Lots of street contacting this week

This last week we stopped by the hospital to visit ANOTHER member that was there because he had water in his lungs. His name's Brother P, he's around 65 years old, and he's a pessimist. They were giving him a stimulant that would cause the water to diffuse back into his blood stream. The best thing is that Brother S, this other member that's 40 years old, is his best friend. They just sit there and go off at each other, and it's the funniest thing. This one time, on the way back from a meeting, Bro. S asks us what "frog" is in english. And so we explained this to him, and Bro. P asks us why we're talking about frogs. Then Bro. S says to him "Por que? Porque eres un frog." (Why? Because YOU'RE a frog.) And Bro. P doesn't understand what's going on, nor the English word for "frog", and mumbles something about how people have conversations without him. Then Bro. S says to "Deal with it, viejo." They're always calling each other names, and just generally going at it with the jokes.

We decided that since we aren't adding many investigators, that we would count the number of people that we talked to during the day, and average it at the end of the week, to give us an idea of how hard we're working. We averaged it at 25 people per day. We've been tanking at the talking to people, and my confidence level in street contacting has gone way up. We also talked to this DRUNK guy that stopped going to our church because he thinks that patriarchal blessings are soothsayer hoodoo, and says "WOAH man. Thatsfutrff's jus' not fur meh. Y'know what'm sayin'? Yeah. TURkies. IN the middle of the yard. You can't get 'em from the city. And then like 15 girls were pulling their shirts down, and they robbed this guy. What do you call that?"  (Me-"Uh...unscrupulous?")  "Yeah. Eahsrmsrtuerajrdkcmreh."  And then after that we just kind of walked away. But whatever. That's pretty much the average day for us. That and getting jeered at people driving by.

We also met this old lady that has no teeth, and has short term memory loss or something. She kept inviting us into her house, but we can't go in unless there's a man over 18 years old. And there was no man. She must've invited us around 20 times. My companion lost all patience with her, and made me talk to her alone. Then she offered us beer and wine. Then we left with a cookie instead of beer or wine.

OH YEAH. This less active member of ours, (female and 23 years old) has been having boyfriend troubles for the last 3 months, and my companion and I have been giving her the spiritual support, (and church invitations) that she's needed. Her boyfriend was treating her like trash, but she's been with him for the last 4 years, and so she's been going back and forth between letting him come back, and never letting him come back. Then, at one point, (I think it was last Sunday) she gave a crush-letter to Elder T. Later that day, she asked if he'd read it, and he said that missionaries don't worry about stuff like that on their missions. Her boyfriend saw that text, and got mad and slapped her. (He has bipolar disorder). She then went home, crying. She said that he came to her apartment on Monday night, and demanded that she let him in, (angrily), and after a bunch of crap, she called the cops on him. He went to jail, has been charged with domestic violence, and is now on parole, and she is now in St. George with her aunt for the week, and may move out there if she likes it there. So yeah. Buncha fun stuff this week.

Other than that, we've slowly been losing investigators. D has been found, but is being moved to a rehabilitation facility in Lemon Grove. Another of our investigators doesn't have time to meet with us. And as I already mentioned, we're talking to around 25 people per day, (excepting P-day). We've been praying and fasting that the Lord will bless us with solid investigators, but so far, we've just been hitting a wall. I really hate just walking around and trying to find people to talk to. It feels like a waste of time to me, and I wish we could find the people that would listen to us. We had an almost miracle this week. B S, Hno. S's son, had some neighbors that he wanted us to visit. We didn't know where or who they were, and so he takes us to their house, and knocks. He then proceeds to door-contact his neighbors, explaining that what we teach is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that our message can help them to be happier. The neighbor told us to come by the next day. And so on the next day, we knocked on their door, (without B), and the neighbor flat out told us that he wasn't interested. The best part is that B is only 13 years old. Blew my mind.

We were also able to find S, and we had a lesson with him the other day. He's very in tune with the Spirit, and believes that we have been sent by the Lord to gather His sheep. (Quite the testimony from a non-member, eh?). We've invited him to read the Book of Mormon, but he hasn't started yet. We're planning on teaching about why the book is so important, as well as what is contained therein.

Not much has happened other than those things. It's been a pretty slow week. Those're just the little highlights that took up around 15 minutes out of our day. Other than that, it's been slow.

-Love, Elder Crook