April 27, 2010

Dear Family,

I’m at some place in the mall and they said we can only have 30 minutes. I tried reading some of your emails but I won’t have enough time. Also, Elder Insch’s computer isn’t working, so I’m just going to send a couple of things real quick and see if I can print off your letters and read them during the week. Sorry, I’m not too happy about this either. Who knows what will happen.

Yes, if you could send my instructions on how to call on Mother’s Day that would be nice. Your trip mom sounded really hard but I’m glad it was a good experience. That’s the only letter I got to read. So this high school girl actually stared at me for at least 20 yards the other day. It’s like being a rock star here if you have blue eyes and are tall. Maybe it was just my good looks. Who knows? Actually I know it’s not the latter. I had a zit on my head the size of Mt. Fuji. (terrible jokes. I’m not going to have any friends when I get back am I?)

I actually don’t have a whole lot to write about this week. Some of our investigators are pooping out on us and kind of told us they don’t to meet with us on weekdays anymore. It’s frustrating but we gave a flier to a girl at a convenient store the other day because she spoke a little bit of English to me and so I asked her if she liked English and she said yes and was super excited. Sunday night she called and asked if it was okay that she was Buddhist. Elder Insch said it was okay and she said she was excited. Later in the conversation she said that her parents were just Buddhist and that she was actually interested in our message. It was very cool.

Sunday we were essentially kidnapped by a member who said that we were going to go visit a friend of his but instead we were taken to the other side of the city and handed a bunch of Joseph Smith fliers in Portuguese and then told to start knocking doors. It ended up being only foreigners there mostly. So we contacted in English. A Muslim man started yelling at me in English and telling me why I was wrong. When we were moving to a different stairwell, he was waiting outside. I told him that we believed a lot of the same things and had the same standards and that I could give him a book and he could ask God for himself. He said he might look it up online someday and then kept arguing. His friend on the other hand got up in Elder Insch face at this point and so I bore my testimony and then left (they had to go pray).

The previous day we met with a Muslim man and his catholic wife. She is Brazilian and wants to learn out our church. She is high up in their church because she translates. So I can communicate with her in Japanese and then the husband speaks English. It’s super hard to understand but it’s alright. We talked with him for about 2.5 hours at a ward activity, about life and other things. He is going to make us curry on golden week. He says he respects all religions and we agreed on a lot. He was great. I loved talking to him. He is from Pakistan and speaks 5 languages. I’m excited to meet with them again. I think they are coming to English class tomorrow.

A big scary Russian man yelled at me and I almost soiled myself while we were housing. Then we convinced a man to read the Book of Mormon because it was about Native Americans. Those were our successes this week. I’m actually really excited. I’m going to let elder Insch jump on this computer real quick. Sorry it’s so short. Katie I loved your testimony in your letter to me. All of it was so great. I love you so much and miss you a lot. Your letters make me so happy. I’m excited to be able to talk to you soon. I’m finally feeling like a real missionary when we ride our bikes for 5 hours a day in the pouring rain in dangerous conditions. By the way, I bought my dictionary today and I got a smoking awesome deal on it. I’m going to go now. I’ll try to print off my letters and let elder Insch write. Love you all bye.