Week #39 - Tubular Tubes

Good day to everyone!
This will be quite the packed email. Lots to write home about. For starters, my greenie is getting transferred...and my new companion will be yet another greenie. Prayers would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little nervous.

Next up, I hate to burst everyone's bubble (mine burst this week as well) about the reverend, but here's the story which was actually a pretty spiritual experience albeit pretty disappointing: Turns out the "member of the Seventy" was someone who used to be a seventy (back when that was a calling a lot of men had in the church...not the actual quorum of the Seventy) and he's kind of one of those guys who's WAY gung-ho about missionary work and very "everybody's ready." Not that that's a bad thing...it can sometimes prove to be a bit of a disappointment to missionaries however. So, my Ward Mission Leader talked to the man that referred the reverend on the phone, and was told for about twenty minutes how ready the reverend was and how the missionaries just needed to be bold and get in the door and how they just love missionaries. Anyway, we went to the house ready to baptize this man and having said many prayers that we'd say the right things. His wife answered the door and was friendly- but she told us how they told their friend (the seventy) NOT to send us (he had given them a heads up that we were coming) and politely told us not to come back. So, having been sufficiently humbled, we walked to the car wondering if we just weren't following the spirit well enough and if we went about it the wrong way. I felt really impressed to go back the next day at five o'clock. I knew that at the very least we had to catch HIM there and not his wife (kind of a long shot...how often are ninety year old couples separated?). The next day, after again- MANY prayers that this would all work out- that the reverend would be the only one home, that he would answer the door, that we would say the right things, and his heart would be softened, we went to the door. I had no idea what I was going to say to this guy when I rang the doorbell. He came to the door, I introduced myself, and he flipped out and told us he was a minister and we were told NEVER to come back so DON'T come back- and then he slammed the door.The reason this was a spiritual experience for me (even though it was difficult) is because absolutely everything that we prayed for that Heavenly Father actually had full control over was granted. He was home, his wife was not, he answered the door...but sadly, agency was the only thing God couldn't control, and obviously, the reverend didn't use it in the way we were hoping him to. And, what's even better, is we had NO chance to convince him to let us in. He gave us no room to talk or explain, and thus we left that house knowing for sure that there was absolutely no way that was going to work out. We weren't left wondering if we could have said something different that would have gotten us in or anything. So yeah. Didn't work out, but my testimony has been strengthened.

Nine months out on the second of April. I could have had a baby by now. We're way close to baptism with ol' Jim P. Pretty exciting. He's 74 years old and he's made a TON of progress. His son's going to fly out from North Carolina to do the baptism (whenever that might be). Speaking of baptisms, I attended probably the best one ever on Saturday. The spirit was way strong and I got to sing Come Thou Font which was a nice plus. It went really well. Pants. Anyway, that about wraps it up. Write me letters. I've gotten very little mail for about three weeks now.

Please make sure it's very evident on the blog that I need a LOT of mail. Hee.

Elder B

Week #38 - Paper Mache Paper

It was a pretty awesome week here in ol' Benicia. The Vallejo 2nd Ward had a baptism for a dad and his daughter that went really well. One of our investigators went and LOVED it- so we're committing him to baptism this week. I got to sing a really cool song for the service called Savior Redeemer of My Soul (not the same tune as the one in the hymnbook). I pretty well biffed the last note but the rest went well. Then the following day (Sunday) I got to sing the Reflections of Christ Come Thou Fount arrangement for a fireside which was pretty cool...and I'll also be singing it this Saturday for another baptism. It's been pretty awesome to have so many chances to sing lately.

Life is spectacular.We got an interesting referral this week. A member of the seventy referred a 92 year old retired Baptist Reverend and basically said he knew this was the time for it to happen. What's a little more interesting is the referral isn't in our ward boundaries...but we got a call from the mission home and were told that WE were the ones who had to teach him. We're supposed to contact him tomorrow so...I guess we'll see how it goes. It sounds pretty solid...they explained things to me for about twenty minutes over the phone.

President Stoddard came to my District Council last week which was pretty intimidating at first. It was pretty cool though- everything went really well and I asked him if he'd give us his testimony since we don't often get to hear that from him. He was happy to and it was a really neat experience.

I received very little mail for the past two weeks.

So here's the 20 Lesson program that L. Tom Perry introduced (there were some questions): Each ward has been assigned to provide missionaries with fifteen people to teach every week. Five names from the Elders Quorum, five from Relief Society, and five from High Priests. These are idealy nonmembers/part member families, then less-actives, and if must needs be: active members. It's partly to give us plenty of opportunities to help us with our teaching and get people fired up about missionary work, and of course to strengthen/build up the wards. Anyway, the names that the ward provides us with are people whom the ward has asked that have accepted the invitation to have the missionaries teach them all the lessons. Once one name/family is done with the lessons or doesn't want missionaries anymore, a new name should be provided from whichever auxillary it came from so there's always a constant pool of 15 names. Anyway, this was Elder Perry's instruction to everyone about six months ago. Not just a suggestion, but something he told everyone to make happen- and people are still complaining and saying they don't understand or saying how ridiculous it is and whatever else. It's been six months...but it's alright because it looks like it's finally going to happen now.

Well there's the week. Hope everyone's doing well- have a good week!

Love-Elder B

Week #37 - French Fried Oreos

Good Morning!

Quite the fantastic week. The work is excellent and things are great! We've been finding a lot of opportunities to teach which is always a major plus. Our ward is finally starting to really help us out with a new program introduced by L. Tom Perry to help us get more referrals and teaching opportunities. The program was introduced and (should have been) in effect about six or seven months ago, but for some reason every ward in the mission was less than cooperative and very "We don't understand" and "We've received no instruction on this." But, it looks like it's finally going to happen (at least in our ward) so I think it'll help the work a ton.

I have to throw a shoutout to my boy The Chief for the "puzzling" letter and the also the copied picture of the Nauvoo temple. That wasn't half bad for being like ten years old! The letter was a total hoot though and all of the missionaries were way jealous that they didn't have their very own The Chief to send them homemade puzzles. The quotes were awesome too. Thanks The Chief- I appreciate all you do and it's always a pleasure. My best to you and yours.

I went on exchanges for the day with another set of missionaries who are in a bike area last week. It made me a whole lot more thankful to have a car. Although riding a bike is fun it really limits the amount of work you can do and you lose a whole lot of luxuries that you'd have otherwise. Not to mention you end the day with a sore rump (butt).

Our bishop kinda let us down with the musical fireside we were planning. He called up a guest speaker that he thought would be really good and had flyers made for the fireside...well, the flyers are advertizing the speaker and say absolutely nothing about missionaries. When asking him about it, he said "Sorry- we must have had a misunderstanding. I figured you two could do a musical number at the beginning and then we'd have him do the fireside." I'm not really sure what he heard in the twenty minute meeting we had with him over why we wanted to do this and what we wanted it to be, but basically, a really good missionary opportunity just went down the tubes. We'd put in a lot of preparation so we were pretty frustrated.

Thanks to everyone for the mail this week- it's always fantastic to see a letter in the box with my name on it. Have a good week!

Elder B

Week #36 - Radio Flyer Telephone Wagons

Hey Everyone!

It was a good week. I met the most amazing golden investigator of all time on Saturday (sadly she's not my investigator...). It was incredible- she called the mission office and wanted missionaries and so the sister missionaries went there the first time and taught her the first lesson. Apparently, the investigator (Mary P.) started bearing testimony about everything about how true it was and she couldn't believe how powerful prayer was and stuff. Anyway, I was on exchanges with the elders in her area on Saturday and got to meet with her and teach the Plan of Salvation. She wanted all the reading material she could have when the sisters visited her, so she got every pamphlet, every piece of literature we have basically...and when I got there to teach (two days later) she had read it all, and she was half way through the Book of Mormon (for the second time. She read it once before she requested missionaries). She was SO excited about everything and said how it's been crazy finding time to do it but she can't stop looking into it. She's in her mid-forties and currently working on her masters degree (I will no longer take anyone seriously who says they couldn't find time to read a chapter reading assignment in a week because they were busy). Anyway, the spirit was stronger than I've ever felt during the entire lesson and it was probably one of the most amazing experiences I've had yet. She went to church the next day and everyone loved her and she loved everyone. She also baked us cookies for the lesson. They were tasty.

So life is fantastic in Benicia. Last week for the most part was kinda lame due to our loss of the car up until Friday. The DMV was giving the mission office a ton of trouble with getting a renewed registration for our car, so we couldn't drive it all week. We're probably the most inconvenient area in the zone to not have a car, but we do now so life is good.

Anyway- I'm way low on time today. Hope all is well with everyone and thanks for the mail from everybody!

Elder B

Week #35 - Scandanavian Artichokes with Whipped Cream

HI!
This was quite a week. Missionary work's the bomb. We've been working our hineys off and picking up new investigators and teaching and studying and it's been amazing. This week I've been working with Elder Chaichana (the one from Thailand who majored in music at BYU Hawaii) on a musical fireside we're going to do on the 22nd. It's going to be cooler than anything ever. He's incredible on the piano and so we're working on a bunch of songs to tie into everything. Most of the Stake's going to be involved so we're pretty pumped. I got to do my first baptismal interviews yesterday- it was a WAY cool experience. One was a fifty year old man and we had a really good discussion. He told me about how he'd been to so many churches and he never had been so impressed with the standards (and the people who actually try to live up to the standards) in any of them. He said this gospel has changed his life and he had an incredible testimony of all the different aspects of it. Then, I interviewed his daughter who was 13 but a very impressive girl- she was the same way. Definitely made my day. The ol' spirit was pretty strong with both interviews- I could feel they're desire to follow Christ. Good stuff!
Well, that's about all I've got for the week. I got some good videos of songs and stuff to send home soon- have a good week!

Elder B

Week #34 - Fischer Price A La Carte

Hey everyone!

This was a pretty amazing week. My trainee is way solid and he's a really cool guy. He's not very green either which is a major plus. We had a way good week this week too- we picked up three new investigators who are both really promising at this point- in fact, one of them called us and said she wanted to be baptized. We told her how she needed to come to church and take the lessons, and she was more than happy to. We'll see what happens!

Other than that, I found out that everyone in the zone had no one for dinner on Saturday (stake conference) and I organized a zone dinner in Benicia at a place called "Little Thai" to celebrate Elder Chaichana's heritage. (a Thai [legit Thai- accent and everything elder in our zone.]) He's hilarious and he's in the other Benicia ward. He was in my Fairfield zone too. He loved it and talked to all of the workers in Thai. The food was AMAZING. It was a way fun night- we had a really good time. I'm thinking about moving to Thailand.

Stake Conference was a broadcast with Elder Ballard and Elder Uchtdorf. It was EXCELLENT. There was a big focus on building stronger stakes- and they talked about how we don't need to move to find Zion- Californians Zion is in California (lots of people are moving to Utah to be out of here before California is destroyed). It was really good though and very inspiring. They directed a lot towards the missionaries here too.

Life's amazing. It's been a busy week but it's been spectacular. Missionary work is the bomb and the gospel's true.

Have a good week and send me lots of mail!
Cordially,
Elder B

Week #33 - Minced Ice and Building Blocks

Hello from Benicia!
And a very Happy Valentines Day, especially to friends who didn't send me anything (guilt trip...). Thanks to the family though for sending me stuff! The chocolate covered strawberries were an excellent surprise, as well as the cookies. Transfer information is out in the open. I'm pretty excited- Elder Shaw's headed to Santa Rosa and I'll be sticking around Benicia. My new companion will be a brand new greenie so I don't even know his name yet. I kinda had a feeling I'd be training this transfer so I'm pretty pumped but still a bit nervous. They're splitting my area into two so we're getting two more missionaries, which means fourteen total in the zone. I'm not really sure why they aren't splitting the zone up into two districts (right now I'll be a solo district leader for the zone) but it'll be cool. Our zone's awesome. So, I guess it's high time I started following the rules so I can teach my greenie how to be a stellar missionary. I might even start waking up before noon and going to church every so often. Just so everyone is aware, though, this is important: Odds are, because he is brand new, he'll get mail just about every day. Unless you want me to feel small and insignificant, feel free to send me TONS of mail this transfer. TONS.

Anyway, this was quite the weekend. On Valentine's Day, I was fortunate to get to play piano for someone's funeral, and then two hours later I got to play for someone's wedding. It was quite the contrast. I played a lot of Jon Schmidt so I really enjoyed myself. I didn't know the man who died and I also didn't know the couple who got married but they seemed in love which was good.

Not that we didn't have other pressing appointments with investigators and families who REALLY wanted to meet on Valentine's Night, but Saturday night Elder Shaw and I were invited to a singles ward social that was in Benicia. Some nonmembers were expected to be there anyway but I was expecting this to be WAY awkward given that it was Valentine's Day in a SINGLES ward and everyone wanted to be married. However, it was actually really fun. Elder Shaw knew them because he served in their ward when he was in Napa (we're in the Napa Stake) and it was really fun. There was a guy there who knew some insane card tricks that I had nightmares about later and at the end we were asked to serenade everyone by singing to guitar and piano stuff. It was awesome.

Anyway, I'm excited for the new transfer. We've got a lot of potential work at this point, so hopefully we'll start seeing some things happen soon.

Have a good week (and cross your fingers that I won't get a weird companion)!

Elder B