Tuesday, March 3, 2015

"Good morning. Elder Hawkes may or may not be in a tree-throwing competition at 6. May we come for dinner at 5?" - Elder Poffenbarger, to some members

Transfers is going to be weird. My companion just told me about it. I'm not going to tell you all because I don't even know. But from what I understand, it's weird. 

[Note: I followed up on this comment while he was still  online because it read really weird. I thought maybe he was being transferred which would also be strange considering there is only one other set of Elders who are Arabic speaking. He clarified that they have to go to the transfer meeting, but he will be with the same companion until May when his companion finishes his mission.]


Also, I loaded up my missionary portal on lds.org today and President Schmitt's email was this: "The iPads are coming!" 

WHAT.

iPads are coming in May. I have to pay $380 and I'll get an iPad with some restrictions on it as to what I can and cannot do (obviously). After my mission is over, they'll remove the restrictions and we'll get to keep them. 

And now you know just as much as I do about it. 

Anyway....
We added a few people this week! Su'ad is the wife of one of our investigators, Hana, and she's very open to hearing from us. We taught her about prayer and why we don't pray to the Virgin Mary or to the saints nor do we recite the Lord's Prayer. She seemed to understand it, but she's very rooted in tradition, so we'll probably be going over it a few times with her. Hana was there, but he pretended to sleep the entire time we were teaching. 

De'a and his wife, Injeela, are an older couple that live in an apartment complex just above a convenience store. He has bladder cancer and just got surgery two days before we met with him. We kept telling him to sit still and not move around, but he wouldn't listen. He opened the door, walked around, adjusted his seating, walked us to the stairs as we were leaving... Elder Poffenbarger and I felt bad for him! We taught him and his wife the Restoration, and he wants to come to church with us on Sunday. In fact, he told us very plainly that he doesn't want to meet with us until he comes to church, because he'll know whether we're good or not based on our worship services. 

We also added a man named Marooki last night. He was an investigator from Arabic North who moved away for a while. Elder Poffenbarger and I just walked into his complex a few weeks ago and found him. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom. He wasn't too thrilled about the "no tea/coffee" instruction, but agreed to pray about it. 

Basim is progressing well. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he said he would do his absolute best to follow it. Suhayla is also doing well, although we had exchanges this past week and so I didn't get to see her. But Elder Greer and I did get to teach a less-active man named Bro. Dunlop. He said he doesn't feel the desire to come to church right now, but he'll be working on increasing that desire. He also gave us a big stack of old Church books, including copies of the Book of Mormon from the 1950's and a few fiction novels. I'll be sending those home when I can. 

I think that is all this week. More than likely I'll forget to send something and resolve to send it next week, only to forget about it next week. :) 

I love you all! Be sure to write!



-- Elder Hawkes

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