Monday Monday

Happy New Years! The end of week three of the transfer is always interesting and week four. Basically the middle of the transfer things usually don't go the way you want them to. I've learned that much while I've been here.
As a district we met with our ward mission leader and we went through the ward list and we were told about every family on there, who is inactive that we need to visit; who is good to come with us to appointments, etc. I started to wonder if they do that everywhere with missionaries. Do you wonder what they tell the missionaries about all of you? It was a good meeting though, because now that we have this new area, we actually have some ward members in our area. Before, in Orange, there were probably 3 members and all were active. Now we have a couple more families we can work with. So we spent a little time here and there trying to find people (finding a lot had moved) to break up all of our knocking doors. It's funny because as we find these people and after talking to them we walk away being confused about whether they're truly inactive. They always seem to be active when we talk to them. But then come Sunday, none of them were at church. We were talking and decided that people are good at faking being active members. Because they still remember, and mostly have gotten out of the habit of just going to church and doing what they know they should do. I'm excited about having families to visit, because a lot of them have unbaptized children and the parents just need to start the basics again like reading and praying. Before, it seemed like the days dragged by here because all we were doing was tracting, all day long, and some teaching. We always had lots of appointments set, but most of the people weren't there when we went back. People still tell us we can come back and aren't there, but in this area there are a ton of apartments we can go knock in, so we have more to do.
We taught Yesenia and Abel on Tuesday about the Plan and committed them to being baptized Jan. 18. She was a little hesitant. We were ready for that. We had planned what we'd say if she mentioned she'd already been baptized, but she didn't say that; mostly she was worried about not knowing enough, and about what if they couldn't come to church sometimes. She at least understands that being baptized is a commitment. But we helped her understand a little better what we were asking, and she said she'd be baptized. Abel was totally willing. We were thrilled. They just seem unusual: a couple that is married and gets it and they even sit around in their free time doing puzzles. I don't know very many Hispanics that do that. We decided we'd have to somehow find a puzzle of a temple to give them when they get baptized. But then they cancelled an appointment we had set for later in the week, and they didn't come to church. We'll have to be patient with them and maybe they're a little overwhelmed; so we are going to try to talk to them and see what we can do to help them. Unfortunately they won't answer their phones, and now, because they need to come to church at last 2 times, we'll definitely have to move the baptismal date. Oh well. We'll see.
We found some good new investigadors last week. One woman, Maritza, is a single mom with four kids. She is currently separated and her kids have various medical problems, and she seems very willing to listen. The problem is that we know it will be really hard for her to get out with all her kids, and she doesn't have tons of time. But she will do it if she's interested enough. But she also didn't show up for another appointment. In another complex we talked to a young guy, Giovanni, and talked about coming back to teach, and he mentioned that his brother, Auturo, might be interested, that he works with the youth in another church. Then we met his brother in the hallway and he invited us in to talk. We taught him the first lesson and he had lots of questions. But I'm pretty sure they were sincere questions. He referenced the Bible a lot and had a hard time understanding the need for a prophet. A lot of people ask why we need a prophet if we have the Bible and we have the Holy Ghost to guide us. Sometimes it is hard to explain. For me I guess I lot of the questions people have, I can answer in my head that it just comes down to faith and knowing it's right. I've never really felt a need to have concrete answers or get caught up in the whys. That's hard to explain to people though. He also didn't believe that all people are children of God. He believes He created all of us, but we are only true children of God if we accept Jesus into our hearts and do good things. Partially that's a matter of semantics and partially it's that he believes in the trinity, and if he understood that they're all separate beings, then being a child of Heavenly Father is different than becoming a child of Christ. We're going to bring a member to our next appointment and hopefully he will have some more questions answered.
Yes, we had interviews with President this week. Usually the interviews are really short and I don't think of anything to say. They're seriously probably a couple of minutes, and then afterwards I remember that there were things I wanted to ask/talk to him about. He talked about morning study a little, and not worrying about trying to get through the standard works, but just studying what I need to for our investigators. And he asked if I was happy which apparently he asked everybody this time. He told me he really felt bad about the way things turned out in Irvine. Basically that his intention wasn't just to send me down there for one transfer, but that's the way it turned out. He mentioned again the increased missionary complement we get for this year, and that in the future I could get back down there. We'll see! Even though sometimes it seems like all the president does is make new rules, I know he is just trying his hardest to just be obedient and only have the mission work by what the white handbook and PMG say. He's just a very humble, and sort of goofy man, and I really like him.
What else? Recent converts are still doing great and we're trying hard to find some more people that are ready to be baptized. The mission goal is one baptism per transfer per companionship. That's the standard. The faith goal is two baptisms. And our ward just made a goal of 50 baptisms for this year. Yikes! But we figured that means that the faith goal would have to always be reached. So we have some work to do.
That was basically the week. We're hoping that great things are to come in the next couple of weeks, as the mid-transfer slump passes.