DAY 118: DJ Moses?

Hey Everyone!

   Thanks for the email this week! This was a pretty normal week, but I'll share a few funny experiences.

   So Like I said last week, lots of people have very interesting views and interpretations of the bible. Especially alot of hispanics seem to have heard and say weird things. Whenever you are talking to them and they say "Pues, dice en La Biblia que..." (well, its says in the Bible that...) theres about a 50/50 chance that its actually in the Bible, and a 50/50 that they interpreted it correctly. A guy last week tried to tell us that it talks about World War 3 in the Bible. We asked him where, he said he wasn't sure, he'd have to ask his dad, who told him that. Its usually different when they ask us, because I can pretty much always tell them exactly where :) I'll try to write down some more funny "dice en la Biblia" quotes. 

   Another funny source of knowledge this one lady we talked to had was youtube. She told us about 3 or 4 different stories that sounded interesting to say the least, and one of them just crazy. She told us a story of a ballerina who went to hell, and was forced to dance for the demons for eternity. She said the same thing is happening with Micheal Jackson right now because he wasnt baptized. I had a hard time keeping a straight face during that conversation.

   In this one apartment that has several people weve contacted and have taught, theres this big guy whos not quite playing with a full deck. While we were talking to the people about Micheal Jackson in dancing in hell, he came up and stood by us and just looked at us. Thinking he might want to say something, I said "how ya doin?" he just nodded his head. A minute later he lit up a cigarette, and just stood there. So I said to them in spanish "do you know this guy thats standing right next to us?" they said yes, and he stands next to people like that alot, and that he "no es bueno de la cabeza." But a little bit later he left, and we left after them. The next day we went to go visit the people we were talking to, but they werent there. As we were leaving, he came out of his apartment and just stared at us. We said "see ya later" and he said "Ya. See ya later. Alot later. Much later!" and went around the corner to get our bikes. He followed us and stared at us while we got on our bikes and I said "have a nice day" and he said "Ya. See ya later." Weird.

Alright, one more funny story. We met a guy outside his house a few weeks ago, and he said his name was Moses. We thought that was pretty cool. We went and knocked on his door the other day, they said they were eating, so we could come back later. I saw some speakers in the room behind him and said "hey are those Peavey sp-2s?", and I got a little conversation about sound stuff going. He invited us in, and it turns out hes a DJ, so we had a little conversation about that. Hes a pretty cool guy. Later, Elder Vail and I made some jokes about DJ Moses, who probably plays his shows in a robe with a giant beard, maybe a "bling" necklace of 2 tablets or something. So now every once in a while one of us will just start laughing and say "Haha. DJ Moses..."

DAY 111: This means something...

Did you forget me this week? :(

Kidding!

This was a pretty exciting week. It was transfers, and I got a new companion, Elder Vail. He is from Boise, and is a pretty cool guy. This is his last transfer, so Im pretty much guaranteed to be here in Metarie South for another 2 transfers. Which is fine, I do enjoy it here. Elder Vail served here about a year ago, so we've contacted some of his old investigators, and made them investigators again! It has been a little different with a new companion, I feel like this week has been tougher to focus in. I feel like when we try to just focus on select people, we lose sight of others and of finding opportunities. But when we try to focus on everyone at once and do lots of finding, I feel like we don't get as much done with helping certain people progress. But, such is the battle when you only have so much time.

   So, anybody coming on a mission to the south can expect to run into to some Bible bashers. Even if their not up front about it, lots of people know the Bible, and will question you about it. On Wednesday after transfers we stopped at mcdonalds for breakfast, and sat next to this guy with a Bible open, taking notes. We asked what he was studying, and it all went downhill from there. He said "The word of God. Not the word of man, thats all churches teach. Church is all about payin some guy to tell you his opinion about the Bible" We said in our church nobody was paid. We talked a little bit and tried to tell him about the book of Mormon, and one of the other missionaries we were with said "Well the Bible was written in Israel and-" and the guy cut him off and said "No it wasn't. Do you know the history of the Bible? Have you ever gone deep into the Bible?" and we of course said yes. He said "Do you know where you came from?" I said " well before this life we lived with God..." and he said no I mean YOU, where YOU came from? We all came originally from Noah." He went into some rant about how God wanted to destroy the whole world or something but let Noah live. He said "Do you know who was on the ark with Noah?" I started to answer "Japheth, Shem-" and he cut us off again and said "Shem, Ham and Japheth, and from those 8 people we have over 70 races. Have you ever wondered where the American Indians came from?" And we started to say "Well, a group of people left from Jerusalem-" and he cut us off again and said "You don't know that, thats just your theory!" By that point, we were done with our breakfast, clearly this guys mind was as closed as a box, nobody was changing anybody's views, so we just decided to leave. As we were getting up, he said "Those are the type of questions they should be teaching from day 1 at your churches" We just kind of laughed to ourselves and said "right you are". We gave him a Mormon.org card, maybe he'll check it out and yell at his computer instead. There definitely are some crazies in this world.

   Speaking of crazies, we just got a new District Leader, Elder Christensen. <-- (approved comment, hes sitting next to me). Hes going to do well. We have a pretty solid district, and should get some good work done this next month. Well, hope all is well, and I'll try to write a hand-written letter today. We dont have much time you know!

-Cam Cardon

DAY 105

Hey everyone! I sure did get your letter last week! Thanks alot!

  Well, this week was pretty good. Last Wed, when there was the tornado warning, was pretty exciting. We went nice and early to the church to go play basketball, and when we left there was a completely overcast skiy, and lots of lightning, so you couldnt see any individual lightning bolts, just kind of the whole sky flashing. We went and played for a while, and could hear the rain pounding down hard on the roof, and when we tried to leave, the road was completely flooded. Like worse than those other pictures I sent you. So we couldnt even leave the church. So we had an hour until our personal study was supposed to start, so I convinced some of the other elders to play some 4-square, and it was awesome. We ended up just doing our personal study there at the church, in our basketball clothes.

That was probably the excitement of the week, and this week is transfers! I'm staying here, and Elder De Los Santos is going to a city called Thibidoux, and I'm getting a new companion named Elder Vail, its his last transfer here in the mission. He is a good missionary, from what Ive seen and heard.

Something kind of funny happened this week as well. President Woods called us regarding the guy we baptized a few weeks ago, Eugenio. He said he got a call from salt lake and said that he was already a member, and is registered as having been baptized in 1989, and was last registered in a ward in Mexico. So we called Eugenio and said "were you baptized before?" and he said no. We said "are you SURE you werent baptized?" He said yes he was sure, and had never attended church or met with missionaries in Mexico. So we have no idea how that happened, but somehow there was a record for him, with the same birthday and same parents and everything. So we just have to have him write a note saying he definitely wasnt baptized before.

Well, thats about it, I'll attach some other pictures, but try to take more this week. Have a great day everyone!

-Elder Cardon

DAY 97

Madre! Por que no me escribio este semana? No me gusta estar en obscuridad de sus vidas!

 

But, In other news, we had a baptism this week! Our awesome investigator Eugenio got baptized, and I got to perform the ordinance! It was really cool. I took some pictures. He said he wants to go out with us as often as possible, which is great, because having a member at a lesson is always powerful, and he has a car, so it saves nuestros piernas de un poco de dolor. On saturday it rained. And when I say it rained, I mean it RAINED. Gatos y perros. Sideways as well. It was crazy. The drainage system here isnt great, so alot of the streets were flooded. Luckily ours was alright, being just a bit higher that some other surrounding ones, but I'll attach some pictures of the crazy streets. I think this may start some of the "same old same old" type updates, but I'll try to think of some good one-liners:

 

So we had a family home evening at a members home with 2 families, and a family of investigators. The investigators had a little 2 year old that was being a little irritable. They said he was probaly just feeling a little sick. Then, a few minutes later, while he was standing in front of the two parents sitting on the couch, the kid just starts throwing up, with a big thick stream of what looked like partially recycled spaghetti-o's. The dad quickly reacted and put his hands out in a cupping shape to catch it, but he filled the dads hands, and kept going! So the mom reached over with her hands and starts filling hers too. Luckily, he stopped with just a bit in the moms hands, so she picked him up and they brought him and they hand-bowl of barf to the bathroom to let the rest out of him. Good thing he didnt keep going, cuz I was sitting next to them and would have been next to offer the use of my hands.

 

So, this family weve been trying to get to come to church came this week! Their one son, who is 9, has come with us to church for the last 3 weeks, and his mom says every week hes ready an hour early and excited to go. But this week, he got them all to go! So we found them a ride, and their mom and all 6 kids came to church! They have a 2 1/2 year old named Ricardo who is just the cutest little thing ever, he reminds me so much of Daniel. During church, one of the other kids was sitting between me and him, and we totally played that little game where you lean back where to where you cant see them, then pop your head out and go "hah!", and he has this little laugh thats so much like daniels. I miss that kid!

 

Well, Thats probably all for now, but I want to hear from you guys! Email me! and write me during the week!

 

-Cam

DAY 90

Hey Everyone!

 

   Well, yes, we do go to a spanish ward. It has about 100 regularly attend. About the music thing... The congregational hymns are rough, at best. Last week we sang a hymn, I dont remember which one, that is a little less commonly sung, and it was bad. But, you can tell some people are really putting their heart into it, it just manifests in a less than harmonically pleasing way. Same thing with the sacrament, I'm really proud of our deacons for setting a good standard and example. Here, theres only 2 or 3 deacon age young men, so its alot of either recent converts and some older members of the ward. Theyll pass 2 trays into one aisle, then have the people pass them back, this one guy last week was scooting around people into the aisle to pass to each person directly. Its pretty disorganized. But, not my job to instruct in that department, and at least everybody gets the sacrament. 

 

   Well, we had the wedding last week, I unfortunately didnt take any pictures, but all went well. The night of they asked me to play the piano, she said she wanted here comes the bride for her processional. I said I could probably do it. I sat down and figured it out, and had it down ok. I did some prelude with just the canon in D chord pattern, then when they came for the processional, I played here comes the bride, and it wasnt too bad. The bishop did a simple ceremony, read the family proclamation, and there of course was food afterward, some really good rice and flautas, and a nice big tres leches cake. We scored some leftovers :).

 

  Wednesday something funny happened to us, that Ive heard of happening before. We were knocking doors in an apartment complex, and we knocked one door, a guy looked from the upstairs window, and we saw him, so we waved. We waited for a bit, then decided he wasnt coming, so we went to the next one. We knocked on that one, and a lady answered, and we started talking to her. Then just a second later, the door before opened. So I went back and talked to the guy at the first door, and Elder De Los Santos kept talking to the other one, and we eached talked for about 10 min to them. It was kind of cool, I felt really comfortable with my spanish by mylself to just talk and share a whole message. He was really excited about coming to church, and when I was explaining the Book of Mormon and pulled one out, he asked if we had more books. I started to say "Well we beleive in the Bible as well, and this is..." and he said "no I mean more of those- like if I wanted one" and I said yes and handed it to him. Hopefully well be able to meet more with him, hes a nice guy. 

 

  Were going to have a baptism this Saturday, Eujenio will be baptized. There will also be a couple of other ones, from other missionaries, were not quite sure what were gonna do with scheduling yet. And whats really cool is he asked me to baptize him! It should be a great service.

 

Well, I dont really have any one-liners this week, but maybe I'll think of something for next week. Send me questions and I'll answer them!

 

-Cam

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