First of all, I do not mind at all how mail is received; do whatever you need to do to get your message across. I received my glasses this week, and similar to Grandpa Belnap, I had forgotten how sharply they made me see. I was looking east towards Mt. Olympus with them on, and then I took them off. Without them, I could not make out all of Olympus's individual peaks; it just looked like they dissipated and blended into a haze. Also, I got Miles' letter, and I will be sure to send one home for him this week.
The 24th was just a regular work day, except for possibly some zones in Riverton. Rumor has it that a stake in Riverton prepared a float for the Days of 47 parade and they invited the missionaries serving there to go with it. As a result some 30 missionaries got the 24th mostly off, but we were out mostly tracting. I predicted it would be a slow day because I thought people would be out at the rec center, having barbecues, at the parade, or out boating or hiking. This 24th seemed like less of a holiday and more of an excuse for people to blow up more fireworks. Some people accidentally lit their neighbor's yard on fire doing so.
The work around here is not at all exciting. Recently, there was a baptism rush in the area, so now we are in rebuilding mode, trying to find people and contact referrals and potential investigators to teach and hopefully baptize. Contacting and tracting occupies the majority of our time on the streets. It seems like a drag, so I decided to take Dad's advice and look for at least one thing on bad days that made it worth leaving the apartment that day. Tuesday was exchange day. I was traded with one of the Spanish-speaking elders in the area and lucky for me, I had to be ready to teach a lesson in Spanish. For the first time out here, I actually got to ride a bike, but it was borrowing the other Spanish elder's. That was the most productive day of the week since we taught four lessons, gaining three new investigators in the process. I feared my Spanish compared to my companion for the day's would sound like "pidgin shtick," but some people we taught actually complimented me on it. Maybe it was just an "A for effort." Wednesday was a zone conference. They tell me zone conferences are either pep rallies or chastisement. This one seemed like the latter. Just my luck, the main topic was "Hastening the Work," or as I wrote in my notes, "H****ning T*e W**k." Its high water marks were a sister missionary reciting D&C 18, but substituting the word "they" and its derivatives when appropriate. That added a whole new layer of meaning to that section. Also, since I will not be at another zone conference before they send me somewhere else, they asked me (by then I had literally only one week in the field) to give "parting thoughts." This logic made no sense, but I told a testimony and capped it with "I'm thankful for the spiritual experiences I've had, which have led me to believe." Thursday's was meeting a couple of irreligious people and getting to know the way they see the world a little better. Friday's was teaching a recent convert about the priesthood, its associated covenant, and I decided to address the exclusion controversy so they might understand that such a controversy exists and not be taken by surprise when they inevitably find out about it. Saturday's were finding a new investigator, a one-finger-on-his-right-handed African-American man, and blessing a sister missionary over her injured foot, and Sunday's was finally meeting the man who was impossible to contact unless he was working in his front yard. Tonight, we will be taking a less-active member and his non-member wife to Temple Square, hopefully to give them new inspiration to progress with their commitments. We are hoping to do the same with this man we finally contacted yesterday before long.
It's uncertain when Elder C. will leave for Brazil, but he predicts it will be around August 19, before the end of the transfer. That will leave me as new guy without a companion, so I asked him about what could possibly happen, and he raised two possible scenarios: (1) I get placed in a neighboring area with English-speaking elders and form a threesome covering both areas or (2) they send someone there for that week-and-a-half on an emergency transfer and business continues as normal. I'm really hoping if that second option comes true, whoever they send in has worked in the area before.
Anyways, in news around here in Kearns, we have about six people with a baptismal date, none from my companionship, the Stake Presidency was reorganized shortly before I arrived here, Delta will soon add another long-haul international flight to Salt Lake (We met with an employee, who told us.), but its undisclosed as to where it will go (I'm predicting Amsterdam because the Tokyo routes weren't lucrative enough to continue them and Amsterdam is perhaps one of Delta's biggest European hubs), we've seen smoke from a few wildfires burning near Tooele, and my biggest concern seems to be stage fright, knocking on a door and not knowing how to begin. Several people have noticed this and told me about it, and I have a plan to stay loose by thinking of my favorite late-night TV jokes or political cartoons, but more often then not I forget to do this. I frequently stall in simulated conversations, not knowing where to go next. I also find it hard to listen to people at times since I do not know them and haven't met them enough to really care. I will continue to work on solving this.
Regardless, my verdict is still "so far, so good." I trust some of these uncertainties will simply disappear as I gain more experience and become more confident. It is difficult to be motivated in this slow time, but the trick is just take it one day at a time.
If you need a laugh, here are your silliest proofs of God of the week. Elder C. said he couldn't understand atheists saying "They believe in technology, but they can't believe in God." He proceeded to use a refrigerator as his example. Because a refrigerator exists, God must because something had to make the raw materials and give the intelligence to design and build one. I wouldn't be convinced hearing that and the implication of a refrigerator being a part of God's will made me internally laugh. God exists, because the refrigerator does. It's a non sequitur, similar to the argument that God exists because the earth is in the exact distances from the sun for life to exist. If the earth wasn't there, you wouldn't exist to make that argument, so what does that prove? Life exists, so life exists. That argument is what is known as circular reasoning; it doesn't prove anything, just restating the premise in a new way to make it look like an argument.
Nice to hear all is going well at home and it's good to hear that I'm not the only one who hates Morris Center food. Find out more from Nolan; I want to hear what he took from his weeks at EFY and Trek.
Best regards to everyone!
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