Dear Family,
I cannot believe it is already P-day again. Its been a good week! We taught like twenty something lessons--which both my companions say is a lot. No Mom, we haven't really had a lot of dinner appointments but we kinda got that figured out this Sunday so I think we will be getting more from now on. And yes we have a car, but we like to walk when possible. We also like to ride bikes, but unfortunately because I was supposed to be in Brazil, I don't have a bike...Elders Henrie and Kalilimoku both do, so it has been a companionship goal to find me one. Sometimes we like to ask random drunk guys on the street if we can have their bike--so far no luck.
Here is an excerpt from a journal entry to give y'all an idea of what missionary life is like:
"Today was a crazy and fun day. We went to visit a lady and the appointment fell through so we went contacting instead. Ran into this old black couple sitting in their front yard--the husband was completely drunk and acting like an absolute scoundrel. It was really funny. Among other things he made fun of Elder Henrie's nose, cursed like a sailor, said some terribly inappropriate things, and taught us a little about the history of the CRIPS (he showed us a tattoo on his chest that apparently means he IS a CRIP, and then said that CRIP is an acronym for California Revolution In Progress. haha) The wife was super great though and we got her contact info to come back and visit with her when the husband was sober.
We then met a really old and slightly crazy and barely intelligible man who called us into his house when we knocked. It was kind of a cool experience; here he was sitting alone on the couch next his portable toilet thing and a plate of uneaten food sitting on the table next to him. He seemed rather desperate and told us that he didn't want to be a burden on his daughter and wanted to be put in a home. He said he believed we were sent by God to help him. We said we believed the same thing. We took his daughter's number off the kitchen counter and promised to contact her for him. We tried to tell him he wasn't a burden and that his family loved him and God loved him. We prayed with him and left.
Then we locked ourselves out of our apartment. Oops. So we said a prayer. Still locked out. So we walked to our next appointment, which was with Kalilah, a twelve year old who's kinda from the hood and who is preparing for baptism. His uncle sat in on and tried to help teach the lesson while drinking a bottle of malt and smoking. (incidentally we weren't teaching Word of Wisdom). Then we tried to get rides for Kalilah and his friend to go to Mutual, but we couldn't get any, so we walked there and showed up about an hour late. It was all good though. We played basketball for a few minutes with our two investigators and the Young Men of Liberty.
We all got a ride home with Elder Devereaux, who turns out to be a profession window guy (having been in the business for 15 years), and was able to pop one of our locked windows open for us from the outside. Thank you Heavenly Father!"
So that's a little of what mission life is like, except we try not to lock ourselves out to often. We've had some really awesome experiences and some let-downs.
Mom, I wish I would be home to help with all the cooking at thanksgiving! Its crazy that by the end of this transfer we will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and then in the next transfer we will be celebrating Christmas, and by then I will be an old hand at this whole missionary game.
Love you all!
Elder Wilder
OHHH I almost forgot. Elder Kalilimoku believes that cockroaches were created by Satan himself... It didn't help that one fell from our ceiling onto him last night while we were doing daily planning.
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