Andy, Ferrari & Susan

Hey All!

First off, Details have been a bit sparse from me concerning the field, so I'll try and cover everything I can remember. When I got here, I was taken directly from the airport to the mission home. It's a nice house about a half hour from here. While there, I met President and Sister Martin. They are both pretty cool. Sister Martin has a funny running joke among everyone about eating fiber. Just to say I am, I've bought double fiber bread. Won't she be proud? I've never been so regular before. (TMI, yo se) We went through (boring) orientations, and I met my companion/trainer, Elder Houghton. Later that day, we came back to the apartment, had dinner, and went to English classes. Those were very fun, and still are. That's pretty much it for my first day.

Now, about Elder Houghton. He's from Dallas, Texas. He grew up a Mormon, but attended a Jewish private school. He has a strong testimony, and a strong work ethic. He's been pushing me out of my comfort zone to train me, and although I'll hate him in the moment, it's all for my benefit, so he and I are cool. He's become one of my best friends, and I know I'll keep in contact with him after the mish. Also, we have two other elders living in our apartment. One is Elder Ball, and the other is Elder McElderry. Elder Ball actually lives in Farmington, and we went to Farmington Jr. and Viewmont together. He remembers me from Jr. High, but I didn't :P He acts a bit immaturely, but he's a hard worker. Elder McElderry is from Arkansas. I don't know a lot about him, but he's an excellent card magician. He knows tons of card tricks, and performs them to us routinely. I know what you're thinking "52 card decks aren't supposed to be owned by Elders." President Martin has no problem with it, so it's okay. He has a trick where he tells you to fan out an invisible deck of cards, pick out a card invisibly, "turn" it face up amongst the face down cards, put them back in the invisible box, and give it to him. You tell him your card, and he takes the invisible box, turns it visible (by turning up the box of cards he hides in his hand), pulls out the cards, fans them out face up, and notices one card face down among the pack, and oh my gosh, it's the card you "Picked" and "turned upside down." I have no idea how he does it, but it's freaky! And cool. I'll video it sometime, and send it to you guys. That's basically it for the Elders I live with.

Now for the apartment, and it's funny little quirks. It's a nice little apartment complex, and our apartment is actually pretty big. I don't want to guess in case I'm wrong. When you walk in, the kitchen is on the left, and the never-used table on the right. Just past those to the right is Elder Ball & McElderry's room and bathroom. To the left is the main living room. It's got two sofas, a weight set, a desk and a supplies cabinet. Left of that is our room. We clearly got the master bedroom because our bathroom is bigger, and the bedroom, and we have a huge walk-in closet. So I'm happy about that. Now some unique things... On the table is a bottle/pretzel jar that live black widow spiders in it. (With a lid on of course) There were originally 3 in it, and their names were Andy, Ferrari, and Susan. We caught a 4th one recently, and, because it's so huge, we names it Viagra, LOL! Anyways, we woke up one morning, and Viagra was eating Susan. So yeah, it's now Andy Ferrari and Viagra. So yeah, he's a little monster. Also, there was a hamster named James Lively here. Since he was escaping from his box a lot, and we didn't want or have time to take care of him, we gave him to another companionship. Also, my room's window is broken. I don't know how, but it is. It kinda sucks, but life goes on. That's basically my apartment in a nutshell.

My daily schedule is usually different every day, so I can't give a solid outline for what I do, but here it is. We wake up at 6:30pm, have breakfast, and just get ready for the day. At 8-11, studies. After that we go work. We usually return home around 1 or 2 for lunch. Then, we work some more until dinner around 6-7. Then, at 7:20, we go to the church for English classes. We've been doing them Monday thru Friday, and they're free. We're hoping to get them switched to investigator status soon, but I'm not seeing much progress with that. But, my comp says it's the right thing, so I can wait. Also I don't know who said I'd have a on of referrals, and that I wouldn't be tracting a whole lot, but we've got O referrals, and whenever we don't have appointments (Which usually they fall through, anyway) we're tracting. Not the vision I had, but it's ok. Just another day in paradise. Oh by the way, the members feed us every so often. A popular dish of theirs is called mole (pronounced mo-lay) DON'T EAT IT! It's their crappy spin-off of barbecue chicken. The sauce tastes like burnt chocolate mixed with some incredibly bitter food. It's terrible. But since we don't want to offend them, we eat it all, say it was awesome, and get out before they notice we start gagging. Also, we had dinner with a family last night (awesome members, BTW) and after I had eaten, I thought that the meat they used was odd in taste. Then, my companion leaned over, and said in a whisper, "Who did that DOG meat taste?" I acted calmly, and said, "I thought it tasted weird." So yes, I've eaten a puppy :'( I don't know IF it was a puppy, but it was dog! So that's my basic schedule.

As far as memorable experiences, here's three. First, on my second night here, we were leaving from dinner, and a priest walks by. Not knowing that fact, my comp goes up to contact him. Then, we get into a 10-minute bash about stuff Joseph Smith "prophesied" about that he said never came to pass, telling that all prophecies from prophets in the Bible came to pass. That's not true, but those guys never listen.
Second, we passed a minister on the street, started a contact, he said he didn't agree with points in the Book of Mormon. and how Joseph Smith told the saints to leave out west. About the Book of Mormon, Elder Houghton tried to get him to say what he didn't agree with, and he kept saying "It's personal." He just didn't have anything to say on that matter. As for the immigration, Elder Houghten explained that if they hadn't, they'd have been killed. He tried to re butt, but his argument was a shot. The last is the funniest! I started a contact with this guy passing by, while Elder Houghton was talking with someone else. He kept telling me to stop going around confusing people. After about 5 minutes, Elder Houghton joins in and I was very happy to give him the reins. I'd have probably been destroyed if I did it all alone. Anyway, this guy was saying how everyone gets the chance to hear the Gospel, or Christ, as he put it. Elder Houghton, who's actually been to Africa and Asia, said that there are tons of people who die over there without even knowing, "what a Christ is," and he tried to say that they never got the chance in this life. He tried to explain the Spirit World, but this guy wouldn't let us talk. He simply said, "No, No, they had their chance." We asked how. First, he said that since their parents had the chance, but rejected it, their children had the chance through them. What?? Then, he said that people went over to preach Christ to them. Elder Houghton reaffirmed the above point, and he just kept saying no. After about 15minutes of mostly him saying no, he said "Be quiet, Be quiet. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ." We shut up, all right. It was all we could do to keep from laughing. He said something, Elder Houghton tried to follow up, but we both saw he was a lost cause, and left him. The first thing I said was, "When he gets to the Spirit World, his reaction I would pay money to see." Ah, good times.

Well, Love all of dang y'all.

Elder Shepherd