Well just borrow some from the school nurse, I know she keeps like five sticks in her drawer!

Howdy-ho, everyone!

I would like to relate an experience to you. As I'm sure many of you know, and the rest of you could've guessed, there are some... Interesting individuals-some colorful personalities, if you will, around the area where I'm serving. Occasionally we will wind up conversing with these people, and when that happens... Well, you've got a great sound byte, if you had the foresight to record the exchange. Anyhoo, the experience I am about to share is an encounter that my companion and I had with one such person, an individual whose life was so full of happenings that even he couldn't remember them all...

So, on Wednesday nights, it is the duty of the Mandarin missionaries in this area to open up one of the church buildings so that a nonmember chinese choir can practice inside. Another of our duties is that we have to stay in the building while they practice, due to the policy being that there has to be Melchizedek priesthood holders present if nonmembers are using the building. So, usually we just use that time for our daily language study. This Wednesday, everything was going as normal. About half way though the practice, a man walks into the church building, and asks if he can use the bathroom. We can tell that something is not quite right upstairs with this individual, but we hesitantly tell him yes, making sure to watch the bathroom door the whole time he's in there. After a while, he walks out, thanks us, and starts making for the exit. Before he reaches the door, however, he stops, turns around, and starts admiring some of the paintings on the walls, one of which depicts the city Jerusalem. This painting apparently reminds him of Union City, because when we walked over (mostly to make sure that he didn't try to do anything weird), he starts to spout some of the most random things I've ever heard. I'm simply going to put them in list format, because of how much he said:

-He built Union City, Hayward, and Fremont (the three cities around where we are) with his bare hands.

-He built the church building we were in, the police station, the high school (he also owns the high school), and the Burger King.

-He built a huge subterranean house (which he later calls a city) underneath Union City.

-He has 100 wives, all of whom live in his massive underground city/house, and five of whom are Chinese (at this point I guess he had seen our Chinese name-tags).

-When he was three years old, he found gold, which was how he could afford to build everything.

-When he was eleven years old, he was recruited by the US air force to be a fighter pilot.

-As a fighter pilot, he did our country many great services, including saving the lives of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

-Also when he was a fighter pilot, he was hit in the neck with truth serum, so he can't remember much of his life. (However, he added later that because of this we can know that he's telling the truth).

-He is the only man in history to have had quintuplets.

-He actually has millions of children, but many of them hate him because he doesn't know them.

-He speaks many, many languages. He used to speak Chinese, but has since forgotten.

And then he left. He just walked out the door. He said, at several points throughout the conversation "When I tell people this they think I'm crazy, but it's all true." So, I think that we should give this man the benefit of the doubt, and instead of thinking of him as crazy, think of him as a true hero and pioneer.

Well, in the department of other mission news, transfers happened this week. My new companion is Elder Evans. He's 6'7", and therefore the two of us have unintentionally frightened some little Chinese people already. It's pretty fun, though. Now that I don't have the judgement of the wrath of my trainer, missionary work is actually pretty fun at times. We taught one lesson this week, and it was a spectacular one. One of the people we're teaching, May, has always been hesitant to say a prayer, wether with us or on her own. However, this Friday, we taught her a lesson about faith, reading Alma 32 and telling her that she has to act for her faith to grow, and... She said the closing prayer! It was pretty great, not gonna lie. She's coming along swimmingly, and seems as if she genuinely wants to continue learning.

As far as other news goes, us missionaries are all very exited for the upcoming Oakland temple open house. We are literally inviting hundreds of people a week (they want us to give out at least 25-50 cards advertising it every day) and we found out that we will have three days while the open house is going of just staying there and helping with tours and stuff all day. It's pretty exciting. 

There's really not much else to say. We've still been knocking on lots of doors recently, if anyone cares.

Bye

-Ben "Lawrence of Arabia" Rivera

P.S. "Here's your drink, sir!"

P.P.S. "Here's your drink!"

P.P.P.S. I hope you don't want to disown me because my emails are not oozing with righteousness and amazing spiritual insights. My justification for not doing this is that I myself would never want to read such an email (or could ever read one without throwing up), so I decided on day one that I would never put you through an ordeal that I myself wouldn't be able to handle.