 

J and C still have their baptismal date, but we're in between a rock and a hard place. Every investigator needs to attend church at LEAST three times before baptism, in order to feel the Spirit, partake of the sacrament, and get to know the people in the ward. And if they cannot make it to church because of health reasons, (which is the case of J and C), then they need strong fellowship from the ward, and our members haven't been the best at doing that.

Have a great week!

-Love, Elder Crook

The Promised Land

This week has been quite the week. We've talked to somewhere over 50 people this week, just on the streets, and we have received no return appointments or investigators from it. I don't know what's going on. Just a few months ago, I could talk to anyone on the street, and they would courteously listen to a small portion of our message, and the majority said they would like to hear more. But this last month has been a dead-end trial for finding people to teach by street contacting. People on the street this month have just been...grumpy. They won't even give us the time to say "temple".

It's hard being in Chula Vista, nicknamed "The Promised Land" because of how many people you can find to teach just by walking around, and we've been having the lowest numbers I've seen since I got here. But we have had a great miracle this last week. An elderly couple, J and C, have agreed to a baptismal date of December 14th. They are in their 80's, they have health problems that limit their abilities to get around, their family is practically all Catholic or Jehovah's Witness, but they are excited to be baptized. J, who says he hates to read, has been reading the Book of Mormon on his smart phone. C is quite surprised at that. And we're hoping that we can find someone to give them a ride to church this Sunday, (because they have no car).

I've really begun to see just how wrong the world is. I've talked to so many women that are "going through hard times right now" with their husbands, and it tears me apart. Even the little kids are getting into things that I was protected from in my childhood. Drugs, pornography, lasciviousness, filth, sleaze, alcohol, tobacco. It's everywhere here. It's on the streets, it's in the stores, it's on the television...it's everywhere. And I wish people could see that what we have could solve all of those problems, but they just don't want to listen. That and every other guy on the street is either homeless or hopelessly drunk.

Next transfer day is the day before Thanksgiving, so I'm either spending that and Christmas here in Chula, or somewhere else in the mission. Well, that's just about all that's happened this week. It's been pretty uneventful for the most part. To all a good week, and to all...until Tuesday.

-Love, Elder Crook

Pretty slow week

This week has been pretty crazy, actually. And pretty slow.

For Halloween, we had a district lunch with pizza, and donuts (provided by the Bishop), and had costumes. I was the only elder with a costume, and I made it out of an IKEA bag, a box, and some duct tape. Then, that night as we were on our way back to our apartment, every person we passed asked us what we were supposed to be dressed as. We replied that we were actually missionaries, and that we weren't wearing costumes. That made the people shy away from us. Then we went to our apartment and read D&C 84 as a companionship by assignment from President C.

On Friday, as we were coming up the sidewalk on this hill, we spotted a man who had fallen and hit his head on the ground, and he was bleeding quite profusely. When we got to him and asked how he was, he said he'd hit his nose, but that it wasn't broken. We asked if we should call an ambulance, but he told us not to, and mentioned that he was on blood-thinner medication. (o_0?) So we gave him a blessing to stop the blood, and it stopped right then. After a few minutes, an ambulance showed up, (against his wishes), and they put him in there, a technician mopped up the blood with a paper towel, and they whisked him off. And there was this lady there with us the whole time, and she kind of took off. We just kind of stood there for a minute after everything had happened, and weren't quite sure WHAT had happened.

Then the next day, we got a call from a less active member, and when we showed up, she told us that she'd attempted suicide. So we did what we knew what to do, and called the Bishop. He came and talked to her a bit, and emphasized the individual worth of a soul, and really helped her out. We then went to the ward movie night, where they showed the Kroods, but we had to stay in the Relief Society room the whole time, since we can't watch movies.

Yesterday, we tried to contact some people to find new investigators, and we ended up finding a referral for the American Sign Language Elders, a referral for the Tagalog speaking Elders, and a referral for the English elders, (and we taught the whole restoration to the English referral). No investigators for us, though, but that's okay.

I didn't actually get to go to the Old Town festival for Dia de los Muertos last week because none of the other elders wanted to go. *sigh* Oh well. I guess that's how it goes. We've invited several of our investigators to be baptized, but they've all declined...FOR THE MOMENT. We'll be working hard on them.

So yeah. That was my week. 

-Love, Elder Crook