Jacob Dyer Missionary Blog: September 7, 2015

Another long tiring week!

We had to prepare for our mission leadership council with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders, which involved a lot of Microsoft Excel and numbers. It's crazy how my eyes just get tired so quickly now! I guess that happens when you've been away from screens for that long! But we were in the office a lot more, and a lot later than usual. It's weird how the tiredness hits me too. We were on exchanges the next day, and I was fighting to not fall asleep in the passenger seat of the car!

One of our investigators right now looks like the exact opposite of what you would think of if you thought of a "church-going Mormon." He has tattoos all over his arms, is missing teeth, and has a ponytail, but he has such an uplifting spirit about him. He used to be in a biker gang and is pretty clean now. His house is full of people who use drugs and smoke, but he has asthma. Every time you bring that up, smoking, he gets really annoyed about how his family members just never listen when he says they can't smoke! He had his interview for baptism and is worthy! When he finished the interview with one of the other missionaries in the area, I heard a big "THANK YOU JESUS!!!" and he came running out saying how proud his grandma (who passed away a couple days ago) would be of him.

We were teaching him the Word of Wisdom, and for some reason he was under the impression that we couldn't drink any caffeine. When we told him we could, he just shouted “YES!”. He's big into Dr. Pepper! Then we were talking about healthy things we can eat, and for some reason we got on the topic of milk. He said, if I can't have my milk I won't be able to live, I need my milk and cereal every morning! Good thing milk's okay.

I have to go on ten exchanges every transfer, one with every companionship of Zone Leaders. I had my first one in a Spanish area. It was cool to be able to understand a lot of what they were talking about. I also understood more of how it felt being on exchanges with me when I was in a Chinese area. It gets kind of boring when you can't understand where the lesson is going.

Elder Fischer and I were driving to an area and we saw this Mexican guy pushing a cart, so we obviously had to stop and get out of the car. He was an "elote" (sp?) guy - selling the corn with mayonnaise, cheese, and chili (you know, from Nacho Libre). So we parked and started following him. Boy was he hauling... We couldn't catch up to him after maybe a quarter of a mile. Finally he heard me whistling at him and he stopped. The elote didn't really live up to the hype, though.

We were knocking on a door of a referral and we hear, "Mommy, the Mormon's are here." Then the reply, "I'll handle it." The lady that answered the door suddenly couldn't speak English! It's funny how if you just keep speaking English, though, they understand, but reply in Spanish! California mission life.

Surprise of the week. We're in our apartment after church, and we get a visit from none other than my favorite Elder Murray! He was visiting for the Labor Day weekend and they stopped by to say hi! (He was with his family). Knowing my weakness, he obviously dropped off Ferrero Rocher chocolates - he knows me too well. THEN, around 9 pm, I hear a big loud knock on the mission office door. None other than Elder Murray with MORE Ferrero Rocher (he's trying to get me fat), and food from the potluck he just left in Eastvale with all the members. So thank you Elder Murray, or should I say Dexter. Love you <3