4/7/14
This week has been a little slow, because of Conference all weekend we didn't have a lot of chances to work this weekend, at least to the point that we usually do, so we ended up a little bit short of our goals. This transfer has gone by lightning fast, and I can't believe that we are on week 6 of 6 already. I'm 100% sure I won't be transferred, and also pretty sure that I might finish my mission here in Cupertino. Pretty excited about that.
This past week was my companions birthday on Sunday, and so on Sunday we had an interesting day, our dinner cancelled, the family was sick and wasn't able to have us, so instead after our lesson with Cindy, I asked to see if any of my old ward members from Redwood City could have us over (since our lesson with Cindy was in Menlo Park) so we got our usual dinner on Sunday nights to have us over, and we had a great time up there, and I got to see all of my old missionary friends up there that I worked with in the Spanish ward, that was really great. Our lesson with Cindy by the way was really good. We taught her about the Ten Commandments and it seemed to be pretty natural for her to do. She is hard to get to church because she works sometimes on Sunday with her research at Stanford University. So this next week we are going to get her to come to church, because she wasn't able to watch Conference with us. We have a Chinese fellowshipper from the English ward that she lives in ready for her this next week.
On Monday, we had a great day, it was a rainy rainy p-day, pretty much pouring all day long, but we got everything that we needed to get done, all done. We even had time at the end of the day to go and be at the stake center with all the other missionaries. I said bye to all of the temple square sisters that are serving in our zone, Sister Jarrett and Sister Ranama. So Temple square sisters get to go and serve as a "real missionaries" for 3 transfers. Anyway our p-day after that was good, Elder Zollinger and I didn't have a dinner so he wanted to (and per his parents request) go out to eat for dinner, so we went to a Chinese restaurant called "Nutrition Restaurant" (the chinese name is totally different, the english name is a bit weird) anyway it was really good we got 3 dishes and a noodle, plus rice. It was really great.
Tuesday, we got 2 new investigators, well just about at least. We had a meeting with a referral from our branch mission leaders wife, her name is Jiang Hui 江慧 and it was a really good (but long) meeting with her, she is a 23 year old Chinese gal, she is currently going to DeAnza College for Elementary Education. She lived in King of Prussia before, she had an exchange student or something other program over there in PA. She belongs to another Christian church, that is English speaking. We taught her the first lesson, and she had a lot of off-topic (but relevant) questions that she would ask between the points of the lesson. She really didn't understand the flow of the lesson, and then at the point of the "First Vision" part, then she understood how everything fit together. She said after we had finished that what we had said at the end was really "heavy for her" and that "she needed time to digest it mentally and spiritually" so we asked her if we could meet again, and she said maybe, that she needs a few weeks, and then she will get back to us. She was a little bit scared by the spirit a bit.
Then we met a referral from Temple Square at his house, he lives rather close to us, in San Jose, anyway we met him and he's a 24 year old graduate looking for a new job here, he is from Dallas, and just moved from there, he said it was too boring for him and not enough Chinese people there, so he said that he had friends here, and so he just drove up. Anyway, he toured Salt Lake, and was looking for a church to join, and investigate some, so he gladly let the sisters have his information, and so now he is one of our new investigators! We taught him the first lesson, and he was like "I already knew all of this stuff, I think it's true but I need to pray about it and find my own answer" so he's really awesome. We tried to get him to come to conference, and he said he would, but we totally forgot to remind him to come, so he didn't show up. Our mistake for sure, he got lost through the cracks of having 10 people to invite besides him.
Wednesday wednesday, that was a crazy day, we talked to a lady named Nancy Chung, she doesn't go to our branch, but the English ward that meets in our same building, anyway, she asked me and Elder Zollinger to go and help her with "some help in her garage" is how she stated it, and so we showed up, and there were probably 100+ moving boxes full of clothing, and later we come to find out, boxes full of food as well. So let's do the math here, boxes full of food like spaghetti and cereal, and things like this plus in a garage that is very poorly sealed off from the outside world... what does that equal? Rats.
Yes, rats. The evidence of their existence was ever so prevalent. We did some deep cleaning, and removing each box and item one by one into her driveway, sweeping and wiping down as we went. No sign of an actual rat though. We realized at around 2 pm, after working for almost 2 hours, that we could not finish this project by ourselves, either we got help or we would not even make a dent in this project we deemed and named "Rat Eradication" so we called our good friends and elders. Elders Sonenstahl, McAllister, Featherstone, Ayotte, and Morgan. Elder Sonenstahl is a hunter, and so is Elder Featherstone, so they were more than willing to come out for the 'fight' so we finished one side of the garage without a single sign of any rats. But the other side was a lot more treacherous. We got to the middle of the tower and pile of boxes and realized that there were tons of holes in the boxes as if it were a network of delicious food tunnels for these vermin. One by one we removed and shook and hit eat box as if to provoke them out of their "Ritz Carlton" for rats, or should I say "Rats Carlton"? One by one, they came out in a frenzy, only to meet their demise by the head of a golf club or other blunt device. I know this seems quite morbid, but these vermin were causing much trouble for this single woman who is deathly afraid of vermin of this sort. In total after cleaning, and inspecting each and every box, the count of vermin was 18 in total. Yes 18. We reorganized her garage in such a way that no rats would be able to lounge in the boxes, and also threw away all of the food items. Set about 8 more traps just in case, and called it a night. It was an adventure of sorts, but a little bit too much for an average missionary to handle in one day.
The rest of the week was pretty slow, but we are still working with investigators, we weren't abel to meet with many other investigators, but we had a new investigator (other than who I talked about) come to conference named Sophie, and then also Angela came too! Even though her dad doesnt want her to be baptized.
I think that's about it from this week, I really enjoyed the talk from Conference about "Spiritual Bits" how we need to be willing to change the course of our actions when The Lord moved the "spiritual bits" in our mouth.
Hope everyone has a good week,
Elder Sanchez
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