December 19, 2011

Hi Everyone,

     Things have been really difficult this week. Two to three weeks ago, we had 20 investigators, we were teaching like 20 lessons a week, and things were just fine and peachy. As of yesterday, we have 8 investigators, we might be dropping another one depending on whether or not he reads, and we struggle to get over 10 lessons. One of our golden investigators decided to move, another one of our golden investigator referrals feels more comfortable with English, and none of our other investigators want to keep commitments. It's tough right now. We've started spending about 6 hours a day just knocking. We're really good at finding people, we're just not doing a good job of finding people that will let us in the door, and not doing a good job of finding those prepared people. And we're really good at setting citas (appointments) but they always fall through.

     And the difficulties aren't just in our companionship's area. Our whole district is really struggling. The zone leaders also only have 8 investigators, but they have one progressing investigator, which is good. And the hermanas are also struggling with finding prepared people, but again, they have one or two progressing investigators. It can get a little frustrating and even a little discouraging at times, but we keep working.

     But there have been a few bright notes, a few fun moments for us this week.

     On Monday, we had a cita with a less active member (less active, as in, hasn't been to church in six years) and his wife. The wife was toda borracha (totally drunk). It was the funniest thing. Poor Elder Bushman, the lady was making fun of him ("Ay, mi ganchito, porque te ves tan enojado? [Oh, my little blonde boy, why do you look so angry?] She repeated that like 20 times in an hour) and he had no idea what was going on. She kept telling us to get her purse and pointing at it, only her purse wasn't where she was pointing. And she tried to give us the phone number to her work, except she gave us only 9 digits and when we asked for the last digit, she said that that was the right number. That will be a lesson I remember for a long time.

     But, in that same lesson, we talked to the less active member for a while (who was only slightly drunk). He showed us his stake missionary plaque that he has and he said that even though he's been inactive for six years, he's still an elder and still has the Melchezidek Priesthood and he has not been living worthily of holding that. He wants to come back to church, but work has kept him away. Fortunately, with the time change, he can start coming back to church. I think he could be a real strong leader in the church. Just kinda got that impression when I met him.

     We also went knocking for about 7 hours on Saturday and that was a lot of fun. We had some really funny moments. I knocked one door and some white lady answers the door. I say "Hi, I'm Elder Bushman, and we're... Wait a second, I'm not Elder Bushman, he's Elder Bushman, and I'm Elder Gruenewald." The lady just kinda stood there and looked at us blankly. It was kinda a lost cause, but we were laughing so hard after that one.

      We also knocked into an Armenian guy that didn't speak English or Spanish or German (which are the only three languages I could do door approaches in) and we realized that we didn't have anything Armenian. So we made our own Armenian pass-along cards. We found an Armenian pamphlet that said "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" (in Armenian, of course) and we copied that down onto some Mormon.org pass-along cards. That was pretty fun.

      We also had a few interesting moments...

      On Thursday, I got an impression to knock an apartment complex that I had never been to before. So we went. And we stood in the complex for like 5 minutes trying to decide which doors to knock (we can only knock like one or two doors in apartment complexes before people get mad and kick us out). Then we looked and guess who we saw... JESUS!! No, not Jesus (said in a Hispanic accent), Jesus Christ!! Yeah, crazy. Someone put a Jesus Christ pass along card that we give out on their door. So we looked at the card, and it was from missionaries about two years ago (we know that because we read the area book a lot and we get to know what missionaries have been in the area in the past). We knocked on the door... No one was there, but that was kinda an interesting experience. We'll keep knocking that door.

      Yesterday, we talked with Helio (we found out his name is Helio, not Heliot). And we had one of those interesting Ammon experiences where the missionary stays silent for a long time while the investigator thinks. We stayed quite for about 15 minutes while he just thought. Not quite an hour, but still a long time.

      Well, I think that's about it.

      Oh yeah, calling on Sunday. Well, I'll be calling probably somewhere around 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock. In the morning. No just kidding. In the afternoon. What was the phone number again? Kidding....Ok, now I think that's it.

      Hope you got my Christmas card.

      Well. Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you have fun. Remember the reason for the season... Presents!! No, that's not the reason for the season. The reason for the season is Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son, who was born in humble circumstances, who suffered for our sins and was crucified and was resurrected the third day, so that we can have the opportunity to return to live with our Father in Heaven.

      Feliz Navidad.

Con amor,

Elder Nathan Gruenewald