Second Week In Anaheim!!

Arighty where to begin. I made a list of important things that happened this week so I'm going to be super jumpy and hit those first and then I'll put a summary at the end so that I can hopefully catch anything I forgot.

 

Studs of the Week:

Dario (24 investigator). We taught him in the street and he gave us his address. We knocked on his door like 3 different days but he never answered and was never there. Finally the last day he answered. We taught him and he accepted a baptismal date. He invited us back and we kept talking to him. We returned for our third lesson and he wasn't there but his older sisters husband was (owner of the apartment he stays in). We talked to him, but he was a jerk and turned us away. Later that night we got a call from Dario. He said that guy "kicked us out" and told Dario we weren't allowed back at the apartment. But as he was explaining this to us Dario told us he still wanted to meet with us and that he had read the assignment he gave us and then also wanted to go to church!!! So crazy. So we asked if he could meet us at the church building and he said yes that would work. We'll see how this all goes with him!

Second Stud = Hermano Arcadio: He's a 55 year old member. He's pretty healthy by that I mean (fat). But we asked if he could join us in a lesson. He said yes and we thought he would just meet us somewhere that was close by in his car. Turns out he met us there on his bike (about a 40 minute ride from his house) and he asked if we had any other lessons  he could come with us too. We did and he ended up helping us with every lesson that night. Ha he trains me in my Spanish more that my companion does. As were riding he'll just see random things and tell me what the vocab word is for Spanish. He speaks less English than I speak Spanish so I have to really focus on my Spanish to talk with him.

 

Headaches: So the first 3 days of the field were as bad or worse than the MTC with headaches. Like really it was bad. But since then I have only had ONE headache. I can not tell you how stoked I am about that. I really have only had one headache in 12 days here even with all the vigorous stuff I have been doing.

 

Spanish: Now instead of everything in Spanish just being a big blur of Spanish sounds I can actually pick out the structure and certain phrases (well from most people, some people speak dang fast).. One day during a lesson my companion looked at me and told me to give the next part of the lesson. I did and afterward the little girl in the lesson (we had met with this family 3 times already) looked at me and (in English, the little kids are bilingual but prefer English over Spanish) says "wow you learned Spanish fast! So can you speak perfect Spanish now??"

 

P-Day: P-day is pretty relaxed. We just clean the apartment and listen to music. We go to the Library to Email people so we see tons of other missionaries there. All the English speaking ones at least I swear. Then we have a zone activity every week and yes... WE PLAY SOCCER!! I was so stoked when I heard that. So for like 2 hours as a zone we play soccer in the gym or in the church parking lot depending on the number of people that want to play. As far as I'm aware this is one of the only zones to do that so I'm stoked about that.

 

Biking: Ha I'm finally getting used to riding a bike everyday.

 

Dinners: I get fed by members here almost every single night. Its dang good food always. Haha I'm definitely trying new things here and they stuff us. One night actually because of a miscommunication I got dinner by two families (they both had the same last name). So we ate at one house and then as we were walking back to our car the other family saw us and said to come in (they thought we were looking for their house) So then they fed us. Ha I have no idea if I'm gaining weight or not but it wouldn't surprise me if I am.

 

Random black guys: This week as we were riding a random big black guy waved us down. He started talking to us and he said, "look I'm not interested in what your message is I just wanted to say something. Thank you for living what you believe. There are too many people in this world who say they believe something but don't do it. So thank you for your dedication and working hard. It will take you a long way later in life. I've seen you two biking past this street a lot and you look pretty tired a lot."

Then later we got a similar experience as we were walking up to a house for a lesson. He said he wanted to say thanks for working hard in what we do.

 

Sun: Ha I've already got a fairly good watch tan line. I'm pretty sure I've been forming a good tan. I haven't burned or peeled yet but I've gotten a little pink.

 

Every night at nine I can see the Disney Land Fireworks that go off. So thats cool.

 

Anyway, yeah those are most of the big things. Um... I don't know what else to say. My companion still speaks a lot of the Spanish during lessons but I'm getting more and more able to chime in. Ha every now and again though we do street contacts in English and I still don't know what to say. Ha that will just come in time. Yeah that's that.

 

Thanks to those of you that emailed me! It's awesome to hear from people. Yeah... Thats all I can think of for now. Still doing good!

 

Adios

 

Elder Carson Richards