Poopoo mud

 1-23

Well.

It was transfers. Elder White is gone. Now the ASL program is Elder Rigby who is really good at ASL and me. . .So that's been fun. I definitely get more turns to talk in lessons. I didn't realize how much participation I was losing just by being in a trio. It feels good to be teaching more now. 

We also lost one of our areas, new companionship came up and they have it now. So now we just have ASL (all of northern California) and one English ward (a decent chunk of Fremont). We have zero progressing people in English, so this week we went around knocking doors and trying to talk to as many people as possible. We'll see what happens.

One of the guys we talked to was an Interesting man from some other country and he recognized us as missionaries instantly and he was like "I already have the book" Then he told his wife to go get it and were just like . Then sure enough he has a Book of Mormon. He shows us the front and there's a few passages written down for him to read, all the missionary classics, then two Elders names and their phone number. So we ask him about it and he explains that he got it back in 2008! And he has always felt a special connection to it. He said he's moved several times and has always taken it with him. But! He very clearly told us he doesn't want us to come back and he already believes in everything so he doesn't need us to teach him more. So that kinda hurt. Like- he's so close. He just won't accept it. Silly boy. 

On Saturday a large group of missionaries met at the mission office (our zone and like 2 other zones) at 8am then we got split up, thrown in vans and sent all the way up by Santa Cruz. Then until about 3:00 we shoveled dirt and mud from all the flooding out of and away from people's homes. It was absolutely shocking how much there was. It was everywhere and like a foot and a bit deep, maybe 2 feet of mud in some places. 

An elephant is what? Like 2-5 tons? Our group probably moved about 2 and a bit tons of mud. (Which was 4 people) idk, Maybe more than 2 tons? It was alot.

It was fun and also one of the hardest labors I've done. It was all still so wet- so it was super heavy. It also all smelled like poo-poo because of sewers flooding as well so it was poo-mud. I tried to lift with my legs lol. Now I have a testimony of how important proper body mechanics are…I'm pretty sore. 

Anyways. I got to see Elder Taufer, my MTC brother. It was wonderful to catch up and hug him again. 

On Sunday in ASL church I said the opening prayer and also got to bless the water for sacrament. That was pretty tough and scary. But apparently I did ok. Then we had some guy (hearing) give a talk, Elder Rigby interpreted. His talk was word for word “ put on thy strength o zion” from the last general conference. He read it like it was his own talk. I pulled it out on my phone and followed along with him. There were like 3 times he skipped a word or replaced it with a synonym. It was really funny but also frustrating. I don't think he would have done that if it were a hearing ward. I’ve been to his house for dinner before and can tell he doesn't have great feelings about deaf people. This man probably postponed preparing for his talk till Sunday morning and then just printed out one he liked from conference. Idk. It’s a great talk. “Many are called but few are chosen. . .wherefore all do not have on the wedding garment” 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/DYM8hzqfMfgxUFWZ7