August 26, 2013

Mom asked about the sign that everyone does with their fingers around here and yeah, it's just the hang loose sign. Around here you have to be a bit more careful doing it in public because there's a really big gang called the Mongrel Mob, and that's their sign. Mom also asked about our actual address so it could be looked up on google maps and we live at 54 Dinsdale Rd.  Actually it isn't even in our ward boundaries, so its not in our area boundaries. It's in the Dinsdale ward. Funny thing is that the Dinsdale sisters live in a flat in our area, and we live in a flat in their area. Our area goes right to the edge of Hamilton, then there's about a mile of country road and you get into Temple View, which was a part of my old zone.

It's quite a bit different being here, for one thing there's a lot more members around here, so we're always getting honked and waved at. We had a baptism this past weekend, which was pretty awesome. The investigator that is set for next week came with her brother, and they really enjoyed it, so we went to see them last night just to kind of recap and talk about what they thought. The brother (Matthew) told the Sisters when they were here that he really wasn't ready, and probably wouldn't be for a few more years, but as we were talking to them we could tell that he was really thinking about baptism. He's pretty much sat in on every lesson that his sister has had, so he knows the most of it. We ended up linking baptism to the Plan of Salvation, hoping to help him understand that baptism is more than just washing away our sins, but its setting us on our first steps towards the Celestial kingdom. Turns out he hadn't remembered a whole lot of anything about the Plan of Salvation, so it really made him think about how baptism and being a member of this church is necessary. We left him with a commitment to read through the pamphlet again and to pray, so I really hope that when we go by again tonight he's done those things and has some good news for us!

It's been interesting to see how the ward takes to having Elders again instead of Sisters. I think they're all still pretty attached to sister missionaries, and it's been remarkably difficult fitting in with the ward. I always just assumed that everyone loves missionaries no matter who they are, but apparently not. Interesting how members will have a bad experience with one Elder and then decide that the whole lot is bad. I know that when it happens I really don't like it. It's almost like the members don't realize that we're real people and just young men that barely got out of high school.

That'll about do it for this week, I'll let you know how it all worked out next week,

  Love ya!
   E. O'Neal