B is an annoying neighbor

6/17/09

howdy. this week...

1. we played a prank on our neighbors about a month ago, we snuck into their apartment and hid an alarm clock in their bedroom behind a wall clock set for 1.00am and left it for them to find. (they dont go to bed until then, thats why it was for 1) we found out just about a week ago that they never found it so at one every morning they are waiting for it to go off so they can try to find it. i snuck in later when we found out and took it back so they didnt break my alarm clock if they found it.
2. we were on our way to an appointment and a cop car rolled up next to us and they guy rolled down the window and in a really serious voice asked us if we knew what neighborhood we were in. we replied yes and he asked us if we new what type of hood we were in. my companion loves telling people that we live just down the street in the same hood (hes really bubble from utah so he still gets really excited to see ghetto for once and wants everyone to know he lives there) so when he told that to the cop they just rolled up the window and drove off. hes been telling everyone we know about it in really excited tones.
3. we went to visit a referral we received and as we talked to this lady, about 40 years old witha daughter who is 19, she was telling us how her drunk cousin, who she cant stand, was trashing her "baby car", meaning her daughters car, while she stood inside to wait for the police. as she described it; "i was here watchin im trash my baby car and i had a gun in my hand, a .38, i swear i did, i felt da devil pullin me one way and god da udder way and i woulda kilt im, i swear i woulda, i woulda kilt im. you young mens wouldnta been here wit me if i had walked out dat door." shes getting baptized soon.
4. willie, the first baptist minister *(side note: first baptists are very anti-LDS, they teach it from the pulpit) is getting baptized on the 21st of june. we were sitting in priesthood and i went to ordain jeremy to the priesthood and when i sat back down willie leaned over and whispered "that, right there, what you just did, i saw that in a vision last week." he is pretty awesome. if he asks me to baptize him im going to say yes, because on the 8th of july he is moving back to luisiana with his family. he has had so many different things happen to him to know the church was true its amazing, he has a super strong testimony.
5. we have some of the coolest investigators ever. one, vigdali, is already telling her family to start praying about the book of mormon and she keeps telling them how she got her answer and all that stuff, so now we are finally starting to get the family involved when they werent so eager before.
6. on the 28th, another family, minus the mom, is getting baptized. TJ, 14, Wasani, 10, and Narini, 8. the mom, veronika, is getting sundays off so she can come to church and then she will get baptized, she has already accepted, we are just waiting for the new lady at her job to get trained then veronika gets sundays off.

thats all i have (or remember) to write. bye

ps did i tell yall that i have a girlfriend? or 3 of them to be more precise. one, dakota, age 10, is my first one. she tells me im her favorite elder. she cant remember elder halls name. her sister, crystal, aged 13, is the next. she said she would find a girlfriend for me and suggested until she found one, she would fill the vacancy. their aunt, pelene (they are all samoan) who is 37, is the third. she has a major crush on me she told me. elder halls got annoyed that she talked to me more than him and so one day after church he said "do you have a crush on him or what? i like how you dont talk to me, just him" (he is a sensitive type of guy, the type that is readily labeled "metrosexual" so he gets hurt feelings quickly). anyway, so pelene confessed that she had a crush on me, and even had written me a card to say she thought i was a wonderful missionary. once again, elder halls was insulted that she sent me one and not him. im glad im a lot nicer now than before, or else elder halls would hate my guts because he would think im the biggest jerk ever. turns out, im not, just the biggest joker ever. :) dakota is my pick, shes just a little too young. i remembered to write to you about it because elder halls mentioned just barely that he needs a girlfriend to write to, so could he borrow one of mine? one another note, were on fire this transfer. we had interviews wif da prez and he said the the zone leaders were impressed with our work. the reason that makes me glad is that the majority of the time, when 2 missionaries get along, they are buckets, so we thought everyone else thought we were buckets because of that, but it turns out we arent. ok bye

B is split in half

howdy folks. all is well here. jeremy was confirmed this week in sacrament. im still in the same place, jefferson park. prez split our area, i dont know if i told you that, but now we only have half of what we did have, and we lost all of our latin investigators and the latin part of our area. now its just black people, no more browns. we have some really cool investigators however. this one guy, willie, we started teaching him about a month ago and now we are teaching he and his sisters and a sisters daughter in law. he is a minister for another church, but he is reading the entire book of mormon in 2 weeks, finishing by tomorrow (9th) and will get baptized after fasting and praying for an answer. he knows the book is true because of the previous chapters we have left him, so now he wants confirmation on the entire book. he is a pretty cool guy, im really excited for him. as well, we have alfonso montalvo, who is this old ecuadorian guy that we havwe been teaching for about 2 months. he is the most stubborn person ive ever met (including mom and dad and gina and corey and matt) but he is really excited about us teaching him because he loves learning so much about what jesus taught. his stubborness will be the only obstacle for him, but well find some way to get around it. he is a great old man. ok, thats all, we have to go, too much to do and so little time. bye

B confirms that Russia does not have the monopoly on crazy people

howdy. pretty much everything is the same. we had a baptism on sunday, which was fun. they guy, jeremy, asked me to baptise him so even though it was hard i followed the rules and asked him to consider a member to do it. o well, sacrifice for the better cause. we have quite a few baptisms that are going to go on this transfer, 11 planned with a few more that could happen. here is a weird thing, normally we are supposed to have at least 12 hours tracting per week, but just a week ago we were told that that number is no longer a "key indicator" which means its not something we are required to do. i thought that was crazy because tracting is something this mission focuses on so much. thats about it. one last thing. we had this investigator, belinda, who we taught a while ago. she is 60ish, kinda chubby, well really chubby, a little odd, but pretty mellow. we were at her house for like 15 minutes sitting in the front room while she put her stuff away (she had just arrived) because she moved so slowly i was imagining who would win in a race between her and a sloth. anyway, we taught her, she was kind of odd, so i didnt feel like going back, i saw no point to continue to teach her. last friday, we came home and the corner we live on was all taped off and there were cops and fire trucks and ambulanci all over the place, but we didnt know what was going on. then the bomb squad rolled by in a huge black truck, which was cool. the next day, we went back to visit belinda, who lived just a few houses down, and as we walked to her door some cholos who lived in one of the houses in the complex told us she wasnt there, she was locked up. what had happened was belinda got into an arguement with her neighbor about the neighbors dogs so belinda came down with a razor and slashed the lady up. the cholos showed us the blood on the ground and everything. then she locked herself in the house and wouldnt come down, so when the police finally got everything taken care of they went through her apartment and found guns and knives and razors in large amounts. she was apparently a little more loca than we thought...