Trip to Fish Town

Fence Sitting, Dwopped, Silent Investigation, Rare Participation

So I have a question to start this email off... What do you call a dog that has no legs? ........ It doesn't matter cause he won't come when you call him anyways! Ya some lame humor but what a great way to start off an email am I right? Anyways down to business. This past week we were kept pretty busy once again, especially at the beginning of the week. We almost averaged two each day of the week with some more and others less. Last Monday I received a call from a Less Active the sisters visit within our area, who was in a lot of hysteria and emotional turmoil. Her name is Sister Anton. The Sisters haven't seen her in a month so we went up and had a lesson and a blessing with her. The sisters hadn't kept very good records on her keeping commitments so I had no idea why they weren't seeing her, until a little later on in the week. They had good reason but Elder Crowther and I will now be taking a shot. Tuesday we had an interesting lesson with Brian. Usually things are very warm and filled with conversation but his one there were long gaps of silence as we helped get some things set up at his home. He had left his phone in the car when he came to church and his wife called him multiple times after the first hour thinking that we had kidnapped him, haha. I feel though that this was probably the largest reason why things were so awkward since his wife isn't the most friendly towards us. We ended with a really good lesson on faith though and I hope to make amends this coming visit. Wednesday I was on Exchanges with Elder Bevans. We ere mostly on the run for the whole exchange however we ended up dropping the Layton/Brown family while together. It's hard to go for so long with not much success but I do hope that this drop helps them come back. Later on that night Elder Bevans and I were going to a lesson with a guy named Joey, who Elder Crowther and I had found the week previous. He had stopped his car and had us come around the corner so we could talk with him then and we had some good conversations. However this trip turned for the worse. On our way there he was driving and had forgotten about our visit (which we had rescheduled fifteen minutes prior...). Had us jump in and drove us down to a park where some of his buddies and sisters were all the while joking that he had weed in his trunk.... Which ended up being true since he started selling it when we got down there :/. We quickly learned that he believes in all the crap that the Internet and TV shows have to say from "intense" bible study such as the Nephaliem (don't ask). Let's just say that we will never go back :). Friday we had an awesome experience. We received an investigator from one of the New York missions named Miguel. Well even more interesting is the fact that Miguel is deaf so our entire lesson was via iPad since I only know how to sign the alphabet... Which I learned works just fine yesterday haha. But it was amazing! The missionaries in New York got him off of weed, smoking, and drinking and he asked if he could be cleaned in water. We responded "You want to be baptized?" He gave us a puzzled look so we showed him a picture and he began to nod profusely! He asked twice more that lesson the same question so we set him for the 19 of July since he will be gone some time :D! It was amazing. We just need to convert someone who speaks sign so that we can keep him active in our church :). I would love to but more than likely I will be leaving this transfer :(. Last up in news is our dinner at Mike and Dana's last night. Usually I just brush over this but last night was a bit special. We asked Dana if we could do another practice lesson and she said yes. We did the plan of salvation and for the first time Dana participated super well and was actually interested in what we had to say. I'm not saying we should fill the font yet since the water will go cold but we had a great lesson non the less :).

Greener area of Philly

Chess Mess, Operation Layton/Brown Drop, Horn Dogs and Rare Finds

It is a most wonderful thing when one of the members of your district has a key board for the ipad and for whatever reason doesn't feel like using it so it then proceeds to fall in to your lap. Hopefully that means that I will be able to accomplish more today without any thumb problems :3. Anyways I will get into our week before I bore you with nonsense. So we were able to see Brianna on Monday for the first time in about two weeks. She loved the temple and we had a very good discussion on the plan of salvation where I drew out the entire plan on paper which I would love to share a picture of with you... However I'm afraid that it is now lost in their house :/. So continuing on to Tuesday we had a pretty good day of finding within the hot air (humidity is awful). We found a lady in our area book by the name of Destiny D.. She new members about a year ago and then the missionaries dropped by once and from then on for a whole year no one has contacted her! What the heck! Oh well she is ours now and she is pretty dang solid! I look forward to seeing her again. Just a little bit before that we were doing stop by's when we came across a bunch of guys smoking weed and playing chess. I had the feeling to do some beat to teach but we continued onward. However I couldn't ignore it so we went back. Well long story short everyone had lost to this one main guy and wanted me to play but the main winner wouldn't allow for it. So I gave em' our card and told them that when he wanted to play me to give me a call (wish I had said when he wanted to lose ;3). Later on in the week I actually found another group but I lost pretty bad since it was speed chess and I had never done that before :/. There aren't to many other new things from the normal this past week. I've just about had it with the one family though. I've almost had them reactivated twice in my time here but for the past couple of months they have done less and less to the point of nothing. So we will be having a possible drop lesson the next time that we come by. Oh well thats how it goes I guess. On Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Philogene (the Hatian Missionary) in his area. I wanted to see how he was doing since he is still a Golden and their area is struggling pretty badly. Well the first appointment we showed up for we were a little bit late do to bus times and when we got there he answered the door and yelled at us for not being able to tell time and went back in. Let me make a side not real quick here. Elder Philogene is learning English on the fly as we go about our here in the mission. So at the moment he has memorized phrases so that he can do missionary work. Well lets just say that he has a tendency to continue down his phrases no matter what happens... Which is what happened at this door. Still finished strong though ;). We then had a guy call us over to his porch to tell Elder Philogene that according to the book of mormon he couldn't go to heaven. Well there it went again but this time we had a good discussion however is buddy was the largest stereotypical man I had ever met in my life. As you see in the title of this email it comes to being the only description of this man. I literally watched him yell at a passing woman and then proceed to chase her down the block. Lucky for her he is fat and out of shape so all is well. Well I'm sorry if this email is a little bit of a bore. We were pretty busy this past week but not to much new to report on. The Humidity has really picked up out here and it is nasty yuck! Well I love you and wish you the best!

Ben Franklin Bridge and Delaware River

Double Interest or Interesting?, Mission Philadelphia... Uncensored Addition, Captain Squirrel suicide

So by the title I place Wendy five cents that you know at least one third of what will be coming up within this letter. Some weeks there really isn't to much to say and others I feel like my letters home should have an intro scene that resembles that of the Brady Bunch intermingled with Fear Factor if anyone has ever seen those... Oh the tune to Little House on the Prairie would be its theme song as well. Anyways to get right to it we picked up two new investigators this past week which are both a bit interesting. Donny is the Nephew to Bryan who is one of our super investigators. He suffered from a car crash that put him in a coma years ago and his head really hasn't been the same since. Very dominating in conversation. Almost as if we aren't even there. But he really is a good guy and wants to help out his family... He just wants to do it through being a one hit wonder though. We saw him twice this past week. Our second visit we watched the restoration twice since he kept distracting himself with diverse topics :/. The other one is Giovani. I don't know to much about him besides he wants to turn his life around for the better and that we don't know if it's a hearing or English problem since he doesn't always understand what we are talking about. Knocking on his door was ridiculous though. A woman answered and we asked for him and she stated that no one by that name lived there and that she needed to get back to taking care of a baby. Suddenly he shows up in the background and says come in! They had a disagreement but her crisscross lie was done for :3. We had that happen twice this week. We walked up to a door and a guy exiting said yes he is here and took off, get up to the porch and another guy says he doesn't live here. Meanwhile first guy comes back and says what are you talking about!? He was there but was asleep. Anyways we would have had three new, however it's bitter sweet that this man didn't become an investigator. His name is Zeus and he is a former investigator of two years or so. He welcomes us in and he is only wearing under armor bottoms since he has been working out in his basement. He shows us his house which was nice and he makes a side note that when he's alone he likes to pray just how we came into this world... In the nude. Little strange note but we continue and hen have a lesson with him. We finish up and ask for a prayer and he says yes but asks if he can do it his way... Without anything on... Stunned I kinda sat there not knowing what to do... Then my companion gave a very unconfident sure as we knelt down.... Yeck!!!!!! Strange things in the city 24/7! Anyways I'll move away from that note and report about a certain squirrel we came across. There was this Catholic Church (big surprise) and at an inward corner there was a drainpipe with a squirrel behind it who can't decide if he is going to rock climb this brick wall or not. Well he finally goes for it and shoots up 20 feet to the top of the church Mar-key. We watched as his tail sifted about on the top of this and finding nothing decides to come down. Misses his footing and falls the twenty feet head first... Lands and just looks stunned oh we thought he was dead when he suddenly just shot away. I about fell out laughing! I almost videos the whole thing to but when I brought out my camera the battery died >.

Busy Fullness, Sneaky Sneaky Missionaries, Mortal Kombat with a Heebie Jeebie, First Time for Eerything

I am literally whipped this week :P! And I'll get to why in just a moment. We had a really good week and for the first time in a month we broke the ten lesson barrier! We finally have a sustainable teaching pool and I am excited for what will be coming next. So all in all a lot of the normal things happened this week but we have a few new things on the roster. We were able to meet with a lady named Debbie.... Which happened by accident. We had met a man named Rob a week and a half ago who said it would be fine if we came by. Day rolls around we show up and though he is there he won't come out and talk with us :/. However Debbie McDonald who is a former that told me no four months ago said that since he wouldn't listen we could share a message with her. We showed her a video and got a return appointment woot! We came back on Sunday and she had forgotten that we were coming over and asked if we could reschedule. We were both sore from football the day earlier and I had no desire to walk in the hot sun so as we rescheduled a date I got her talking about the bible and who her favorite was and knowing that she had a gift for the gab we suddenly were able to stay and give a lesson >:3. Ya I'm a sneaky missionary haha. Bryan is doing well. We read with him a bit, he's already at 2 Nephi and loves the book thus far! Our second visit not wanting to always be in the same reading routine we watched the Joseph Smith video which he loved and could relate to. We will hopefully be able to set him with a date soon ;). He invited us to the Paccio (probably slaughter that one) and Mayweather fight which we had to decline... I was disappointed by the results though :/, to many politics. So football was a blast (Saturday)! Caught a game winning touch down, afterwards we were having huge success in finding people and it was just great. When suddenly a car drove by asking if we were JDubs. I yelled what? As it turned the corner and just stood there. Suddenly it backed up and a guy with a girl in his car waved us over. He wasn't a Hebrew Israelite (black people who believe in black Jesus.... They wear funny space vests and carry swords so they can slaughter the devilish white man when Christ comes again) but was like into it. For the first time in a year I almost blew up on someone in a bash. I won doctrinally but on the other end he got my goat good and I was flustered so much I had no idea what to do >.<. Before I close this is one funny thing from it. Revelations states that Christs hair was white like wool, who's hair looks more like wool? He said. I stated that it didn't state that it was wool but that it was white like it. Suddenly the girlfriend states wool is a texture not a color.... (Rolls Eyes) do we need to go back to first grade and learn English :3? Yesterday Brianna was confirmed woot! For my first time ever and on the mission I was asked to do that for one of my converts and it was super exciting! The spirit was super strong and I really feel that her mom Meloney will be baptized pretty soon here! We then will move to her brother haha! So we taught a total of 12 lessons and we now have three new investigators woot! Things are picking up here again and I'm super psyched! Also a guy is rolling weed right next to me but other that things are sweet! Love y'all!