"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

"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

"What's your secret to longevity?" "Chocolate." - Elder Jensen and a 90-year-old woman in the ward

Can't argue with that.

This week, we...
- Get preached to... sort of
- Thin an apple tree
- Have an awesome lesson with Morad!
- Help our member family with plumbing problems
- Call a Detroit branch president about Arabic work
- Get a baptismal date for Habeeb and Shaima! :D
- Have a not-so-great lesson with Morad
- Add a former named Lewis
- Have a family home evening with Suhaila
- Wind up giving blessings to some potentials

So first off, Tuesday ended on a weird note. We moved a marble table for some members (which was really uneventful) and then we went proselyting. We wound up in a complex that had one of the weirdest organizational patterns possible when it came to apartment numbers. So we got lost in it, and after a half hour of wandering we finally found the apartment. The residents let us inside. I'm pretty sure they were in their 80's at least. Anyway... we told them we wanted to share a message about Jesus with them and I kind of lost track of the conversation (or lack thereof) after that but suddenly the older man was showing us his Chaldean Bible and playing Syriac tape recordings (yes, tape recordings) of the Old Testament. So that was kind of weird. Needless to say, we thanked them for their time and left.

On Wednesday we helped Sis. Sorenson (the 90-year-old mentioned in the email title) thin her apple tree. It was a lot of fun helping to pick apples and she let us take one or two. Afterward, she fed us ice cream. Lots of ice cream. That's when Elder Jensen asked her about how she's lived so long and so well. She said that whenever she got money
she'd take some of it and go down to the store and buy a chocolate bar. So now I know the secret to longevity.

Also on Wednesday we had a lesson with Morad that started out a little blunt. But we talked to him about his reading and his lack of progression, and he said that he's been reading from the Book of Mormon every day and is cutting back on smoking. We talked about how to get more out of the scriptures and then asked if he'd prayed about baptism. He said he wants to get baptized, but he wants to do it when his brothers return from Michigan. He's almost there!

Friday was an interesting day. It started off with our shower and toilet not working, so we had to go to our Zone Leader's apartment to shower. We told the Dreesen's and they said they'd look into it. We wound up going to Zone Meeting, coming back and helping them out, going to teach عدل (Adil) English, coming back and helping them, and then finally finishing up studies for the day at 8:00 P.M. It took a lot longer to fix it than anyone was expecting or wanting, and it was
slightly frustrating for all parties involved. On an unrelated note, there's this yogurt drink (in Arabic it's شراب لبن, which literally means "yogurt drink") that we had at Adil's house. It isn't like a drink made from American yogurt, which is sweet. This is just plain yogurt, salt, and water mixed together. It's interesting because when you think "yogurt" you probably think that American Dannon or Yoplait sugary "yogurt", but it's actually kind of savory almost. It's pretty good.

Oh, I added a bit about calling a Detroit branch president. Frankly, it's rather anticlimactic; the mission office called us and told us that this branch president wanted to know more about how to teach in Arabic. We called him and he basically just asked 1) How to teach Muslims and 2) What dialect we spoke. I was expecting it to be a little more like "How can the missionaries learn Arabic?", but it wasn't. Oh well, someday they'll have Arabic missionaries in Detroit! (For reference, we are the only Arabic missionaries in the U.S. There are some in Toronto, and some in Uganda, and that's it.)

Saturday was a jam-packed day full of greatness. To start off, we taught Habeeb and Shaima. They told us a little more of their story. To make it short, Habeeb was driving and noticed a guy in a wheelchair that needed some help. As he was helping him, he was handed an Arabic Book of Mormon by the guy and it had Arabic North's phone number in
it. He called them and asked if they could come teach him about the book. Shaima converted to Christianity from Islam when she was young. She met with missionaries in Ramona a few years ago and has kept the Book of Mormon they gave her ever since. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and the importance of being baptized. We asked them,
"When you know that this is true, will you be baptized?" and they said "Yes, of course!" We offered them a date of November 14th and they accepted! :D They're solid!

Later that evening we wanted to invite Morad to a baptismal service, so we stopped by his house. He was having a really bad day and proceeded to curse God, his parents, his neighbors, the police, the Muslims, the Chaldeans, Detroit, and just about everything. We left after letting him rant for a little bit and I went ahead and dropped him in Area Book Planner. Elder Greer had other opinions and so we agreed to just leave it alone for a little bit and come back to it when cooler heads prevailed. As we knelt in prayer as a companionship at the end of the night, I got one of the most clear impressions I had ever received that we needed to keep Morad as an investigator. I shared that impression with my companions and they both said they felt the exact same way while we were praying. So he's still an investigator, and we'll see what the Lord has in store for him and for us.

On Sunday Morad came to church and apologized for the day before. He said we could keep coming and sharing our messages with him, which made me really grateful I had followed that prompting. Habeeb and Shaima also came to church, although they only came for the first hour. That afternoon we went out proselyting and Elder Greer felt that
we should stop by a member's house to see if she knew anyone we could visit. When we got there, it turns out she was having some health problems and needed a blessing. She said that that morning she had been praying for someone to come give her a blessing. We were able to give her a blessing. Because we had been willing to change our plans
we wound up being an answer to someone's prayer. That really strengthened my testimony.

Later that evening we wound up going to visit a former investigator named Lewis. We invited him to church and he asked, "What time?" He proceeded to put it on his calendar so he wouldn't forget. We had a lesson on the Book of Mormon and he loved it! He said we could come back anytime, and since we taught him a few weeks ago Area Book Planner counted it as an added investigator. He's cool!

Yesterday was hot and humid. I only say that because we were walking around in it all afternoon. Not the most fun thing in the world but you do what you need to. We had a family home evening lesson with Suhaila last night. We shared the talk "God is at the Helm" by M. Russell Ballard from Conference and bore testimony of living prophets. She's got a lot of faith, she's just a little unsure about things. We also went to go visit some potentials and it turns out they had moved.
But in a sudden turn of events the current residents said they had some health problems and Elder Greer, after sharing James 5:15 with them, asked if they would like a blessing. So we wound up giving a blessing to some potential investigators. I had دليل المبشر (the Missionary Handbook) in front of me as I anointed. It was kind of weird doing it in Arabic. I'll get used to it, probably.

That's it for this week! Shoutout to my sister Megan who turns 18 on Saturday! Thanks everyone for your support and prayers on my behalf. And don't hesitate to write!

-- إلدر هاكْس
--
Elder Christian Hawkes
California San Diego Mission
7404 Armstrong Place
San Diego, CA 92111-4912