"Your teeth... is not beautiful." - Morad, to his father

More on that title in a bit. 

Welcome once again to my weekly email, wherein:

- Elder Hawkes gets really good at trimming bushes and pulling dandelions

- Suhaila, Mario, and Marceleno dye eggs at a member's house

- We get the car door fixed!

- Morad and Miller discuss their plans for leaving El Cajon and have a back-and-forth insult fest with their dad

- Elder Hawkes goes on splits with Bro. Seba and the person they try to visit cancels on them

- CONFERENCE

- Elder Poffenbarger understands Conference while Elder Hawkes is left guessing

- A lady condescendingly reminds us of "No Soliciting" signs

- More dandelion pulling!

So, after I closed out for the week last Wednesday, we went and did some service for a part-member family. The non-member husband recently had surgery so he can't go out and take care of his bushes. We went by and, using pickaxes and shovels, uprooted a bunch of dead bushes while trimming back living ones with dead branches. We also pulled dandelions here and there, but he said we could come back another day to do that. I'm starting to wonder if my mission is a sign that I'm supposed to go into gardening as a profession. Maybe it's just my chosen hobby, aside from ranting about politics and pretending to know things. 

Wednesday night we went to a member's house with Suhaila, Mario, and Marceleno. They did an egg-dying activity that looked like a lot of fun. Mario and Marceleno were acting like they were too cool for it (as 14-year-old boys are prone to do), but Suhaila loved helping the little kids out. She turned to us and said, "Why don't you join us?" Mario immediately responded, "I don't think that's how they roll, Mom." And that was almost the email title for the week. 

On Thursday we went to the Ford dealership in the morning and got the car door fixed. Now it can actually open again from the inside! :D We wound up sitting in the lounge and studying our scriptures for a few hours while it got fixed. It's the little things in life that you appreciate, like having a car door that opens properly. 

We taught Morad and Miller about prayer and how to pray. For the first few minutes they were discussing their plans for moving to Detroit. Miller is going sometime this week and Morad (who just got a job at a car wash) is going to be saving up money and going in two months. *cue internal panic as investigators discuss their plans to leave the area* About halfway through the lesson, their dad started talking about prayer. As a bit of context, the dad is a longtime smoker and so he's got a few missing teeth and the rest of them are yellow. Morad turned to his dad and said, "Your teeth... is not beautiful. Is ugly!" Miller was egging him on like a "good" little brother and their dad just laughed it off. Later they insulted his moustache and he turned to them and said, "God bless your mother for having you two!" "But you participated in the process because you're the dad!" "Yeah, well... you're still stupid!"

There is beauty all around, when there's love at home....

On Thursday night we had an appointment with Basim at 7:30 and then with Akheqar at 8. Elder Poffenbarger went with Bro. Evanko (a ward member) to Basim while Bro. Seba and I went to teach Akheqar. Right as we pulled up, we saw Akheqar standing out on the sidewalk. We went up and talked to him and he said he was waiting to go somewhere and so he couldn't meet with us that night. We asked for his phone number and he said, "I thought I gave it to you." He hadn't, so I asked if we could get it again. He said he didn't remember it. So now Akheqar is in the "Stop by occasionally and if he's home you can teach a lesson" pile. 

CONFERENCE WAS AWESOME.

The Conference Attendees —
just the Elders

Christian's Easter Basket from Ward Members

We had a live Arabic translation (the only one in the nation) for Conference! We didn't have anyone show up, but we watched it anyway. Elder Poffenbarger was actively taking notes in Arabic and understanding it all, while I was just sitting there going, "I think that one was about faith." That's what the May Ensign is for! We did get to watch the Priesthood Session in English, and I enjoyed that one. Apparently someone yelled out that they were opposed in sustaining the General Authorities, Boyd K. Packer was hard to understand, and there were some other interesting moments. We didn't hear the "opposed" and Boyd K. Packer spoke clearly to us... in Arabic. 

Yesterday we went back to the part-member's house and did some more service. We wound up pulling dandelions and other weeds for a few hours. It was fun, but some of the weeds were rather annoying. About half of them had little hairs growing on their stems that hurt when our hands touched them, so we had to dig around and underneath them to get to the roots to pull them out. 

Maybe gardening isn't my thing....

That's about it for this weekly email. Thank you to all those who have been writing to me. I love getting mail! 

-- Elder Hawkes

--

Elder Christian Hawkes

California San Diego Mission

7404 Armstrong Place

San Diego, CA 92111