"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

"Butter makes everything... buttery." - Elder Campbell

Elder Hawkes and Elder Belnap

Elder Campbell is one of the two new Arabic missionaries. He's minoring in Linguistics and he came in knowing no Arabic.

Also, my motivation is very much nonexistent right now, so this email won't be the same as other emails past or future. Pinky promise.

Welcome to my weekly email, wherein....
- Elder Hawkes gets a new companion!
- We get two investigators with a baptismal date!
- We drop a man who didn't fully realize what our message was about
until our second visit
- We have district meeting, and then Elder Hawkes does a baptismal interview
- We get some people to church
- Elder Hawkes realizes how much he needs to improve... well, pretty
much everything

Let me start off this email with a story.

Once upon a time Elder Hawkes didn't go by Elder Hawkes, he went by some sort of weird name that he doesn't use anymore. He also was a lot younger and inexperienced in Arabic. In an attempt to learn Arabic a little more, he went to Startalk Arabic 2010 and Startalk Arabic 2011. While there, he met a young man with the last name of Belnap. And he
and Belnap were roommates in 2010 and good friends and partners in 2011. We both kept in touch after the camp but never really interacted beyond that.

Flash forward to last Tuesday. Elder Hawkes, Elder Greer, and Elder Jensen receive a call saying that they're all training. And also would we mind hosting a new missionary for the night? He just got in and he needs a place to sleep, get him fed and show him the ropes, make sure he's at the Mormon Battalion at 8 A.M., etc. So we drive to the mission home and who does Elder Hawkes find but the now-Elder Belnap, the same one that had been his Startalk roommate!

At this point it is certain that Elder Belnap is the "Studied Arabic for five years" missionary that President told us about. The question remains, though, who will be training him? Elder Hawkes assumes that Elder Belnap will be with Elder Greer and Elder Jensen.

And then transfer meeting happens on Wednesday. I'll spare you the details of us getting lost on our way to the Mormon Battalion and all the other crazy things that happen that day. The moment of truth comes. "In El Cajon!" President announces from the pulpit. "In the Hillsdale Arabic Group. Elder Greer, please stand. Your new companion will be Elder Jensen, and together you will be training...

"Elder Campbell!"

And so that's the long way of saying that I'm training Elder Belnap in Arabic North. How many missionaries can say that they were roommates with their companion before the mission? I certainly can now!

To be honest, aside from transfers our week hasn't been that exciting. I've learned that I really need to work on planning, finding, and teaching. We had a training yesterday for all the missionaries who arrived from about May onward (which is actually over 50% of our mission) and since my trainee needed to be there, I had to be there. And I'm really glad I went because I know exactly how to improve my planning, finding, and teaching this week and in the coming weeks. I'm not going to get into specifics, but suffice it to say that I have been a very poor planner up until recently (read: yesterday).

Now, onto what happened this week! Again!

After getting transfers all situated (including getting lost trying to go to the grocery store and winding up having to shop right before we went home), we taught some people. As is prone to happen in missionary work. I think that this week I'll do a more person-by-person thing.

So first off, the two with a baptismal date. Their names are Nabil and Nazhat. We added them about two weeks ago (I think it was two weeks). We went back this week on Thursday and taught them the Restoration again to make sure they understood it. Elder Belnap invited them to be baptized and they accepted! We offered them a date for December 19th. At church on Sunday we taught them the Plan of Salvation and it was a really great lesson. They were asking questions about baptism that really showed their spiritual desire: "Can you get baptized when you're old?" "You can get baptized again?" It was an amazing lesson!

Morad: He's still doing okay. He's still struggling with the Word of Wisdom and won't make his current baptismal date. We taught him on Monday about the Holy Ghost and about church attendance, emphasizing that if he was baptized and received the Holy Ghost he would receive greater guidance in finding work, starting a family, etc. It was a really great lesson... and then he got sidetracked towards the end of the lesson. :( And we almost got him with a new baptismal date. We still feel like we need to keep him, so I'll let you know how it goes. He's going to get baptized before December, I know it!

Maryam and Frial: It hasn't quite clicked for them. We read the Book of Mormon with Maryam on Thursday (Frial wasn't there) and she didn't quite get it yet. We're going to be working with them this week to get them baptized before Christmas.

Amer: Got dropped. He essentially didn't know we wanted to teach him something new and reverted to his traditions. It would have been so easy to just bash with him, but it wouldn't have gotten anywhere. So we dropped him and we'll follow-up in about six months.

And with that my motivation is completely and totally gone. Thanks for reading this email everyone. I promise my motivation will be greater next week!

-- Elder Hawkes

"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

"Is this moderation? I just ate 7 tacos... and I'm going to eat 4 more." - Mario, a recent convert

*sigh*

First, off welcome to my weekly email No-longer-Elder Jackson (Just because you're home doesn't mean I need to call you by your first name). And welcome everyone to this week's edition of What Went Down in El Cajon, CA (as it relates to missionary work). 

This is a popular yogurt drink that is more savory than
sweet. Elder Hawkes likes it, Elder Jensen doesn't.

This week, we...

- Have a pizza party

- Teach عادل (Adil) English, wherein he struggles with the word "Kindergarten" and the ABC song

- Move some wood from a wood shed

- Get حبيب (Habib) in touch with LDS Employment Services in an attempt to dissuade him from moving

- Remind everyone that Elder Hawkes is an expert on lighthouses by virtue of him hearing a song about them

- Invite Morad to dinner

- Get to know Shaima's concerns rather than her beating around the bush

- Teach the Plan of Salvation in Gospel Principles

- Sing to a bunch of people

- Meet with an investigator we've been trying for a month now

- Teach Morad, then teach Suhaila

- Get a call from Basim (the golden investigator who dropped us in May)!!!!!!!!

First off, on Wednesday we - along with the sisters - helped our ward mission leader's family clean up their house and rearrange some stuff. Afterward we were running a little behind, so we told عادل we would be at his house around 1:30 to teach him English and then rushed to the nearest Little Caesar's to get lunch. As we got there and were contemplating what to order, Sis. Seba (the wife of the ward mission leader) and the sister missionaries pulled up right beside us. So we went back to the Seba's and had a big pizza party. We ate pretty quickly and rushed out the door so we could get to عادل on time. Once we got to عادل, we realized that we had forgotten to grab the papers that contained his next lesson. In the spirit of quick thinking, Elder Greer decided to review some things with him and work on teaching him the ABC's via that wonderful song that everyone who was 5 years old at some point knows. 

And it was hilarious. 

Elder Hawkes, Elder Jensen, Elder Godby 

In Arabic, 90% of the time you pronounce every letter exactly as if it was written. In English (at least American English) we have a tendency to blend consonants together. For instance, read this sentence out loud. Then, think back at how you blended those consonants and words together. If you're anything like me you'll probably get a little self-conscious of the fact and try to correctly pronounce every single letter in the sentence as you read it out loud again. My point is, if something makes a "t" sound in Arabic, they pronounce it with a "t" sound, not a "d" or some other sound. So about halfway through the song (the part where it goes L-M-N-O-P) the letters kind of blend together and it was really funny to listen to عادل copy Elder Greer while still trying to pronounce every letter. We also learned that the word "Kindergarten" is tough for some people. He kept saying "Kindergarun" or "Kinnurgarren" or something to that effect. We had to take it syllable by syllable. He eventually got it, thankfully. 

On Thursday we started the day off by helping a family in the ward, the Knight's, move some wood from their wood shed to the other side of their house so they could use it during the winter. Let me tell you, there was a lot of wood. It was almost stacked up to the ceiling in the little shed they had. The first few layers were pretty easy because most of it was okay. But as we got closer and closer to the bottom, there was more decayed wood than there was good wood. Elder Greer, being in pest control before his mission, knew that the entire bottom layer was filled with termites, so we didn't even bother with that. By the time it was all done, we had discovered many spiders (some large, some small), two dead rats, a few lizards, and more termites than we would have cared to have seen. It was all worth it though, because afterward they fed us a great lunch. Also, we learned that pretty much every house in San Diego County that is at least 20-30 years old has termites. Fun fact!

That evening we taught one of our investigators with a baptismal date, حبيب (Habib). He told us that he was probably going to move to Las Vegas because he couldn't find work out here. In an attempt to dissuade him from moving we got him in touch with LDS Employment Services so he could have a resource for finding jobs in the area. (Spoiler alert: He's decided to move anyway.) We had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation which was pretty straightforward. 

On Friday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. Elder Godby came here to Arabic work while Elder Greer went to English work for the day. In district meeting we talked about the Book of Mormon. I used the analogy of a lighthouse to explain how the Book of Mormon guides people to Christ. Since I've never been east past Kentucky and have lived in a land-locked state my entire life, I am an expert on lighthouses by virtue of me listening to the song "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy" and a Conference talk about it. :) It was a really good district meeting and helped me gain some greater insights about the Book of Mormon and how to use it better in my teaching. 

A member gave Elder Hawkes a stack of Arabic Flashcards
that he used while learning Arabic. 

We invited Morad to a pizza dinner with the Seba's because he's been in need of fellowship. We showed up and waited. And waited. And waited. 

Eventually we got in contact with him. He said he had forgotten and had already gone to get food, so he wouldn't be able to make it. So we ate the pizzas all by ourselves (and the Seba's were there too). On an slightly related note, the best pizza I've had is actually from The Pizza Place at the Barnoa casino, owned by Bro. Seba. 

We went to teach Habib and Shaima the Gospel of Jesus Christ that night, which we did. It was a pretty simple and straightforward lesson. Shaima then brought forward her concerns: She said she had received a vision of God telling her that the Bible was the only true book and that there was nothing more. She also showed us that she had looked up Joseph Smith on Wikipedia and found out about polygamy and wanted answers. We answered as best we could and said we'd work on getting her more information about the subject. Habib was a little overbearing in the lesson, though. He was telling Shaima that he felt the Book of Mormon was true and that if Joseph Smith was a prophet then he must have done it as a commandment from God, except by the end he was almost at the point of yelling. Eventually she walked out of the lesson. Habib again said that he felt the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He's so prepared and the Elders in Las Vegas are going to great with him there! 

On Sunday I woke up then realized, "Oh no. I haven't the slightest clue what I'm teaching in Gospel Principles." So I looked at the English manual to give myself a brief overview of the lesson "The Gathering of Scattered Israel." "I got this," I thought to myself, knowing full well that I didn't because I had forgotten about it until the day of. So I flipped open the Arabic manual to review it in Arabic. 

It turns out they skipped that lesson in the Arabic version. 

And I didn't know that until five hours before the lesson. 

Running low on time, I grabbed the Arabic manual and rushed out the door with my companions to ward council and then to sacrament meeting. "I'll just read from the manual," I thought to myself. When I got to the church, I decided, "Actually, I'll just teach the Plan of Salvation because I know the material and it wouldn't hurt to review it with محمد (Muhammad)." So I gave it on the Plan of Salvation. It went okay. 

That evening we had a dinner-lesson with some friends of a family in the ward that we had inadvertently street contacted a while ago. They weren't super interested, but they were inviting of the message and were willing to give it a shot. They said they'd hold off on more lessons until they had read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. All in all the members liked it and their friends were appreciative of their friends' willingness to share what they believed. After that we rushed over to the stake center so we could sing in the Mission President's Fireside. Morad actually came to the Fireside and stayed for the whole thing, even though he said he would only stay for 10 or 15 minutes. They had music, then a video, then some testimonies from some recent converts. After repeating that cycle once or twice President and Sister Schmitt both bore their testimonies and shared some thoughts with the audience. It was really great!

Yesterday was a really good day. We started the day off by meeting with one of our investigators in Arabic North's area, رعد (Raed). He seemed to mostly just nod his head in agreement even though he didn't understand what we were telling him, so we'll see how it works out. After the lesson, he gave us each a business card for his uncle, who's a pastor over at a local Nazarene church. We taught Morad a really good lesson about obedience and being kind and charitable to everyone. The entire time he was very happy and was actually helping to explain some of the points we brought up. Once he makes that step to be baptized he'll be solid! We also taught Suhaila a pretty straightforward lesson about prayer. Not much to note from that, other than the email title for the week. 

This morning Habib texted us to say he was moving to Las Vegas but that his wife was going to stay in San Diego, so we could still work with her. We sent his info off to the missionaries over there and wished him the best of luck. Not necessarily a sour note, but not one I'd like to end on, so let's jump back!

Back when Elder Poffenbarger (my trainer) and I were together, we worked with a young man named Basim. He was solid and sure to be baptized. Then, due to work and probably some family pressure, he got dropped. In May he called us to say he didn't want to talk to us anymore and that he hated us. Really sad, but the story doesn't end there. We've felt like we've needed to visit with him for a while and at least see how he's doing, so last night we went by his apartment. He wasn't home, but his mom was, so we gave her our phone number and asked her to have him give us a call. Probably about 30 minutes later he gave us a call and said that he needed some "immediate help" and asked if we could bring Bro. Seba tonight at 8 to meet with him. That was a big miracle for us! We don't know what exactly he means by "immediate help" (probably help with translating something or help finding work), but we feel really good about it, so we'll see how things go tonight! :D

That's it for this week! Thanks everyone for your emails and letters of support! I love you all and love hearing from you! My scripture this week is Romans 8:6-9. 

-- 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

"Of all the things I've taught you, this is what I'm most proud of." - Bro. Seba, about chasing after ice cream trucks

From 9-1-15

Not a whole ton happened this week, but you still get a novel of an
email! Hahahahaha!
This week, we...
- Drop Wisam, the guy who said he wanted to get baptized
- Teach English
- Go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders
- Convince an ice cream man (through no fault of our own) that we're Iraqi
- Add a man!
- Teach a man who doesn't see a need to change
- Have a sort-of surprise party for Elder Greer

On Wednesday we drove out to National City and taught English to عدل (Adil), the Muslim man I mentioned last email. It was a great lesson that involved a lot of practicing of basic phrases. His vocabulary is great, it's just a matter of placing that vocabulary in sentences. I also learned just how difficult teaching English is. English grammar is really weird and puts a lot of "filler" words in that other languages don't have.

Also on Wednesday Wisam texted us and said he didn't want to meet with us anymore and that he changed his mind about baptism. Which was sad. We'll follow-up in a few months.

On Thursday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. Elder Egnew (the new Zone Leader) came with me to Arabic work and Elder Greer went with Elder Harris. We wound up dropping بالقوش (Balcosh; I don't know if the Arabic spelling is correct) because she's pretty busy right now. Another one to follow-up with in a few months. We spent most of the day walking around finding potentials. We got a bunch of referrals for other companionships, which was a big plus! Also, Elder Egnew is into Pokemon, Doctor Who, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, so we had a lot to talk about. :)

Friday consisted of district meeting, weekly planning, dinner, more weekly planning, and finding, so let's skip over to Saturday. On Saturday we started off the day with language study at Bro. Seba's like we normally do. We helped him clean up around the house because he wasn't feeling too well. Right as we were finishing that up, an ice cream truck started driving by. Bro. Seba heard it, turned to Elder Jackson, and just said, "Go get him!" Right on cue, Elders Jackson and Jensen jumped up and ran out the door yelling at him to stop. Fortunately he did. He opened up the door and, recognizing that he was Iraqi, we started talking to him in Arabic. Bro. Seba joined us shortly thereafter and we all had a nice conversation in Arabic about how we know Arabic. The ice cream man was convinced we were from بغداد (Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq), and despite our assurances that we weren't he would not be convinced otherwise. So we bought our ice cream and went back inside. Elder Jensen commented that he had never actually bought ice cream from an ice cream truck before, to which Bro. Seba replied that he really missed out on a piece of childhood/life and gave us this week's email title.

On Sunday nothing drastic happened. A member of the mission presidency spoke and that was probably the most exciting thing. So skipping over to yesterday...

We actually had things happen yesterday! :D We taught a man named نائل (Na'il), whom we'd been trying to get in the door with for a few weeks now. He said that he's pretty busy but that we're welcome to come by and teach him. When we followed up on what he remembered from the Restoration his belief was essentially one of "Why not?" He doesn't know it's true yet, but he doesn't see why it wouldn't be, so we've definitely got something to work with. We also taught a man last night who had great questions that highlighted some truths taught in the Restoration. Unfortunately he told us after we taught him that he might come to church sometime but that he wasn't really interested in changing or doing anything. In that lesson I experienced how to be bold without overbearing; it has to be done out of love and by the Spirit, otherwise it doesn't work.

Lastly, yesterday was Elder Greer's 22nd birthday. Elder Jensen informed me that Sis. Dreesen wanted us to come home a little early to have cheesecake and sing "Happy Birthday". I can't keep a straight face to save my life, so rather than trying to tell Elder Greer a lie and have him see right through me, I told him a half-truth. He asked me what was going on after I got off the phone with Elder Jensen and I told him, "North was wanting to sing to you at 8:30." And then the "no-straight-face" portion of me kicked in and he saw through that one. I kept insisting it, though, and the smile of "I know something you don't" was enough to keep him second-guessing me the entire time. At about 8:30, I turned to Elder Greer and told him, "We've got to go." He expressed his disapproval but went with it. When we got inside, we were welcomed with the sight of North and the Dreesen's.


After singing "Happy Birthday," we cut the cake up and Elder Greer promptly forgave me for the fact that we came back a little early. Because cheesecake makes everything better!

That's it for this week! Thank you all for your letters and emails! I love hearing from people, so don't be afraid to write/email me! Love you all!

-- Elder Hawkes

"You just went from 'I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus' to 'Let it Snow'." - Elder Hawkes

From 8-18-2015

Elder Greer whistles a lot, but sometimes he gets just a few measures of a song stuck in his head and sometimes he accidentally blends two together (as mentioned).

This week, we...
- Help move the world's heaviest china cabinet
- Meet a man who's read the Book of Mormon!
- Visit إخلاص (Ikhlas) again
- Go on exchanges and get lost going to the San Diego Institute building
- Teach Morad and Miller
- Have an Iraqi breakfast with our ward mission leader
- Try to visit potentials on the Virgin Mary's feast day (that should
tell you how it went)
- Dress up to teach a Primary class about miracles
- Drop سيف (Saif)
- Drop ولسن (Wilson)
- Sort-of kind-of teach Nishwan the Pancake

First off, we have a family in our ward, the Wurtz family, who is planning on going on a mission this year. They needed some help on Wednesday putting stuff in their garage and a storage unit in preparation for their departure. As missionaries, we get really excited whenever someone needs furniture moved from Point A to Point B, so we eagerly accepted the opportunity to serve. The first little bits were easy; they needed some help bringing a heavy glass table to
their storage unit and then wanted us to help them move their couch down to their garage. After that, though, was when Challenge Mode started. They had a china cabinet that they were giving to their neighbor and needed some help putting it in her garage. The cabinet came in two pieces. The bottom half was pretty easy to take down because it was just like moving a bulky dresser. The top half (where the china would be stored) was a monstrosity. I knew I would need help
at some point but wanted to go as far as I could before calling on Bro. Wurtz so there would be less work for him.

"As far as I could" was about 20 feet.

I was lifting it and doing my best to carry it while keeping it steady, but as it started to

tilt left my back tilted left with it and
pulled a muscle. Bro. Wurtz asked if I needed help and I immediately said "Yes!" With some repositioning and careful lifting and moving down the stairs and out to the garage, we finally made it. We celebrated our victory with the Wurtz family by having a spaghetti lunch partially in honor of Elder Greer's upcoming birthday (August 31st). Sleeping was rather uncomfortable that night. My back's fine now, don't worry (still a little sore but not bad). But I've officially ruled out "professional mover" as a future career.

Later that day we were going to teach a young man who said we could come back another day. We got in the door and his father accepted our visit but didn't seem interested. Then he asked us, "You're Mormons, right?" We responded truthfully in the affirmative. He mentioned that he'd read the Book of Mormon but that there wasn't really a difference
between us and the Catholics because "We all teach about Jesus." Since we felt he was essentially handing us a teaching opportunity on a silver platter (most people we meet have never heard of the Book of Mormon or Mormons, and most don't even read the Bible, so this guy was a miracle in our eyes), we opened up the Book of Mormon and started to
discuss its role. And he had definitely read it before! But at the end of it all he restated that he didn't want to change because "There's no difference" and so we thanked him for the opportunity to talk with him and went on our way.

On Thursday we added a lady named بالقوش (Balcosh/Balqosh) whom we had met and taught before. She's shown a little bit of desire but we've definitely got our work cut out for us. She loves Jesus and has a lot of traditions that we're going to have to work on. She said she was going to come to church, though. Skipping ahead a little bit, we stopped by on Sunday with Bro. Seba to pick her up for church and she wasn't home. So she didn't come to church.

We also taught إخلاص (Ikhlas) again. Her life's a little crazy still. Her husband is doing better. She wants the church to give her a loan so she can buy a burial plot. We told her that we don't do that. She's nice, and she likes having us over, but she isn't really interested right now in progressing.

On Friday I went up to Arabic North on exchanges with Elder Jackson. They had a Muslim potential who said they were going to meet at the LDS Institute after mosque to talk about our message. It turns out, though, that when we loaded up directions we typed in the wrong road. The LDS Institute is located on Montezuma Ct. in San Diego, but we typed in Montezuma Rd., which is an entirely different road (if there's one thing I'm learning to like on my mission, it's Utah's grid
system). So we wound up going to the wrong place and calling the APs (who cover that area) to figure out where in the world we were going. All the while the potential was texting us telling us that he was almost there and wondering if we were coming. Then we turned right instead of left on the road that would take us to the institute building and wound up in Lemon Grove. As we were driving the right way to the institute the potential texted and said that he had to go and maybe we could try another day. It was admittedly very frustrating.

That day we also taught Morad and Miller. Miller is going to Michigan again because "There's tons of work there!" Morad... let's just say he's going through a rough patch right now and is losing faith. We taught about prayer and the Holy Ghost and Morad was really not having any of it. :( At the end he prayed though, and he said we could come back, so we'll see what happens.

Saturday, August 15, was the Feast of Assumption for the Virgin Mary (the day that the Catholics celebrate Mary's supposed ascension into heaven). We learned that as we talked with people all day and got a lot of "Today's Mary's day. Do you love Mary?" responses. "We love Mary, and we respect and revere her, but we don't pray to her," was the usual response we gave. We didn't get a lot of teaching in that day (we did teach one person which was a miracle for us in that she let us in to teach her on Mary's feast day). But one awesome thing that did happen was that we got to eat an Iraqi "poor man's" breakfast with our ward mission leader after our Saturday language study with him.

And oh my goodness where has this been my entire life?

The breakfast consists of Arabic bread (kind of a cross between pita and tanour bread if you know what the latter is), tahini (sesame paste), cream, apricot jam (in place of dried apricots), and date molasses. We warmed up pieces of bread on his gas stove, split it in half so it made a kind of pocket, spread the cream (which had the consistency of butter) on the inside, then put apricot jam and date molasses in it and ate it. Remind me when I get back to make this for you all because it is amazing. Another thing that he did was mix some date molasses with tahini to make a sort of spread similar in consistency and taste to peanut butter.

I feel like a part of me is now filled that I didn't know was missing.

On Sunday we helped teach Primary about miracles of Jesus. The Primary Presidency had a bag of Middle Eastern clothing and headscarves that they gave us. So Elder Greer put on a ثوب ("Thob", a Middle Eastern robe) and a headscarf and I put on a headscarf (we did get a picture taken). As we were waiting to go in, Sis. Cody walked by and spotted us. She died laughing. It was a great lesson, too.

We also dropped سيف (Saif) because we haven't been able to see him. Hopefully we will be able to see him again soon.

Yesterday we dropped ولسن (Wilson). We had a lesson with him where he spent half the time sharing his belief out of the Bible. We finished up the lesson on good terms, though. We'll go back in a few months and see if he's willing to change. We also ran into Nishwan again (you may remember him as the pancake I mentioned a few emails ago). He spent a portion of the time trying to bash with us and told us to not use the Book of Mormon. He wants us to come on Thursday at 8 with Bro. Seba to talk about his belief. We'll see how things go.

That's it for this week! Thanks everyone for your letters and your emails! Happy 20th Anniversary (this past Sunday) to my parents!

-- Elder Hawkes