Rednecks

May 24, 2010

Hello Family.

This week was a long week. We've been tracting for at least 2 or 3 hours every day. Usually at like noon to 3. The least effective time to do anything especially tracting but whatever. I've decided that our motto right now is 'work harder not smarter'. The heat has been a killer and I've had to shower every night because we get so nasty during the day. Not too many amusing things have happened lately. I'm just tired of seeing trailers. Out here in the middle of nowhere the hispanics are harder to find. They're hidden among the white folks in the trailer parks, so a lot of the people we've talked to this week are white and it gets old real fast. Because no anglo-saxon wants anything to do with missionaries or talk about religion unless they're drunk.

The other day we just walking down this street when we came across three white guys out on their lawn drinking. All of three of them were 'Nam veterans and I wanted to talk to them and hear some cool stories from the war, but my companion, never wanting to waste a minute moved on. Though one of them showed us this shack that he built next to his trailer, it was surrounded by barbed wire fences and other sorts of barricades, he told us that's where he keeps his wife. He told us that she's a crack head and he just built this "house" for her because it was cold last winter and she's been getting into too much trouble lately wandering around the streets. And this whole time his wife was yelling at us, "Church people! Church People! Come over here!" We went up to the fence to see her and she was just sitting at this table under an umbrella, listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette. She started talking to us and was all twitchy and kept winking and smiling and twitching and then she burst into tears and suddenly cleared up again and was normal and kept on talking as if nothing had happened.... We were like... okay.... have a good day! See ya! We left and later as we were talking to some mexicans father down the street we heard gunshots from that trailer...

It's really quite sad to see these people living in these conditions. We were talking to this one family from Mexico in their "yard". The husband didn't want anything to do with us and went away, the wife was actually interested and we talked to her for a while, in the meantime her three children were annoying us to death. Her oldest was this 9 year old girl who's arms and legs were coated in bug bites and she just kept talking and talking and talking. The two smaller children could have been raised by monkeys for all we know. The little boy who was about 4 or 5, just stared at us and was incapable of speaking, we'd try to give him high five's but he just stared, blankly, and wouldn't move. The 2 or 3 year old little girl was just covered in dirt, constantly screaming and throwing things at us. Then she'd go find a stick and dig in the mud for a while or try to throw rocks at their chiuauas or at us. She too was incapable of coherent speech. Even when communicating with her mother it was screams, growls, and grunts. The whole time I was sitting there, a certain song from the Pocahontas Disney movie was going through my head..

So that's how most of our week was. Though through our efforts we did get like 14 new investigators. Less than half of that will likely remain investigators but oh well. I decided there is no efficient way to do missionary work. And to cap off the week we got a nasty surprise on sunday when Carlos decided at the very last minute that he didn't feel ready to be baptized. That was a bummer, he was good to go and everything but he told us that he "doesn't know enough" and that he needed to learn more before he was ready for baptism. We hear this excuse a lot and it's probably one of the lamest excusas. You don't need to really 'know' anything to be baptized, you just have repent, have a testimony, feel the spirit, and realize that from now on your going to try to live as a better person. So that was frustrating but we will see what happens with him.

Well that's about all that happened this week. Bummer that Alyssa's google drawing didn't go anywhere, I thought it was really good. And Aidan I really liked the comic you sent, I was laughing. Aidan's drawings are starting to look more and more like Alyssa's. I'm getting better at drawing now, that's what I do during church and zone conferences, if I don't then I fall asleep, so I've been doodling in my planner and I've got some pretty cool drawings that I think I will send in a letter one day.

Okay I'm done now. I love you all and have a good last week or whatever of school.

-- Elder Rice