So I've been here 2 weeks now. Second week went by much faster as I get into the "groove". Because I bore my soul out about the area last I don't have too much to say this week. I said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting this last week. I've had better prayers. At least people now have seen my face. For better or worse.
As for "the work", we're doing just fine. One of the things we do that our missionaries at home didn't really do was teach members short 20 minute lessons every week so they get to know us and our faces and feel comfortable giving us names. They don't have to be dinner appointments. Plus they're just nicer and talk to other people more, something we never did.
Our investigators are coming along although we didn't really get to teach them this last week. One was having surgery. Another was really sick. Another didn't want to tell us he was smoking again so he didn't let us in his house. Another had their lessons scheduled for days where I was on exchanges with another area so I didn't see them. Another is shy and won't open up about what she has questions about (she's 17). Another canceled cause he's recovering from back surgery. So yeah, we didn't teach them much. But we will. Oh we will. It's a lot of people to juggle but they're nice. The one that gets taught when I'm not there was asked by Elder Petersen last night if she wanted to have a baptismal date. She said no.
But yeah I'm doing okay. I don't really say much during lessons cause I just have no words to say in some situations, but I guess this is happening to other new missionaries too so I'm okay with that. I'm getting better. Like I said I've been on exchanges with missionaries that will tell me more about how I'm doing as a missionary, so that has helped. I spent a day in Colonial Heights and another in Hopewell, 2 less affluent areas. That was good for "mixing it up". We also had a service project here in Chesterfield that was full of fun and excitement. We cleaned out a single-wide trailer so one of our members could move into it. That wouldn't sound so bad if you didn't know what the house was like. It was uninhabitable. I'm talking cockroaches in the cupboards, dog poo on the floor, holes in the floor so deep you could see the ground the trailer was on, spiders on the floor, urine in the carpet, gross disgusting stuff all over the place, and much much more. The lady that lived there was a hoarder so she had all this junk (and yes, it is junk) that she kept right there on the floor. She also had 2 dogs and a 2 year old boy living in the house. When she left for work she'd just keep the dogs in the house so they would just poo and pee all over the house without a care in the world. The holes in the floor were from the urine rotting it away. The 2 year old kid was often left in the house unattended. So there you go. And the people had just moved out the day before we went in, and I really can't imagine anyone living in that. We came home and took showers.
Let's see, what else. We had some short-term success as we got 3 less active families to come back to church based on our going over and seeing them. That was nice. We had to open the gym up to fit all the people we're bringing in. That's how cool we are.
Mission conference is tomorrow. We'll hear about this Gladys Knight concert that everyone here is going nuts about. It's basically a 90 minute presentation where Gladys Knight directs a choir in singing and then she and her family bears testimony of the church and how they became members. Members can't go unless they bring a non-member so we're expected to get a couple hundred referrals from this. I don't know if they had this in San Diego or not but she's going all around the U.S. doing it. She and her family have been set apart as missionaries just for this. It will be useful.
More ward member celebrity comparisons:
Executive secretary: Paul Giamatti (Bro Howarth)
High Priest Leader: Jim Henson (Bro Dove, who owns an egg farm. He's super cool. When I told Elder Petersen about this he asked who Jim Henson was)
Young Men's President: Matt Damon in The Informant. Stache and glasses.
So yeah that's about it. There's no real time limit here so I don't know how long I've been going. It's less than an hour though, I promise. Send me letters, tell me anything, love you, bye bye.
-Elder Ryan Michael Parker
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