DAY 84: We just waved.

Hey Everyone!

 

    Its been a fun few weeks here in the mission field! This last week was pretty good, we had a new missionary training on Thursday. We got some awesome instruction from President and Sister Woods, and from the Assistants to the President. We saw something really cool happen with 2 of our investigators, named Nelson and Joanna. They live together and have 2 kids, but arent married (something that weve seen a couple times, and I hear is a very common situation around here) and didnt really want to get married. We have been teaching him relatively often, but she works alot, so we dont see her much. They havent really been progressing either. But the Senior missionary in our area, Elder Martineu has been working with them too, and he called us the other day and said "hey they want to get married, go over and talk to them". So we rode over there, talked for a bit, read the Family Proclomation with them, and they were both ready to get married. So we called Elder Martineu, he said hed be there in 20 mins to take them to the place to get their marriage liscence, and they were both like, "Ok lets go". So they went and got the liscence, and are getting married tomorrow! Its way cool.

 

   Eujenio (pronounced ay-oo-hen-ee-oh) is also doing very well, and progressing. He takes everything in with excitement, asks really good questions, and is very excited to get baptized. Were really excited to be working with him. Yesterday we were talking about the recieving the priesthood and he asked if he had to have it to be able to go out with us. We of course said he could come right after he got baptized, but thats so awesome that hes that excited about it!

 

I am getting along well with Elder De Los Santos. We pretty much speak all spanish, rarely will we speak english. We've only eatin with members two or three times. This may come as a shock to you, but missionaries aren't supposed to eat with members unless theres an investigator there as well, or it is approved by the Mission President to have a help for the work. President brought that up in the missionary training, hes like "how does eating at a members house help you? There were a few answers like "well... we dont have to make the food?" and the answer was there really wasnt. Missionaries are capable of making their own food, if you want to help them in that department bring them food, but otherwise all that theyre doing is taking time away from the work. I've realized now that we've definitely had some missionaries that are... "second rate" in our ward. Weve had some good ones, but there really should be alot more going on in Sammamish.

 

   But, my 3rd night or so before I was informed about that, a recent convert asked us to help her prepare a lesson she was teaching, and then it somehow turned into dinner with their family. Theyre awesome, the Martinez family, we have FHE at their house with a bunch of families and investigators every week. Guess what dinner was that night: Lentil Soup. For anyone who doesnt know, Ive despised lentil soup since before I can remember, and have tried to eat it several times since, but everytime just cannot eat it because of the texture. So, seeing the soup worried me. There was a side of cheese enchiladas, so I started out with the take a bite of the soup, bite of the enchilada approach, then after a few, I realized I actually kind of liked the soup! I dont know how it was done, but I guess lots of cilantro and some other stuff I couldnt discern just made it good. Who knew? 

 

    We are on bike pretty much always. A few of our investigators live close, so well walk, but our areas right on the brink of being big enough for a car, so some of our rides are long. Its definitely different than the northwest, the humidity is really starting to kick in. I guess when I got here it was just in the middle of a cold front. I dont have many one-liners this week, ill try to remember to write more stuff down this week, but one thing that happens alot is people yelling stuff at as in our neighborhood. I wont try to dress it up, we live in a pretty ghetto neighborhood. Elder De Los Santos calls it a "Bien feo lugar". So theres lots of sketchy people that yell stuff.

 

This one guy in our apartment was yelling at us as we were walking across the little courtyard to the mail who just yelled a bunch of stuff like "Jesus is God in the flesh! Jesus is the son of God and he came to save us all!!" We just waved.

 

Theres lots of little black kids who yell stuff about our bikes as we ride by like "whered you get those lights?" "Hey thats my bike!"

 

This one little kid stopped us and asked if he could have one of those "God cards" we had. I gave him a pass-along card with jesus on the front and explained that Jesus is the Son of God, and hes our brother because were all children of God, and hes like "oh cool I didnt know that."

 

Well, thats all for this week, well see yall later!

-Elder Cardon

DAY 76: There's probably a story behind that...

Well, Week 2 of the mission! It has been a really cool time. Let me tell you about one of the investigators we are teaching, his name is Eujenio. We met him on the street just next to ours, he and another guy were in front of their house with the hood of a truck open, and we went over to talk to them and he said "Hey Elders!" We asked if he had met with missionaries before, and turns out he used to live in another area of New Orleans, but then moved, but had met with other missionaries. We set an appointment to come by again. After he heard us speaking spanish, his friend handed me the packaging for a radiator sealant that they were putting in and asked if I could translate it into spanish. They definitely didnt teach us "radiator cap" or even "engine" in the MTC, but I did my best and I'm sure they at least got the jist of what to do.

 

   Anyways, that was Sunday night. We came by again on Tuesday, found out that he remembered pretty much all of the first lesson, already had a Book of Mormon, and had read various parts of it. We taught him some more, and asked him to be baptized on March 5. He was a little unsure about being ready by that time, but we assured him we could help him be ready, and he accepted! We stopped by one other time that week to say hi, and of course invited him to church. He already had a white shirt and dress pants, but said he didnt have a tie. Obviously I had the means to help him, so Sunday morning we went over, said "tenemos un regalo para usted!" and gave him the tie, and taught him how to tie it. He had a good time at church I think, he liked the hyms alot. On the way back he said he really liked the lesson in Elders Quorom, about the Law of Sacrifice, that when we give up one thing because of a commandment, we are blessed a hundredfold in return. Right after we went back and taugh him a bit, he asked us about the word of wisdom, he had heard that we dont drink coffee or tea and stuff. We gave him the basic overview, and asked if he did any of those things, he said he doesnt smoke or drink, but occasionally will have coffee. But after we read the promises of the blessings in D&C 89, he said "Oh so I guess its like a sacrifice, were getting something better in return for not drinking coffee" And what was awesome is he said that and realized that himself! In that same lesson he said "I dont have a doubt in my mind that this church is true" And I was so excited for him! He definitely has potential to be a great member of the church.

 

   This last Tuesday-Friday I was on an exchange with 2 other elders in a trio, because all of our companions went for a training up in Baton Rouge. Theyre not quite as "diligent" as some other missionaries. In the mornings our studies wouldnt be very focused, and one of the Elders Decided to make a Tres Leches Cake for language study time. Not that I didnt enjoy the cake, but ya know... The three of us were covering all 3 of our areas, and didnt have a car, so it meant lots of biking. LOTS of biking. We would have to bike for at least half an hour to get somewhere, and one time we biked for 45 minutes, only for our appointment not to be there and not answer their phone either. But, two or three times we got to get rides with members, which was a relief.

 

   Well, I think of lots of things I should write home about all week, then get to this point on monday and cant think of anything. Weird, right? Maybe I'll start writing some "one liners" at the end of each email.

 

One liners:

 

"Hey Elder, go contact the Ice cream man, he looks hispanic"

 

We went to a guys apartment where theres a door to get into the actual complex, so we called him to let us in. He came and got us, we went in his apartment and sat down, then his phone rang, he said he had to go let someone else in and he'd be right back. We sat there for half an hour waiting, tried calling him with no answer, then decided it best to just leave and come back later.

We talked to a guy on the street and asked what his name was and he said "Elder" and were like "Us too!" we talked a bit and asked for his address, he just kind of mumbled some street names and then said a number, so I repeated back what I thought I heard and he just said "yeah". Then we asked for his phone number and he said he didnt have a phone right now. About 10 seconds later his phone rang in his pocket and he said "oh ive gotta take this, see you guys later"

 

I'll try to think of more one liners next week :p

 

Well, it rained pretty hard one day last week, but the weather is alot better. Today we even went without suitcoats!

 

Thats about it, let me know how everyones doing!

 

-Cam

DAY 69: 1st week in the field!

So, we FINALLY heard from Cam today. There'll be two updates because his email didn't send last week.

Hey dad! thanks! Heres my email from last week that didnt send for whatever reason, I'm about to write some more about this week:

   Well, Ive been here 6 days and am liking it alot. I dont know what people were talking about with it being hot year round here, my first day was chilly, second day was colder, and I could barely feel my fingers after riding my bike when I got home at night, even with gloves, and the third day it rained. Moral of the story: Dont trust anyone. ANYONE.

    So I definitely was more confident with my Spanish than I should have been. Even at the first transfer meeting and everything all the American Elders were like "Wow Your Spanish is really good", then I got put with my trainer, who is a native speaker from Mexico, and he speaks FAST. His name is Elder De Los Santos, and he is really funny. He always tries to convince me of silly things, like when we were eating some leftovers from a meal that they made before I got here he was like "guess what kind of meat this is" and im like "Turkey?" (cuz it was) and he said "no". "Chicken?" "No. Its crocodile." I'm like "Yea right." And he wouldnt let up on it being crocodile for a good 5 minutes, then hes like "oh no es cierto, es pavo." Another thing he kept going for like 3 days and seriously almost had me convinced of is that we cant write any girls, only "Abuelitas". That they have to be over 50 to be able to write them. He seriously was for reals, and said "if you dont believe me ask about it in your letter to president" (that we write every week) since he was so serious I did. After they had been sent, and I brought it up he said "yeah I was just kidding". So now President Woods is probably gonna have a good laugh. Ah well.

   Let me tell you about our first night of teaching. We went to a house where two families lived together, and we were teaching both the fathers. One is from Honduras and the other from El Salvador. I thought Elder De Los Santos was hard to understand, but seriously about 40% made sense to me. I still got to jump in a few times and teach some things though. At one point, my companion was teaching and they were talking back and forth super fast and the guy turns to me and asks a question that I didnt understand, so I said "Que?" and he said "es cierto? que el dijo?" (Is it true? what he said?) and I just said "Si. Todo el dijo es cierto"(yes, everything he said is true), really hoping it was. I always heard jokes about when you stop paying attention to the lesson or dont understand whats going on just say "I know what my companion said is true", but that has a whole new meeting for me. But, even after just a few days of speaking Spanish with Elder De Los Santos the whole time and teaching other investigators, I've improved a ton.

   So we met a crazy bible basher on my second night. We were right outside the apartment where we were going to an appointment but they weren't there, and as we were gettin on our bikes deciding where to go this guy walking on the sidewalk was like "Hey Elders! Como Estan?" He spoke Spanish and English quite well. He started out really nice and was like "You know I admire you boys for takin your time and spendin all your money to come out here" and got into "You know, I always figured that God had a plan for me" and I'm like "Totally! We can tell you all about it!" And he basically was like "and after a while I figured out that it was to go and tell all the Mormons that their church isn't true, that that John Smith guy just made it all up". He pulled out alot of the stuff you hear all the time like "it says in Deuteronomy 4 and in Revelations that you cant add to the bible" So I said "Well if it says it in Deuteronomy than doesnt that make most of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament invalid?" And he was like "you don't understand the bible", realizing I probably had a point. But, not wanting to play his game of bashing, I tried to just bear testimony that I know that the Book of Mormon is true because the spirit confirmed it to me, and hes like "No, the spirit wouldn't do that because its not true". Well, he certainly didn't shake my testimony, and all he really had was "The bible doesnt talk about the book of Mormon or the Laminites or whatever the other people are, it cant be true" Sure, I could of thrown a few scriptures from the bible that do talk about the BOM, but clearly he wasnt going to listen. After a few more back and forths we just said goodbye. Overall he was pretty nice about it all, still a funny experience.

Well, I dont have a ton of time to write more, church was cool. It was fast sunday, and the member of the Bishopric who was conducting said "we have 3 new missionaries, we'd like them all to bear their testimonies" (there a 5 companionships of spanish elders in the ward). I feel like I did alright, and got a few compliments on my spanish.

Love you all!!
Elder Cardon

DAY 62: Safe in LA! (not the California one)

Yesterday, we got to talk to Elder Cardon for a few minutes at 5:00am. His flight to Dallas was cancelled (who knew it could snow in Dallas?), so he instead took a flight through Atlanta later in the day. He called later in the morning, then called his sister Aubrey in the evening (lucky!). He sounds happy and excited to get into the field and out of 'spirit prison' as they call the MTC. 'Spirit' because it's super spiritual and 'prison' because there's a fence. He's really sounding good in his Spanish-speaking and we're so happy for him.

Then, this morning, we got an email from the mission office saying he arrived safely in Louisiana last night! His new address (his apartment) is :

2416 Pasadena Ave #103
Metairie, LA 70001

Look it up on a map, he's right next to New Orleans, a couple blocks from Bourbon Street, and a pretty close to that gigantic causeway on Lake Pontrichartain.

Send him letters there instead of the mission office, because they'll get there faster!