Hey guys, nothing too exciting happened this week. Things slowed down a little bit because we spent a lot of time in interviews and other stuff. I'm also pretty stoed that I get to work with my companion from the MTC this week, because my regular companion is going home in two weeks and therefore has more interviews.
The thing that I successfully cooked this week was: Chinese rice, although it wasn't as good because I can't afford peanut oil. I know most of you guys probably don't care about this, but my mom told me that she likes to hear about these things.
So here is my story of the week. We were biking on a path that we normally don't take, and we heard this guy shout "Mormons! Over Here!" so we stowed our bikes, and went out and talked to him. He was a very flamboyant man who had talked to the missionaries many times. After making friends with him, he introduced us to his friend, who had recently hit a bt of hard luck and was homeless. We ended up giving him a blessing and then the number for the English speaking missionaries. Overall it was pretty awesome
Well, that's all I got.
Have fun!
Elder Joseph Call
Editor's Note: Hey Everyone! Joe needs peanut oil! We need to get it to him as quick as possible. Come on, lives are at stake!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Success
Blog Post:
Hey guys, I only have about ten minutes to write this, so I'll skip right to the awesome part. I was on exchanges with my district leader, and one of the things he does is if he tracts that day, in the morning him and his companion pray in front of a map as to where he should go. He chooses a place and narrows it down very specifically from there. If him and his companion don't agree on the place, they pray again to try and get it right. So me and him were doing this, and I was thinking "Wow, this is kinda weird, I don't like this, but I'm gonna try it because I like trying things". So we did, it was kinda weird, but later on in the day, after 2-3 hours of rejection, we found this really nice lady who was very receptive to the gospel. we were very happy about this.
So the next day me and my companion decided to try it too. We prayed in front of a map. At first we disagreed, and talked about it for a little bit, and we realized that the borders of the area had changed, so we got out a new and improved map, and we prayed some more and decided to go to this area that wasn't on the map before and we weren't even sure if any Spanish missionaries had been there before. We got there that night, and found out that everyone was American, which we were pretty bummed about. Later on, we were walking down the street, all of the houses looked American, so we decided to go to Monterrey st because it sounded Mexican. while we were walking down the street, a house caught our eye and we decided to go knock on it. Mind you, this was the only house on that side of the whole street we wanted to knock on. We met this American lady who said that she had read a part of the book of Mormon, without ever talking to the missionaries before, asked us if there was a Mormon church nearby that she could go to, and who just that morning had an argument with her husband about "getting back in touch with god". She said that she thought our coming to her door might have been a sign. I told her that we had prayed that morning where to go and we came here. I had to send the English missionaries over there, because she spoke English. They were stoked.
On a much less exciting note, I got a package of gold-I mean cooking stuff from my mom. My quality of life just doubled I think. See how I think now? I think that doubling my quality of life is much less exciting than sharing the gospel with a really cool lady. Speaking of quality of life, I know I'm in California, but it is January, and our little house doesn't have any heat, and we saw our breath inside of our house this morning. Ha ha, my companion is from Mexico and he doesn't like it at all. Well, that's about all I got. Things are continuing to pick up.
With Love,
Elder Call
Editor's Note: I must say, this is quite a development in our organization that is entirely dedicated to Joe. He is very lucky things are going that way. Maybe...
Hey guys, I only have about ten minutes to write this, so I'll skip right to the awesome part. I was on exchanges with my district leader, and one of the things he does is if he tracts that day, in the morning him and his companion pray in front of a map as to where he should go. He chooses a place and narrows it down very specifically from there. If him and his companion don't agree on the place, they pray again to try and get it right. So me and him were doing this, and I was thinking "Wow, this is kinda weird, I don't like this, but I'm gonna try it because I like trying things". So we did, it was kinda weird, but later on in the day, after 2-3 hours of rejection, we found this really nice lady who was very receptive to the gospel. we were very happy about this.
So the next day me and my companion decided to try it too. We prayed in front of a map. At first we disagreed, and talked about it for a little bit, and we realized that the borders of the area had changed, so we got out a new and improved map, and we prayed some more and decided to go to this area that wasn't on the map before and we weren't even sure if any Spanish missionaries had been there before. We got there that night, and found out that everyone was American, which we were pretty bummed about. Later on, we were walking down the street, all of the houses looked American, so we decided to go to Monterrey st because it sounded Mexican. while we were walking down the street, a house caught our eye and we decided to go knock on it. Mind you, this was the only house on that side of the whole street we wanted to knock on. We met this American lady who said that she had read a part of the book of Mormon, without ever talking to the missionaries before, asked us if there was a Mormon church nearby that she could go to, and who just that morning had an argument with her husband about "getting back in touch with god". She said that she thought our coming to her door might have been a sign. I told her that we had prayed that morning where to go and we came here. I had to send the English missionaries over there, because she spoke English. They were stoked.
On a much less exciting note, I got a package of gold-I mean cooking stuff from my mom. My quality of life just doubled I think. See how I think now? I think that doubling my quality of life is much less exciting than sharing the gospel with a really cool lady. Speaking of quality of life, I know I'm in California, but it is January, and our little house doesn't have any heat, and we saw our breath inside of our house this morning. Ha ha, my companion is from Mexico and he doesn't like it at all. Well, that's about all I got. Things are continuing to pick up.
With Love,
Elder Call
Editor's Note: I must say, this is quite a development in our organization that is entirely dedicated to Joe. He is very lucky things are going that way. Maybe...
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
LOST
Hey guys, the work here is picking up slowly but surely. My cooking repertoire is expanding, and thus I am becoming happier. I don't know what it is, but for me it seems that food equals happiness. Anyway, you can make doughnuts by frying biscuit dough in oil and then covering it in cinnamon, and when I saw that biscuit dough was only 50 cents a can, I pretty much died of giddiness. I bought enough to make 40 doughnuts. Having good food to eat makes everything easier in my opinion.
I still love it here, but our big problem is that we show up to appointments and our investigators aren't there. I'm sure there is something we can do about that, but I don't know what it is. We are finding lots of people to teach though. In fact, one time we were walking down a dark street (Because my tire popped on my bike) and I started talking about a guy that we had looked for like a week ago, and my companion says "Where does he live?" and I said, "I dunno, wait a minute, doesn't he live right here?" And we saw the guy sitting on his couch through the door. He was right in front of us. That may not seem all that miraculous, but when you consider how bad I am with directions, it was definitely revelation. Well have to see next week if anything comes of that. I'm having fun, and learning a lot. But unfortunately, I don't have all that much time. So I must be going.
I love you all!
Elder Joseph Call
Editor's Note: Joe is learning to cook, need I say more?
I still love it here, but our big problem is that we show up to appointments and our investigators aren't there. I'm sure there is something we can do about that, but I don't know what it is. We are finding lots of people to teach though. In fact, one time we were walking down a dark street (Because my tire popped on my bike) and I started talking about a guy that we had looked for like a week ago, and my companion says "Where does he live?" and I said, "I dunno, wait a minute, doesn't he live right here?" And we saw the guy sitting on his couch through the door. He was right in front of us. That may not seem all that miraculous, but when you consider how bad I am with directions, it was definitely revelation. Well have to see next week if anything comes of that. I'm having fun, and learning a lot. But unfortunately, I don't have all that much time. So I must be going.
I love you all!
Elder Joseph Call
Editor's Note: Joe is learning to cook, need I say more?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Out In the field
Hey everybody! Oh what a week! I spent the last two days of the MTC alone with my companion, and we studied really really hard. I woke up to fly out to the Burbank airport at like 3 AM, and when I stepped off the plane it was like love at first sight, which was surprising, because I thought I would hate it here. It was very very nice weather. On the car ride over to the mission office I noticed that southern California looks exactly like Mexico, except with freeways and rich looking houses looking down at you on the hilltops.
I got assigned to work in the North Hollywood 4th ward, and I live in Burbank now. We are actually reopening this area after about a year of no missionaries. That means that I haven't taught a lesson to anybody yet, I've spent all of my time knocking doors, which I hope to get used to someday. I also got an new companion, a Latino named E. Vasquez. It was really ironic, he's from Guano Juanto, and all of my buddies at the stone factory were from that city too. IT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING! But anyway, he's a pretty cool guy. It also helps a lot that we don't typically speak English.
Although it's difficult to learn another language, I am grateful that I get to preach to the Latinos. they are much more friendly and receptive. Sometimes when we tract into Americans, they almost look like they want to hurt us. But yeah, it can be kind of challenging trying to find a Latino house in North Hollywood. But I'm pretty sure next week will be good, we have a bunch of people who told us to come back and talk to them later, we'll see how that goes. I also love it when Latinos cook for you. OH MAN, I had some fantastic barbeque.
I also discovered that I enjoy cooking. My mom and grandma must have impressed this on me, I kinda have the urge to cook for everybody. I even fed like 4 missionaries yesterday, a bunch of clam spaghetti. Except the pan was too small and when I tried to drain the noodles, less than a quarter cup of water came out. Ha ha, good times. It turned out pretty good. I think I'm gaining a reputation for liking to cook. We'll see if that matters at all later.
Although the work right now can be difficult, it is still intensely spiritual. I kinda feel like I'm swimming upstream, and each day I am very very tired. But I still love it. Or at least I know that I will come to love it soon. As far as being tired goes, I bought some vitamins, and they seem to help. (I'm sure all of you wanted to know that). I guess the point is, I feel very close to God. Hungry, but close to god.
I love you all!
Joseph
Editor's note: I guarantee everyone will love him, now that he's cooking.
I got assigned to work in the North Hollywood 4th ward, and I live in Burbank now. We are actually reopening this area after about a year of no missionaries. That means that I haven't taught a lesson to anybody yet, I've spent all of my time knocking doors, which I hope to get used to someday. I also got an new companion, a Latino named E. Vasquez. It was really ironic, he's from Guano Juanto, and all of my buddies at the stone factory were from that city too. IT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING! But anyway, he's a pretty cool guy. It also helps a lot that we don't typically speak English.
Although it's difficult to learn another language, I am grateful that I get to preach to the Latinos. they are much more friendly and receptive. Sometimes when we tract into Americans, they almost look like they want to hurt us. But yeah, it can be kind of challenging trying to find a Latino house in North Hollywood. But I'm pretty sure next week will be good, we have a bunch of people who told us to come back and talk to them later, we'll see how that goes. I also love it when Latinos cook for you. OH MAN, I had some fantastic barbeque.
I also discovered that I enjoy cooking. My mom and grandma must have impressed this on me, I kinda have the urge to cook for everybody. I even fed like 4 missionaries yesterday, a bunch of clam spaghetti. Except the pan was too small and when I tried to drain the noodles, less than a quarter cup of water came out. Ha ha, good times. It turned out pretty good. I think I'm gaining a reputation for liking to cook. We'll see if that matters at all later.
Although the work right now can be difficult, it is still intensely spiritual. I kinda feel like I'm swimming upstream, and each day I am very very tired. But I still love it. Or at least I know that I will come to love it soon. As far as being tired goes, I bought some vitamins, and they seem to help. (I'm sure all of you wanted to know that). I guess the point is, I feel very close to God. Hungry, but close to god.
I love you all!
Joseph
Editor's note: I guarantee everyone will love him, now that he's cooking.
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