"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

"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

"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