＊sigh...* See Below

Well, it's been fun. It certainly has been fun. However, at this point in time, it has become apparent to me that I have become engaged in a hopeless enterprise. One cannot recreate, in full, anything, if one is using imitation as the sole means of recreation. There is not soul in the final product- it doesn't beat with the same life as the original creation. Therefore, I will now disrupt the natural order of things no more. We all are free to be at peace.

(I do however want to do this one last one...)

"Now if you invest in the 24-piece set, I'm gonna throw in a little gift."

(Excited) "So what's the gift?"

"I bet you folks don't have one of these!" (Pulls a finely-crafted model sailboat out of a box)

(whispers) "I want that"

There. 'Tis done.

Now, I hope your not to angry at me for that particular ceremony. I assure you, I will now swiftly move on to the actual letter.

We got transfer calls this weekend. This transfer is going to be insane. I am going to be transferred to... Hayward! (Yes, I know I'm already in Hayward. Calm down). Yeah, so I'm not leaving, and neither is my companion. Really, our zone as a whole is staying pretty intact; only four people are being transferred, and one of them is actually staying in the zone, just with a different companion. The main change is that one of our zone leaders is leaving, so we'll have a new one shipped in. Should be interesting.

The temple open house is going swimmingly. They've had tons and tons of people go through each day, some days reaching crazy numbers like 15,000 and upward. This is the last week that it will be going on, and we have two more times doing service there, one tomorrow and one on Friday. It should be pretty fun. After the open house ends, it will be closed for another two weeks or so (for cleaning and stuff), and then dedicated on the 16th of June. We are not getting as many referrals as we would like from it, but we did a mission fast for referrals, so hopefully the numbers will go shooting up this last week. 

We found a new person this week... Sort of. We went over to a members house because she wanted help doing family history and we had a few pamphlets we could give her to get her started. When we went over there, some random guy was also at her house. She introduces him as Brother Lai 赖, and says that he has been reading the Book of Mormon and that we should come over and teach him more about it. So, we agree, even though Brother Lai doesn't seem super interested, he more just seems to go with the flow. So we came back on Saturday (Well, actually, I can't say we, because we were on exchanges and I was in another area), and they taught him a lesson. I wasn't there, so I can't really fill you in on the details, but my companion says that it went pretty well, although we're still not quite sure if he's actually interested or if he is agreeing to meet with us "just 'cuz." We'll see, though, when the next time we meet with him rolls around.

As I alluded to earlier, we went on exchanges this Saturday. I went with our district leader, who is a Spanish missionary, into his area, so I was reduced to the useless one who can do nothing but sit (or stand) there when we talked to dozens and dozens of Spanish speakers all day. The joy of inter-language program exchanges. Any hoo, since it was Saturday, we had a member dinner when the evening rolled around. So we go to the members apartment. When we walk in, we see a bunch of people sitting around the living room laughing, with Spanish music blaring from a boom-box in the corner. Immediately, the first thing I thought was “I like these people”. Call me a blasphemer, but the feeling was in no way diminished when I saw that there were about six open beers on the table. The food was great. I'm not quite sure what it was, but the main three ingredients seemed to be rice, cheese, and chicken. I didn't really understand what was going on for most of it, except, of course, when they did the classic thing of making fun of Elder Rivera for not speaking spanish. Good times, good times.

Well, I suppose that is all of the notable things that anyone would care to read about that happened this week. So bye.

-Ben "Beef Stew" Rivera

P.S. Did you know that Russell M. Nelson was born three years earlier than Thomas S. Monson? President Nelson was born in 1924, is in his mid nineties, and yet is still more active than most of modern America.

P.P.S. Doo doo doooooooooo doo doooo doo doo dooo doooo doooooo dooooooooo dooooooo doooooooooo dooo dooooooooooooo dooooo doooooooo dooo doooo doooooo dooo....

P.P.P.S. That's a song, by the way.