1 March 2011

Hello family!

It's been another good week. Our investigators are still doing well. We haven't found a new investigator for 3 or 4 weeks now, but we are working hard to find one. So far it's the same people-- John, Christine [edit last name], Jamie, Donna, Richard, Shai, and Lahraseb. We haven't gotten a hold of Lahraseb for a while now, but we're still trying.

There are a few stories from the past week.

On Wednesday, we were going to contact a referral that we got from other missionaries. We got down there, and the lady that answered the door (not the referral) spoke only Spanish, like most people in that part of town, and we gathered that the referral wasn't home. We turned away and went back up the driveway and began to open her gate. Just then, a car full of spanish elders drove by, all of whom I know, and one of them, Elder Thorsteinsen (a big BYU fan) leaned his head out the car window and screamed "UTES SUCK!!!" It was loud enough the lady at the door came back out to see what had happened, and of course the car had driven on and we were the only ones out there. It sounded like we yelled "you suck!!!" right after we had gotten turned down at the door. We exited the gate, turned sheepishly to the lady, and smiled and waved goodbye. She waved back. Good thing she didn't speak english...

Some of you (Joe) might be interested to know that on Thursday, the front page of the major San Diego newspaper sports section had a huge picture of Jimmer Fredette, and the headline was "Year of Jimmer". There was then a page and a half dedicated to him. Apparently Kevin Durant said that Fredette was "the best scorer in the world." He better live up to that now.... This was before the big game on Saturday. We heard about the game from almost everyone we talked to, and President Cook even mentioned it in zone conference yesterday. Poor Aztecs.

We finally got Richard to church on Sunday. It's always a delicate situation taking investigators to church for the first time. You are around them a lot, mingling them with the best members, and trying so hard to ensure that their experience at church is the best possible. Sacrament meeting was first, and we looked at the program. Sister Pate and Brother Sommer were speaking, so we figured they are spiritual, calm people, this should be a great meeting.

Sacrament came around, and the second prayer on the water was SO LOUD. I don't know why the priest didn't take his face away from the mic. It was to the point that the speaker maxed out and got really fuzzy, but he just went on with the prayer. After the sacrament, Sister Pate spoke. The subject was visiting teaching. She did a really good job making it sound like people like Richard and other teachees are numbers and important projects. Not to mention that IswearSisterPatenevertookasinglebreathduringherentiretalkandspokesofastitwasreallyhardtofeeltheSpiritanditwasveryanimatedandSUPERCRAZY!!!!!!!

I wanted to die. Brother Sommer was next, hopefully he would calm it down and have a great talk. I don't like to be critical, but it sounded like a bad general conference talk, sounding very rehearsed, like a script. He also ended up being very bizarrely animated in the way he spoke. He ended, and I was happy to hear the closing song. At the end of the song, the prayer person was coming up, and the Spirit was almost there, and then Bro Sommer jumps up to the pulpit yet again, and yells in the podium "OH Yeah!!! I almost forgot the most important part! Well not the MOST important, but VERY important! When you're done home teaching for the month, REPORT YOUR NUMBERS!!!" and sat down.

I wanted to go run full speed into a brick wall.

But then I thought of Dad's story, how he got an investigator to church finally, and then some lady bore a crazy ranting "testimony" and he felt ruined. But the investigator didn't remember it, but remembered the Spirit. So I was optimistic again. We talked to Richard after the meeting to see what he thought, hoping he looked past the insane speakers. But he said he did not enjoy sacrament meeting. He knew it didn't apply to him and he thought the speakers were weird.

But he stayed the other two hours, and he really enjoyed those. He met lots of people and participated in class with good comments. Then he saw my quad scriptures and said he really wanted to get some of them. Hopefully next week (fast Sunday) will be better. Hopefully.

The 2nd hour of church, Brother Snapp, the gospel doctrine teacher, had us do a portion of his lesson. We were supposed to talk about righteous judgement. But he wanted to be fun and introduce us. So before our segment, he got out a CD player and played a song by the Righteous Brothers (non-LDS singing group back in the day), then said he had brought the Righteous Brothers to our church. Then he introduced us and we had a good lesson. That was fun. We were celebrities for about 15 seconds.

Yesterday we had zone conference from 7:30-3:30. That's a long meeting. But it was good. President Cook and Sister Cook talked a lot about having good studies in the morning. That's my favorite part of the day so I enjoyed it. I really like reading the scriptures. Not a lot else to tell about that though, other than boring missionary stuff. I did see most of my missionary friends though. Seems like most missionaries I know happen to be in the Escondido South zone. Cool! 3 of the 4 companions I've had were there. Only E. Child was gone, obviously. He's home.

Last night we "street contacted" a group of teenagers. They were nice, until the girl in the group realized who we were. She handed back our pass-along card and said "Jesus didn't die so you could have religion. Remember that!" and walked away. I think she was largely right, but she meant something different. We thought that was funny.

This mornign we had our regular once-a-transfer breakfast with our stake president, Pres. Haynie. He invites all the missionaries in the stake over. It was awesome. Then after, I redeemed myself in beating another missionary at ping pong, after last time. I talked a lot of smack last time and got my butt kicked. It wasn't even close. But this time was better. Then Elder Bailey and I slaughtered two other elders in pool. We're becoming quite the pool sharks because Bro Borough has a pool table.

Billy is doing super well with the Holy Ghost. He is a changing man.

That's all for this week. I love you all. Have a great week! Send me pictures, but not food right now.

Love

Elder La Follette