Biking, hard work, rejection, funny stories, and lots of sweat

First off: Happy Birthday, Mom! You're turning 36, right? ;) Love you, Mom. This last week was a pretty good one, full of biking, hard work, rejection, funny stories, and lots of sweat. Lots of it. So as far as the rejection goes, I've been carrying this paper with Arabic contacting phrases so that I can try talking to them. Half of the time, they don't even know what I'm saying, so it doesn't really matter anyway, and when they DO know what I'm saying, they usually walk away saying "La." Which being interpreted, means "No". But I must say, I've got those phrases memorized now, so we walk around being able to at least contact everyone, if not talk with them.

On Wednesday, we started off the day by having some district meeting. We had ceviche the night before, and Elder V. got to take the left-overs, so he ate that for lunch, and I ate the other half of a subway sandwich that I got. We then had district meeting, and we had been asked to give a thought about one of the Christlike attributes in PMG (Preach My Gospel), so I decided to be spontaneous and share a thought about a Christlike attribute that wasn't in PMG. I decided to read about meekness, and after reading up on it from a talk by Neal A. Maxwell, I really noticed that meekness is one of those things that I want to become the best at. I really liked the fact that the meek are those who humbly control themselves, and refuse to react in any negative or contentious way, even if it means getting the worse end of the deal in an argument. "It's better to save one's soul than to save one's face." I just about died laughing when I saw that, because it's so true. So I shared my thought, and I really felt the Spirit while doing it. I think it went well. We then went to look for some former investigators, and after not finding anyone, we visited Hna. C. We sat and visited a bit about how her week was going, when all of a sudden, we were on the topic of dreams, and she told us about all of these visionary dreams that she'd had since she got baptized about her ancestors coming and asking her to do their temple work. She said that they were all so vivid, and that they were always dressed in white. After a bit, I asked if she was from the tribe of Manasseh, which she affirmed. I thought it was so cool. we then went to see if we could find some less-actives home, who weren't, and then went to teach M. We had originally planned to teach the law of chastity, (a really fun one for teenage girls :-/  ), but when we got there, we felt that we should teach the Word of Wisdom. We shared it, and after finishing, we committed her to live it, and she said that she had just been drinking green tea, but that she would substitute water for the tea. We searched for other people to teach after her, but found no one and got pretty shut down by everyone that we talked to in the street, so we finished the night and turned in.

Thursday, we got our weekly planning done, and went to see if we could find some less-actives and formers at home. After finding a few, and setting some return appointments, we had dinner with our branch mission leader's family, but he wasn't there, so we ate with his son and daughter-in-law. We talked about some of the members that they know that are having a bit of a hard time, and talked about what we as missionaries could do to help them. We then went and visited J. A., our new investigator, and talked with him a bit about what we do as missionaries, and what we plan to help him do by stopping by and teaching him about the restored gospel. We then went around trying to find people at home, and with no luck and no success in street contacting, went home for the night.

For Friday, we started off by going to see Hna. C. because some other missionaries had called us to tell us to go visit her right then, so we did. Turns out that she just wanted to ask us a question but had called the wrong Elders, and that those Elders overreacted as to the situation. So we visited with her a bit, and went on our way to meet the other Elders for some service. We ended up helping an English lady with her back yard and garden. I got to do some planting, and boy did it feel good to have my hands back in the dirt. I started off doing all the things that Barney showed me, and the lady started saying,"No don't do it that way!", and my first reaction was,"Lady. I got this. Lemme do it." So we dug the holes, broke the roots a bit, and got everything planted. I even got to plant some tomato plants! I was pretty happy after that. We then stacked big bricks and blocks to make them "inspection worthy", since the way that they were previously stacked wouldn't pass the inspection that the city was going to do on her house. We then went to dinner with the R., and had some ceviche again. You could really tell that the shrimp wasn't cooked. We then tried to see a former, but no luck there, and after a few hours of riding around and talking with everyone, we called it a night.

Saturday, we actually had a pretty successful day. We started off contacting in an area that I haven't visited yet, and found a good number of people to talk to, but none of them wanted to talk. So we visited a member, and she told us about another less-active member that lived in the area that we had just been in, and never knew about. She said that he didn't want anything to do with the church anymore, but we decided to stop by anyway. We found him, and he stepped outside to talk with us. He was super nice, and was really friendly! We talked about a whole bunch of things, and to try and gauge where he was, I asked if we could share a scripture with him. He kind of scrunched up his face until I said, "How about a scripture from the Bible?", and he relaxed and said that it would be fine. I shared a scripture from Matthew, and as we talked, I could tell that he liked it. I guess he has a problem with the Book of Mormon, since at first he seemed apprehensive. We then went looking for other less-actives and former investigators, and after a bunch of swing-and-miss contacts, we went to dinner with R. He invited us to eat with him at Pizza Hut over in the corner of our area, and as we were heading over there, I found a hollow-tip .22 bullet sitting on the road. Just sitting there! I snagged it and put it in the swirly thing on my planner, and we went our way. We ate a large pizza which was probably 12" wide. Smallest large pizza I've ever eaten in my life. Seriously. And the waitress was super flirty, and it kind of annoyed me, because once R. put the tip on the table, she stopped. I HATE WAITRESSES LIKE THAT. OOOOH. Anywho, we then biked our way to the church for coordination, and when we got there, one of the branch missionaries, Hno. C., brought a headless rattlesnake that he had just killed. It was pretty cool, until Elder N. went to touch it. Then it got HILARIOUS. I can't adequately explain how he acted, but his whole body would cringe every time he went to touch it. And he would swing his hand at it like he was trying to slap it. Then Hno. C. started swinging the tail at him, and he started freaking out. Oh my goodness, it was so funny. I got it on film, so that's great. After trying some referrals after coordination, we went home.

Sunday, we had a wonderful pair of talks in church. One was Hno. P., and at the end of his talk, he got a look on his face, and the Spirit got really strong. He said that his talk topic was exactly what he needed to hear, and that he would do better at home teaching from now on, (as that was his topic). I just love it when the Spirit teaches you about the topic that you're teaching. Hno. G. was the next to speak, and he got PASSIONATE. My goodness, he was getting into it, and he went off about how important it is to do our home and visiting teaching, since it had slacked off in the time that he had been away for work. He said that there were many members who weren't there in sacrament meeting, and it made him sad to see the reduced number of people at church. I think that he did a really good job. He was probably the only one who could've gotten that passionate without offending anyone in the congregation, (which is quite the feat in the hispanic culture). I ended up teaching gospel principles about Chapter 11, the Life of Christ. I have been reading Jesus the Christ again, and I used a few thoughts from James E. Talmage, and focused on certain points throughout the lesson. I really tried to follow the Spirit, but I felt kind of under-par by the time the lesson finished. We then went to Elders Quorum, and had a great lesson on Elder Holland's talk about "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." which lays out the law of the fast and the necessity of giving to the poor and feeding the hungry. We had dinner with the O's, and went way out past Alpine to see them. After dinner, we came back, and had a pretty rough night. We tried talking to everyone, and kept getting shut down. We then were dropped by V., who said not to come back. And after that, we found almost nobody at home, so we went home for the night.

Yesterday, we looked through our area book to find new people to contact, went to do mormon.org time, and went to see some less-actives. After finding a few, and NOT finding a few, we went a-contacting and got shut down a few times, and I tried to do my Arabic contacting, which yielded some funny and awkward moments of me not knowing what to say, and the other guy not knowing what to say because he didn't speak English, so we usually just said "Masalama" which just means "peace until later", and went our way. We then had dinner with Hna. G., and she shared her whole experience with her mother dying, which was really hard for her. However, she shared it in a way that showed just how much hope she had in seeing her mother again, and how her mother was working for the Lord on the other side. It was really powerful, and I felt pretty inspired and motivated to get to work. We then saw I., a less-active, whose boyfriend is a piece of pond scum, and she gave us some pizza. The pizza threw my stomach off, and I started feeling pretty crappy. We then saw C., K's wife, and shared a message with her that I think was much needed. We then went home to take some acheselzer for our aggravated stomachs.

Well, not much new to report other than those things! I would say to save me a slice of cake from Mom's birthday party, but I figure that it'll all be eaten pretty quick. Oh well. It sounds like we're going to La Jolla Coves today as a zone, but I'm a little skeptical because of the fact that it's A) really close to the beach, and B) it's spring break. Not a great combo for missionaries in San Diego, if you know what I mean. But, we'll see what happens. I'm planning on getting a California flag and a jacket, so I hope not to worry about that.

I love you, Mom! Love ya, Dad. Let my siblings, nieces, and nephew know how much I love them. Have a great week, and don't have too much fun celebrating Mom's birthday! I know how crazy those birthday parties can get!

-Love, Elder Crook