"Those people over there, they're Asian, they need help. These people right here, they need help. This lady over here, I've been tryin' to get her to come to church for years, she needs help. That guy down there... Well, he's been saved, but all of the rest of the people on this block NEED HELP."

Quote of the week explanation

As seems to be the theme for the last several weeks, this week's quote comes from someone we met whilst knocking doors. He immediately told us that he was not interested in hearing any sort of message, since he was a deacon at his church and had already been saved. (I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying that I had been a deacon when I was twelve). Nothing we could say about the restoration or the Book of Mormon or anything could sway him from his ways. So, as we do with everyone we talk to, we asked him if he know anyone who we could share with; anyone who needed uplifting or spirituality in their lives... And he just went off on a rant. He was just pointing at every house saying something that was wrong with them (which ranged from mildly racist, such as being Asian, to somewhat religion-ist, such as "doin' Muslim or something like that" as I believe he said of one household), and that the residents of that abode all need help in their spiritual lives. Except, of course, for his one friend down the street who, like himself, had already 'been saved'. It was really quite amusing to see him completely change from stoic and annoyed that we were bothering him to a full-on bombastic preacher ranting on the sinful state of those around him. He was actually a really fun fellow.

Now, onto brighter pastures.

This week has been insane. A ton of crazy things have happened. It's been, as the ancients would say, a roller-coaster. 

I am just going to say it how it has been said before. The Lord is hastening his work in the last days. It's crazy how may people we've been talking to who are ready and willing to hear the gospel message. On Thursday we were tracting around an area that we have been working for the past week or so, and we knock on the door of a young family. The husband/father answered the door and started talking to us. He said that he would be happy to hear a little bit of what we had to share, and said he had a few minutes right then that we could talk to him. So, what ended up happening is we taught him the entire first lesson on his doorstep. He seemed super receptive to it all, he was nodding his head the whole way through our condensed lesson, and had well thought out replies when we asked him a few questions. At the end, we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would start reading it, and we have a return appointment set up to teach his family tomorrow. We're super excited for it. Somewhat unfortunately, this family is English, so we will have to hand them off to the English Elders at some point, but it was still super cool that we were able to talk to him and will even get to teach him.

Something else exciting, one of our friends that we had been working with a lot a last month and who had even expressed her willingness to accept baptism returned after a long trip to China. We will hopefully set up a time to meet with her this week, and catch up on how her trip went. More news on that to come, hopefully. 

It's crazy, though, that this is the last week of the transfer. I am thinking-maybe about 70% sure-that my time has come to leave Hayward, but, truth be told, I really would love to stay another transfer. This place is great, and I will be sad when I have to leave. If I were to make a "bold prediction", I would guess that I would be heading to San Francisco, but you know how accurate those predictions can be. (i.e. not very). So we'll just have to wait another week and see what happens.

In the area of other things that occurred this week, we did service. A lot of service. Getting a bit more specific, we helped people move. Not once, not twice, but three times over the course of a single week. Two of the moves are nonmembers who we are working with, one of them was for a member in one of the English wards. On Tuesday, we helped a lady move who had been in contact with some of the Sisters in our zone; we helped her move her many possessions from a house in which she is renting a room into a storage facility where she feels that it is more safe. On Wednesday we assisted in filling a moving van for a member. And on Saturday, we helped somebody who we had actually found and who is actually Chinese. He took us to lunch as well, and we had fried calamari and cow intestine. It actually wasn't bad. The texture was a bit interesting, but compared to 1000-year-old egg, it was easy.

Ahhh... 1000-year-old egg... My old foe. We had a branch activity after church yesterday (basically a Book of Mormon class where there was food provided), and we consumed the classic Taiwanese dish. I'm not sure what the process is to prepare it; only that the egg is dark brown- almost black for some of them- and the inside yolk is a weird green-yellow color. I will spare you the grim details, and simply say that I ate it with a smile on my face, or at least as good of one as I could muster. It was rather amusing though, our branch president was astonished when he found out that my companion and I actually ate it (because, as I found out later, he can't stand the dish either). His reaction was well worth eating the egg.

Something else crazy happened yesterday evening. I went to the Celestial Kingdom. OK, not actually (and please don't repeat that since it is low-key sacrilegious), but it was still a great place. I'm sure you could've guessed it. Yes, we did go to dinner with the Spanish Elders at one of their members houses. Wow. I love the Spanish members. At first, I was a little worried, because their were six missionaries (us, the Spanish Elders and the Spanish Sisters) going to this dinner, and even though they had said we were welcome to come, I still didn't want to place a burden on them. Well, I now realize that they seem to be possessed of a similar disease to what my mother and grandmother have; that of making far too much food for a gathering or party just so they know for a fact that everyone will get enough. Basically, we were just tagging along to a big family dinner, and the food... ohhh... They made street tacos. They had a big grill thing outside, and they probably cooked at least seven pounds of meat, which were just piled up on the grill-top. Oh my goodness. At the time of eating, it was probably the best thing I had ever tasted. Literally, I took one bite, turned to one of the Spanish Elders and said "Oh no... Oh no... I am literally addicted to this." I limited myself to eating 10, but with how much there was I easily could've eaten 10 more and there still would've been more than enough. It was a beautiful occasion. It's always a little awkward, not being able to speak Spanish in those situations, but the members still seemed to like us. As we were leaving, one of them came up to us and said "you come back next week!" So it looks like we will end the transfer with a good dinner next Sunday.

So that was most of what happened this week. Nothing to earth-shattering, but a bunch of stuff that could become very exciting in the days and weeks to come. We are all looking forward to the future down here.

It's been a pleasure, as usual.

Bye

-Benny

P.S. I will now take a break from missionary matters to bring to your attention that this Thursday, the nation will be celebrating it's birth. Let us simply remember that scrappy band of rebels that downed the most powerful military on the planet.

P.P.S. Deep south

P.P.P.S. We also tracted into a Lutheran minister this week who was trying to bash us because we supposedly "don't think Jesus is the Savior". When we asked him where he heard that we had this belief, he said "I have heard some people very high up in the mormon church say that Jesus is not God." He then proceeded to rail on us for a few minutes about how the trinity is a thing and how there is a "triune God." It took all the strength I had not to start Bible bashing this guy, but luckily I refrained. He wasn't having anything that we were telling him, but at least we didn't instigate anything. It was a fun experience.