Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Bunkers and Redefining Tracting


Touristy picture at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Myself, Elder Minkler, and Hermana Wickline posing dramatically for the camera.

Pitch-black selfie with Hermana Billat.

On top of a World War II bunker.

At the bottom of an old World War II  bunker.

We went exploring in a hidden bunker where a lot of people go to graffiti the walls, so it was like walking through a ghetto art gallery!

Jailbreak!!!

The jellyfish that we found washed up on shore that I took a bite of.
Saltiest thing EVER. Not a overly pleasant experience but I've never
been a picky eater in the past.

Elder Randall buried his legs in the sand up to his knees so Elder Merrell and I took
the opportunity to take some hilarious pictures 
with him.

Somehow Elder Milne broke my chair, so this is my study station now! 


Hey Mom!

It's the start of week five! Hard to imagine that we get transfer information in a week. It will be interesting to see who my next companion will be. I feel like Elder Meiners and I just became companions but it's been 3 months already! On top of it all, I've been in Novato for a while now and will soon be in a new area again. It's not easy to wrap my mind around it all.

This last week was a little slow, and we weren't able to see many of our investigators. Everyone here is busy all the time and it's really difficult to catch people when they are available! But we were able to visit some less active members that we haven't been able to see since I've been here, so that was progress. Also something exciting that happened was the Elders Quorum and the missionaries helped move in a family (I'm pretty sure we help people move at least once a week - we already have another one planned for this next week, so by now I've gotten pretty good at it) who are not members of the church, which is uncommon here. Apparently a friend of the family is a member of the church and he called ahead and asked us to assist. Normally people are so unwilling or untrusting to accept help from others, especially for something like moving, so I was really glad we could help out!

I went on exchanges with a missionary in my district, Elder Chan, and he is easily the most effective missionary in my mission. He is from Hong Kong so already people want to talk to him, but he's just so bold and real with people that he can talk to and teach anyone. We went tracting for a while and he can get into anyone's house. Sometimes he will just walk right in and start talking to them about what they are watching on TV or just about whatever and they will just let it happen. Then he will teach them a lesson! If I tried randomly walking into someone's house they would call the police on me. I think he can get away with it because he's Chinese and because he doesn't give them an opportunity to call him on it - he'll just walk in and talk to them like he belongs there. He redefines what tracting is. I definitely learned a lot from him!

Well it was another pretty slow week. Like I mentioned earlier, we didn't really get to see our investigators this week, but on the bright side I learned how to play my first song on the piano! "Mad World" by Gary Jules, I'm pretty sure that his name at least. I'll send a video home of me playing it sometime in the future!

Now, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you a man fleeing from a bear. Enjoy.

ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ       ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘


Love, Elder Hayden Ellis

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