Progress in the New Area

A little bit more detail about Poway. It is one of the richest communities in the nation, and just for a bit of perspective, one of the wards has 85 active High Priests. So, it's pretty clear that the Poway wards are the retirement wards. Along with it, it's much more humid than Ramona. Ramona was hot and dry like Utah, so I didn't mind it hardly at all. Now that we're down in the plains of California, the humidity rolls in with the marine layer that comes off the ocean, so I start sweating beads after about 10 steps out of the apartment.

With Elder M (from Honduras), we mostly speak in english with each other. His accent is very interesting, and it sounds pompous to my ears. It's a very nasal accent, and I can just imagine him with his nose turned up as he speaks. So we mostly just speak in english.

With the area, we've been seeing a lot of success. We haven't found any new investigators, and it's been really hard to even contact the ones that we have, but we had a miracle. By going through the authority structure of the stake, by going through the High Councilman over missionary work, we were able to get permission from the Stake President to work with the members to find the spanish-speaking friends and family of theirs. I don't know what the problem was at first, but somehow, it was completely resolved without any muss or fuss. Since then, we've been meeting with members and less-actives in our area in an effort to help them with their missionary work. We met the H family, a younger couple with 6 kids, and they shared a great miracle with us about how they shared the gospel with some of their friends. We've made a quick and strong relationship with them, because they're hilarious. (They got my jokes. :D) And we met an older couple that are from Lima, Peru. They were very humble, and very happy to see us.

A little bit of description about the area. Mira Mesa is a big melting pot for the several cultures that exist within San Diego. We've run into many, MANY Hindu, Arabic, Chinese, and even Korean people in the streets. The Hispanic people are a lot harder to find, because they have to work all day just to provide the money to rent their apartment and keep a roof over their heads. The really cheap bowling is in our area, and it has a deal of $5 a game with shoes included in the price, with 2 games included. So we're planning on going there soon with the zone. There are a lot of things that we'll be doing in the next couple of weeks, so I'll keep you updated as things progress.

And Mom, it really made me feel good to read about how you welcomed and fellowshipped your friend from WBG. It's really a struggle here to get the members to welcome and embrace the re-activating members when they walk into church. Good job, Mom. You've made your missionary son proud.

Not much else to report this week! I'll be sure to write down the important things that happen this week so that I can tell you all about them next week! Have a great week!

-Love, Elder Crook

P.S.- A white-wash is when the missionaries in an area are both moved out, and two new missionaries are moved into an area that neither one knows. So as of right now, we know almost nobody in our area, besides the few that we've met. The reason being because we got moved in without any records telling us where people live. So yeah. Also, we hiked Mt. Woodson again. UGH. I'll never be free. So here's a picture.

 

On the lookout at Potato Chip Rock