Wildfire, the name of my next mixtape as well as what happened Saturday

God spends all of his time helping us, Moses 1:39. 

Over in the Yucaipa area there was a decently large wildfire. Large enough to cover half the sky where we were in smoke. We are like a stake [group of congregations like a diocese] away from them, but we could smell it and some ash would float down.

Monday we discovered that it would be 110 or higher most of the week. The forecasters, were sadly correct in that assumption. However we did have another thunderstorm and the weather was 80 and humid, just like back home! I was told I was serving in the desert. What a disappointment

We had ZONE CONFERENCE [training for missionaries in an area] on Tuesday, it was a good learning experience, but it was long. We learned about how to better work with our ward council [group of leaders in a church congregation], which is hard since I have been blessed with a really organized bishop [Leader of a congregation]  so the ward council is pretty good. We also have correlation meetings once a week with a member from all of the priesthood and auxilary presidents. We also learned about the importance of the sacrament and making sure our investigators understand that. It really is true though when we take the sacrament we renew our covenants and focus on the Savior. We had quite a few investigators and less active members come to church which was good.

We also learned this week that Sister missionaries are the best. The sisters in our district were more productive than us and the other elders combined. Our zone does this thing where when you find a new investigator you send out a text so everyone can be like "they found someone, we can find someone". Unfortunatly the sisters did that often during the week. One time we found a new investigator and we were so excited! Before we went out our text however the sisters sent out a text saying they had found two new investigators and they had baptismal dates. Elder Brown and I decided it's because we aren't pretty enough. Does anyone know how to handsome elders can get pretty?

Also we were out in Muscoy and we were walking up to a fence and there was one tiny dog, so we started to look for the gate to get in and it barked at us. From out of their hiding places came a dozen dogs all barking at us, we decided to try somewhere else. We have been pretty successful on our finding less active members however. We found that one had died, three had moved and two were still in the same home.

Wednesday we both had a headache after service since we didn't drink any water. But the service itself was fun, we opened about 100 stuffed baymaxs out of their boxes. We do service every Wednesday for a place called Santa Claus where stores donate unsold toys to them and they hold them and give them out at Christmas. It was a really well run operation. We tried to drink water but they only had sparkling cucumber water we tried but it was a whole new level of nasty. We also made thank you cards for a couple families that have been helping us out alot, that was pretty fun.

We also saw two kids riding tricycle at full speed at a set of stairs, hitting them at that speed and flipping over into the stairs. The mom came out and one got up and ran away, three steps away and he started tilting and he ended up falling on his face. To be honest it looked sorta fun.

We had a sweet miracle though, we were being bad missionaries and rushing late to a lesson. We walked by am open garage and saw some people in it but we were in a rush, strike two, not talking to people, one lady in their said "Hi" so we stopped and talked to her, she was mildly intrested but some dude who was also cooling off in the garage started talking to us. He said that when he saw us walking he almost started walking away but that he felt he should stay. He than told us he had had a near death experience and it made him want to draw closer to God and his family, and we were like "that is exactly what we teach!" We are excited for his lesson. 

It started out so good

Friday was exciting because I spent my exercise time stretching and I touched my toes while keeping my legs straight for the first time in a REALLY long time. Like I can't remember the last time I did that, really long time. I also made a pancake, it was under cooked because we were in a rush, but it was delicious. It was also exciting because we had no lessons planned so we spent the whole talking to people, or trying to at least. Lots of people apparently don't want to pay the price of eternal salvation, opening the door and listening to us. Go figure

Would you like a pomegranate?

That was also the day I might have cut myself on rusty metal in Muscoy, we also got a lot of pomegranates. I love Muscoy.

It also rained on Friday and it was fun watching the raindrops hit the ground and disappear in three seconds. Just as fast as a griddle back home. Speaking of cooking. I was stirring noodles in a metal pot with a metal knife, that was the only thing long enough besides the spatula. And I pressed one of the buttons and got one of the meanest shocks ever, like my whole arm went numb. It was an electric stove. It was worse than that shock game at the B's. However I still am alive.

Speaking of me harming myself I kicked a soccer ball into my face, (I am out of touch), and knocked my glasses high into the air. However to prove I wasn't a clown, I passed the ball from out of the air to my teammate and caught my glasses. It made me look less like a klutz, though my glasses did cut my face a bit. It won't scar like my other battle wounds which is good because it isn't horizontal, it would be mismatched with my two horizontal scars.

Saturday was a roller coaster and a half, emotionally. We helped people move, which is so much fun, as long as you aren't the ones moving. You always wonder, what humongous piece of furniture will they make us lift this time because we are "strong young men"? That was good but than an appointment with the S family got postponed, more on them later. Than we went and did baptismal interviews for these cool kids that the highland sisters are teaching. They are the ones owning the work in our district. It was very uplifting to see them so excited to get baptized. That was when we noticed a good portion of the sky was smoky. Than we went to a lesson with the ladies, three of them are members and one was on date and one was interested. Unfortunately the interested one was too sick to sit in, and the one on date dropped us. Then after we got out the S family canceled entirely. We went and got some ice cream. We then ran up to Devore to help with parking for a wedding. It was fun, and the owner of the land was an old lady, around 90ish, and she was running around supervising on a rideable lawnmower, and she was cracking jokes the whole time. I want to be like her when I am her age. And than we ran to Danny's for dinner, it wasn't bad.

Also funny story time, one minor problem my companion and I have is talking:  he is excited to talk to strangers, I am still growing in that department. He usually talks 70% of the time of the two of us. We had arrived in Devore a bit early for the wedding so we were trying to find some less active. However most people up there have locked gates. There was one house without a gate. So we knocked on that door. At this point Elder Brown is pretty gung go about finding someone to teach because of the long hectic day, us getting dropped, and the locked gates. So when the door opened with a fairly pretty girl our age he blanked. So I had to fill the gap as his brain rebooted. It felt like you were trying to download something at church in Sunday with the church Wi-Fi. We eventually taught her some principles and got a return date. I wasn't as affected by her feminine wiles as she was a blonde. 

As explanation for all of the dinner at restaurants, members like to give us gift cards, cause they want to feed us, but are so busy, and they can't give us money. We get dinner fed to us or paid for almost every night. Sunday we got fed by the M family and they were, just like Wilmer' s family, crazy, loud, funny, laughing, and always telling stories. And the food was real good too, tostadas! I love that family so much.

So the S family is strange. They have been to church 4 weeks in a row and participate in classes, but they have never met with us. The wife seems really excited, the husband seems more along for the ride, they are super busy, she lives somewhere else during the week for work, and they are also house hunting so it is hard to catch them. They also have two kids but they only are with them during the week. It is hard because they are so awesome. 

Elder Bearman

P.S. for those of you hoping I get fat *hem hem EMMA i weighed in today after soccer. After lunch and rehydrating i weighed... 169.8 lbs. I AM BACK UNDER 170 BABY!

I love the city Muscoy

Dead dogs, mustangs, chickens, and awesome people

I'm a danger to myself