So life in the field continues to be good. Thanks everyone who wrote for the awesome letters. So I'm writing on Monday this week because our Pday got moved around for some kind of Zone Leader Conference or something, anywho it'll be back to normal Tuesdays next week. DQ Monday just doesn't roll of the tongue like Tuesday...but that's all right! Speaking of the random ridiculousness of Elders, DQ Tuesdays have led to good Elders Buchanan and Yamada are teaching who we call DQ Girl, the girl on staff every time we go in. She even came to a baptism and everything.
This week has been a good week for us in Boardman/Irrigon. Two of the investigators and their kids and cousin came to church again which was way cool. I translated the whole meeting which I was rather proud of. And it was a regular talk meeting. I had to paraphrase a lot of stories and scriptures, but I got through it and they said they could understand me and enjoyed the meeting. Another cool thing we had happen with them is that they have a wedding date now, so we just need to go and get them a license and we'll be good to go. They'll be getting married on the 12th, a cool tidbit is that they will be the opening act to the High Priests Valentines Sweet Heart Dinner. So that'll be way cool. Then we'll try to get them baptized the next day on the 13th. Hurray progress! I really hope I'll be here for one more transfer so I can see that happen. Transfer calls come in on the 5th.
We also had our missionary potluck dinner this week. It wasn't the biggest turn out we've ever had but it was really good. Everyone had a fun time, Leonardo and his family were there. The members were real nice to them, and everyone stayed afterwards and chatted, which never happens. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went over to see a recent convert and her son's place and visited with them. Her son has become inactive because of his slightly goth girlfriend and it's been a big cause of stress for her. But through friendly bullying we got him to sacrament yesterday which was way awesome. We're really making progress with the members.
We went to that bible class as well. It was ok I guess. The preacher had a few ideas that weren't exactly right, but he was a nice guy and shared some good thoughts. Afterwards a lady gave me and Sauceda a DVD with Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith on it. We were a little apprehensive about it for fear of anti propaganda. It started out neutral enough, then got progressively more and more biased against the Mormons. It got more and more offensive and then when it started going into the temple ceremonies we took it out and threw it away. We haven't met with the lady since then, but when we do I'm sure we'll have a chat with her about it. But whatever, there wouldn't be such hateful opposition if the church weren't true.
I had some bike troubles this week. One day I noticed that my left peddle was crooked so I got a hold of a wrench and unscrewed it, when I went to screw it back in right I discovered that the slots for the screw were completely smooth. So today I'll be taking it in to the bike shop to see how much it'll cost. They've told me that labor is free for the missionaries since we provide so much business for them. So if I don't need any new parts it'll be a no problem fix. We had a specialized training with President and his wife on Friday which was way cool. They're such awesome people. Well, I think I'll wrap things up for the week, but I love yall and appreciate your letters and support. The Church is True.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cloudy Times in Oregon
Hello One and All. So first off I will clarify for dad, I am not corresponding with others my lack of email content is just from lack of things to say. Anywho, thanks for the phone number mom, I'll get that resolved today. This has been a slow transfer for mail, but last night both me and Sauceda had a nice little stack, it made the week a whole lot nicer.
So, what has happened to me the last week? Well I suppose I'll go ahead and explain the title, times are good, but the sun has been obscured for the past week or two. Some rain, the snow is all gone. Maybe I'm crazy but I love the rain, so hopefully some day I'll spend some time in the Vancouver areas. Also, due to I'm not sure what to be honest, we are very much ahead of schedule on how many miles we have left for the month. So we've been riding our bikes around like real missionaries. It's been fun, despite the extremely sore backside I enjoy it. We ride around Irrigon in the mornings and then load the bikes on the car and drive to Boardman, park the car and ride the bikes around there until it's time to go home. Yesterday was INCREDIBLY windy. We were in Boardman and almost getting knocked off our bikes. It was pretty nice when the wind was at our backs because we didn't have to peddle, but when we were going into the wind we could hardly move, so we ended up walking our bikes around for the day.
The work is going along rather nicely. There's one couple and their brother we have been teaching and have on date for the 29th. The couple needs to get married before then, and the brother just moved to Kennewick, so we sent his information on. All three of them came with us to church in the Boardman ward, so we got out the translating equipment and translated the meeting for them. I started and had gotten through the Sacrament prayers and all the hymns when the first speaker (the high councilman's son) got up to speak. I've translated entire fast and testimony meetings before and those are pretty easy, because each talk is really short and everyone says more or less the same thing. But this guys talk was jumping all over the place, and I was tripping all over my words and really struggling, so I hurriedly apologized to them (the investigators) and then passed the head set over to Sauceda who finished the meeting. One really neat thing that happened was the High Councilman got up and at the end of his talk bore an awesome testimony to them in Spanish. They really appreciated it. It was a good meeting, afterwards we found an empty classroom and taught them a lesson.Tonight I'll be doing an exchange with the Zone Leaders.
So Sauceda will stay in Hermiston with Elder Yamada, and Elder Buchanan will come back to Irrigon with me. I'm pretty excited because me and Buchanan get along really well, he's an awesome missionary. So that'll just be until tomorrow. Should be fun.
There was one experience this week that was rather unfortunate. I won't go into the details of it, but I found out why two of our former investigators became former investigators from a very angry neighbor of theirs. Apparently there had been some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication from my Spanish that I guess offended them. They are still very happy and pleasant with us whenever we stop by to say hello, but the neighbor was much less pleasant when we street contacted him. Gave me what-for.
On a more pleasant note. We knocked into a Jehovah's Witness (Spanish) the other day and had a very lovely chat with her. We were talking about our beliefs in the Garden of Eden and what went down there. She explained some of her beliefs to us and helped me to understand the role of the 144,000 as they see it. We asked her if we could give her a card and she said yes only if we would take something from her. We agreed and she ran off to get it. When she came back it was a nice little pamphlet about the Garden of Eden, so we said that we should get to give her one of our pamphlets to make it a fare trade, so we gave her the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She promised to read it and we promised to read hers. It was a good tracting experience.
Last night we got a call from our recent convert (that was terrified of being baptized) aunt, saying we needed to come to her house (the aunt's, house that is) and give her a blessing. (She's been having a real hard time with panic attacks). So we went over right away. We'd been there once before to bless her son who was very sick at the time. But both times the aunt and aunt's friend were there. We've now had two very lovely chats with them in which we've gotten to explain different aspects of how the church works to them. This Friday we'll be going with them to their bible study class, and then they'll come with us to church on Sunday in exchange. It should be fun, they are very nice to us. They are very...I guess you could say "feisty" but they are very nice to us. Last night tthe convert's tia gave us a worship cd that one of her ministers put together. The minister is from Peru and tia said that the cd was made there. But after we put the cd in the car within two seconds me and Sauceda both started laughing because it was the most Mexican thing ever. Definitely not from Peru. It was this Mariachi"ish" music with a guy possessing a thick Mexican accent singing about different reasons that Jesus is great. It was kind of fun I guess, I liked it because I could understand most of what was being sung.
Well, I think that does it for me, Dad, hopefully this satisfied your desire for content. Like I said I just don't usually have much to say or can't think of anything, but here's a pretty good example of what my weeks are like I guess. Mike/Jess and Whit/Cody, hopefully yall are good and still living. I'd love to hear from you some time. Eric, keep safe, I'll make up for the lack of Christmas present when you're stateside and I'm not a missionary. Mom, thanks for the updates on people last week. Grandpa Richards, thanks for your never failing weekly letters, I appreciate them. Anywho, I love you all and look forward to hearing back next week.
So, what has happened to me the last week? Well I suppose I'll go ahead and explain the title, times are good, but the sun has been obscured for the past week or two. Some rain, the snow is all gone. Maybe I'm crazy but I love the rain, so hopefully some day I'll spend some time in the Vancouver areas. Also, due to I'm not sure what to be honest, we are very much ahead of schedule on how many miles we have left for the month. So we've been riding our bikes around like real missionaries. It's been fun, despite the extremely sore backside I enjoy it. We ride around Irrigon in the mornings and then load the bikes on the car and drive to Boardman, park the car and ride the bikes around there until it's time to go home. Yesterday was INCREDIBLY windy. We were in Boardman and almost getting knocked off our bikes. It was pretty nice when the wind was at our backs because we didn't have to peddle, but when we were going into the wind we could hardly move, so we ended up walking our bikes around for the day.
The work is going along rather nicely. There's one couple and their brother we have been teaching and have on date for the 29th. The couple needs to get married before then, and the brother just moved to Kennewick, so we sent his information on. All three of them came with us to church in the Boardman ward, so we got out the translating equipment and translated the meeting for them. I started and had gotten through the Sacrament prayers and all the hymns when the first speaker (the high councilman's son) got up to speak. I've translated entire fast and testimony meetings before and those are pretty easy, because each talk is really short and everyone says more or less the same thing. But this guys talk was jumping all over the place, and I was tripping all over my words and really struggling, so I hurriedly apologized to them (the investigators) and then passed the head set over to Sauceda who finished the meeting. One really neat thing that happened was the High Councilman got up and at the end of his talk bore an awesome testimony to them in Spanish. They really appreciated it. It was a good meeting, afterwards we found an empty classroom and taught them a lesson.Tonight I'll be doing an exchange with the Zone Leaders.
So Sauceda will stay in Hermiston with Elder Yamada, and Elder Buchanan will come back to Irrigon with me. I'm pretty excited because me and Buchanan get along really well, he's an awesome missionary. So that'll just be until tomorrow. Should be fun.
There was one experience this week that was rather unfortunate. I won't go into the details of it, but I found out why two of our former investigators became former investigators from a very angry neighbor of theirs. Apparently there had been some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication from my Spanish that I guess offended them. They are still very happy and pleasant with us whenever we stop by to say hello, but the neighbor was much less pleasant when we street contacted him. Gave me what-for.
On a more pleasant note. We knocked into a Jehovah's Witness (Spanish) the other day and had a very lovely chat with her. We were talking about our beliefs in the Garden of Eden and what went down there. She explained some of her beliefs to us and helped me to understand the role of the 144,000 as they see it. We asked her if we could give her a card and she said yes only if we would take something from her. We agreed and she ran off to get it. When she came back it was a nice little pamphlet about the Garden of Eden, so we said that we should get to give her one of our pamphlets to make it a fare trade, so we gave her the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She promised to read it and we promised to read hers. It was a good tracting experience.
Last night we got a call from our recent convert (that was terrified of being baptized) aunt, saying we needed to come to her house (the aunt's, house that is) and give her a blessing. (She's been having a real hard time with panic attacks). So we went over right away. We'd been there once before to bless her son who was very sick at the time. But both times the aunt and aunt's friend were there. We've now had two very lovely chats with them in which we've gotten to explain different aspects of how the church works to them. This Friday we'll be going with them to their bible study class, and then they'll come with us to church on Sunday in exchange. It should be fun, they are very nice to us. They are very...I guess you could say "feisty" but they are very nice to us. Last night tthe convert's tia gave us a worship cd that one of her ministers put together. The minister is from Peru and tia said that the cd was made there. But after we put the cd in the car within two seconds me and Sauceda both started laughing because it was the most Mexican thing ever. Definitely not from Peru. It was this Mariachi"ish" music with a guy possessing a thick Mexican accent singing about different reasons that Jesus is great. It was kind of fun I guess, I liked it because I could understand most of what was being sung.
Well, I think that does it for me, Dad, hopefully this satisfied your desire for content. Like I said I just don't usually have much to say or can't think of anything, but here's a pretty good example of what my weeks are like I guess. Mike/Jess and Whit/Cody, hopefully yall are good and still living. I'd love to hear from you some time. Eric, keep safe, I'll make up for the lack of Christmas present when you're stateside and I'm not a missionary. Mom, thanks for the updates on people last week. Grandpa Richards, thanks for your never failing weekly letters, I appreciate them. Anywho, I love you all and look forward to hearing back next week.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
I'm still alive
Hello One and All. So sorry about the lack of anything last week. We got to the library late and all the computers were full and I didn't get a computer until all the Elders were leaving for the traditional DQ Tuesday, and I wasn't about to miss out on that. But yes, I am here for a real email now. So today is Elder Sauceda's birthday. I plan on getting him a cake at DQ later, then the member we're living with is baking him a German Chocolate Cake, then the Castanedas will probably make a cake on his head (Eric I believe you have some experience with this from the Peru days).
Last week (before the crummy email I sent) I got busted for speeding. On my defense we were hurrying to get home before curfew, needless to say, after the cop's shenanigans we were late. I talked with Elder Buetler (the vehicle coordinator) about it, he said no harm done because this is the first ticket on my record, and that there would be no negative repercussions as far as my driving privileges. On a lighter note, he seemed quite angry at the cop's warning of how our bike rack obscured the license plate and needed to be moved, he says "that's what they're made for". So no harm done, though I do have to pay a decent amount of change, but maybe the judge will take pity on a poor missionary, we can hope at least.
The people on date are still on date, but I only have hopes of one or two of them being baptized. The one that should be baptized this Saturday is very resistant to it. We talked with her very thoroughly about how she did have a testimony (because she does) but she still has her doubts. The really frustrating part is that she even recognizes that the doubts come from Satan. This last Sunday we went to her trailer and did everything short of dragging her out of bed to get her to church, it was a very stressful morning. But she did get to the Spanish group. Late, but she got there. Then the night before we called in our weeks numbers we had been told that she would go to the Spanish group Elders as an investigator at church. I had a few things to say about that after the fight I put up to get her there. Needless to say, we got the number.
On Sunday Boardman got about 4 or 5 inches of snow, but oddly enough Irrigon didn't get any. So our days are very weird when we work in one spot then go to the other to find a lot of snow. Life is good here in the mission field. Sis. Hoffman, the lady we live with, is real nice, always wanting to chat. She cuts our hair and provides the occasional baked good, so can't really complain about that.Well, I think that about does it for me this week. I'm doing good, my Spanish is coming along. I hope all of yall are well. Remember, I enjoy the occasional email. Hint hint.
Last week (before the crummy email I sent) I got busted for speeding. On my defense we were hurrying to get home before curfew, needless to say, after the cop's shenanigans we were late. I talked with Elder Buetler (the vehicle coordinator) about it, he said no harm done because this is the first ticket on my record, and that there would be no negative repercussions as far as my driving privileges. On a lighter note, he seemed quite angry at the cop's warning of how our bike rack obscured the license plate and needed to be moved, he says "that's what they're made for". So no harm done, though I do have to pay a decent amount of change, but maybe the judge will take pity on a poor missionary, we can hope at least.
The people on date are still on date, but I only have hopes of one or two of them being baptized. The one that should be baptized this Saturday is very resistant to it. We talked with her very thoroughly about how she did have a testimony (because she does) but she still has her doubts. The really frustrating part is that she even recognizes that the doubts come from Satan. This last Sunday we went to her trailer and did everything short of dragging her out of bed to get her to church, it was a very stressful morning. But she did get to the Spanish group. Late, but she got there. Then the night before we called in our weeks numbers we had been told that she would go to the Spanish group Elders as an investigator at church. I had a few things to say about that after the fight I put up to get her there. Needless to say, we got the number.
On Sunday Boardman got about 4 or 5 inches of snow, but oddly enough Irrigon didn't get any. So our days are very weird when we work in one spot then go to the other to find a lot of snow. Life is good here in the mission field. Sis. Hoffman, the lady we live with, is real nice, always wanting to chat. She cuts our hair and provides the occasional baked good, so can't really complain about that.Well, I think that about does it for me this week. I'm doing good, my Spanish is coming along. I hope all of yall are well. Remember, I enjoy the occasional email. Hint hint.
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