"I want to be a dwarf someday." - Elder Jensen

From March 1, 2016

Happy March 1st everyone! I'm sure something groundbreaking happened today at some point in history.

This week was awesome! We...

- Find out about a dinner appointment 10 minutes after we're supposed to be there

- Have a weeding project turn into a landscaping project

- Inadvertently wake up an old lady but proceed to add her as an investigator!

- Walk around El Cajon

- Help take down the tent we put up two weeks ago

So Wednesday was what I like to call a "patchwork day". We had plans, but curveball after curveball was thrown our way and at the end of the night we evaluate our day and go, "What in the world happened?" In this case, remember that never-ending service project wherein we started tearing up grass at an old lady's house? We had planned to go over there with the district and help out again. So Elder Belnap and I went over and started working on it. 

Then an hour passed. 

Then two hours. 

And no one showed up. 

Turns out the other members of the district had another service project pop up that went longer than they thought it would. So Elder Belnap and I sifted through a giant dirt pile to find some weeds to put in the green waste bin for about two hours and then rushed over to Arabic South's apartment/room to change and get ready for dinner. We assumed we didn't have a dinner appointment that night so we figured, "Well, we'll just have a sandwich or something and then get back out working ASAP." 

About 10 minutes after 5 we get a call from some members asking us if we're coming to dinner. Oh no. None of us checked the dinner calendar and we actually guessed wrong in thinking we weren't going to have anything. We got dressed as fast as we could and hurried over to the member's house. By the time we got there with traffic and red lights, we were about 25 minutes late. The members were very forgiving, thankfully. 

Thursday we did our weekly planning and there really isn't anything to note about that day, so let's move on to Friday! Remember how earlier in this email I mentioned a weeding project at an old lady's house that turned into us uprooting grass? Well, we as a district thought to ourselves, "This is a bigger project than we thought it would be. We should call in her home teachers and then we'll be done with it in an afternoon." 

And now it's turned into a landscaping project. 

Turns out she doesn't have a sprinkler system, so her home teacher talked her out of re-seeding it with grass. We got all of the grass out of the front yard (finally!) but then the home teacher told us, "We're going to need to level this whole thing out," and started having us shovel dirt into a wheelbarrow to put out back so the front yard is level. He staked it out and everything. This week we're getting both the Young Men and the Elder's Quorum involved, but with the way things have gone previously even with all the extra hands it'll still take a few more weeks. Lesson learned: When you tell an old lady you want to help weed her yard and her yard happens to be falling into disarray, it's wise to contact her home teachers, the ward leaders, and possibly a professional landscaping company to come in and help you out. 

On Saturday we started the day off with a baptismal interview for a man the Hillsdale Sisters have been teaching, Rick. It was a huge testimony-builder for me of the importance of opening my mouth and talking with everyone. 

Flashback to October-ish: Elder Greer, Elder Jensen, and I are walking in an apartment complex looking to find someone to teach. We come across this guy sitting outside his apartment smoking a cigarette. Elder Greer immediately approaches him and asks if he'd like to learn more. This man's name is Rick, and in the interview he told me that when we went up and talked with him something inside him told him, "Yes. Listen to them. Let them come back." He had some health problems that made his progression difficult at first, but we gave him a priesthood blessing to help him out health-wise. Ever since, he's been going strong. He told me in the interview, "You were one of the first ones to talk to me. ...Thank you so much." He passed the interview and is good for baptism on Saturday. I'll get pictures for sure! 

That evening we went to follow-up with a lady named Elizabeth we had given a Book of Mormon to previously. We knocked on the door and no one answered. Her neighbor came by and said, "She's sleeping right now." So we left a card and walked away. Right as we rounded the corner, Elizabeth opened her window and said, "Did you just knock on my door?" "Yes," we said, "But if we just woke you up don't worry about it." She motioned for us to come back. After about 5 minutes of explaining why we couldn't enter her apartment (no man present), she asked us about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith. Turns out she had read part of the Book of Mormon (well, someone had read it to her because her reading is not good) and was really interested in it! We taught her a little more about Joseph Smith and about the Book of Mormon and said, "We want to come share more about why all this is important. When could we come?" She made us promise to come Monday at 6. And that's how we added a new investigator! Elder Belnap and I were really really excited about it. 

Church on Sunday was good. Arabic South was able to get three people to attend church, two of which they had invited over the phone the night before. We finished up our studies and spent the night walking around talking with people. 

On Monday we helped take down the tent that we set up for a wedding two weeks ago. It went really fast with all of us there, which was nice. Taking down tents, turns out, is a lot easier than putting them up. 

Our lesson with Elizabeth went well. We spent the day texting and calling members seeing if they were available to come with us. Finally someone said "Yes" and we were able to have a great lesson. She told us right from the start, "I can't see Joseph Smith being a prophet. I've been taught there are no prophets after Jesus." The entire lesson was us explaining the points to her and backing each one of them up with scriptures. By the end of it she was really excited about it and was really happy we came. Our member also shared great testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it testifies of the Bible. The only problem is that she can't read very well. She wants one of our recent converts, Fawzi, to come by and help her understand the Book of Mormon in Chaldean (Fawzi lives just a few doors down from her). We asked her to be baptized when she knew this was true and she accepted the invitation! She then spent 20 minutes essentially telling us why she was ready for this message. "Religion," she said, "Is like an ocean. There's so much more to it than what I've received by going to my church. In Iraq, I was taught to not read the Bible or touch it. It was حرام [haram, "forbidden"] to do so. Then I came here to America and I see everyone has the Bible. I'm tired of just hearing the priests tell us, 'Now here's the story of Moses.' 'Now here's the story of Abraham.' 'Now here's the story of Paul.' I want to read it myself and know about it myself! There's more to Christianity than just saying 'Our Father' and 'Hail Mary'." 

Elder Belnap and I were both wanting to learn more about the culture and the religious traditions of the Chaldeans and I'm pretty sure at one point I looked over at him and he was drooling as she talked about these things. 

So that's it for this week's email! Next week is going to be even more crazy. After that I'm looking forward to a comparatively mild March. Thanks everyone for your prayers on our behalf! I love you all!

-- Elder Hawkes

"So next week we've got a lunch appointment, a teaching visit, and we're dumping a dead body!" - Sis. Stewart

From January 19, 2016

To make a long story short, one of their investigators found an urn

amongst a bunch of things, so she invited the sisters to come with her

to lunch while she spreads the ashes at a lake. How one just happens

to have the ashes of some random relative in one's house without

realizing it, I don't know.

Speaking of dead bodies, here's my email for the week!

This week, we...

- Get invited to a lunch appointment we weren't actually invited to

- Teach 3 back-to-back lessons with members present! :D

- Help Morad quit smoking!

- Have an okay district meeting

- Baptize someone!

- Drop the person we added on Wednesday

- Drive up to Penasquitos so Elder Belnap can sing at a Mission

President's Devotional

- MORAD

So on Wednesday, Elder Hawkes started the day by praying for patience.

Because who couldn't use more patience in their life?

Friends, family, elders, sisters, Romans, countrymen... I have a

testimony that the Lord answers prayers like that. For instance, one

time before we left the apartment we prayed for patience and it took

twice as long as normal to get to our ward mission leader's house

because we hit every single red light on the way to his house without

fail.

So this time around we finish up our two hours of Companionship Study

and are about to microwave some Star Wars macaroni and cheese (Elder

Hawkes can't resist product placement sometimes) when we get a phone

call from Bro. McCoy. He immediately tells us we're late for our lunch

appointment. "What lunch appointment?" "Didn't you go over and pick

lemons and move firewood for Sis. Sorenson last week?" I immediately

deferred to Elder Belnap because I knew I had been on exchanges, but

he didn't know of any lunch appointment. We figured we might have

neglected to write it down and after a good amount of apologizing left

the apartment to drive to Alpine (15 miles east of El Cajon) to meet

Sis. Sorenson for lunch.

When we got to the restaurant we were more than a little confused when

we saw Arabic South sitting at the table with Sis. Sorenson. Realizing

the downsides of triple-covering a ward we shot Arabic South a look

from the front room of the restaurant that essentially read as, "What

are you doing here?" They shot us back the same look and so we

figured, "Well, we drove all the way out here, might as well have

lunch." Sis. Sorenson laughed about it and said, "Oh isn't that nice!

Bro. McCoy invited all four of you to come!" She willingly paid for

our food as well as Arabic South's and we went away laughing about it.

Our mission has a goal this year of baptizing 1,000 individuals. In

order to do that, President Schmitt has directed to strive to get

members to every lesson, if possible. We brought a member out with us

to visit a former named Nithal. Not much to report on that lesson, her

concerns are the same ("I've read your book and it's essentially the

same as my Bible. I don't see any difference between what you have and

what I have."). We then took him to visit Morad, who is progressing

towards baptism on Jan. 30th. That night we needed to clear a very big

hurdle with him: smoking. We brought the lesson, the materials,

everything we needed. Only problem: We were running late and we had

arranged to bring a different member out with us at 8:00! We wound up

doing splits with the members wherein Elder Belnap stayed and helped

Morad with smoking while I went to visit a man named Abdulilah.

Abdulilah was a very stubborn man but we taught him anyway and he

agreed to read the Book of Mormon. We got to the invitation to be

baptized and his stubbornness came out. As it did when we invited him

to attend church with us. And as it did when we invited him to pray

something other than the Lord's Prayer to close our lesson. He was

very stubborn but we felt we should come back, so we added him and

went back to reunite with Elder Belnap. Turns out that Morad chafed at

the commitment to crush his cigarettes. He promised he would do it the

next day and we made everything happen to hold him to it.

When we went back on Thursday Morad had gotten rid of his remaining

cigarettes. Not entirely sure what to do in the situation we went

forward with the program. We actually had two different members come

teach him with us and it went well for the most part. He committed to

follow the program and allowed us to take his ashtray and throw it

away. We gave him all the necessary materials and told him we would

pray for him and stop by on Saturday.

On Saturday the sisters had a baptism in the Hillsdale Ward. Margaret

requested that I baptize her, which was a great privilege. We filled

up the font and got everything ready well in advance. The program was

great, the Spirit was strong, and... The water was cold. Regardless,

the baptism went really well! Margaret started crying in the font

after she was baptized and all she could say was, "Thank you! Thank

you so much!" It was a really powerful event. Morad couldn't make it

because he had work. I wish he'd been able to attend.

Speaking of Morad, we went by on Saturday and half expected there to

be a new pack of cigarettes on the table. There wasn't! He told us,

"I'm done. No more cigarettes. I used the money I would have spent on

cigarettes to buy food and put gas in my truck." It was so wonderful

to see! We went over some of the Baptismal Interview Questions with

him to help him prepare more for baptism. He's got issues with tea

still, which is worrying given the short time before his baptism.

We're working on that with him. He talked about how he wants to be

able to marry someone and have a family, and the member we brought out

with us testified of the principle of eternal marriage. It was a great

lesson!

That evening we visited Abdulilah again. We asked if he had read out

of the Book of Mormon at all and he said he had. He said he liked it

and he intended to keep reading. We taught him a little more about the

Restoration to clarify a few things and he told us, "Even if I knew

this was true, I wouldn't come to church. I've got responsibilities at

my church! My priest needs me there! I can't go." So we dropped him,

but not before asking who he knew that we could go teach. He pointed

to his neighbor and said, "They're the only ones in here I know.

They're Christian, but their faith is weaker than it should be." So we

got a referral out of it, which was great!

On Sunday Margaret got confirmed, which was another spiritual

experience. Morad couldn't make it (he got called into work because

some other employees got sick and had to go to the hospital). :( That

evening we had a Mission President's Devotional in Penasquitos. Elder

Belnap and Sister Stewart auditioned for a musical number and were

invited to sing at it, so our Sunday consisted of studies, church,

correlation meeting, lunch, and the Devotional. It was really great,

though. I was really happy that we got to attend.

Last night we visited Morad and one of the first questions was, "Wait,

what's baptism?"

*Sigh*

Either we hadn't taught very well, he didn't remember it, or both. So

we went over baptism again with him and he was initially closed off to

the idea but at the end was more open to it. I worry about him. Please

please please keep praying for him!

That's it for this week! Thanks everyone for your prayers of support

and for your letters and emails. Have a great week!

-- Elder Hawkes

"Elephants are my reverse Kryptonite." - Elder Belnap

From December 29, 2015

Sometimes context helps understand an email title. Sometimes it

doesn't. This is one of the latter.

I hope you all had a wonderful Boxing Day. Oh yeah, and a good

Christmas. That too.

This week, we...

- Walk all over Santee

- Visit a less-active who kick-starts our caroling run for the night

- Do some more caroling!

- Do even more caroling!

- Celebrate Christmas by eating lots of baked goods, Skyping our

families, opening presents, and doing weekly planning

- Do some after-Christmas caroling that kind of falls flat

- Teach the stake president (and some other people)

- Walk all over Santee... AGAIN!

Brothers and sisters, friends, Romans, countrymen... Don't drive up to

Poway. If you're ever in Arabic North's area, just don't drive up

there. Because if you do that too frequently in an attempt to contact

referrals you'll find yourself low on miles for the month. Which isn't

necessarily a bad thing (you can contact a total of zero people

driving from appointment to appointment, whereas you can easily get

more than that by walking), but it is a mild inconvenience. Such is

the story of Arabic North at the moment. So on Wednesday we walked all

over Santee looking for people and contacting potentials. I know El

Cajon like the back of my hand for the most part, but Santee isn't El

Cajon. Admittedly we got lost while walking and wound up going back to

our apartment rather than going to the potentials on Carlton Oaks

Drive we wanted to go see. But it's okay because we got a lot of

walking in and on the way we talked with a lot of people!

On Wednesday evening we had plans to have dinner with a less-active

member, Bro. Dunlop, then go caroling as a district right afterward.

Bro. Dunlop was a little stressed out (he was going to have an open

house on Christmas Eve and thought he had an extra day that he didn't

to prepare) but the dinner was wonderful and the lesson was good. As

we were leaving he had his player piano play his favorite roll, "The

Barber of Seville", and then we met up with the rest of the

district... On his front porch. I joined the rest of the district in

caroling while Elder Belnap stood in the doorway with Bro. Dunlop and

got sung to. Bro. Dunlop was really happy that we stopped by. He's

really close to coming back to church and just needs a little push.

Thursday was spent caroling (President told us at the Christmas

devotional that Christmas Eve wasn't going to be very effective for

proselyting so we should go caroling), as was Friday evening.

Highlights of our caroling:

- I think caroling is a thing in Iraq. Most people were really

confused about what we were doing but appreciated that we were singing

about Jesus. Only one person cut us off and told us to leave because

he said he was sick.

- We went caroling and found a family for the Sisters to teach. We

were in a parking lot and he said as we were caroling to him, "Stop

for a second. I've got a family that would love this. Come carol to

them." We sang a few songs to his family and invited them to learn

more. They said "Come back after the holidays." Finding through

caroling is a thing, people!

- We knocked on the door of a member family's house and may have rung

the doorbell once or twice. A person opened the door and said, "Sorry,

we're Jewish. But the residents are over there," and pointed to the

garage. Turns out the members rent out their house every Christmas and

live in their (very spacious) garage for a little while. Elder Belnap

tried to salvage the situation by handing them some treats and going,

"Well sorry about that. Have some non-denominational cookies!"

- Silent Night and Far Far Away on Judea's Plains sound pretty good in

Arabic. We typed up a transliterated version of both for the Sisters

and Elder Campbell used it as well since he's still figuring out the

Arabic alphabet. When they start up an Arabic Mormon Choir, the six of

us are going to be right at the front every Christmas, I guarantee it.

On Friday we opened our presents we got from our families and ate lots

of baked goods. There was some miscommunication on timing for Skype

calls but I did get to talk to my family. Sorry everyone, but my

parents are the coolest people on the planet right now. So are my

sisters. And my brother and brother-in-law. I need not say any more.

Saturday we tried a bunch of potentials in the afternoon but nothing

worked out. We got together as a district to do one last round of

caroling to some people we needed to see but hadn't been able to. It

wasn't as impressive, to be honest. Caroling before Christmas is fun

and cool. Caroling after Christmas is really awkward and a little more

uncomfortable and just plain weird. So we called it a night and went

our separate ways. 2015 Caroling ended that night. It was fun while it

lasted.

On Sunday our Gospel Doctrine teacher was out of town so he gave us

the assignment of teaching his class. He told us, "It's on the

Resurrection." I figured "Oh, easy! It's in the Gospel Doctrine book

and I can talk about the Resurrection fairly easily."

First off, it isn't in the Gospel Doctrine book. So I had to come up

with something from scratch which went okay...

Until I ran out of material in about 10 minutes.

In front of the stake president, who was in the room.

Fortunately, the program talked about how we would be talking about

the Final Judgement and so I pulled a little from that and then got a

good discussion going about exaltation and what steps we need to take

in order to achieve it. The stake president's comments were insightful

as always and he really carried the lesson in my opinion. In essence:

Ordinances prepare us for exaltation. Exaltation is achievable if we

put forth the effort to follow the Gospel and let it change us. Christ

is the way for us to achieve exaltation; without His help, we can't

make it. We tried some potentials and investigators at the end of the

night, but no one was home.

Yesterday we walked all over Santee again and actually didn't get

lost! We left the apartment, bags in hand, and I said to myself, "I

won't need my umbrella today."

About 4:15 the clouds above us started to give us a drizzle. And that

drizzle turned into a downpour. And Elder Belnap and I were still

about 30 minutes away from our apartment. We got into the apartment,

soaked and tired, around 4:45, had some dinner, and went down to El

Cajon for the night. It rained on and off all night. We went to stop

by Morad's, but we felt we shouldn't visit him that night so we went

over to Mollison and did some finding over there. At the end of the

night, my feet were admittedly pretty sore from all the walking, but I

suppose that's a good thing because we didn't walk just to walk, we

walked to find people.

That's it for this week! Shoutout to my trainer, Mason Poffenbarger,

who got married last week in the Laie Hawaii temple. Congratulations!

Thank you all for your prayers and your fasts for the people here and

for my companion. Thank you also for your letters and emails. I hope

you all have a wonderful week!

One last thing before I close up...

When was the last time each of you read the Book of Mormon

cover-to-cover? Last week? Last month? Last year? I know I just

finished it up on Christmas Day and I'm going to be starting it back

up on January 1st. I challenge each and every single one of you to

read it cover-to-cover and to pray about it, whether it's for the

first time or the hundredth, beginning January 1st. I'd also love to

hear your thoughts and feelings as you do so, so email me and tell me

about your experience. I love you all!

-- Elder Hawkes

"You guys are way better than the Jehovah's Witnesses!" - Mahji, an 80+-year-old

Begin tangent

In Iraq there are three prevailing churches (and by three prevailing churches I mean one dominates and the other two are trying): the Catholics, the إنجيليّن (Evangelicals), and the شهد يهوة (Jehovah's Witnesses). 90% of the people we meet are Catholics. I'd say about 9% of the others are Evangelicals (Baptists, Protestants, etc.) and I think I can count on one hand the number of Iraqi Jehovah's Witnesses I've met. Out of those three, the Jehovah's Witnesses are looked down upon the most largely because of their unorthodox views on Christ and their lack of praying to Mary. Since the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't in Iraq, pretty much no one knows who we are and assume that we're either the Evangelicals or the Jehovah's Witnesses. Once we find out we're not the latter they tend to be all ears. 

End tangent

Transfers are tomorrow and spoiler alert: I have to pack. Before I get around to that dreaded exercise, I should probably talk about what happened this week and what's going down tomorrow at transfers! 

This week, we...

- Have a very patchwork Wednesday!

- Split Weekly Planning up over three days because we're too busy

- Add Maryam and Frial then have a fancy dinner with a ward missionary

- Do splits and add Amer!

- Do service on Mt. Helix with President Schmitt and his family

- Show up late to stake conference after having to pick up some other missionaries

- Re-add a former named Dalia!

- Teach a former named Ibtisom

- Find out how Morad's doing with the Word of Wisdom

- Have a very circular lesson with some old people

- Go on splits to teach Suhaila and a less-active

- Get transfer calls!

Wednesday is the day that we normally use a lot of time and miles to go down to National City to teach عادل (Adil) English. But he cancelled on us and said to try on Thursday. So we spent a lot of companionship study working on how to fill the two-hour block that just opened up. Once we did that, we went out for the day. We tried potential after potential and former after former and didn't get in the door with anyone, which wasn't the ideal but hey, it happens. After that we had a member dinner wherein we taught her nonmember son a lesson. He really wasn't interested and was just kind of there because his mom told him to be there, so the lesson wasn't that good. Then right afterward we got a call from the Zone Leaders asking if we could do a mini DLC (District Leadership Council) at the end of the night. So we tried more people with no success and finally just went to the DLC tired and a little frustrated that things didn't work out. 

On Thursday we commenced Part I of Weekly Planning and then had a lesson with Maryam, a lady I mentioned in my last email. Her sister? Sister-in-law? Daughter-in-law? Some sort of relative... was there, and they were pretty receptive. We said we were going to use the Bible and the relative, Frial, asked, "Which part?" and then proceeded to pull out a very used Bible with highlights, notes, and everything. 

I almost wept tears of happiness in that moment. 

Tangent #2

Most people we teach don't read the Bible. The idea is that the priest or the deacon interprets the Bible for them and so they don't need to read it or study it. All they need to do is go to church, stand up, sit down, stand up again, listen as the priest reads some scriptures they don't understand, and then go home. Despite that, most people would proudly say they've read the Bible dozens of times when in actuality their priest has read portions of the Bible dozens of times for them. 

End tangent #2

They were pretty receptive of the message and the only concern that they had was that Frial works on Sundays. We've got a return appointment with them for Thursday, which will be great.

After the lesson, we printed off some flyers for an upcoming family history event with one of our ward missionaries and had a very fancy $10 dinner with him that consisted of two Little Caesar's pizzas and some red pepper flakes. After our luxurious dinner we had a lesson with Fawzi, our less-active recent convert, about fasting. We had planned to go over at 6:45 but forgot to tell both Fawzi and the member we were bringing of the time change, so we wound up going at 7 and that really threw everything off. At about 8, just as we were wrapping up, we got a call from a member who was going to come with us to visit Morad asking where we were. We closed up the lesson as fast as we could, rushed over to Morad's, and looked for our member who came running across the street to tell us that Morad forgot that we were going to come and so wanted us to come the next day. We apologized for being late to the member who was more than understanding and then went back to the apartment to commence Part II of Weekly Planning. 

On Friday we had a great Zone Meeting wherein we talked about focusing on achieving our goals and then had a shawarma lunch from one of several international markets in El Cajon that actually sells good Arabic food. 

Tangent #3 (my, there are a lot of those today!)

Most Middle Eastern restaurants don't do Middle Eastern food justice. Coincidentally, there are many much restaurants in El Cajon that try to cater to the Iraqi population but fail horribly. The best places to get as close to authentic Middle Eastern food as you can get in El Cajon without spending thousands of dollars and risking your life in an attempt to get authentic food from Baghdad is to go the international markets, then to the hole-in-the-wall restaurants that don't do a whole ton of advertising but are swarming with Iraqis preparing and cooking the food for a bunch of Iraqis who are eating the food.

End Tangent #3

That evening we went on splits to visit Morad and a potential named Amer. Elder Jensen and I went to visit Amer and had a great lesson with him. He's a painter from Iraq who has learned through sad experience that his degree in hotel management that he got from a university in Iraq means absolutely nothing here in the US. Right now he's working on selling the paintings he's got and trying to find a job teaching fine arts in order to pay his monthly rent. The lesson went really well and he was asking really good questions and follow-up questions to understand more... and then it got a little political and he talked about how he doesn't like the way things are working out here in the U.S. We couldn't get him back on track before we ran out of time, so we told him, "We've got to go, but will you read the pamphlet and pray about it before we come back on Wednesday?" He said yes, and he said he'd come to church with us. We concluded with a prayer and that was the end of the night. Elder Greer told me the lesson with Morad went really well. 

On Saturday we did service on Mt. Helix preparing for the El Niño rainstorms that are supposed to hit this winter. We thought it was just going to be us and maybe one other companionship, but it turns out that we were there along with President Schmitt and his family, the Assistants, and two or three other companionships from the San Diego East Zone. It was a lot of fun. 

After that we finished Weekly Planning Part III and then went out for the night before the evening session of stake conference. As we were walking along talking with people that evening, we saw a big blue light in the sky. We were confused as to what it was and started throwing out guesses. A supernova? A missile attack? Aliens? A bunch of kids in the area were freaking out and saying they saw "a bullet" in the sky. Turns out the Navy was testing a missile and that people as far away as Salt Lake City could see it. It was more than a little weird, though. 

We had stake conference that evening at 7. About 6:45, we got a text from the Zone Leaders asking if we could drive out to Alpine to pick up the elders out there. We reluctantly accepted, seeing as how Alpine is about 20 miles east of us and a trip there and back would make us late. We wound up picking up the Alpine Elders and got back to the stake center about 20 minutes late, awkwardly shuffling in while President and Sister Schmitt and Elder Schwitzer of the Seventy were seated on the stand. Either they didn't notice or didn't care, but it was still rather embarrassing. Elder Schwitzer was hilarious! He talked about keeping the commandments and was making it a fun time for everyone in attendance. 

On Sunday we had the final session of stake conference. We weren't late to it this time, thankfully. Elder Schwitzer talked about and testified of the Book of Mormon. After stake conference we called a member to come with us to an appointment at the church building. The investigator never showed up, so we asked the member if he would mind coming out with us to visit some potentials. We parked on a street named Redwood and started walking around, trying potentials. No one was answering. As we were walking back to the car, the thought came to me, "Elder Greer wanted to visit a former named Dalia who lives right here. Why not go now?" So we stopped by and she let us in! We shared the Restoration with her and invited her to be baptized. She told us that she didn't have any problems with what we taught but that the leader of her church said that if she joined "the Mormons" she'd get kicked out and they wouldn't help her with rent and food. Needless to say, she was a little hesitant. We asked her if she would be baptized if God commanded her to. "How would he command me?" she asked. We responded by talking about the Spirit and what its role is, and promised her that she'd know our message was true if she read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. She said she'd read and pray and that we could come back! It was an awesome lesson!

After dinner that night we had an appointment with a former investigator named Ibtisom. We were sharing the message with her and she laid out her concerns. Basically, she's not sure if she can say it's true or not because she's never heard of Joseph Smith before. Getting down to the root, it's really fear and the thought that she needs to know everything in order to be baptized. The member we brought with us bore testimony of how we wasn't sure about Joseph Smith either, but as he prayed and read he felt it was true and that while he's still learning he can say that it's true. She didn't set up a return appointment with us, but she said we could call and find out what her schedule is like and then come over. At the end of the night when we were looking at what had happened this week, we found that we had added seven new investigators! At the beginning of the week, we had fasted and prayed that we'd be able to find 10 new investigators, and we were really grateful that we came so close to hitting that goal. 

On Monday we went and taught Morad. He's doing better with the Word of Wisdom in that he's drinking herbal tea now, but he's still struggling to quit smoking. We prayed about it and he felt that he would be able to quit on Wednesday. In the lesson we talked about following the prophet and Joseph Smith's experience. He said he wasn't sure about Joseph Smith, so we invited him to pray and ask God about it. We don't think he'll make his baptismal date for Nov. 21, but he's progressed so far and he's so close! Please keep him in your prayers!

Later on yesterday we had a lesson with the aforementioned 80+-year-old and her 60+-year-old daughter. The entire time they all had good questions but had a hard time listening to us. At the beginning we asked if we could pray and they said yes. They then proceeded to go on a ten-minute tangent about prayer and where we were all from and something about where our ancestors came from. The member we brought with us was born in New Zealand, but they kept asking if he was from Iraq. We started the lesson by talking about how we're all the family of God and the Mahji (pronounced like Maggie but with a 'j' sound instead of a 'g'; I'm guessing on the spelling) told us, "I already know this. Why aren't you teaching anything new?" We kindly explained to her that it was the beginning of the lesson and that we'd get to that. And that really set the tone for the entire lesson. We'd say something, then they'd go off on a tangent about something, then we'd bring it back, then they'd ask what we were talking about, then we'd repeat the whole process. In our discussion about apostasy Ikram, the 60-year-old, told us, "You're like the old apostles, yes?" We said, "Sure." She responded with, "Yeah. They preached about Jesus and then they got killed. You won't get killed here. But if you went to Iraq to preach to Muslims, maybe they'd kill you!" 

:|

Other than that, the lesson was pretty good and they said we could come back this week. We finished up the night by going on splits with the zone leaders; Elder Greer and Elder Godby went to visit a less-active and Elder Jensen and I went and taught Suhaila and her sons about scripture study. I'd just like to set the record straight that Mario is super solid. Suhaila knows it's true but is in the stage of "I don't want to admit it's true" and Marceleno could afford to pay attention a little more, but Mario is solid. He's going to be a great missionary! 

Last up... transfers.

*drumroll*

I'm going to be training in Arabic North, and Elder Greer and Elder Jensen are going to be training in Arabic South! We're getting two new missionaries! This is going to be a ton of fun!

That's it for this week! We've got some crazy stuff happening this coming week, and it starts at 6:00 tonight! Thank you all for your letters and emails and most importantly your prayers on my behalf; I really appreciate it!

-- Elder Hawkes

--

Elder Christian Hawkes

California San Diego Mission

7404 Armstrong Place

San Diego, CA 92111-4912

Sent from my iPad

"How do you say 'Quantum physics' in Arabic?" - Elder Jensen

*checks Google Translate*: فيزياء الكم

This week, we...

- Go out of chronological order in this email to talk about Basim

- Have lunch with عادل (Adil)

- Add a family!

- Sort-of-not-really bash with some people

- Teach Fawzi and commit him to do more to come back to church

- Add someone else!

- Pass Shaima off to the Sisters

- Listen as our investigator says he's going to join the Mafia (without actually knowing what the Mafia is)

- Do service at a school (with permission, mind you!)

- Show up to the Halloween party and meet some nonmembers there

- Listen to the Primary program than teach the Law of Chastity in Gospel Principles

- Get some hints from President about some transfer possibilities....

- Have an all-around awesome Monday!

First off, if I had to sum this week up in one phrase, it'd be this: The right place at the right time, every time. The more I read that the more it sounds weird but I'm going to keep typing and go with it before I second-guess myself. 

Going out of chronological order... let's talk about Basim. 

This is what I imagine the Elders were doing afterreconnecting with Basim.

Once upon a time, Elder Hawkes was new to the whole "being a missionary" thing and was being trained by one of the most حديد missionaries on the earth, Elder Poffenbarger. The two of them found and taught a young man named Basim. Basim was the miracle child. He understood everything we taught and accepted it. He prayed about baptism, he prayed about the Book of Mormon, he prayed about Joseph Smith, and he knew all of it was true. He asked us, "When can I be baptized?" And we told him April 18th. 

Flash forward to April. Basim is still solid, but he's got some external pressure on him. First off, his family isn't too thrilled at the idea of him getting baptized. Second off, since he's the only person in his household capable of working he gets a job that provides him with long hours and no time to meet with us. So unfortunately he drops us, but he says we could try in May. 

Flash forward to May. Elder Poffenbarger calls Basim and Basim tells him we're liars and that he doesn't want to hear from us ever again. With much sadness to be had we put him in the mental "Forever Former" category but pray that he'll be willing to meet in the future. 

Now to last Monday/Tuesday. Elder Poffenbarger and Elder Jackson are home now. We're in a trio. We knock on Basim's door (with Elder Hawkes almost ready to call it off and run back to the car) and his mom answers the door. She says he isn't home but that we could try another time. We leave her with our number and ask her to call us if she needs any help with anything. About a half hour later, Basim calls us and says he need
s "urgent help" with something and asks if we can come Tuesday at 8 with Bro. Seba. 

So last Tuesday we went to Basim's at 8 with Bro. Seba. 

The details of what they need don't matter and are confidential, but suffice it to say that it has Bro. Seba wringing his hands and not feeling good about it but he reluctantly agrees anyway. On Wednesday at Language Study Bro. Seba hesitantly tells us to deliver something that will help to Basim and his mom. On the way Elder Greer and Elder Jensen felt that we shouldn't do it. I'm ashamed to admit that I felt the same but didn't want to say or do anything for fear of Basim rejecting us again. We agree (along with Bro. Seba) that we aren't going to follow through with it and instead tell Basim and his mother that we didn't feel good about doing it and so decided against it. At this point Elder Hawkes is again nervous. But there's nothing to worry about, Basim and his mother understand and thank us for being honest and say it's no problem. His mom tells us we can teach Basim and Basim says we can come back Saturday at 8. 

So we went back Saturday at 8 and re-added him! :D

We reviewed the Restoration with him and while the details were a little sketchy he remembered most of the concept and most importantly remembers believing it to be true. We invited him to baptism and he said he'd be baptized on November 28th. On Sunday we reviewed the Restoration again and went over the Plan of Salvation and he's still solid. Truly the Lord prepares the hearts of people!

Back to chronological order...

On Wednesday we had lunch with our Muslim friend in National City, عادل. He fed us a really good Iraqi meal consisting of حموس (Hummus), كبّة (Kubba), and a few other things. It was really good! We also got to add a family that the Zone Leaders had found while tracting. To make a long story short President felt that we should go tract the areas near the stake center before the Mission President's Fireside last Sunday and the Zone Leaders found this family. We taught them (and by them I mean the dad, since the daughters couldn't really understand a lot of words and wanted to be taught in English) the Restoration and the dad, Sabri, said he'd read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover and that after that we could teach him. To wrap up the night, we got a call from the Zone Leaders that there was a really awesome Arabic conversation going on where they were and that we needed to come ASAP. So we went, and the people they were talking to proceeded to sort-of bash with us. I say sort-of because they were wanting to bash but we were really really working hard not to bash. Eventually we just gave them each a Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, and an invitation to pray about it. One of them was saying, "If I believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God then I also have to believe the Qur'an is the word of God also!" 

That sentence had so many logical fallacies in it that it made me cringe a little even when writing it. 

Anyway... on Thursday we did Weekly Planning and then taught Fawzi, our less-active recent convert. He's still having Word of Wisdom problems, but he's getting better. We talked about faith and reminded him that if he wanted the Lord to bless him with a job that would allow him to come to church on Sundays, he needs to put forth his effort and look for work. It was a really great lesson that did a lot for him, I think! 

On Friday we didn't have district meeting because Bro. Hemmingway, the Director of Proselyting at the Church Missionary Department, came down to do a special MLC with us that all the zone leaders and district leaders had to attend. Since this email is long enough I won't talk about everything he said, but he essentially told us to be better at setting goals and achieving them; finding referrals; and having the faith to baptize. After that we went to a restaurant called Wings 'n Things. It was... okay. And really not noteworthy. We passed Shaima off to the Sisters, since Habib decided to move to Las Vegas. We also added a man named Ashur who was originally having the attitude of "All the churches are the same" but by the end was willing to give the Book of Mormon a chance. 

We went to go visit Morad on Friday and he started it off by answering the door with rap music blaring in the background and swearing at us in an attempt to be tough. He quickly changed his mind about that when we started to turn around and leave. He told us that he was going to join the Mafia... and then he talked about how much he loved the police in El Cajon. 

Woah woah woah. "Morad, you know that the Mafia is against the police and hates them, right?" 

I guess it had never dawned on him. 

We had a good lesson after that. We shared a little bit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him and reminded him of the importance of baptism. He agreed (sort of) to a baptismal date of Nov. 14th! :D He's got some Word of Wisdom problems to sort out and he needs follow-up on everything else, but he's slowly but surely inching forward. 

On Saturday we got permission to help out at Jamul Primary School by moving some mulch around in their garden. They fed us Subway in exchange for our labors. Very much worth it. We had the ward Halloween party that night, and we weren't sure that anyone was going to come. We went anyway and it turns out that Jenny (Muhammad's wife) and her kids came. We were grateful they were able to come, and they had a great time. We invited them to the Primary program on Sunday and they accepted the invitation. 

On Sunday Jenny and Muhammad came to church and listened to the Primary children blurt out "GOD GAVE US FAMILIES!" and some other songs. Afterward, I taught the English Gospel Principles class about the Law of Chastity. Nothing too noteworthy about that; I just explained what it was and how following it was a principle of faith, as with all the commandments. I said that the way to know if it's from God is to live it and ask. It was pretty good. 

Yesterday we had an okay lesson with Morad. We went in expecting to teach the Gospel and the Word of Wisdom, but we didn't really practice or prepare as much for the Gospel part as we did the Word of Wisdom part. So most of the lesson was really kind of directionless and didn't feel like a good lesson. Live and learn. 

Also, President gave us some interesting hints about transfers in interviews yesterday. We know for sure that someone is coming, and President told Elders Greer and Jensen, "I wouldn't be surprised if two came in this transfer..." So now that's an option on the table. I guess we'll see in two weeks!

Thanks for enduring this novel, everyone! Thanks also for your letters and emails! Don't be afraid to keep in touch!

-- Elder Hawkes

"Are you seriously using the Lego Star Wars video game as a point of reference?" - Elder Hawkes

Elder Hawkes received some colorings from the Sunbeam
class from his home ward.

Turns out Elder Jensen hasn't seen Star Wars. How sad.

So this week started off crazy weird and has gradually smoothed itself
out, so let's get into it!
This week, we...
- Find out about "The transfer that never was"
- Unpack
- Drive up to the Arabic North apartment only to realize we don't have the keys
- Have a Catholic tell us he's not interested because he's Muslim
- Help Suhaila move
- Listen to Conference! And then teach a person!
- Get a call from a member after one of our investigators shows up to
church when no one's there
- Help redecorate a retirement center.
- Forget to bring a member to Suhaila's and wind up teaching her outside
- Teach a family who says they'll get back to us on whether they
believe it or not

So, first off, let me tell you all about "The transfer that never was..."

When we last left off, I was going up North, Elder Greer was going to be training, we needed to be at the transfer meeting at 9:30, and I learned how much of a pain it is to pack everything you have in preparation for going somewhere new. And then at 10:05 P.M., we got a call from President Schmitt.

He told us that during his interviews with the incoming missionaries, he didn't receive any inspiration as to who should be the new Arabic missionary. But he went and looked at the missionaries coming in next transfer, and he saw that there's an Elder coming in November who studied Arabic for 5 years! "So," he said, "Elder Greer, you're going to train him when he comes. I'm sorry that you don't get to train right now. You three are going to be in a trio this transfer."

So I'm still in Arabic South, technically. It was a really last-minute decision. But it just goes to show how much the Lord is in this work!

After spending a good chunk of the night and the next morning unpacking and determining what I need in the next six weeks and what I don't (I know with 100% certainty that I'm going up North next transfer), we drove up to the Arabic North apartment on Wednesday to pick up Elder Jensen's stuff. And then we realized, we had let some sister missionaries in Santee borrow the car, and we neglected to get the apartment keys from them before we gave them the keys! So we went back, taught عدل (Adil) English in National City, did some rearranging and reorganizing in our apartment, and finally got the keys to the North apartment. I about doubled my tie collection because Elder Jackson left a bunch of ties that he didn't want (still not a necktie person). We finally got everything handled and moved in, then we went proselyting.

That evening we had a lesson with the three Chaldean women I mentioned last email. There were a lot of distractions outside (we had to sit outside) and it essentially boiled down to "We're Catholic. We don't want to change. Thanks." So on our way out we saw an open door and decided to try and talk with the residents. One of them came to the door and said, "No. We're Muslim."

We were staring straight at his Virgin Mary statue. And could see the rosaries on the wall.

Anyway, despite the obvious lie we decided it wasn't worth our time to push any further and left.

On Thursday we helped Suhaila move. She'd been having some trouble with the management in her old place and decided it was better to move than deal with all the ridiculousness she was facing. We expected it to be a short move, maybe an hour or so. But since it was the three of us, her, her two teenage sons, and her home teacher, it took about
three. Her new place is a lot smaller than her old one. She said she likes the old one more, but she'll manage.

On Friday I had my first district meeting as district leader. It went alright. Our district is composed of the three of us (me, Elder Greer, and Elder Jensen) and the Hillsdale/Jamul Sisters (Sister Wardinsky and Sister 'Eukaliti). After that, we brought a member of the ward out with us to try a few potentials. As we were walking, another member waved us over and, after asking him who he knew, introduced us to his neighbor. We had a lesson with her on her porch that essentially
consisted of her venting and us reminding her to have faith in Christ. I'm sure she was a little overwhelmed because there were five people standing on her porch wanting to talk about Jesus!

Later on that night we visited Morad, an investigator who's been taught for several months now. We talked a lot about having faith in Jesus Christ and how having faith will lead to baptism. He's got some envy problems that he's working out, but he's got a lot of faith! When we invited him to be baptized he said he'd do it! :D We invited him to be baptized on October 31st and he wasn't as sure. So we invited him to pray about it and he said he would. I really think it can happen if
he just prays and finds out for himself.

On Saturday we had a small meeting you've probably never heard of called General Conference. You'll probably ask me what my favorite talk was and I'd tell you that I don't know because they were all amazing! It was great to see three new Apostles sustained and I congratulate Elders Rasband, Stevenson, and Renlund on their new callings.

That evening we taught نائل (Na'il), whom we've been trying to get in the door with for over a month. We reviewed the Restoration with him and he's got it. His problem isn't that he doesn't believe, his problem is that he can't find time to meet with us. Since he lives so close to his workplace he's always on-call and it's hard to nail down a time to meet with him (no pun intended). We'll keep trying him.

On Sunday Morad came to the Sunday Morning session of General Conference, which was awesome. We got a call from one of our members, Bro. Faradjian, between sessions. He said that one of our investigators, حبيب (Habeeb) had showed up to church and, when he saw no one was there, called him up and asked where everyone was. (For the record, we tried calling him but the phone number was wrong, and he wasn't home when we stopped by) So Bro. Faradjian told him it was conference and invited him over. We went by and watched the concluding session with him, which was awesome. He had a great time!

Yesterday we helped the Hillsdale/Jamul Sisters and a less-active lady in La Vida Real (a retirement center in Rancho San Diego) rearrange things and redecorate the main rooms for Halloween and autumn. It mostly consisted of us walking around, placing things here and there, rearranging a wreath or two, and hanging some cloths here and there to make it look "spooky". It was a lot of fun, actually! We also taught Suhaila on her porch (because we had forgotten to bring a member with us) about the Spirit World and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She said she hasn't been reading from the Book of Mormon due to the move, but she said she'd read it this week.

Last thing: Last night we had a lesson with a family. The husband, خليل (Khaleel), was very inviting but a little closed-off. As we were teaching, he and his wife, جنان (Jinan), grew more and more attentive as the lesson went on. The Spirit was very strong there as we taught and discussed our message with them. At the end of it, they said they'd think about it and call us. He wanted to make sure our phone number was right so he could call us, which was a great sign!

And that's it for this week! So in case you didn't catch it at the beginning, I'm in a trio and I'm also district leader. This transfer is going to be fun! Thanks everyone for your emails and letters! I love getting mail, so don't be afraid to write! Have a great week!

-- Elder Hawkes

"تؤمن بامك؟" - Almost every Chaldean we meet

Elder Hawkes wrote the longest email of his mission last week. You give a missionary an iPad and they write a novel...

The phrase "تؤمن بامك؟" (too'min bi'oumak) (sort of; Arabic doesn't really work in English letters, I've learned) means "Do you believe in your mother?" and is used by a lot of people to justify praying to the Virgin Mary. For those keeping track at home, that logical fallacy is known as a "strawman".

Anyway, enough about praying to Mary (although I will talk about it in this email), let's talk about what happened this week in El-Cajon-Land! This week, we...
- Have three lessons in a row
- Do service and wind up showing up after everything's done
- Teach a pancake
- Add someone!
- Drop someone. :(
- Have a guy talk on us about the Bible (and he knows what he's talking about!)
- Have a dream wherein my ward mission leader is the mission president
- Finish inputting stuff into Area Book Planner! :D
- Find someone because of pool water
- Get told to "Pray to Mary" many much times

First off, I'm recovering from a cold and my voice is pretty much non-existent today. So when reading this, in order to get the full effect, read it out loud in a very raspy voice. ;)

One day Christian will see this email and laugh that a strong photo would
be used for a missionary with a cold. This is what happens when said
missionary didn't send any photos....notice how they all have black badges
about where the pocket is....I thought that was appropriate.

On Wednesday this week we had a great day, albeit a little unusual. To start the day off, someone actually called us and said that we could come teach them!

Which never happens.

So we went and taught them. It was a very scattered lesson. They weren't very focused and had a lot of questions. They said they're pretty busy but that we were welcome if they're around. Right after that, there was another potential investigator we wanted to go visit. So we went to their house and they were home! We went in and taught them the Restoration. They weren't too interested in hearing the message ("We are Catholic") but they also said we're welcome to stop by sometime. After that, we tried a few people who weren't home and then got in the door with the family we had taught earlier in the week (see last week's email where it talks about what happened on Monday to know which one I'm talking about). This time the entire family was home and we started to teach all of them.

I say "started" on purpose, because their uncle who was sitting in on the lesson pulled out the Bible and started trying to bash with us. Revelation 22, John 3:16, etc. Learning from past experiences when it comes to people trying to bash with us, we bore testimony of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and asked if he believed it were possible for God to reveal more scripture. He gave a solid "No." And that was pretty much the end of the lesson. After that, the family was
really not interested in hearing anything else and it was quickly turning into the wrong time and wrong place, so we prayed with them, thanked them for their hospitality and willingness to have us over, and left. That lesson was a bit of a sour patch for the day, to be honest, but we got back up and after discussing whether or not it was worth our time to go back later got going again.

On Thursday we had a service opportunity! The Special Olympics are being held in Los Angeles and so our local public affairs coordinator person guy got the church lined up with the opportunity to prepare lunches for the kids who were going to be participating. It was at 7 A.M., so when we woke up we had to quickly shower, get changed, and drive to the stake center. By the time we got there, it was pretty much already over! The coordinator person dude thanked us for coming and helping (even though we didn't really do much aside from close some brown paper bags) and told us we could head out. Wish we had been able to do more, but it was still a great time! After that, we had a great weekly planning session and companionship inventory wherein we planned really well for people we would work with (more on that in a later section) and made sure we were both on track, then we went to contact some more potentials. That evening, we taught Nishwan, a referral from some Spanish Elders (the same guy that was bashing on us Monday night).

Bit of an explanation as to why I called him a "pancake". I do not intend to demean him or to say he's a bad person, because he's cool. But he flipped and he flopped on a lot of things in the lesson. One minute he was telling us we're welcome anytime, the next he was saying we could only come if we had a native speaker with us. One minute he was telling us he liked our pictures and the next he was saying that he doesn't like pictures because it says in the Bible not to worship idols.

Yeah...
We had a scattered lesson with him and by the end of it he told us he's searching for truth and willing to meet with us, so definitely someone we're going to go back to... most likely. Like I was describing earlier, he was kind of flip-floppy in the lesson so we're not sure if we want to bring a native speaker and waste his time with a guy that isn't interested.

On Friday we added a man named Saif (سيف, "Sword" His full name translates to "Sword of the religion." Arabic names are cool.)! He was a potential we'd been trying to get ahold of since the middle of being a trio, so it was great that we were able to finally meet with him. He had really good English and understood what we were telling him, even if we were saying it in English. At the end, Elder Greer extended the baptismal invitation and he accepted! Elder Greer then said, "We'll be holding a baptismal service on August 15th. Will you be baptized on that date?" And he said yes!

:D :D :D

... and then told us we're welcome back but that he isn't available until August 1st.

So that's how our investigator gained and lost a baptismal date within 5 minutes of each other.

We also dropped إخلاص (Ikhlas) because she hasn't been progressing and she's got a lot on her plate right now. :(

On Saturday we went to visit a man named عدل (A'adal; the first letter, ع, has no English equivalent). He invited us in warmly and we explained who we were. He then proceeded to talk about the Bible. Extensively. He dove into the Old Testament, connected things from the Old Testament with the New, discussed culture and the original Greek and Hebrew... after a little while (it felt like a much longer time) we found a good stopping point, asked if we could help him out with anything, and asked who he knew that we could teach. He gave the response that we get from a lot of people ("I'm a Christian, they're Christian, go teach Muslims!") but then pointed us to a door and said "They're Muslim. Go teach them!" So we went over and asked if we could come by. They weren't really interested in learning. But hey, he pointed us to a specific door, which is something people tend to not do, so that's a major plus!

Right before I woke up on Sunday, I had a dream wherein the ward mission leader, Bro. Seba, was acting as the mission president unofficially. He was interviewing missionaries to be new Arabic-speaking missionaries and was also going to interview Elder Greer and I to see if we should stay. He interviewed Elder Greer first (I remember telling him in my dream to interview him first, then two others, then me, so it didn't seem like he was picking favorites) and I suppose Elder Greer "passed". Then after a little while he interviewed me. He started off by telling me, "I'm thinking of transferring you where you'll have more success..." and I told him that while it was up to him whether I got transferred or not, I didn't care how many people were or were not baptized by the end of my mission in Arabic work as long as I was able to work hard and "warn the people." I remember walking out of the room feeling like he'd probably keep me in Arabic work. And then I woke up. I'm not sure what to make of the dream, to be honest. In hindsight, I'm a little confused as to why I would think the ward mission leader would be calling the shots as to whether I get transferred in the future or not, but I suppose dreams don't always make sense. I only include it in here because I thought it was noteworthy and I remember it quite vividly as if it had actually happened.

Anyway...
On Sunday, محمد (Mohammed/Muhammad, one of our recent converts) brought his kids to church, شمس (Shams, "sun") and كرام (Karaam, I think it's from the same root as كريم which means "generous", so maybe like "A person who is generous" or something to that effect; Elder McCombie will probably correct me). We've been talking with Bro. Seba about how to help محمد progress towards the Melchizedek Priesthood and we think that the best way to get him to progress towards the temple and get his wife baptized is to teach the kids and build their desire. So right now we're in the "set-up" stage. In my mind I'm envisioning it like a row of dominoes, where right now we're setting it all up so that when it's executed in the Lord's time and the Lord's way the kids will not only be baptized, but محمد will get the Melchizedek
Priesthood and receive the temple endowment, his wife will be baptized, and together they'll be sealed in the temple, which is the end result of all activity in the church. It's really interesting to set it all up and see under the guidance of the Spirit how to set it up in such a way that all of that will happen. And it all starts with building their desire to come to church. In the coming weeks (and quite possibly months), as things fall into place, it'll be wonderful to see it all happen.

Yesterday we finished inputting our records into Area Book Planner. This means that (aside form a few gaps when it comes to sacrament meeting attendance and new-member lessons) everything is not only online but up-to-date. It's been a little tedious going through and getting everything in, but now that it's over I'm relieved. Also yesterday, we were walking around and noticed a trail of water. And not a tiny one. It looked like someone had left their hose running. Wanting to be good pseudo-citizens of California we decided to follow it and let the homeowner know. We knocked on his door and he said he was just draining out his pool to get it replaced. He also took the time to expressly tell us he wasn't interested in our message. So we asked him who he knew that spoke Arabic and he pointed us to his neighbor across the street. We walked over there, knocked on the door, and a lady answered. She talked to us about how she's looking for a place to bring her kids where they can learn about Jesus and they can understand (the kids speak Chaldean and English, not Arabic, which makes it hard because she attends an Arabic congregation). We said we'd love to come by another day and share a message and even do some yard work for her. She was really happy to hear that and kept telling us that we must have been sent from God. We gave her our number and the church's address and she said she'd talk to her husband and set up a time when we could come and do service for her. So that's how we found someone because of a swimming pool!

Few more things, I promise.

I mentioned earlier praying to Mary. In the Chaldean Catholic Church, praying to Mary is a very big deal. Most people say they don't like the إنجلين (Injeleen, Evangelical Christians) or the Jehovah's Witnesses (both of which have a presence in Iraq) because they don't pray to Mary. I'm not entirely sure when Mary worship got started, but I know that it's centuries old at least. Usually, when we're talking with someone, they'll ask us "Do you believe in the Virgin Mary?" And that's when we tread lightly, because by "believe" they tend to mean"pray to". So we usually say, "Yes, but we don't pray to her." That's when we usually get one of a few responses:
1) "تؤمن بامك؟" ("Do you believe in your mother?")
2) "You HAVE to pray to her!"
3) "She's the mother of Jesus and you HAVE to honor her!"
4) A few really out-of-the-blue ones, such as "In the 10 Commandments it says to 'Honor your father and mother'" and "If I took you and your mother out to dinner, and I bought you tons of food but I didn't get your mother anything, would you be happy? That's why you have to pray to her!"
Generally we can get people to rethink it by telling them the Bible says to pray to the Father only, with a few exceptions here and there. Out of all the traditions and interpretations I've heard, praying to Mary is the one that I can't wrap my head around because it isn't rooted in any scripture or even loose interpretation of scripture.

Something something something "Let them worship how, where, or what they may."

Not to say I hate Chaldeans because of Mary worship (of course not!), but it's just a tradition that doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks everyone for your emails and letters. I love getting mail (physical and electronic) so don't be afraid to send me something! Have a great week!

Cool Arabic thing for the week is actually a culture thing: There is Chaldean (a modern evolution of Aramaic used in Chaldean rituals and spoken by most Chaldeans) and there is also Coptic, which is a modern evolution of Ancient Egyptian. In Egypt, 5% of the population is Coptic, which is a Christian church similar to the Orthodox churches traditionally founded by Mark (the Gospel writer). Coptic is only used in Coptic worship services.

-- Elder Hawkes