March 27th, 2012

March 27, 2012

I fulfilled one of my childhood dreams this week, but first…

It was a very interesting week. We did not have as much actual missionary work (finding, teaching, baptizing) as usual this week but we still had plenty of stuff that we needed to do! It has been a good week!

First, weather report...it is now into the 90's but even with that, in our many wandering (with a purpose) this week we found snow in Tucson!! Who knew! It was very cold in comparison to everything else around here!

Last week we did exchanges and I went with Elder King for a day in the Escalante Ward. What happens is that I went to their apartment and his companion goes to our place on the night before. We stay the night and do work the next day. It was really interesting being like a normal missionary! I really liked it! I used a bike and we went probably 15 miles in that one day (my butt has been pampered from riding in the truck  and was very sore by the end of that day). It was amazing teaching in English and we taught some great lessons.  We committed one of their investigators to baptism! It was a great experience and I learned a lot!

Meanwhile, our investigator Danielle is slowing learning and progressing but she is very solid. She reads the BOM everyday and she is going to church now! We love her very much!

Our other investigator Daniel had a baptism date scheduled for this Saturday, but he feels like that is too fast so the baptism has been postponed....bummer.....but he is still really interested and  wants to be baptized.  He will be ready and hopefully we get him wet soon!!

I am getting more and more used to all the missionary responsibility that we have. We have no time for anything personal (besides study in the morning) but I can deal with it a little better.  I do feel bad for struggling to write everyone back but I will get better! Thank you for the letters. I am getting used to being in the Branch Presidency and I really like President Krakowiak! He is very nice although he really does not know how to be a branch President. He does everything he needs to but he hasn't been a member of the church for that long!  I forget to assign people to give talks in sacrament this week (I am in charge of that and conducting this month) so me and Elder Bradley gave the talks. It was very different giving a talk in sign,  I was so nervous which is weird being that public speaking has always come naturally to me.  I was told that I gave a great talk so hopefully they weren't just being nice!

Ok, back to the fulfillment of one of my childhood dreams.  This week we went with Elder King and Elder Bowen to a few of their members’ houses so Elder King could say goodbye as he is transferring. We got to the Murphy house and I can't remember how it got brought up but they mentioned that they have a thing which they call "companion inventory" (funny for missionaries) where they help missionaries get their anger against their companion out. What it entails is dressing in full armor (Full metal breastplates, shoulder plates, greaves (for the legs) and gloves with shields and everything).  Then we beat the crap out of one another as if in medieval warfare. I was thinking they were kidding until they brought it all out. They do that for fun as a family which is really strange but we were happy about it. So we did it! Elder Bowen and Elder King went first and fought for quite awhile. Elder King came out as the winner. You win a match by hitting either the head or the chest hard enough that it would kill the person if we were using real swords instead of the pipe-like ones we had. After they were done me and Elder Bradley did it and we had a very good time! It took lot more energy than any of us thought it would.  I ended up winning but only by one point!  It was awesome! We are bruised everywhere and Elder Bradley hurt his right arm pretty bad.  I was hit in the leg real hard (in the only spot there wasn't armor) and it hurts to walk. But it was awesome!  Check out our pictures!

That's about it for this week’s report!  Hope all is well,

Elder Banner

March 19, 2012

I had my first encounter with some Jehovah's Witnesses yesterday, but I'll get to that in a minute. It has been a slow week this week (slow by our standards), two of our investigators were gone on vacation this week and there were a lot of things that take a lot of time but don't really get us anywhere that we had to do.

 On Monday we went down to Sierra Vista with the Agardy family (basically my home away from home down here) to go bowling and do some fun stuff down there. While we were gone we lent our truck to our district leader and his companion. While they were driving they got hit by a jeep so now our truck has a huge dent in the rear of the driver’s side.

 On Tuesday we went in and got an estimate (all four of us), and it will be about $2,600 to repair. Just in case you want to know where your tithing is going! Ha ha!  That took most of Tuesday between getting the estimate and running back and forth to the mission office to speak with the vehicle coordinator.

Wednesday, we had a sick day because both me and Elder Bradley were feeling terrible! It was nice to get some extra sleep and some study time but being that sick was terrible.  Elder Bradley is doing fine now, I don't feel great but we are doing stuff again. We went up to the Gila Valley this weekend to see some referrals.  Nothing came out of the referrals but it was a fun road-trip and we had a good time with the elders that we stayed with up there. We also went and walked around the Gila Valley temple on Friday night and it is gorgeous! It is small but it is beautiful, and I'll send pictures soon.

 Our investigator Daniel is moving along great!  I am so excited for his baptism on the 31st! He is great and he feeds us every Sunday! We still have a lot to teach him but he is ready to learn and very receptive.  He is more active than some of the members and loves going to church and participating in church! We are so grateful that we have him!

 Ok,  so the meeting with the JW's............. in church on Sunday we found out that one of our members has been meeting with some JW's and she wasn't going to church that day because she had a meeting with them at ten. She is a sweet old lady and really doesn’t understand what is going on. She is deaf but she really doesn’t sign, we just have to do a lot of gesturing and body language to communicate, and she can speak a little Spanish.  Elder Bradley and I grabbed Elder Hughes and Elder Cavanaugh (Spanish speaking elders) and the four of us left church to go visit her at ten. As we pulled up, the JW's were walking up to the door. The look on their faces was priceless as they saw the four of us pull up! I read the lips of one of them, (I am starting to be able to do that now, I think the deaf people are rubbing off on me), and she was like 'What are they doing here?'  We had to flip around so they were already in the house by the time we were able to get over there, but it was so funny when she opened the door for us and invited us in. Our member was there as well as a lady in our ward named Alice (I love her, her and her husband Elwin feed us every Tuesday and they are just amazing people and so nice) and the two JW's and four LDS missionaries. We really didn't say much to them at all but we just stood there at the back of the room while they tried to sign to our member. The JW's actually knew sign and Spanish so they were able to communicate with her ok. We could tell that they felt really awkward with us there but we didn't say anything. We didn't have to because our other member Alice was doing it for us. She was awesome! She kept telling them that they were wrong and their church was wrong and we had the truth here and everyone in the room but the two of them knew the actual truth. There was one part where the JW's said that they believed what they were saying was true and Alice said, “Your wrong and your church is wrong and the devil is tricking you.”  (have to love how blunt deaf people are) and then she turned to me, Elder Bradley, and Elder Cavanaugh because he can sign too and said. “Tell them about Joseph Smith! Tell them about how the Devil is tricking them.”  It was funny and an awesome experience. The JW's invited both of the ladies to church and then left and we visited with them for a while and explained some things. Our member didn't understand that they were from a different church.

Well things here are going pretty well. I love you all!

Elder Banner

March 13, 2012

It has actually been a really great week! But it has been weird as well. It is allergy season here in Tucson and I am dying! I have the worst allergy's I have ever had! There is so much pollen and dust in the air! But it’s ok; I'm not alone with it.

Another weird thing that I've noticed is my diet is changing. I eat cereal for breakfast now which is weird; I also don't mind salad anymore among other things. I think my parents will laugh at this. 

We have had a lot of work this week! We are getting things done! We went to a baptism on Wednesday, Elder Bradley and I were the speakers and it was a great experience. Unfortunately, none of our investigators were able to come to that. Two of our investigators are progressing very well; one of them is still struggling a bit. Two of our investigators are going out of town this next week, so we are going to have to find people. But we have had some great lessons with our other investigator and he accepted a baptism date last night!! I am so excited! This is the investigator we found like three weeks ago and when I asked him last night, he said yes.  I had to use all the self control I had not to start jumping up and down! He is awesome! He is more active than a lot of our members, he comes to church and participates in the discussion and he loves being at church and with the members. Yesterday at church he invited us and one of our members named Reggie to go to his house for dinner! We did and it was amazing! It was very authentic Mexican food, taco’s with goat cheese and habanera salsa! Him and Reggie are actually really good friends now.

We also had zone training on Friday which was great. I learned a lot from President and Sister Killpack and the APs. It was a long meeting but we got a lot of great ideas to do work.

Well it has been a great week! We have been so busy but it has been great!

Until next week,

Elder Banner

March 6, 2012

It has been a very good week and we have hit upper 80's!

It has actually been a pretty good week! I really love it here in Tucson, but it is not anything I am used to! Because most deaf people rely a lot on, or are fully on government help, they generally do not live in the best parts of town. There are always exceptions and deaf people can be very successful if they want, but a lot of them don't try to get jobs or anything. Because of this most, of the places we go to are not places that I would plan on living. In most of the neighborhoods we go to there are always bars on the windows, rough people walking around, and we have seen like 6 drug busts. Also we have seen people get arrested and hearing sirens is a common thing now. There is also a police helicopter that we see circling all the time at night (though generally not anywhere near where we are at night because we don't go into those neighborhoods after dark. We stick to places and people we know after dark.). And last night, as I was shutting the window at our apartment, I heard some gun shots in the distance! It is sketchy sometimes down here. But don't worry, we are very safe and everyone is pretty nice to us. We can feel guardian angels sometimes.

Well, I have a few things to report really fast, I have no time as always. First we had a great day yesterday! It was stake conference which was amazing. There were so many great talks, but the best part was we had two of our three investigators show up for church!!! That is HUGE! Our new investigator showed up and sat Elder Bradley and I. We could tell he had a good time! And the best part of that is how their Branch has fellowshipped him! It was awesome and he had a lot of people sign to him and introduce themselves.  We even had one couple who invited him, and us, to go to dinner tomorrow and to also have a lesson with them! Getting a lesson with deaf members present is a pretty big deal down here! Our other investigator came with the Agardys (a family that Elder Bradley got very close to in his last area and they have now pretty much adopted me as a missionary, I love them and they help us out so much!) and she had a good experience there, she is a very solid investigator and hopefully we can meet with her a couple more times before she leaves for a trip to Greece later this week. Anyway, it was a huge day for our work and hopefully a lot of good will come out of them attending church!

Also, we went tracking for the first time this week! Tracking for deaf people is very different and we only meet two deaf people. One was Catholic, and one was into some weird Asian religion, and neither was interested.  We did run into a lady while we were looking for deaf people, we were lead by the spirit to her house,  and we gave pretty much the whole first lesson right on the doorstep. We also gave her a book of Mormon and she committed to read it, we both knew she was ready to learn about this gospel. But being she is not deaf so we will not be teaching her, but she will be a great investigator for someone else!

We also went to the CES fireside last night to interpret for one of our members! That was a great meeting and Quinton L. Cook gave a great talk about not wearing masks and not being a two faced people. I am out of time but I think they put it on the web after so you can check it out if you want!

Well, we are slowly starting to make some progress down here! I love you all!

Elder Banner