Tuesday, February 17, 2015

"The final plague of Egypt? Sharknado." - Elder Poffenbarger

This was actually sent on Feb. 10, but I'm a bit behind in getting it up.

Is it Tuesday? Really? Are we sure of that? I remember Tuesday being last week. 

Time really does fly, folks. It's super cliche, but I can't believe I'm a month into this. 

Suhayla, Mario, and Marceleno were baptized last Friday. Suhayla, we found out, has a fear of drowning that manifested itself in her grabbing the sides of the font when being baptized. We wound up having another person get in the font with her (Bro. Farajian, the man who baptized Marceleno) to help her and he had to practically force her down into the water the last time. After the baptism, though, she said she felt so clean and that the Spirit was surrounding her. We had one investigator show up, Basim, and we talked with him about it and he said it was awesome. 

Speaking of Basim, he's our next focus in terms of baptism. We met with him on Saturday and asked how it went and he said he loved it. He then turned to Elder Poffenbarger and asked, "When can I get baptized like that?" After the shock subsided a little bit, we agreed on a date of April 18th. He's loved coming to church and meeting with us, and he's been keeping commitments as best he can. :D


I gave a talk in church about pride and obedience. Everyone said it was great and one of the counselors said I'll be talking a little more often (yay...?). Elder Poffenbarger and I then wound up teaching a member missionary class using Preach My Gospel. We talked about our purpose as missionaries and having a plan. Somehow the topic got on to words that have changed meaning. To demonstrate that some words are defined by their connotations, I stood up and said, "This church is a cult!" Everyone in the room stared at me aghast for a little while, and I had to explain that a cult is merely a group of people following one thing or having the same interests. Given that the bishop was in the room, I'm not sure if I disqualified myself from giving talks or not. 

We went and did service yesterday for a family in the ward with the Zone Leaders. We were helping remove cabinets, tile, and their sink in preparation for a kitchen remodel. The sink was a nice, heavy, cast-iron sink that can hurt if you drop it on something, as Bro. Scott (the homeowner) found out. He was trying to lift it out and lost his grip. It dropped right on his thumb and broke off a good part of the nail. He just looked at it, said "Yeah, that's broken" and shook it off before stepping aside to get it wrapped. How he was able to withstand such seemingly intense pain I'm not sure. Elder Poffenbarger got his finger cut up when removing tile, then Elder Scott got his finger cut up too. Elder Dimond and I were the only ones that remained safely uninjured, which either means everyone else was reckless or we weren't doing enough!

I think that's it for this week. Feel free to write to me whenever you can (both emails and physical letters). I get mail every Tuesday. My address is now included as my signature.

-- Elder Hawkes
--
Elder Christian Hawkes
California San Diego Mission
7404 Armstrong Place
San Diego, CA 92111

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