THIS WEEK WAS SOOOOOO COOL.
We spent most/all of this week knocking all the vecindarios in our area, and MAN they are [WHITE]. We had some cool moments from this, like a random member meal with an hemana in our vario that had bone cancer and now has anima from the operation and the random Armenian man who just wanted to talk to us so bad and now is probably reading through Alma in the Book of Mormon, but more often then not it was a door slam or (my favorite) "GO AWAY!" through the door (English work really is that different from Spanish work... almost like [White] vs. Black).
We also found the house of Charlie Chaplin. We got to take pictures of a stone with his hand prints and those of his family. A really nice man lives there who write music for his church and is not at all interested in our message, but he had help from the Mormon missionaries 20 years ago (apparently one even had my face) building a staircase, so maybe we could get some service with him.
Now, the fun part is that his next door neighbor (literally the next house over) is anything but nice. Elder Weinheimer and I have a little "competition" going on about who can find the most coins on their mission. He's already won, but I still play because it's good practice for observance and I need every cent I can get for Collage (I know it's chicken feed compared to tuition, but every little bit helps, Dad). Anyway, that was just relevant background to the story. So we knocked the door of this nice man's neighbor and we hear through the door, "GO AWAY! WE'RE NOT INTERESTED!" so we leave. As we turn to leave, Elder Weinheimer, with his eagle eyes, finds a penny sitting on a table, so he picks it up and we just keep walking away. We knock for a little bit more and then walked back to the street to continue knocking (we had two more houses across the way to knock). We turn the corner and this man come STEAMING out of his house, guns a blazing (there wasn't any actual gun. If there was, we'd probably both be dead or in the hospital) anyway, he's got himself worked up into a right good rage about how we knocked his door and said/shouted (I will not quote him directly, he used a lot of short adult language) "What did you take from the table? You're on camera you idiot!" Elder Weinheimer replied (cool as a cucumber) "A penny. Do you want it back?" as he said this he held out the penny. The man told him to shove it up his butt, so we took it as him telling us we could have it. He then demanded to see ID, which Elder Weinheimer doesn't carry on him, so he said he was going to call the cops. Elder Weinheimer said, "ok, we'll call our lawyers." And then asked me to call President Henrie, who told us to just leave, so, we did. On the phone with the cops, the man was trying so hard to make us look like really bad men, when he was worked up into such a frenzy that he couldn't make heads or tales of anything.
After that, nothing really stood out from our week... until the weekend. We took all of Saturday to just go knocking (we want to knock the whole area by the end of the transfer, we're doing really good at this). Didn't find anyone, but I learned that "Aloe" is actually really tasty (it's a drink that is supper good). After knocking, we went and did a "church run" where we went by all our investigators that we expected at church. We only were able to talk to Familia T*, but that was just fine. They have a fecha for the 11th of October (set it this Tuesday with them. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEM AND THIS DATE) and they said "We'll be there" so we went home and prayed that they could make it.
Sunday comes, and we wait outside for them. Nothing. We go to class a little upset. What more could we have done. We did every thing for them we could. We even explained that they're fecha had to be changed because they didn't make it to church last Sunday and we need to teach them a lot, so we need to come by more often (we only got to teach them once this week). We started walking to the Prencipios del Evangelio when in walks Hermano R* P* de Van Nuys followed by Hermano Jesus T*, OUR INVESTIGATOR!!!!!! We collected the rest of his family and helped them find their classes and then we went to Prencipios with the parents. It was the perfect lesson this week, La Eterna Familia. The dad was really into the lesson and was super attentive, he even answered a question and was reading along in the scriptures. After Prencipios we went to collect his kids from primary, but they'd been helped to the chapel already, so we just walked over there. On the way, S* found me and we talked for a little bit. Apparently, I wrote her on her birthday awhile ago (Can you say "Spirit Inspired"?) and so she really wanted to know my birthday. I told her it had passed and she was a little up set. Anyway. After Sacrament, we gave Familia T* a quick tour of the chapel and we were so happy. This ended a mission long streak of 0 at church for Elder Weinheimer and a 6 month long one for me (after I left Van Nuys S* wasn't my investigator busting that number weekly). the members were really good at welcoming them as well. We need to thank them for their support and openness to our investigators.
That really is the best parts of my week
RETURN AND REPORT
Weight loss: 175 Lbs,
Spanish 7/7 (I still have some work to do on all day, but I'm getting there)
Love for my investigators; UN MEASURABLE
Con Amor
Elder Michael Blanding
Called to Serve my King.