In Some Hot Water

November 30, 2015

The title is just a pun, because actually, we haven't had hot water for 2 days. The hot water went out late Saturday night, so we couldn't shower Sundaybefore church. We showed up to help shovel the church sidewalks, and it was already done. Then we helped move some things in the shed with the branch president, and so our meeting with him about our work that week was blown off. Then after sacrament meeting, I put on my beanie to cover my gross, unshowered hair. A lady came up to me and told me to take it off because "it's very disrespectful and offensive". 20 minutes later, a bald lady that was visiting came in with---a beanie on her head. The audacity! Thankfully, that lady didn't tell her, too, to take off her beanie. I'm glad that she (hopefully) learned something about the spirit of the law that day and also that karma was on my side.

Sorry, I just had to vent. this week was pretty full of trials. First, it snowed. What the heck. Second, I had to pay $14 for a meal, 1/10 of my monthly allowance, for a pretty shoddy meal at the place where we have always eaten free. The waitress told me "you have to pay for any steak or tilapia that you order, like you know", which I didn't know, and told her it wasn't even worth an argument. The owner is the same lady that owns the motel, so she seems to be out to get me. I guess I should be grateful that that's the only meal I've paid for...Oh yeah, we ate with 3 families for Thanksgiving. It was delicious.

I'm pretty much done with this area. I feel like I've done more than my part here, and me staying any longer would just be a bad thing. I need some changes. Maybe I'm just rambling and justifying my feelings, but I'm really hoping for a transfer this next week. 7 out of 9 of our hopeful, set appointments fell through, including a family we found this week. And the family I bought a pool stick for I think has subtly dropped us. There goes $18. Misciel also leaves to Chihuahua tomorrow, but hopefully she will be back in 2 weeks. Yeah, not the best week. What is that, 3 in a row now?

Yuma Main Street (I'll try to get a better pic. I meant to send this last week).

The Jehovah's Witnesses knocking all of the doors that we just knocked. I forgot to mention that in the email part.

My very empty 1st plate of Thanksgiving. 

Buster Bluth (that won't make sense to some of you)

Basically these could be used in a Nissan commercial.

A Smooth and Polished Shaft

November 23, 2015

It was one of the harder weeks of my mission. To start, our most hopeful investigator cancelled on us about an hour before the lesson to tell us that her boyfriend was no longer comfortable with us coming over. She was the one that told us God told her to open her eyes and walk with faith. That was a letdown. We had a good lesson with the Duartes, but then they, too, cancelled on us for the second lesson this week. We should see them Wednesday. Our lesson with the Rascon family didn't go very well because they were all super tired, and so no one really paid attention. We'll be meeting with them tonight, and I'm hoping it will go a little better. I also had a thought come to mind that I could do something charitable for them, so I bought a pool stick online so that they would have at least one good one. I half regret it now that I have like $6 to live off of for the rest of this month, but I guess it'll work out. I'll probably be glad I did it when I see their reaction tonight. We also visited someone we hadn't seen in awhile (they weren't progressing), but instead of being glad that we came back, she chewed us out for stopping coming by and seeing her. Now I'm really incentivized to go there again...

On the up side, we had a really good lesson with Paige and her family. We had taught them all of the lessons (except lesson 5), and the parents still weren't on board or ok with Paige being baptized (before you get too excited, they still aren't). We decided to give a lesson on the talk called The Blueprint of Christ's Church, which pretty much proves our church is true. If you haven't read it, you should do that. We didn't want it to come across as demeaning or in your face, so I was really nervous for this lesson. At the end, Paige's mom opened up a ton and said that she is comfortable with where she is at and loves going to her church. I told her that she wasn't going to get an answer about the Book of Mormon if she's comfortable where she is at, and she didn't take it offensively.

We also both had the opportunity to talk in church on Preach My Gospel, so I decided to go ham about how it's the members' responsibility primarily to find people for us to teach. That was nice to get off my chest. It was a good Sunday. I also got some ties made for me out of that shirt I bought at a thrift store by one of the ladies that works at another thrift store. They're dope, in my opinion. 

Hopefully this wasn't too long and followed a coherent train of thought.

They have fishing line attached to their door that goes to ornaments hanging from the ceiling, so they all come down when the door is opened.

Sunset

Ties

Dory!

Paige's cat

Rough Stone (of Momentum) Rolling

November 16, 2015

We had such a sick week. First, we had an awesome lesson with one of
the new families we found this week, and then we set up a return
appointment for the next day. Shocker: everyone did the reading we
left except one person. We then had great back to back lessons on
Tuesday, one with that same family and one with 2 other people. The
boyfriend of those 2 wasn't too interested, but the girlfriend told us
that she had had a really spiritual experience a few weeks ago where
she was told that she needed to exercise her faith and open her eyes.
Then when we showed up on her porch, she said it surprised her and
made her really think. She said that she was excited to read the Book
of Mormon. I have a really good feeling about those two families.

The third family I'm on the fence about. The husband asked us a ton of
really weird questions, but a lot of them stemmed from the fact that
like 5 of his uncles murdered 2 of his aunts...yeah, I had to ask a
few times to make sure I heard him right. He has a lot of confusion
and doubt about repentance and forgiveness because of that (his uncles
claim they've repented even though they don't live their lives any
differently, so he wonders why they would get a second chance). Other
than that, we had another pretty good lesson with a family, but those
were the highlights. 

What a spiritual night. We had the whole thing in Spanish, with English translation for the members that didn't speak Spanish. We got a family we've been working with for awhile to come to the baptism, and Paige was also able to come. We wish her family had come, because Paige was telling us how differently this baptism felt compared to the ones they've done in her church. With the confirmation on Sunday, she officially became a member, and we have no intention of having her slow down. I had a feeling that she would make an awesome ward missionary (and we don't have one still), so I pitched that idea to the mission leader and branch president and they thought it would be good. For reteaching the lessons to recent converts, we had her teach us the plan of salvation. Haha it was pretty funny to see her teach it to us pretty much exactly how we taught it to her, complete with her stopping in the middle of her train of thought and saying "oh, I almost forgot, can we have to start with a prayer?"  That always slips my mind. But she taught it so well! It was awesome. She's also coming with us to our lesson tonight (member present lesson!) with the family of 6, and we'll be having dinner there. She's a cook, so...I'm stoked, to say the least.

She's so short that she had to roll up the legs on this one since it was the smallest one that fit and wasn't a child's size haha.

More flattering, less expectant.

Gold found in the area book.

Thank you, Siri.

The Field is Literally White and Already Harvested

November 9, 2015

It. Snowed. I was so upset. But then it melted, so all is good in the
world. I thought I wanted it to snow, but then it did and I remembered
how dark and dreary and cold the world gets.

However, the field is also metaphorically white and ready to harvest.
We found a family of "lost members" this week when I was on exchanges
with Elder Bingham again so he could do Misciel's baptism. At first we
went to their rental home, which was populated by 3 cats, 2 big dogs,
and 3 donkeys. I was sketched out the whole time walking up to that
house they they were going to bite or kick me, but fortunately nothing
happened. At the second lost member's house, we were walking up and
saw a completely naked man through the window. We quietly ran back to
the car, got in, flashed the lights, got out, locked the car twice so
that the horn would honk, and then knocked. He opened the door, and,
keeping my eyes fixed on his face and trying to not let my peripheral
vision betray me, I asked him if he knew anything about who we were
looking for. He didn't, and told us we weren't welcome, to "kick
rocks" (is that a figure of speech I've never heard before?), and if
we hit his dog we were gonna have problems. We left. Oh, he also put
on jean cutoffs before opening the door(shoutout to Tobias Fünke!), so
that was nice of him. We got ice cream with Misciel before the
baptismal interview to try and forget about that lovely scene. Her
baptism is this Saturday!

The middle of the week was pretty slow, having problems like the water
being shut off without letting us know first so that we couldn't leave
the apartment since we didn't bathe, but we decided to spend some time
digitalizing the area book. Holy cow, that's going to take forever. We
spent like 2 hours and got through maybe 1/10th of what there is to
do. Fortunately though, as the weather gets colder, I'll probably be
more and more keen to spend time inside typing away.

On Sunday, I finally mustered the desire to go tracting after the last
horrible rejection. Street contacting > tracting. It's just that there
are like 2 streets main in Yuma. Anyway, we actually had some success!
We met two awesome new families whose last names escape me, but
they're great! With one of them, we started talking to the kids and
challenged them to a game of pool that they had sitting outside on the
porch. For the record, I was 3-0. Also for the record: they were like
10-14 and 17 years old. We have a lesson with them tonight and the
other one this Wednesday, with a lesson on Tuesday with another new
family this week. Work is somehow picking up in this town I thought
had already been tracted out!

Random miracle: This morning when we were in Fort Morgan, I distinctly
smelled peanut butter in the air. Apparently to everyone else it was
the same smell as always, sugar beets/burning cow blood, but I got
peanut butter, so that was a nice relief. My nose was tripping.
However, in the afternoon it went back to cow blood for me too. Yay.

3 Times Unlucky

November 2, 2015

It seemed like the whole city of Yuma was dodging us this week. We had
so many set appointments, re-set appointments, and re-re-set
appointments, and we still seemed to hit less than half of those. We
would stop by, ask if we could share a message, they'd say now wasn't
a good time but come by at so and so time, we would, they'd be gone,
we'd stop by a few hours later, they'd say now isn't a good time, come
by at so and so time, and so the cycle continued. Pretty frustrating.
We also might be canceling English class until the spring time since
almost no one comes.

We only met with Misciel once this week since she was sick from work
for the other 2 days she had off, but we had a good lesson and a good
time taking about her baptism. I'll be doing exchanges with elder
Bingham for her interview, so that should be good. Hopefully some more
of these lessons go through. We attended the last quarter of the final
football game of the year for Wray, and that was also the final
football game for the kids in Paige's family after 18 years
of constant play, so it was kind of a big deal. They were really
impressed to see us there freezing to death knowing that we didn't
have to be there but that we legitimately just care about them as
people and as a family. At least we had that good note for a
semi-crappy week. Today we're going to beat, I mean play, Paige at
some pool, so that'll be fun.

Oh, my companion also dropped 3 toothbrushes on the bathroom floor or
in the toilet, so that was hilarious for me and frustrating for him.

Riding Out the Storm

October 26, 2015

Again, hopefully this works since I know some emails haven't been sending.

It was a great way to end the transfer. We started out with a semi
confrontational lesson with Paige and her family about the word of
wisdom and other commandments, and the weather seemed to imitate the
intensity of the discussion by dumping about a 2 inches of hail on
their back porch. We weren't able to go to Spanish class that night
since we couldn't drive back to Yuma due to the hail, but playing pool
with Paige while we waited for the steam to clear was really nice.
Some not nice words were said by all due to the competition during
those games. However, Paige is still so awesome. She wants to serve a
mission eve though she's not even a member yet. And also, I'm a little
jealous because she's the best mission girlfriend; she always sends
her boyfriend on his mission packages, like one per week, with candy
that's decorated and letters and stuff. It makes me so jealous. But
good for him, I guess...

I also got to do exchanges with my long time Spanish rival and fellow
Spanish nerd, Elder Bingham. It was awesome. We went to support Paige
at her volleyball game, practiced a ton of Spanish, got BBQ and ice
cream, and then had late night pillow talk, of course. It was good to
spend some time with him after being separated for a few months and to
talk in person.

I'm semi-excited for the upcoming transfer. I will somehow be staying
in Yuma for a 4th transfer and I will again be with elder Baum. He is
definitely the comp I have been the most excited about being
companions with twice. I really don't know what additional work there
is to do here in Yuma, so it looks like we'll be spending the majority
of our day in Wray trying to find work out there to do. I'm excited to
be able to be here for Misciel's baptism though (I found out how to
spell her name haha...I was wrong before).

Other highlights of this week were when we got ice cream with Misciel,
courtesy of her, and when I beat Paige again in round 2 of pool. We
also had a delicious lunch with her and her family. They treat us so
well. At the branch party, we also were obliged participate in the
branch talent show. So...finding I have a lack of talent, I got
desperate and changed the lyrics from "do you wanna build a snowman?"
to "do you wanna do some tracting?"  I have it on video, but I don't
think I can send it. I'll send the lyrics though. Have a great week!

Do you wanna do some tracting?
Let's go and knock some doors!
We never go out anymore,
You're such a bore,
And now it's half past 4!

We used to be good elders
And now we're not
I wish you would even try!

Do you wanna do some tracting?
Or maybe street contacting?

Go away, Bacon.
Ok fine....

Bacon: Hello president.
Baum: Elder bacon, How are things going with elder Baum?
Bacon: Oh um....alright....
Baum: let's have a meeting.


Do you want do some tracting?
Or talk to people in the street?
I think that we have sat inside enough
We haven't done that much,
Why don't we use our feet?


I feel a little guilty
Just wasting time
When we could be knocking doors!
Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock knock (knocking on the
podium like I'm knocking on a door)

Baum: *answers* GO AWAY!!!
Oh....

Baum: Elders, your numbers have been really low. Is there an
explanation for this?
Bacon: Well president, elder Baum has had difficulties feeling
motivated to go out and work lately.
Baum: Elder bacon, I remember a time when you had the same feelings.
Particularly when you first gotten to Yuma. You told me that every
door had been knocked, and you had doubts about how you were going to
like such a small branch. Do you remember that?
Bacon: Yes president.
Baum: And then what happened?
Bacon: Well, elder Navarro and I decided to go and do some work anyway
and knock some doors, and then we found someone, and she has a
baptismal date for November 14th.  Also, I found out that the branch
makes really good food and that the little kids are  adorable.
Baum: Exactly. Elder bacon, I know that there is work to do in Yuma,
or we wouldn't have missionaries out there. I invite you to try and
motivate elder Baum to go and work. You can do it because you're such
a great missionary and so is elder Baum, and the branch is lucky to
have you. I hope they all know that. You are the best missionaries in
the world.
Bacon: Thank you president, I know we are.

Elder please I know it's in there
People have called it greenie fire
I know it's hard to not just think of home
I know you miss your mom
But find desire!

We only have each other
It's just me and you
What are we gonna do?

Do you wanna do some tracting? *sniff*

(Pics:  I get bored on those long car rides.  Hopefully you all laugh as hard as I did.)

Setbacks and Shaving

October 20, 2015

My iPad hasn't been sending some emails lately, so hopefully you all get this. And hopefully I'm getting your emails...I guess there's no real way to know. Anyway.

To be honest, this was a rough week. We had a really bad experience tracting that left us both pretty mad and disheartened. This one lady and her son let us in their house, we started with the restoration, and then as soon as we said the words "Joseph Smith", she went off on us. After about 20 minutes of "discussing" things back and forth and having 2 more of her friends randomly show up and then back her up, we decided that it was pretty futile to continue talking. She refused a Book of Mormon and refused to read it for herself. We asked her to say a closing prayer before we left, and she said "please help these confused young men to find the truth". I was so mad. She was the most passively aggressive, hardhearted woman I've met on my mission. We also had an investigator totally dodge us, but then as we were putting up English class flyers in shops we ran into her and she totally knew she was busted. We played it off and told her it's all good, but I don't think we'll be wasting time with her.

Misiel also didn't come to church, though I guess she technically could have. She had gotten off of a 12 hour shift Sunday morning at 8, so I can't really blame her for not wanting to come to church. We have a lesson with her tonight, so that should be good. We also have dinner tonight with Paige's family.

I still tried to find the good in the week, part of which was taking a little break to climb up a silo of some sort and take some selfies. Don't mind my companion's partial beard; his razor legitmately broke this week, and he feels bad using mine even though I told him there's absolutely no problem. He got a new one though. Our lesson with the Carballos went well. The mom asked a lot of questions, some of which either didn't make sense or I had no idea how to answer, like where do ghosts fit into the plan of salvation and stuff like that. I can't believe that it's almost Halloween. My trainer also goes home at the end of next transfer, which is a kind of mind blowing event. I never thought I'd see that happen.
Transfers are next week, so we'll see if I stay 6 months in Yuma or go somewhere else.