December 11, 2012

It was the slowest week we've had in about 2 months.  We probably needed the extra time to slow down.  We have been putting up the best numbers in the zone for a while now.  We have the trust of the members, but it isn't turning into referrals.  Yesterday (I hate you for this) I had our mission leader meet us at the church instead of his house for the coordination meeting and had a bunch of graphs looking at our statistics for the last 4 months and talking about where all of our investigators are, how many referrals we've gotten, how many investigators we've added, and how many lessons we are teaching.  To point out to him that all of the people that we are teaching live in the same neighborhoods and that everyone on all of the streets that we walk on already knows us (so they've already either accepted or rejected us before) I had him look at all of the progress records from the last 6 months, and start reading investigator's names at random.  He very quickly realized that I was getting at the idea that all of them were in the same area, and that the only ones outside of a certain 3/4 mile radius were met through members.  He asked the branch president if we could do branch council in the relief society room where I had put all that up so that we could give the same presentation to the leaders in the branch.  At least I didn't do any excel worksheets.  You can hardly tell that Christmas is coming in most parts of our area.  Especially in Pacific beach and La Jolla (the most famous parts) which missionaries have aptly nicknamed Sodom and Gomorrah.  We have been trying to get her there before, but she is throwing up lots of reasons not to listen to us.  She will come around eventually though.  Ricardo has been bearing his testimony to just about everyone he meets and is really excited to get a calling.

Never assume that I hear anything, so Rachael getting a mission call is news to me.  That is exciting for her though!  I think that they want us to call you using a calling card so that it doesn't waste church minutes.  Christmas falls on a p-day, but they're making it a normal proselyting day with a phone call.  What number do you want me to call on?  It would be easiest to do the call in the morning.  We have a dinner appt in the afternoon and then we are at the temple from 5-8:30.

December 4, 2012

The viejito that we bautized said it was the best day of his life.  He is trying to get his wife and neighbors to listen to us.  The blind guy needs more time before he is ready.  He needs to come to church more and he also spends the first week of every month in Mexico.  I wish we had the money to make tacos.  We don't get jack for money and the members are pretty inconsistent about feeding us.  Money is what I need for christmas.  I have had to use my personal card for a lot of things because I can't get cash out on my church card and a lot of places only take cash. As for anything else, just surprise me.
Have you been teaching Giselle in the house?  It will be a lot easier for her to feel the spirit there than in her place.  Also, if you are there when the sisters are teaching, let them do all the talking.  Go with their lesson plan.  It is really really really really really annoying when we make the arrangements for a lesson, spend hours studying and planning, and then the member comes in and ruins the lesson.  We had one that we spend half an hour beforehand telling the member our lesson plan, and he managed to talk about foreordination, the grand council in heaven, the differences between the aaronic and melchizedek priesthoods, and then some of the things that go on in the temple that he shouldn't have said.  Or this week, a family that we have been working with since I got in this area finally agreed to do a FHE with some members.  We prayed and studied for hours trying to find the best thing to meet their needs, planned it, and set up a time with the members to do it.  They showed up early to the members' house (before we did) and when the member called us to let us know they had arrived, we told them to wait before they tried to start anything.  The member thought he knew better, and we arrived just before he was finishing up what he thought this investigator really needed.  Needless to say, the spirit was nowhere to be found.  I was pissed.
 Tell Braden that I expect an email from him every week as well!

November 27, 2012

 We were invited to our branch president's house for thanksgiving dinner, so it was decidedly white.  He said the reason that he invited us for thanksgiving because he wanted to make sure that we had traditional thanksgiving food, but I'm pretty sure the real reason is that there is finally a set of missionaries in the branch that he likes.  He texted us on the morning of transfers last week to ask if either of us was leaving.  Also, do you mean the assistants? They have abolished the "office elder" as you knew it.  How are the Pateys? How many computers do you have in the house now? 5? 6? I'll let you read what I sent to Dad and brynne about Ricardo, but he is doing very well.  He will be baptized this weekend, if everything goes according to plan.  Victor is struggling because his mom is in the hospital and he has not been able to meet with us because he is busy taking care of her and his dad.  He actually emigrated to the states to take care of his dad; he had a job in mexico and was living on his own.  He is very independent, but very shy.  We are getting him to work towards december 15 as a baptismal date, just at his own pace.