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

A Hot Week

This last week was a HOT ONE. My goodness, we've been hitting the high 90's for the last eight days, and it's quite the adventure to be biking around in that kind of heat. It's both hot and cool at the same time, since you're exercising more than just walking, yet you're going pretty fast, so the breeze helps to cool you off. And then you stop biking, and WHOOMP, the heat takes you. However, amidst the heat, we've had some pretty awesome things happen this week!

Wednesday last, we began our day with some mormon.org time, and I ended up talking to this random guy that I'm pretty sure wasn't all there in the head, but what was really funny was that he started doing an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression in the library quite loudly, and everyone turned to look at us. I just smiled and waved, and he kept doing his impression. We then went to see if we could find anyone that we could talk to. We went and met the F.'s, the DA.'s, and then backtracked to visit with Hno. C. On the way to his house, we ran into this random guy named M., and as we started talking, he asked us to sit on the curb with him. He asked if we talked about Jesus, which we affirmed that we did, and we got onto a great gospel conversation. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how God revealed His word to all nations, etc., and then M. asks us if we believe in the multi-dimension theory. I knew it as the string theory, so I asked some questions to see what he meant. Then he went off on this completely random tangent about how every world that we're not living in is dead. (???) So we read a quick scripture out of the Book of Mormon, and he got REALLY interested. He asked if he could have a copy, so we gladly gave one to him. After parting ways, we visited Hno. C. who talked a bit with us about the signs of the times, (not quite sure how we got on the topic), and we then went to visit another less-active family, the P.'s. They welcomed us in, and made us some quesadillas, which were quite good. We then went and picked up our bikes, and biked the 3 or 4 miles to the church for dinner. A sister in the ward wanted to give us dinner, but she lived forever away, and the other Elders couldn't give us a ride, so she brought us the food at the church. We ate, and returned to our area. I swear, I have the worst luck on a bike. I've almost gotten hit somewhere around 30 times, I've almost crashed several times, and I'm just not the most coordinated with a bike yet. We then taught M., and after hearing the lesson of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we asked her if she wanted us to keep coming by. She said yes, so we said that we'd like her to do some things to help her come closer to Christ, such as reading, praying, and attending church. We have to work with her parents on the church thing, but we'll get there. Afterwards, we visited R., and he had missed us since we'd dropped him, so we stopped by and visited. Then we turned in for the night.

Thursday was a day of service, as we were helping a member of the branch to move from one house to another not too far away. We Elders showed up and took care of the heavy lifting, and the several other people that showed up worked mostly with boxes and the such. The member had planned on it only taking around 2 hours, but it ended up taking 4 hours. They then bought some massive pizzas and we had lunch with them. We then came home and got cleaned up before weekly planning, which was then completed shortly thereafter. We then went referral hunting, and were able to contact a few. One of them was bogus, the other said no, and the other ones weren't home. We then had dinner with a member, and went to try and find L. to teach her. Once again, she was absent for some odd reason, and we committed the members to take her to church this Sunday. We then went to see K. and see how he was doing. We then ended the night.

On Friday, we had Zone Meeting, and it went pretty well. My comment was actually heeded about keeping the goal the same since we hadn't hit it the previous month. We then did some practices, finished up, went and got lunch, and from there, we went to some more service with the English Elders. We transported boards, and extracted screws and nails from said boards, and the English Elders demolished a Jacuzzi that didn't work anymore. We then went to dinner with some less-active members, and they gave us wings with Mexican spaghetti and salad. Pretty darn good. We then visited a few less-actives, tried to find some investigators at home, talked to a bunch of people in the street, (or rather TRIED to), and turned in for the night.

Saturday, we had even MORE service, but this time, it was for an investigator of the other Elders. His landlady had a bunch of junk in her back yard that she wanted extracted and taken care of, so we showed up, got the job done within 20-30 minutes, and took it all to the dump. The investigator then wanted to take us out for pizza, so we waited a bit while he returned his work truck and retrieved his normal vehicle. He then took us to Filippi's Pizza Grotto, and the pizza that he got us was pretty huge. It wasn't so wide as it was piled high. We ate to our hearts' content, (or rather to our tongues' and stomachs' content), and went home. We got cleaned up, and headed out to get some work done. We received a text that said that a missionary had gone missing, and that we were doing a mission fast for that missionary that he would be found safe. We stopped by and saw our less-active, A. We talked with him about what he's been doing with his life, and he told us about all of these crazy things that he's done, one of which is a native american sweat lodge, which is much hotter than a sauna. He then told us about a bunch of hikes that we can do on P-day if we wanted to do.

Sunday, we went for branch council, and we had a really good council session and were able to get some really good revelation one for another as to their several duties and responsibilities. Not so much missionaries for auxiliary quorums as much as auxiliary quorums for missionaries. We then had church, and for some reason, we had a lot of english speakers in the congregation, so Presidente asked me if I could translate. So I went back into another room with the headset, and translated for sacrament meeting. I never felt so cool in my life. :3 We then got a text saying that the missing missionary had been found, and that he was safe. We then had the classes, had some great input and ideas, and then went to our apartment for lunch. After our studies, we went to give a blessing to K.'s daughter, who was sick, and went from there to the mission president's fireside. We sang, we felt the spirit, and we went home.

Yesterday, we did a lot of looking through our former investigators to find some people that we could go visit. We went from one side of our area to the other, knocking on doors, finding out that the people didn't live there anymore, finding the people that weren't interested anymore, and we then found some people that said to come back! We felt pretty good about that. We then went to dinner with the G. family, (now that Hna's husband has returned from his long work trip), and we went to try another former. We found him, he welcomed us in warmly, and we got to know him a bit. It looked like he'd been a burn accident victim, but he was really happy to talk to us! We shared a powerful message with him, and he asked when we'd be coming back. We said that we'd come back Thursday, and parted ways. So we added a new investigator! Yeah! WHOOP WHOOP. Our goal for the rest of the night was to find people home with the which we could share a family home evening message. Nobody was home, so we went to see K. to see how his daughter was doing, and the C. family was there doing their own FHE, and we joined in. 

Well, that's just about it! I had a cool thought the other day about how leprosy is like excommunication from the church. The lepers were kept out of the camp, they were considered "unclean", and the disease ate away at them. If they were cleansed from it, they had to go through washings and cleansings to be admitted back into the city or camp. The same goes for the excommunicated. They are "put out" of the church, considered "unclean" until they repent of their sins, and are then admitted back into the church through a re-baptism. Thought it was pretty cool.

Have a great week!

-Love, Elder Crook

New companion and a sliver

We had a pretty great week this week! Wednesday, I picked up my new companion, Elder V., and he's from San Antonio, Texas. So I've got another Texan companion! He's pretty awesome, and we've been getting along swimmingly this last week. Mostly, I just really fear the prideful Elders, and luckily, I got a humble one, even though he's from Texas. He just came from Brawley, which is out in the Imperial Valley, and Elder Y. got moved to Calexico, another city in the Valley. So he's out in the heat! And we just got word that we'll be getting iPads in May. Right when I come home. Oh. Goodie. Luckily I don't have to pay for it, so that'll be a blessing. The only missionaries that have to purchase their iPad are those that will still be in the mission by November, so I'll be well away from having to buy one. We'll be getting some special training from President Donaldson, from the District 2, and a member of the Seventy on how to use the iPads for proselyting. That'll be on May 19th, just one week before I come home. So, once again, I'll be getting some good training for how to start doing missionary work once I'm home.

On Wednesday, we got some lunch, and went to the church for district meeting right after transfers. I'm still not quite sure why we had it on Wednesday, but we did. Elder V. and I then went to meet all of our members and investigators. We had dinner with the V. family, and went to see a less-active member right after. We were able to get into their home for the first time ever since I've been here, and we were able to share a good message with the mother. She asked us if we could come and share a family home evening with her kids, and have an activity of sorts to do with them. So, we agreed, and got to planning it. We then went to K.'s, and M. and R. were there. They all jokingly put some chips in a bowl, and smothered them in Valentina and Tapatio, and dared Elder V. to eat the chips. Now, lemme tell ya, those chips were swimming in hot sauce, and Elder V. ate them like a champ. Then everyone felt bad for making him eat them, but by eating those chips, M., K., R., and U. instantly warmed up to him, and he feels right at home now. We shared a message with them, and went home.

Thursday, we went and tried to visit several members, but many weren't home. We mostly biked around, getting Elder V. up to speed on how the area is set up, and where the main pockets of spanish-speakers are. We had some pretty good street contacts, and got a few "not interested" people that wouldn't give us the time of day. But, we had a good time talking to people, and were able to visit R. for the first time in awhile. After dinner, we went to see if we could find him home, and when he opened the door, he got a big smile on his face. He was really glad to see us, and we were able to talk to him about some good topics on the scriptures. The Spirit was pretty darn strong for the lesson. We invited him to read a bit from the Book of Mormon, and he said that he would.

Then, on Friday, we had a full day of contacting and teaching set up. We were just about to leave, when we got a call asking if we could come help some English Elders with some service. So, we went. We got there, and they were shoveling mulch into a garbage can, a wheelbarrow, and several other improvised containers, and we were dumping them behind this member's house. As we worked, we got to know the new Elders in the zone, and had a great time goofing around with the work. Then, I got this monster sliver in my hand, in the skin right between the thumb and index finger. Oh man oh man oh man it hurt. I left it there, because I didn't have tweezers or a needle on me, and it was DEEP under my skin. Seriously. The member was kind enough to feed us, and the burgers that he made were heavenly. I miss homemade burgers. OH well. We then went to another member's house, and began to help her by demolishing some of her furniture that had been ruined. I still had the sliver in my hand, and couldn't help much because the sliver was right where the tools needed to rest in my hand, and it HURT. SO. I got a needle from her, and started digging for the sliver. My. Gosh. That thing must have made it 20,000 leagues under my skin, because my hand looked like the Kennecot copper mine by the time I finished. I finally got a little part of it poking out, and the member lady gave me some tweezers. I had Elder V. try to get it while I tried to pinch the skin around it. He almost had it, and then the member lady grabbed the tweezers, snagged the sliver in one go, and unsheathed the monster. It must have been 4 or 5 millimeters long. I was so relieved to have that savage out of my hand. Then the blood came rushing forth. And then I got a band-aid, so all was well. Then I helped with the demolition and planting of plants in the back yard. We then went to see if we could find a less-active family at home, but they had gone to the temple to wait outside for a sealing of a family in our branch, so we said, "Good on ya.", and told them that we would see them at church. We went and visited the J., met the V. briefly, and tried to find V. at home. We then called it a night.

Saturday came around, and Hna. C. was having a yard sale. Elder V. has a tie fettish, so we went to see what she had out. She had tons of stuff out for sale, and for great prices, and we talked to her for awhile. And then she told Elder V. that he could have any tie that he wanted for free. He was so happy. We then went back to the apartment for lunch, and went right off to an appointment with a less-active member. She welcomed us warmly, and her "husband" watered the plants around us as we talked outside. It was a pretty fresh day, so we were happy to sit out in the breeze and talk to her. We then went and visited another member, and she had this...thing...on her wrist. It wasn't a cast, and it wasn't a brace, but it was there to make sure that she couldn't move her hand. She's getting a surgery on her heart with one of those cool doo-hickies that you put up the vein in the wrist and work on the heart from there. They had just prepped her wrist vein, and they had to make sure that she couldn't move it until the surgery. So, she asked for a blessing, and we gave it. We then went to see if our members were available to feed us, but sadly, they had to cancel. Coordination also cancelled, so we took a letter from a missionary to Hna. G. She was ecstatic to get it, and gave us cookies and milk, and talked to us about a lot of things. We then went and visited K., and talked to him about working on coming to church. We tried our hardest to just invite the Spirit, and he agreed to come to church.

Then, on Sunday, we went to church, had sacrament meeting, and almost everyone that got up to bear their testimonies had gone to the sealing of the L. family on Friday, and they all got very emotional about what had happened there, including the 14-year-old daughter that looks like she's...well...much older. That's a recurring thing in California. Everyone looks older than they really are. Except for me. According to Hna. G., I'm just a kid trapped in an adult body. And that's probably true, now that I think about it. ANYWHO, we had gospel principles, and Elders quorum, and K. looked happy to be back at church. M. gave a strong testimony in Elders quorum about repentance and forgiveness, as he had just met with the stake president for some things, and the Spirit was really strong. After church, we went to a special training meeting for ward mission leaders and missionaries that was presented by the stake presidency and the mission presidency. We talked about several things, and President S. then got up and showed a presentation for the "Because He Lives" initiative that's beginning on March 27th that's focused on members and ward councils. We got to see the video, and let me tell you, it's GOOD. I noticed a very recurring theme and pattern between the "Because of Him" and "He is the Gift" videos, but this one is quite unique. It has the same special effect feel, but the rest of it is different. I really liked it. We then had dinner, went to see some less-actives, and went home.

Yesterday was zone conference. And it went from 10:00 to 4:00. Man it was long. It was good! But it was long. We went over a lot of training on how to make member dinner appointments more effective. We watched some videos, did some group discussion, and at the end, President played this recording of this member of the Seventy demonstrating the celestial way to get referrals, or figure out with whom to share the gospel. He asked questions, made comments, shared experiences, and made promises in a very simple, yet effective way. We then practiced it, and we got some really cool results. President then showed the "Because He Lives" presentation that's specifically for full-time missionaries. After the conference ended, we went to Hna. G.'s for dinner. We talked with her about a lot of things, but the conversation ended up gravitating around U., since he's going to Columbia to date a girl from his mission. We then went to see the V. for the family home evening. We sat down with the kids once we'd gotten them settled down, and shared a message on faith. We talked about how we have faith in, or trust in, Christ and his prophets. We had a mouse trap, and showed that it worked, and then by tweaking the spring, we set it up to look like it was set, but in reality, was harmless. We told them to have faith in us when we said that it wouldn't hurt them, and we promised them that it wouldn't hurt. At first they were scared, and the oldest son poked the trigger, and nothing happened. Then the others were quick to follow. It was a really good lesson, and I guess it was right on topic, because that oldest son had asked his mom what faith was just a few days before. The mother then asked us to give her son a blessing, since he's been having some internal bleeding, so we gave him a blessing. We then went to visit Hno. D., and we asked if we could try out the referral finding pattern from zone conference. He graciously accepted, and as we went, he said that a co-worker popped into his head. He then explained to us a bunch of things about him, we asked some inspired questions, and he agreed to invite P., his friend, to learn more about families. I thought it went really well! And it worked! We then called it a night.

That's just about all that's happened this week! Have a great week!

-Love, Elder Crook

 

 

Great canoe story

Transfer calls happened, and Elder Y. is getting moved out. I'll admit, I'm a little disappointed, because I had secretly hoped to have another transfer with Elder Y. He's been so easy to get along with, so the work has been easy to do. But we'll see how the Lord shakes things up this time around. Along with Elder Y., Sister G. and Elder C. are both leaving, so the district got rattled this time around.

Last Wednesday, we had some really good time outside contacting. We walked around a lot, and biked a lot, and weren't really able to find people that were at home to teach. For some reason the other Elders wanted to use our bikes, so we used their car for a bit. We went and visited the C.'s, and they were just on their way out. We went to see another family, and they weren't home. After stopping by several places, we parked, and went to contact some guys working. One was somewhat interested, but the other just wanted to bash, so we left.  Our dinner cancelled, and we went to visit a less-active. He asked us if we'd eaten, we said no, and he gave us some food. We got our bikes back, visited some less-actives later on in the night, and called it a day.

Thursday, we did our weekly planning, and afterwards, went to see some less actives. We had a recent convert, J., come with us to see a less-active family that's all girls. We got there, and waited awhile until he met up with us. We then visited the family and got to know several of the members. We then went and tried to find some people at home, but they weren't, so we went and tried to find some people to talk to. No such luck was ours, so we went to dinner. After dinner, we tried to find some less-active members home, but nobody had time, so we spent the rest of the night walking around trying to find people to talk to.

Friday rolled around, and we had district lunch and district meeting. I don't know why, but I had the munchies the whole day. We got a full order of carne asada fries for lunch, and I devoured it. Usually Elder Y. can eat much faster and much more than I can, but for some reason, I flew through the carne asada fries, and he couldn't finish it. We then visited the C.'s again, and had a good lesson with them. We then went to help Hno. S. to put up the chairs and tables at the church for a branch party. Another member who was giving us food later that night, decided to feed us right when we got to the church, so he whisked us away to his house. We ate there again, and he returned us to the church, where we set up the chairs and tables, and went back to our area. We went to see if U., a returned missionary, could come with us to a lesson with L. We got there and she wasn't there. We haven't seen her in the last 2 weeks, and we're not sure what's been going on. We got her number, and are going to contact her soon. We then went to see another investigator that wasn't home, and visited M. and R. They decided to get us a pizza, and while we ate, we talked a lot about M.'s mission. He's coming back from inactivity, and we're pretty sure that he's feeling good about it.

On Saturday, we talked to a lot of people in the street, and for some reason, the whole day was just weird. We started out having to bike to Wal-Mart for some toilet paper, and that whole day, it rained like mad right when we got back to our apartment. We talked to some really weird people in the streets, and I got yelled at by this Arabic guy. Elder Y. rode past him first, said hi, and the guy grunted at him. I passed him, said hello, and he flipped out. He just went off screaming that he didn't speak English, to go away, and to stop following him. Scared the living daylights out of me. We rode across the street and he kept yelling until we were about a block away. We also ran into some other people that we'd already talked to, and had some good contacts. We didn't really have much success as far as adding investigators, but we had a really good day of contacting. We had dinner with U., and we shared a good message with him and K.'s family. K. said some things that worried us a bit, so we decided to stop by the next day to talk to just him. We then went to the Saturday Evening session of Stake Conference with Elder Paul D. M. Christensen of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy. He was a very animated and enthusiastic man. Big booming voice, a big smile, and he was quite entertaining. He was able to bring the Spirit in really powerfully, and started his remarks off by bearing testimony of the divine mission of mothers. One of my favorite things he said is,"You mothers aren't going to get promoted to a higher calling. Know why? Because there are none." And he talked a bit about Heavenly Mother and Her love for us. I felt quite inspired and spiritually uplifted.

Sunday morning. It had rained all night long, and rained the whole day Sunday. We again had a session of Stake Conference, and the stake presidency talked. They gave some good remarks about the importance of our efforts in reactivation, in raising the children of the church in the right ways, and some other things that pertain to the duties of the members. Elder Christensen then got up and told a story about when he was a Boy Scout leader, and how his troop had wanted to go on a canoeing trip. He decided to show them how to whitewater canoe. He went through the story, telling about how he taught the boys everything they needed to know about the strokes, safety procedures, rescue tactics, and other important factors about whitewater rapids. He picked a river for the troop, and ran it by himself the first time a few weeks in advance, to map out eddies, and other obstacles to avoid. When he took the boys there, he gave them the instruction to follow his canoe exactly. For the first two groups of rapids, they did. For the third set, they didn't, and after a curve in the river, there was a log jam. He knew it was there, and went to avoid it, but the boys didn't follow, and got caught by the river, and were pulled right into the log jam. He had seen them deviating, and immediately pulled over, got out of his canoe, and stood on the log jam, waiting. The boys hit the jam, he pulled them out of their canoe, and a few seconds later, the canoe disappeared under the jam, and they never got it back. The next canoe hit a dead-head, or a log that's protruding from the river floor. He pulled those scouts out, and their canoe cracked in half. He then talked about how imperative it is that we follow our leaders, especially the Prophet and Apostles. We visited K. later that night, and shared a message about the temple, and talked about the importance of scripture reading and family prayer. We then visited a few other members, and went home for the night.

Yesterday, we had an eventful morning, as we heard some thunder, and the rain came pouring down for the third day straight. Right as we went out do work, the rain let up a bit. We went and tried to see M. and R. again, but they were busy, so we walked and walked and walked the whole day long, because we didn't want to bike in the rain.  We talked to this guy named D., and he was actually really interested in the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity.  He's 22, and he said that everything that we had said just made sense. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and gave him the address to the El Cajon chapel that was a few blocks away. After that, we tried contacting referrals, we tried to find our investigators home to teach them, we talked to a black guy called B. J. from Arkansas, and weren't really able to find anyone home to teach. We walked so much yesterday, my feet hurt.

Well, I'm just about out of things to write. And my head feels like I just whirled through a month and a half in less than a week. We've got some cool things happening in our area this week, so I'm really hoping that we'll be able to find some new investigators soon.

 

Don't have too much fun in the snow!

-Love, Elder Crook

 

 

An interesting week

This week sure has been an interesting one! Last Wednesday we did exchanges. Again. And I went to the other Elders' area. Again. Except this time I was with Elder N. We started it off well, and we were able to get some very good contacting done. As we were walking down this particular street, we spotted a sign that said "FREE" sitting on a perfectly good sound system, with a sub-woofer and everything. So, we grabbed it. We kept walking around, and contacted this little old man who was shoveling yard waste into his trash can, and we asked if we could do it for him. He said that even though he was old, that he was tough. So we started talking to him about his life, his family, where he's originally from, etc., and right at the end, when we tried to initiate the gospel conversation, he said,"HA! GOTCHA! I'm a member." Gosh. Members here. They just play pranks on you. We then went and met a member that lives in a care center, and gave her some rice crispy treats, since those are her favorite dessert. After that, we tried some more contacting, and didn't find many people outside, so we went and had dinner with K. We had a pretty cool spiritual moment with him and the other members of the church that were there visiting, one of which is our less-active member. We then went and taught a young woman the Restoration, and every time I tried to talk, the chihuahua's went nuts. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Gah. It was so frustrating. We were then able to invite the Spirit really strongly again, and finished it off with a bang. She accepted the invitation to be baptized.

Thursday, I was once again reunited with Elder Y., and we started the day off with some weekly planning, and went off into the day. We went about trying to find people at home that we could teach, but unfortunately, almost nobody was at home. We finally had dinner with a member who wants his son to start the scouting program. So, I had picked up a copy of the most recent Boy Scout Handbook, and gave it to him to show to his son. We talked about scouting, and I was able to share a lot of things that I did that I felt had prepared me for real life. We then went to teach L., but she cancelled, so we had nothing set up for the rest of the night. We tried to find less-actives at home, but none were available. So we walked around trying to find people to talk to, and ended the night.

For Friday, we had district lunch, provided by the Sisters since they had a Domino's gift card from a member. We ate with gusto, and then had district meeting. Elder Y. and I were assigned to prepare a bit to share on finding new investigators, so we did an activity where two missionaries had to contact a certain situation. We had written up 15 situations, all of which were normal, except for one. The weird one was a contact that I had done once back in Chula Vista, where a guy was sitting at a bus stop, talking to himself and twitching. Just our luck, Sister H. grabbed that situation, so I got to be the twitchy guy, and they had to contact me and share something about the Restoration. Went well, I thought. We then went to do some service for a less-active in our area that was throwing a birthday party for her daughter. We had to rake up the weeds in her yard so that they could inflate the jumper-house. We finished, and went to visit the C's. We showed up, and they were quite happy to see us. They had just been in court on Wednesday with their daughter, and everything had worked out much better than they had expected, so they were pleased with the things that were happening. We shared a message with them on the heart-wrenching trials that we have to experience amidst the everyday-drawl-trials, and how we have strength in Christ. We then had dinner with Hna. G., and went to visit some less-actives after that. We tried to find V., but he was on the phone with his dad, so we couldn't meet with him.

On Saturday, we did a lot of street contacting. We had planned on going out to the far west edge of our area to see who we could find to talk to. We didn't have much initial success, but were able to talk to several people. Then, all of a sudden, the R. family invited us into their house to have carne asada tacos. Turns out they were members of the English ward whose area we cover. We then went to the party at the less-active's house that we'd helped the day before to see if there were any non-members that we could speak with. We had some weird salad, ate some more food, talked to the members a bit, visited with some non-members, and went on our way to visit another less-active. We rode our bikes pretty much the whole day, and I must say, I feel like my thighs should be massive from how much biking we're doing, but alas, I remain thin as always. We then had coordination, and went to visit A., but he had gone to LA for a concert gig, so we tried finding other people to visit. Didn't have much success, and turned in for the night.

Sunday, we went to branch council, and I got to sit outside with Elder C. and talk to him while we set up chairs for Priesthood. We had a pretty good chat, me mostly listening, and him just letting everything off his shoulders. It was good. I like being someone that others can turn to when they need a listening ear. We then had our church meetings, and a high councilman and his wife visited to speak in our sacrament meeting. They are from Chile, and had a very distinct accent that kinda made me cringe a bit. They kept swallowing the "s" on a lot of words, and it just sounded weird. After church, we went and did our studies, and we did sally forth to find somebody to teach. Nothin'. So we went and had dinner with the O. family, and they live quite a ways away. So we traveled with the other Elders, and when we got there, I smelled something very recognizeable: menudo. I've had some interesting experiences with menudo, so I was a little apprehensive at first. They let us taste it, and it tasted fine, so I agreed to eat it. After I finished my bowl, they gave us carne asada. We then got to share some moments from our missions as the spiritual thought, (since all their kids are grown up and we were on the topic of mission experiences). We then came back, amidst great tempests and tumults because of a storm that had rolled in. We got to our area and started walking around to find people to teach, and it started downpouring on us. We ran for cover, and stood in an apartment complex until it let up a bit.

Yesterday, we had lunch with a bunch of elderly members that had fixed us some food, and we ate it with pleasure, and visited with them a bit. We got a ride home from some other Elders, and went to contact in some very good locations, (or so we've heard). We were able to contact this young guy that was smoking. At first, we both thought that he was Arabic or English, but it so turned out that he spoke Spanish. So we started talking to him, and got into a really good conversation. We mentioned a bit of what we do, and were able to get onto a good note with him. He said that he didn't particularly pertain to any religion, but that he believed that we should all treat each other with respect. He even said that he believed that the purpose of life was to become more divine, and more like God. We jumped at that bit, and shared a bit about the Plan of Salvation, and about how we lived with God before this life, and that this life is the time to prepare to return, better than we once were. He got really excited about that little tidbit, and we were able to get him to loosen up a ton with us. It was a cool contact. We then went and had dinner with Hna. G. again, and she had just gotten some disappointing news, so we talked about how sometimes, we have to suffer a lot, so that further down the road, we might be able to withstand the horrible agony of watching our spirit children suffer in their own mortal probation, and not being able to help them as much as you'd like because of their agency. The Spirit was super strong, and I think that it was exactly what she needed. We didn't find anyone at home after that.

Well, I guess that's about it for this week! We had a pretty epic Nerf war, Elder Y. and I. He got me pretty good a couple of times, and I got a jumpshot that was amazing. I ran and jumped, and I was almost horizontal, (yeah right, that's just what I think), and I shot him from across the apartment. I felt pretty awesome.

Talk to you next week!

-Love, Elder Crook

P.S. Just for fun....

MTE's, Temple, and less-actives

Sorry that I got on to write so late today! We went to the temple, and got there in time for the 11:00 session. We got there with plenty of time to spare, and when we got into the session, people just kept pouring in. It was mostly because one woman in particular was going through for the first time. There were SO MANY WOMEN. They overflowed into the men's section. They almost didn't have enough workers to handle the surge in numbers. Then, in the middle of the session, the woman receiving her endowment had a huge coughing fit, and they put the session on pause for a bit, until she could get a drink of water. Then we continued. Once we were in the celestial room, there were TONS of missionaries. Sometimes, I like it better when there aren't many missionaries, because the Spirit stays stronger. Since there were a lot of them, I felt that the moment was ruined a little bit. But that's just me.

Wednesday, we had MTE's, and I got moved to another area for the day. I was put in a trio in La Mesa with some Elders that are pretty new to the mission. We went and started the day off with a less-active visit, and we read from and talked about some chapters from the Book of Mormon. We then went and tried to find some new investigators, and were able to add one and invite her to be baptized. She accepted after a bit of explanation on why we invite people to be baptized. We then went to visit a member family and have dinner with them. We watched a talk by Thomas S. Monson, and talked about the importance of member-missionary work. We then went to a part-member family home, and they had dinner set out for us, so we got to eat twice. The boyfriend isn't a member, and the girlfriend is. They've been having a rough time, and I think it's because the guy is stuck in what he believes. He tried to defend what he believed by attacking what we believed. Now as for me and myself, I don't tolerate that. So I asked some questions about why he felt the way he did, and clarified his understanding on the what and why of our beliefs. He brought up polygamy and I answered his questions using the recent essays that have been released by the church. He sat pretty stubbornly in what he thought, and kept saying,"Well, as a CHRISTIAN, I believe in this or that." and when I asked,"Well, what's a Christian?", he wouldn't answer the question. I got a little heated if you couldn't tell, BUT, we kept it cool as we all shared our thoughts.

Thursday, I got back with Elder Y., and the Elder that he had been with for the MTE's was a strange one. He said that he was really glad that I was back. I'll admit, I was glad to be back, too. We had lunch and got our weekly planning done after that, and went on to visit some less-actives that neither of us had met yet. We found some at home, and were able to get some return appointments set. We then went to dinner with some members, and afterwards, went to teach L. We had decided to teach about the importance of the Apostasy vs. the Restoration to help her grasp the concept of how the authority to administer gospel ordinances was lost, and was then restored through Joseph Smith. Halfway through the lesson, however, she had to leave because her baby started making a really big fuss because he was sick. So, we'll just have to work with her more this week. We then went and tried to find a referral, and actually found him home! His name's V., and he's 16 years old. We started talking about the things that he likes, and were able to transition into the Gospel. We taught simply, and tried our best to help him understand the need for the Savior and His Gospel, and when we finished teaching about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he said that he'd like to be baptized. Elder Y. and I both spaced completely on getting him a specific baptismal date, so I'm guessing that the Spirit just made us forget, because you'd think that we would do that right off the bat when the person says they want to get baptized. But no. Neither one of us thought to ask, so we said that we'd come back and teach the Restoration. It was a pretty awesome lesson!

On Friday, we had breakfast with some members who were going to feed us dinner that day, but had to reschedule because of a time conflict. So we went and had California burritos for breakfast, and went from there to district meeting. After district meeting, we went and did some contacting, and found some less-actives at home. We were then about to go eat with a less-active, but he cancelled, so we went and had dinner with R. He sent us over to Domino's on our bikes, and we brought some pizza back. We then went and met with another man whom we thought was a member, but he turned out to be a non-member. So we unknowingly had an investigator lesson, even though he didn't really want us to come back and teach him again.

Saturday, we got some things done early on, got chastised by a guy on the street for not helping the homeless people more, (that was fun), had lunch, and went to meet some people. We visited a less-active whose husband came out and told us that she didn't want to be a member anymore, so we shouldn't come back anymore. That surprised us. We went and visited a less-active in the same complex and talked about what he could do to be ready to baptize his daughter in a few weeks' time. We then went and had coordination, and it went...alright, I guess. We then went to give a blessing to a member in our area. Her oldest daughter is going through severe cancer treatments and surgery, and the other has been sentenced to several years in jail, so she was pretty distraught. We gave her a blessing, and gave her some words of comfort, and went home.

Sunday, we fasted for that sister to whom we gave the blessing, and the other Elders had lunch with a member right after church. Right before we left to go do that, the sisters asked us to go take the sacrament to an elderly sister who can't leave her home. We ran over and did that, and went to leave the Elders at their lunch appointment. They're short on mileage, so we didn't go anywhere, and just sat in the car and did our studies. They took for-stinking-ever, and we went to our dinner appointment afterwards. DINNER appointment. That's how long it took. We then went and visited some other members in the same complex as the dinner appointment, went to visit another less-active in a different complex, had a lesson with him, and went home after a bit of not finding anyone at home after that.

Yesterday, we had some pretty great success since it was President's day and tons of people were home from work and school. We tried to have a lot of lessons with investigators, but surprisingly, none of them were home. SO, instead, we went and visited tons of less-actives. We were able to have tons of good lessons, and were out in the cool, ocean breeze the whole day. I was surprised at how cool and humid it was! El Cajon is always hot and dry. As we walked around, I contacted a guy in Arabic, and didn't go very far before I couldn't say anymore. Luckily his friend came over and started translating for us, and the guy said that he wasn't interested. Oh well. Then our dinner cancelled on us again, so we ate at home this time. We then went out and started biking, and as we were going, there was this couple of girls and an older gentleman that were trying to push a couch across the street. We parked our bikes, picked the couch up, and took it to their apartment. They were Arabic, so they didn't get much of what we were saying, and we didn't get much of what they were saying, but we were able to help them out in the moment that they most needed it. I thought it was pretty cool. We then ran into the Arabic Elders and suggested that they could probably stop by and visit them to see if they'd like to learn about the gospel. A few of our set appointments fell through, so we visited a less-active guy that's 22 years old, and we were able to break the ice with him. He's pretty "meh" about the church, but we were able to get him to express a few of his concerns. Elder Y. and I both thought that it went really well.

Eh-yup! That's just about it for this week! Oh, and don't worry about the bike, Mom. Another Elder is letting me use his until I finish the mission so that I don't have to buy one. As for the missionaries in the branch, we have two Sister training leaders and four Elders. We're mostly working with less-actives right now because of the huge number that we have. We're hoping to be able to find some new investigators soon.

Have a great week, everyone! I love you!

-Elder Crook

Teaching, teaching and more teaching

We started this week off really well last Wednesday with 6 lessons throughout the day. I feel like that was quite the feat since three of them were with investigators, and we didn't have set appointments to visit them. We started off by visiting some less-active members, and were able to get more familiar with them and were able to talk about a lot of good things, including our favorite foods. :3 I just love talking about food. We then went to try and find some investigators. We then went and visited some members in the same complex, and went to try and find some less-active members that live in our area that we didn't know about. We didn't really find any of them at home. We then went and tried an investigator couple that has a problem with gambling, and when we showed up, they asked why we hadn't come around in awhile, because they had hoped that we would have come sooner in the week or the week before. We explained that we'd tried to find them at home a few times, but that they plum just weren't there. They said that it was probably because of work, and we sat down to teach them. I started out just connecting the need for a Savior to the reason for the which we missionaries walk around all day talking to people. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and the importance of it in the entire scheme of things. By the end of the lesson, they basically committed themselves to read and pray. We then went to visit R., and showed the Restoration video. He really liked it. We then went to try some less-actives, and went to see L. with the S. family. They weren't able to meet with us, so we set another appointment, and went to visit K., an active member nearby. We walked in, and he asked us a question about how to avoid procrastination. We started talking, and then M., U., and B., three other members, walked in. Then the whole visit just got hilarious. They got into a little tussle about "My horse is bigger than your horse." with regards to soccer or videogames. The whole time, Elder Y. and I are busting up laughing.

Thursday, we went and did some mormon.org time to start things off. I sat in the wrong seat, because the people that sat next to me were pretty...strange. First it was a black guy that was drunk out of his mind, and he was watching music videos from the 80's, and really getting into it. He'd be sitting there going, "Eh-yeah yeah yeah YAYAH yeah.", and I'd be sitting there smelling the alcohol on his breath. EUGH. Then, he left and this girl came and sat down at that computer. And her boyfriend was standing REALLY close to her right behind her chair, practically smelling her hair.. (Heh. That rhymed.) He was breathing REALLY LOUDLY, and that weirded me out. So I finished up and got off the computer, and went to wait for Elder Y. to finish, since he started his time after I did. Then this guy walks up to me and asks, "Hey. Are you a J-dub?" "No." "Oh. GOOD.", and then he walks away. O_o Wasn't quite sure what happened. We then went and had lunch, did some weekly planning, and went to visit some less-actives who ended up not being home. We then went and had dinner with some members, and went to visit a less-active guy who doesn't come to church because of dialysis treatments every Sunday. He has a new puppy that's only about a month old, and he was very attentive to that little thing. He commented that his wife accused him of taking better care of the puppy than he had for his own kids. We shared a message about hope, and went home.

On Friday, we had zone meeting. We showed up, we got down to business, set some goals, (and actually set them well!), and moved on to some training. A couple of English Elders posed as a couple of hillbilly investigators, and the zone leaders tried to teach them the Restoration. It went everywhere, from "Man. I feel good inside right naow, Gunther." "You gettin' them butterflies, Phil?" "Yup. I got them butterflies in mah belleh." "Well...what kind is they? Are they monarchs?" "What?" "Is they big butterflahs, or little ones?" "They's little ones." "Oh. Them's is moths."   And so forth. And it ended with talking about Father in Heaven, and the last question was, "Well, what's his address then?" Oh man. It was so funny. I had such a hoot. We then had lunch with the district, (even though I wanted to have lunch with some of the English Elders). Oh well. We then went and had dinner with the R., and had a good lesson with them and their two daughters. We then went and taught L. about the temple, and temple marriage. We then invited her to be baptized again, and she said that she'd already been baptized. Thankfully, Hno. S. was there to help out. He talked about the necessity of having proper authority to baptize, and we testified that she could know for herself if God's authority really was restored. She said that she would pray about it.

Saturday, we went riding around town trying to find less-active members, and didn't have much success in finding them. We then went to visit a part-member family, and helped them to get their tablet all organized. Gosh. I'm really far behind when it comes to new technology. Seriously. This tablet was super tricky to figure out. I had no idea what I was doing, and Elder Y. pretty much fixed the problem all by himself. We then visited the J. family, and talked with him for a bit, and he told us that he wanted to baptize his daughter soon, since she just turned 8. We shared a message, and went to visit some other less-actives. (We have a lot of less-actives, so that's pretty much the back-up plan if something falls through.) We then went to coordination, and there were a lot of branch missionaries there. We got the help needed, and went to visit a less-active that we'd met the other day. His name's A., and he's a huge music buff. He's a photographer for bands, so he gets a lot of cool stuff, and gave us autographed pictures of Young the Giant, a pretty popular band. One of the missionaries in the zone is really into music, so I gave him my autographed picture.

For Sunday, we went to branch council, set up some chairs, had sacrament meeting, went to the classes, had lunch, did our studies at the church to save miles, and went to our area to do some work before dinner with some members near the church. The members had to cancel last minute, so we went to our area and tried to find people at home. The members then swung by and left us some carne asada with tortillas, cilantro, onions, and tomatoes, and said sorry for cancelling. We ate, and went to find some referrals. We got to the complex of one, and this little old lady comes over and starts talking to us. She tells us about all of the people in the complex, and said that we could try knocking on any of the doors that we wanted to. She's the apartment manager, and we offered that if at any time she needed help cleaning up the place, that we'd sure be happy to help. She thanked us and said that if we ever wanted to say hi to just knock on her door. The referral then buffed us, (we could see them inside, and they could see us. I made awkward eye contact with a guy on the couch.), so we left and contacted another referral that actually wasn't the person that lived in the apartment number that they gave us. We turned in for the night, and started exchanges with the other Elders.

Yesterday went really well, as I was put with Elder C., a newer missionary, and we had a pretty great day. We started out with a few investigators early in the morning, taught some lessons, and went back for lunch. We were napping during lunch, when we got a call from the Sisters saying that a member needed some emergency service moving some couches. So we did some superhero clothes changing action, and sped over to help them with their couches. They didn't need us right then, so we went and helped the English Elders with some service helping a lady that hoards tons of stuff. We then went back to help with the couches, and were able to get them sent over to another member's house. We moved a bunch of couches around, and they had around 4 couches in their living room by the end of it, set up in a theater-type organization. We then went to dinner with those members that we'd moved the couches for, and ate some delicious lasagna with salad, a rotisserie chicken, and some Italian bread. We then went and exchanged back.

Now for today, the plan was to go to the temple, but the other Elders had "something come up", so we'll have to wait until next week. :'( But anywho, that's just about all that's happened this week. We haven't really had anything crazy happen to us, (like it usually does).

Have a great week! And happy Valentines Day! (More like "Happy Make-Everything-Awkward-for-the-Missionaries Day".)

-Love, Elder Crook