Week #78 - So...no Ma?

Before I forget, here's some important info:

We switched apartments with the Spanish Elders here in Sonoma, so our address is not the one I sent home last week. However, any mail that was sent to their place I have received or will receive, so no worries.

My new address is:

Elder Pants Balagna
888 West Verano Ave
Sonoma, CA 95476

It's been a fantastic week. My newborn son Elder Bankhead is awesome. I immediately realized after being with him for a little bit that this is exactly what I needed. This past week has been excellent- my greenie just wants to learn and basically teach him everything I know. He's very humble but not afraid to do the work. It'll be a good transfer!

As for Sonoma, it's quite the place. We had a baptism on Saturday that went really well for a lady named Loretta- she's almost 90 years old. It was pretty neat to see her get baptized. Other than that, there's really not much going on here at all, but we just got a new Ward Mission Leader who isn't here to mess around. We're way excited- he knows what he's doing and he's excited to make stuff happen.

Because I am well loved by the vehicle coordinator, some switches have been made and I once again have my truck to enjoy. I was pretty excited when I heard, but the only problem is the only setting on the air conditioning/heating is 4. The 1, 2, and 3 don't work. That took away a lot of my excitement. I suppose I'll live though.

Elder Bankhead and I had a pretty neat experience on Saturday. We were out walking trying to talk to people, and Elder Bankhead finally said "I'm going to talk to everyone until I can hand out a card." We talked to I don't know how many people, and one of them actually grabbed me and shoved me away and told me to go get a blank-ing job. He was about fifty years old and I guess he was trying to impress his other friends that he had around. He dropped a lot of F-bombs. Anyway, after he shoved me, despite everything that was going through my head and my strong desires to punch him in the face, somehow a smile and a "God Bless" came out of my mouth. That gave a whole new meaning to scriptures that talk about how "the spirit restraineth me." In a totally different attitude, the man then told us to have a good night and good luck. My greenie was blown away and kept telling me how cool it was. I of course brushed it off like it was just something you learn to do after being a missionary as long as I have (hehehe...even though in my head, I knew I still wanted to punch that guy in the face). So, that was kind of off track, because that wasn't the reason I started this paragraph. What ended up happening was nothing- we talked to tons of people and no one would even accept a card. I started feeling bad for my discouraged lil' son, and we finished our walk and drove back to our apartment. It was about 8:50, and I said "Hey, we still have ten minutes. We can't go in yet. Let's walk." Our street was pretty dead, and I told him to go wherever he felt prompted to. We took a couple of turns, and lo and behold, there comes a man out of a house to his car. Very friendly, we start up a conversation, he accepts a card, our phone number, and gives us his. Score! That's why we don't go in early. My greenie is in tune with the spirit!

Anyway, out of time, but merry crimbo and the gospel's true!

Elder B