Hey
Everyone!
I finally made it to the big leagues and am out of the MTC and in the
field! The area that I have been assigned to is in Stockton, California,
about an hour south of Sacramento. There are a lot of Latinos and other
cultures here so this is where a lot of the Spanish-speaking missionaries
are. I have heard that Stockton is the 2nd most dangerous city in America
2nd to Detroit. I'm not sure if I believe it but it's definitely up
there. The other Elders serving down here with me have said that there
has been at least one murder here every week for at least the past year.
I haven't seen too much of the dangerous part but it definitely seems like a
shady place. Elder Torres (one of the 4 elders living in our apartment)
said he saw a dead person where there had just been a murder before the police
got there. Two nights ago my companion (Elder Guzman) also called
the police because there was a huge, violent argument going on outside of our
apartment. The area I'm in is called Delta South, and the other 2 elders
in our apartment are in Delta East and apparently we have the 2 most dangerous
areas in the whole mission. So that's cool! I have loved it here so
far. It's really green here and also a warmer climate, it's been pretty
nice.
So
my companion's name is Elder Guzman. He is a native Spanish
speaker. He was born in southern Mexico and lived there for 10 years and
has lived in Los Angeles the past 10 years. He's 21 right now and has
been serving for 10 months and this is his first time being a trainer. It
is really helpful to have a native speaker as my trainer because he does a lot
of the talking to people in Spanish when I'm overwhelmed and don't know what's
going on. He's a really good Elder and I'm glad to have him training
me. He is also a pretty good soccer player and so it has been fun to play
with him. We play soccer every Thursday night for about 2 hours with
members of the ward and investigators and that is a lot of fun. The other
two Elders in my apartment are Elder Torres and Elder Pickner. They are
both awesome as well and I love them. Elder Torres was born in Mexico and
is also a native but has lived in LA most of his life. Elder Pickner is
from Idaho and is a big guy who wrestled and played rugby before his
mission. I like them both a lot.
When we got to Sacramento we were picked up by the 3 Assistants to the
President and the mission president and his wife. They are all awesome
and I like them a lot. The first day we went back to the mission president's
house and received a lot of training and then had dinner. We spent the
night at the AP's houses and then got up early the next morning to do some more
training and then found out who our companions were and where we would be
serving. There were 12 people that arrived at once on April 3rd and there
were only 2 of us speaking Spanish. The other Elder's name is Elder
Branchini and he was raised in Argentina so he already knows Spanish and lives
in LA now and didn't go to the MTC, just drove up to Sacramento the day he
reported. We also got to go to the Sacramento temple. It's
really pretty and looks a lot like the Bountiful temple.
Our
first week in Stockton we have tried to visit a lot of the investigators so I
can get to know them and also do some tracting. I have already got the
tracting down in English since most the people we have talked to speak English
but I need a lot more work in Spanish. I cannot understand the
Latinos here. Americans annunciate every word and syllable so I could understand
all my teachers in the MTC perfectly but Latinos talk a lot faster, a lot
quieter, and slur words together so it's hard to hear what they're
saying. I can communicate (myself) in Spanish really well and people
understand me buy I have a hard time understanding the native speakers. I
still have plenty of work to do in Spanish. But I love all of our
investigators; they are really nice and really cool people. Elder Guzman
told me there hasn't been a baptism in our area in about a year and a half so
we have some work to do but we are definitely going to get more than one in the
next 12 weeks that we're here.
We
do a lot of studying since we speak a different language and I am in training
but when we're not we go tracting, visit investigators, and also less active
families. One of the biggest problems here is inactivity and the members
just don't go to church. Yesterday in church there were hardly any people
there. The chapel is a lot smaller and it was very sparsely populated.
In priesthood meeting there were 6 missionaries, 1 teacher, and 5 members
present. We do a lot of work trying to activate the less active
families. I don't have a lot of time today but I will talk more about the
investigators and people we are meeting next week when I have more time and
don't have to send all the background information, and also when I get to know
them better.
All the Spanish areas have cars since they are a lot bigger than the English
areas and I am driving everywhere because Elder Guzman can't drive. I'm not sure why, I just know he either
isn't allowed or doesn't have a license. We drive pretty nice cars.
The one I drive is a Chevy Malibu, probably a 2008 model. I would still
trade it for my Civic just because I prefer stick but this is a pretty nice
car.
I have already been with 3 different companions tracting because we do this
thing called a "blitz" every Saturday and Sunday it's kind of the
equivalent of what Dad has his sales people do at work in a way. All 7 companionships in our zone come
together and go tracting in 1 companionship’s area and get lots of contacts and
returns and books placed to help out the people in that area. Last night
I got to go with Elder Call who is one of the zone leaders and it was really
cool. All the zone leaders and the missionaries down here keep telling me
that I look like the ideal missionary and that I'm going to be in all the
leadership positions in the mission after a few transfers. Elder Call
told me I was really good and he was really impressed with how I taught.
Other missionaries also have told me that they think I was born a missionary at
the age of 0. I apparently my haircut looks like Jeffrey R Holland’s so
they equate me to him a lot. I'm not sure how much of this they say to
all the new missionaries to make them feel good but it really boosts my
self-confidence and makes me want to be a better missionary.
The two hardest parts so far have been sleep and working out. We get
usually about 7.5 hours of sleep every night but I am always so tired
throughout the day because I barely got any sleep my last few nights at the MTC
and the first day here we had 16 missionaries that had to use 2 showers at the
AP's house so we had to get up really early. We also have 1 bathroom for
4 missionaries in our apartment so it makes getting ready in the morning pretty
difficult. We also only get 30 minutes in the morning to work out and
that is barely any time at all. If we try to go running we usually only
have enough time to run about a mile. My biggest worry about my mission
is not all the hard things I will have to do but getting fat. All the
missionaries here have showed me pictures of them when they got here, how much
they weighed, and then how much weight they've gained in 5 months, 10 months,
or 15 months. I'm very scared about it. I think that will probably
be the hardest part about my mission for me.
Mom asked me to decide which kind of mail I prefer and real mail in the form of
letters probably is the best. I don't know exactly how all the mail works
but we get an hour on the computers every week to email everyone and look up
anything else we need for our investigators and other things for the whole week
so it's better to be able to read it beforehand and not have to read it all and
then write emails all in the same hour period.
I
can't think of anything else off the top of my head so I will be sure to write
anything else I think of next week!
Les
Amo,
Elder
John Gaskill
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