Address

Address is Classified, by order of the boss.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Baptism and Catholics

Well guys, last night a funny thing happened. I was talking to one of our solid investigators, who is catholic, and he was asking about infant baptism. I start out trying to be all diplomatic about it, saying that I could see why someone might think a baby needs to be baptized, and such. Then my companion pipes in and says something to this effect: "No. It's an abomination." and then he breaks out Moroni chapter 8 and reads it to him. I was kinda scared, but it must have been the influence of the spirit because the investigator actually said he was going to read that passage to his priest. Mercy me.
Other than that it was kind of a slow week. We had a lot of cancellations. But, this is how it is sometimes. Next week looks good. But I love you all and wish you all the best.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Busy

We've been very busy lately, we've been contacting less because we have more people to teach. I also am coming to love the Spanish language. I feel like such a boss when I speak it. I suppose I could say that things are looking up over here in my tiny area. I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but here in southern California, it's a lot like a mini united nations. You never know what kind of people are on the other side of the door. I've met Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, whatever religion pretends to speak in tongues, atheists, you name it. I guess that's what comes with being in a predominantly non-Latino, yet predominantly non-American area. There is actually an Armenian orthodox cathedral in our area. It's pretty interesting. I always wanted to get called to some exotic far off nation, and hey, I've got it all right here. The Lord always listens.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Productive day

Hey guys,
We had a pretty productive week. We started handing out meal calenders, which means that I get to eat awesome Mexican food almost every day, and I can afford fruit now. It's pretty exciting.
My new companion is a pretty cool guy. In Moroni 10 it talks about spiritual gifts, such as the gift of tongues, and the gift of the spirit etc. He seems to have the gift of getting free stuff from people. My first day with him, he got us a box of free doughnuts and a free sandwich. He simply said "I know the guy". But all jokes aside, he's a great missionary. The zone leaders encouraged us to have a "Companionship statement" that kind of defines us, and we chose: "Git er done, do work." We've been living up to that pretty well.
Also, true to his Brazilian nature, he hurt his foot playing futbol, and for that I am in a car now, which makes my life a lot easier. Life is pretty good right now.
So... everyone: go to church, okay? Okay!
Elder Call.

Editor's note: Mexican food every day, I wonder what you'll say when you get back.

Monday, February 6, 2012

"I was a fighter"

Dear friends,
This week we made some progress. My companion is leaving me today, and I'm getting a new one today also. I don't really know anything about him except that his name is Elder Souza and he is from Brazil. Yesterday was my companions last day of proselyting, and the lord first blessed us with getting invited into a house and the opportunity of giving a sick man a blessing, and then also getting invited into another house of a really nice guy who had been drinking a little bit. The Superbowl was playing in the background, so we started talking about sports, and I mentioned "Yo era un luchador" Which means "I was a wrestler" in Spanish, but it can also mean "I was a fighter", so all the sudden he gets up and starts pretending to throw karate chops at me, making all kinds of weird karate noises. After that, someone gave us pupusas, which is a delectable Salvadorian tortilla cheese ball thing, which was an awesome end to an awesome Sunday.
I'm gonna miss Elder Vazquez I think. He was an awesome missionary. Throughout the course of six weeks we didn't even have one disagreement. The guy who had been drinking was even surprised at that. Also, during his last 6 weeks, even when I was teasing him about going to school and girls, he still didn't get trunky and still worked hard all the time. What a guy.
Anyway, that's my peace.
Elder Joseph Call

Editor's note: Delectable Salvadorian tortilla cheese ball... *mouth water*

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Cavemen

Well, this week kind of sucked. We uh, discovered what we needed to work on ha ha. But hey, this is the way it is.
Also, my awesome companion is leaving next monday, I'm kinda interested to see what will happen after that. I wonder if they will have enough missionaries to keep my area open. I'm sure they will. It's been kind of interesting watching this area go from almost nothing to what it is now. To motivate myself I often look over at the whiteboard that has the names of all our potentials and investigators on it, and remember the time when it was almost blank.
Another thing that motivates me is going to baptisms. For some reason, at both of the baptisms I have attended my companion and I have had to speak, and we never have time to write out a talk so I often write like 3 sentances in my planner and wing it in Spanish. For some reason I can always rattle it off when I'm planning but during a baptismal service, you get nervous and sound a little like a caveman. I thought I botched the talk, but everyone else seemed to like it. Ha ha, that's the way it is, I guess.
I'm always impressed with what I hear the missionaries in North Branch are doing. Someone give them a big congratulations. And food.
Well, nothing really exciting happened this week. I'm anxious to see how this area is going to turn out.
Goodbye,
Elder Call

Editor's note: sorry the blog was late this week, it's been hectic.