22 March 2011

Hello family!

I'm gonna do the "main" email first to make sure I have enough time.

It was a good week this week. First off, transfer calls were Saturday, and Elder Bailey and I are staying in Escondido, like we requested. Woohoo! So I'll probably be leaving Escondido in 6 weeks.

Wednesday I got my first official dog bite. We got a call from a random number, the guy on the other end said he was a member and wanted a blessing. We went over to his address, but there was a locked gate. There was a 3 foot fence, so I just climbed over and we went inside. Just then some lady yelled at us from behind and said something along the lines of "what do you think you are doing!! You just climbed over the fence!! This is our yard!" Then the guy came out of the house who was expecting us and said "it's okay, they're here for me." She calmed down. Then a medium sized black dog came out of the house and barked and barked and barked and barked. We just ignored it so it bit me on the leg just above the ankle. Didn't hurt that bad so I just ignored it, then it bit me again harder. The lady got mad at the dog and started frantically asking if I was okay and if it drew blood and whatnot. It was really annoying, we just wanted to get inside to talk to the guy. Eventually we made it in and sat down with the guy. He said he was an RM and his name was Chris [edit]. He had been inactive and about to divorce his wife. He wanted to see the missionaries so he called the San Diego mission, who gave him the number to our mission. The office gave him some missionaries' number, which were the wrong missionaries. Then he called back and got our number. We gave him a blessing and he felt better. On our way out the lady came again with her dog (he and his wife were renting from the lady, who turned out to be a retired cop), and she started being frantic again and made me show her my leg to prove there was no blood. That wasn't good enough so she got down and checked herself. It was really awkward. She mentioned she was going to such measures to make sure I wouldn't call animal control. Oh my... We assured her we wouldn't then left. Chris came to church this week.

We met with Richard that afternoon, and had a good lesson. He said no to baptism right now, but said he wants to work towards it. He wants God to tell him why he went through his hard times before he accepts baptism. Kind of bizarre, but we couldn't convince him otherwise. He is also moving to AZ the first week of May so we need to hurry!

There were lots of people dressed in green on St. Patricks day. More than I ever saw in Utah! Everyone was dressed up. Downtown there is R. O'Sullivan's Irish Pub which was decked out with balloons and whatnot and there were TONS of people there. Apparently it's quite the holiday here! We had corned beef and cabbage at the Boroughs.

Saturday was Shai's baptism. Or as she says it, "bapatism." She was remarkably well-behaved, which was nice. There were a lot of people that showed up (more than Billy's) and it was a really nice service. August baptized her, and we were the witnesses. He had been practicing the prayer with us all week long and said it perfectly the first time. I got some pictures. I look like a goof but oh well. I will send them in the mail. We are so excited for August and Shai. They are excited to go do baptisms for the dead soon.

After the baptism we had dinner with one of our favorite couples, the Velasquez family. They are a lot of fun, and made breakfast for us. Dessert was some really, really good cupcakes. We asked why they were so good, and Sis. Velasquez said the secret ingredient was Guinness beer. Cooked the alcohol out, of course. We thought that was funny. I've now had beer on my mission.

We saw John a few times. He is struggling coming to church, and with humility. On Sunday we had a lesson, and it was really hard to teach anything. He said several times the words "I'm perfect. I'm saved. I'm perfect." "So there is no room for improvement anywhere?" "No. I'm perfect." Oy... He was less dumb the next day but we're trying hard to get him to church. Hasn't been since January.

Christine went without coffee 6 of the last 7 days, since we taught her about the Word of Wisdom. She makes our job easy. We will introduce a principle, any principle, and she will then tell us why it is important, and then promises to live by it. We don't even need to invite her to do anything! She said she can go 7/7 this week easy. Other than that, she is ready for baptism. Still waiting on Jamie's letter from Salt Lake.

Yesterday we had some pretty crazy hail in the morning. It covered everything, so it looked like winter for about 10 minutes. At the biggest, we had dime-size hail. Thank goodness there was no damage to our car! Elder Bailey and I decided to run through it to the garage and back as many times as we felt like. I don't know why. Probably because we're stupid. It hurt!

Other than that we are doing well. It has been really nice weather-wise down here lately. We've had a hard time finding new investigators. We didn't have any this last transfer. We had 8 the first transfer Elder B was here. Hopefully we can pick up some more this next transfer.

That's about all I have for this week. I hope you are all well and happy. Thank you for your love and support. Have a great week

Elder Jon La Follette