Hey,
It's already been week 1 of the transfer, and it's been kind of hard, but good. It felt really long for some reason. We realigned our area and gained a bunch of new names to work with, so we're visiting a lot of people, but a lot of people aren't home during the day, or busy at night. It's been kind of a hard week. In the 7 weeks of being here, not a single potential investigator has kept a return appointment, and we've had cancellation after cancellation. But I've been put in this area with Elder McClain for a specific reason, and if it's just to sow seeds, then so be it. But I'm not giving up or leaving until President tells me to.

The Valensuala family isn't doing so great, though, unfortunately. They're trying to flip a house in MoVal (Moreno Valley) and they've been out there everyday after work to try and get it ready to close so they can get back the money that they put into it. We haven't met with them in over a week, and they haven't been to church since the middle of March. If we can't meet with them this week, they're probably going to get dropped. Which really, really, really sucks because they're a great family and they have a lot of potential, and we don't want to drop them, but we can't waste time on people who aren't ready for the Gospel. Hopefully something turns around, so pray for them.

We haven't been able to meet with Sam a lot this week either, and he runs the risk of getting dropped as well. We met with him on Thursday, I think. I can't really remember...days really run together out here. Anyway, we met with him and asked if there were any concerns that he had, because he wasn't returning our calls or texts, and was always gone when we stopped by, and he said that he read some stuff on the internet about Joseph Smith, but wouldn't say what, and there was a J-Dubs pamphlet on his counter, so he's basically getting slammed by anti and is ducking us now. We cleared up some concerns and he said himself that he should go to the source instead of third or fourth parties, but we haven't been able to meet with him.

When we realigned the area we inherited some investigators from the other Elders. Mark and Diane are pretty cool people. Diane's daughter Lauren was baptized about 2 years ago and is getting married in the Temple soon, and that's kind of piqued Mark and Diane's interest in the church and they've started investigating. They have good concerns that we work through and they seem to receive it all well, but have concerns about the nature of Heavenly Father, and the Word of Wisdom. But that's all okay because as long as they get a testimony of The Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith, everything else falls into place. If Joseph Smith is a true Prophet, then he really did translate The Book of Mormon, he really did see Heavenly Father and Christ, he really received the Revelations that make up the Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, and this is really the true Church of Jesus Christ that has been restored to the Earth again by the power of the Priesthood Keys and the Holy Ghost. Ergo, the Word of Wisdom, Tithing, and the Law of Chastity are true revelations from God.  

We were over at a recent convert's home the other night. This particular recent convert is kind of demanding over tedious things, and we were over helping him put up new curtains for his daughter's room because he has a condition where his arms are shorter than the average persons, along with a few other things going on. We were over there and I was sick (Oh, by the way, I've been sick this last week. Yaaaaayyyyy...) and it was the end of the night and I was just done for the day, and his mother at some point in the conversation said, "Well, you signed up for this" as a joke. It then it hit me and the Lord straight up chastised me: I did sign up for this. I worked for this and I keep forgetting that this isn't about me. Nothing I do out here is even about me, and I've just been a punk being all dumpy, fat, and bad at sports. It's hard, there is no denying that, but it doesn't have to be as hard as I am making it.

Anyway, how are things at home? How's Andy? How are Mikey and Ashley? Tyler and Allison? Dad? Jared and Kylee? How are you?
Everyone still not dead? Good. Rest is for the dead. We will never sleep, because sleep is for the weak. Except I totes went to bed at like 9:30 last night. That's over 6 hours from my usual bed time of 4 in the morning. What's become of me? I've become a square. A straight up L7 weenie. Doger-dog. Oscar Meier, foot long even! You're killin' me, Smalls!

Okay. Bye. #LuvU5Evar (Psst. Dats moar den 4.) #YOLOBROSWAG