I think things are finna come back for this area

"Finna" is another word that alot of people use in the ghetto, I am not sure exactly what it means but from what  I understand it seems to be in place of "going to". These people crack me up!

In Gaylord this sunday 3 of my investigators that I taught and put on date were baptized! The former Messianic jew.  S's son. And S's nephew/foster kid. I called up the chain to get permission to go to it and got it. But in a ward where we have no friends with any members but like 2, and there is very little member involvement in anything, even in church We didn't have much of a chance of some one driving us 5 hours up north with the possibility of bad weather. 

 

That and The sister that replaced the other one who left had a baptism 3 hours away and was asking loads of people for help and they didn't even get a ride to Lansing which is like a hour away...To be fair though I didn't try very hard because of how unlikely the odds were. 

This last p-day was rather fun. But it didn't work out in the way that we intended it to be. We put effort to make the day super special for a sis since she was going home on a unknown day. But things weren't working out for our district plans and so we had a zone p-day instead where they came and didn't really associate with any one and then left super early... I tried so hard to talk to them and what not but you can only do so much as a Elder before sisters start to think you are creepy and it gets really awkward... I tried my best. She called me that night and told me she was leaving the next morning...

But after they were gone I had loads of fun at the zone p-day! We played Ultimate frisbee in the cold. One of my zone leaders who has battled me on several things about supplies and what not was on the other team. I went up and started blocking him and waving my hands in his face and doing high kicks in the opposite direction that my arms were to block him. He couldn't get past me and so he hooked under my arm and clinched to me and spun so he could try and throw the frisbee. Bad news. Because I then slid under his arm and went for the rear naked choke....

Elder E...

weight- 220

hight- 6' 3"

trained- MMA for years

specialty- wrestling/ground and pound

We were off right then and there. My playful fake rear naked choke got taken the wrong way and his arm grabbed under my armpit in means of self defense. I started swinging my legs around his body to wrap my hooks around a leg at least because I knew what was coming. He then bent over and rolled me over the top of him and slammed me on the ground. Adrenaline flowed through my veins. 

 

We struggled and he took side control and started working for a pin. I slipped his left arm in between my legs and was pushing out to break his grips before the pin was locked. I used that to pull his head near to my hips and then I more tactfully than before (because I thought about this technique alot on my mission and realized I was forgetting a step) got my right leg on the top of his neck and let go of his arm with the other leg and locked the triangle choke. 

 

Next thing he knew he couldn't breath. I was popping up my hips, pulling down on his head and Yelling "TELL ME YOU MISS YOUR MOM!!!!" He never did but he tapped out and I let him run away. after he got off of me I noticed that all 30 missionaries stopped playing to watch, I don't think too many of them knew what happened since most of the work that was done was fought underneath his side control.

We had dinner at a member in another ward that night and he was there and he kept saying he wanted a rematch. yah whatever

This week has had the most distracting things for me ever. Not only did I fight him and I couldn't stop thinking about that. But we were going to visit a person and while walking through a parking lot some lady locked her keys in the car. Some one was already using a clothes hanger to try and get in the driver side, so I grabbed my set out of my bag and worked on the other door. Problem was that car was in the ghetto and it's lock showed! 

 

It looked like people tried to knock all the pins out with a screw driver but couldn't get the driver all the way into the lock. I had no luck and as I went to the other side to push the other guy out of the way some one ran up with a hammer and broke a window to the car... Yes we got 12 inches of snow that night, poor lady! She doesn't even have a parking space for shade or cover, so i bet it was filled the next day. I had footage of working on the lock and the fight playing over and over and over... it drove me crazy. Oh that and I arm wrestled 3 elders over and over and over again. I couldn't beat one of them but to be fair when he is 115 lbs more than you and you don't have a table or technique I would say I gave him a struggle at least. 

This week was amazing for this area though! We picked up 4 investigators all of which are super solid ones. I already told you about 2 of them. To continue with their story what happened is One of them wanted to come to church with her Shorties and I was dreading the fact of having to call for a ride for all 4 of them.

 

One time in Holt I spent over 2 hours alone calling members for rides for 4 investigators and it didn't even work out for them all, only one out of the 4 came. So I set aside an hour to call people to be able to figure all of this out on how to get them all to church. On my second call Some one answered and said they would love to take all 4! OH YAHH!!! That was a miracle in it's self. 

 

Later on that night I had the thought to call her again before the battery on my phone died. So I did and she told me her husband took her carseat for the 2 year old on accident and she wont be able to come to church since she has to stay with her. I frantically started making calls at 7:45pm to try and find a car seat. Like the 6th call I made the person I talked to said "oh yah I got one you can borrow.". And so we made plans to get it in like 10 minutes, and then AS SOON as that phone call ended my phone battery died! That was two miracles in it's self! 

 

We met up with them in the morning and set up the car seat and arrived shortly before sacrament meeting with them. Oh yah! We had to slow walk across the chapel to take up a WHOLE bench right in front of the K2 Sisters face! They tried to poach a less active we also got to church so they had no one come. I am pretty sure they counted that less active at church as one of theirs in their key indicators report too...

The Next miracle was even though I didn't feel the spirit through out the meeting except for during the sacrament and the sister choir that sang " as sisters in Zion", She still liked sacrament meeting and loved the rest of church and participated alot! After church we had loads of members come up comment on how awesome they were and be amazed when we told them we found them by door knocking. She also followed up with us 3 times to make sure we were meeting again this week, asked for a gospel principals book to study for the next lesson next week. Hey, Church is true when it's like that!

I also found out this week that a child of record who Gave me a storm trooper blaster rifle up in Boyne City-who we used to stop by to see if we could teach him and his excommunicated father- messaged me on face book and said that he got baptized this last week =p. Man and I was still trying to coax him out of his address in California! But I guess it makes it easier when you aren't way out in the boonies and there is actually mormons around you, and you live next to your former bishop.

We had a sweet miracle. We made our way to make our appointment... He wasn't there... As we were walking away me and Elder M had the same though at the same time that we should try this one potential we knocked into like my first week here. We went there and she answered the door (we have tried this place like 9 times and she is never home)! We waited and talked to her at the door and then her husband came down the stairs and then we came in since we knew it was safe. 

 

She was frantic and all over the place but we talked to her in between her ADHD out bursts. We eventually got to a point where I said the first vision and she was stunned! IN awe! And was talking about how amazing that was before I was even finished. She felt the spirit strong and I did my now usual "You felt that right!?" and she went off on how amazing the spirit felt and for like the next 20 minutes would go back and talk about that feeling and how she needed that! 

 

She ran to her calendar and said she is open on this time and all of her kids will be at school then so she could be more focused! She went on to tell us that when we knocked on the door she didn't want to answer the door because she Literally didn't have any time for us, but she felt something and it encouraged her to answer the door. So she did and she didn't have time but she was so happy she gave up that time because the spirit when it swept over her brought peace and warmth and comfort, and then she went on for like 7 minutes about all the garbage thats been happening in her life and how that doesn't even matter anymore.! the deck was stacked for us there! Right place, right time, Right timing, Guiding her to answer the door, Husband was there, felt the spirit strongly. We did nothing but talk about what we know. She couldn't get over how cool my full name was =p haha she had to run to tell her husband about it. 

Well I gotta Go 

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

Stay away from people who ruin your life by telling you things about starwars! (I am still mad about that, I don't think I will take him out to a lesson again even if he was a Sr. Missionary)

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

You's are Wako!‏

I am super impressed you guys didn't say or ask anything about the big shooting that happened here in Kalamazoo! But I don't have much to say about it other than it was rather close to were I was sleeping this week.

You won't believe it! It might not even mean anything to you, it might to Miya. But I went on a trade off to the Kalamazoo 1 area and while I was there a member called and said they made brownies for us (dude their area spoils them so much I hate it! They rub it in all the time that their meal calendar is filled through the month of march and I get fed twice a week and have no investigators...) But the members met us at their apartment and we started talking and he said that they have relatives in Mesa and as we talked more it turns out he was the Uncle to McKay and Kaden Shelly who live 4 streets down from us in the other stake! Mckay is the one who got a parasite from being fed road kill dog while in the Philippines on his mission. Mark and Pam Shelly is their uncle and Aunts names. It was pretty sweet!

Yes, as I was on trade offs there all we did was teach lessons all day... and when we door knocked the 3rd person who talked to us let us in and we picked them up as a investigator.... I had a blast with Elder S, he is such a kid and when ever he kneels to pray he kneels on top of something =p, he's a hoot. 

We actually are being fed basically every day this week, only because of us area poaching our meals and the members actually signed up this week. One lady from the University branch called us up wanting to feed us and so we set a appointment up to meet at burger king. It was the funniest thing ever because like 3 days later she called us and the call sounded like she was a investigator who was dropping us. For reals! She spent like 10 minutes saying she had to cancel and told us why. It started by sounding like she was in confession telling us she didn't feel comfortable with our meal appointment  because no male would come with her to burger king... I didn't listen to the whole thing, she was crying about it and I couldn't stop laughing so I stepped out of the car since it was on speaker phone. the other elders tell us she is pretty wako though, I guess so. It was terribly sad, but yes she dropped us as a Inves...Dinner Appointment =p. 

I found out today one of my Investigators in Holt got baptized!!!!! I wasn't a failure! jk I don't think that at all. And i just found out 2 seconds ago 3 more of my investigators in Gaylord will be baptized on sunday!

The K2 sisters think they are so funny and when ever they leave a message for me they say " Hi!!! It's your favorite Missionaries!!..." So this week I called them back and said "Elder and Sister White!!!! It's good to hear from you! What are you doing with the K2 sisters phone?" =p they thought it was funny....actually, no they didn't but I died laughing at my own joke!

You know I got pretty sick of this game that we play here in Kalamazoo this week. For realzies, people never keep appointments! I will ask them like 5 times if this is something they are truly interested in and get everything squared away, get their number to call the day before and  it never works out or they give bad numbers... I got so sick of this game of doing this and bringing members with us to a empty house I just started complaining in prayer. I said things like "Why would you have me on a mission if All i am doing was wasting time by always having appointments fall through and it leave us to help no one progress or learn..." We had like 4 appointments fall through that day and it's like that all day every day. But we went out home teaching with a member since his companion couldn't come and every single door we knocked on some one answered! 6 less actives in like 3 hours! it was sweet! I had to pray for forgiveness after that though.

It even continued on to the next day we went door knocking on Lake street which is literally the border to our area and every one we were talking to was straight up Wako! we knocked on a door and no one answered and this homeless guy rode up on his bike and started talking to us. He had a water bottle full of beer which he told us he felt bad about drinking in front of us but... He was pretty far out. 

Then we went to the next door and knocked on it. It had a paper in the window that said it was condemned but it was a house that was on our directory where a less active supposedly lived, that and there are 2 investigators in our district that live in condemned houses and I have seen plenty of people in them here so we knocked. And the Guy from the house that didn't answer walked out and snarkly remarked at us like we were stupid "Don't you see that house is condemned?!!???" I responded "yup" and nodded my head. 

He left disgusted and walked around the 8 foot bushes back into his house. He was pretty determined for some one who 10 seconds ago wouldn't even answer his own door to talk to us... What ev he seemed a little far out too. We kept knocking and this lady came out 2 doors later and started saying "no habla engleis" or how ever people say that they don't speak english in spanish. Me and My comp froze a little  and then we tried speaking spanish with like the 5 words I know and it was similar for elder m. But she would keep responding "ok" or "oh ok" after we said stuff so i figured she was just playing us and I just started talking to her regularly and testing a little. I then asked her a question and she responded in english....Yah she understood everything and was playing us. I stopped that game right then and there. 

We kept knocking and this guy stopped us and started talking to us. Like every 4 words he would say " You know what I'm sayin?" I love how people have the gander words where every word will end with a S. I also love how they all talk about their devil "baby momma's" or "their Shorties" (kids) or their "Church Homes", and they are very prone to gander rants. We got that guy to let us sit on his porch and teach him a lesson (since all the snow melted this week for real this time). 

I asked him a question to see what he learned about what we taught about prophets and he ranted for like 7 minutes... At one point he said concerning the topic of people who go to churches and knowing truth (which he got himself on the topic of and responded to himself) "I need to know you MIND!(he then stands up gets up in my grill and said) I WANNA see you's Body! and all of you to know your beliefs!"... Yah we basically stood up and walked away right then and there since it was going no where. We then knocked and got a lady who was "looking for a new Church Home". We set up a appointment and came back yesterday with a member. SHE WAS THEREREREREEREREE!!!!!

We had a lesson and her sister took a taxi with all of her " Shorties" so she could be there too (there was 10 kids present) We taught the restoration and they were both impressed! They commented over and over and over again that we were physically Glowing. They were super touched by the message and both accepted a baptismal date and asked for us to get a ride for them and all the Shorties to come to church. Set up another lesson too. " You are so sincere's about what you's believe! (sounding very touched) AH i don't have time to quote the we are glowing part again... Point made anyways. WE HAVE INVESTIGATORS!!!

I found out on saturday a sister in my district who just got out 4 weeks ago is going home this week. It's so sad! So all Yesterday I spent my thinking time planning on what to do to make this p-day super special since I don't think she has done anything fun yet because she never hangs out with us and the other sisters. So today is stacked and it is gonna be killer!

Bye i Love you have a killer day!

But not killer in the way of being shot or anything

More as in like Killer like the band the killers right

Love ya!
-- 

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

"I HATE YOU!!!"- Anakin Skywalker episode 3‏

My life is ruined. I have no hope.
The day started well, we had a car ride for the first time this week but it would have been better if we had never gotten into the car. A terrible thing happened and I have scars that will be with me until the end of my life because of it! A member picked us up and we had a lesson fall through so we set up a back up to see the sister who moved in the ward a few weeks ago that no one in the church knows about except us since we door knocked into her.

We got them to meet so she would know at least some one for church and thats when it happened.... We were sitting peacefully on the couches in the room and I was in a arm chair like usual (I always seek out the best seat). And while the members were relating, it happened. "Have you seen the new Star Wars movie yet? I cant believe that ______________________ happened!".

I was about inches away from throwing the dog off of me and taking that old man to the ground! I hesitated about it because he was like 70 years old...... Before he continued "I yelled don't ruin it!" It seriously made me like out of commission the whole rest of the day because I was so angry at him!

I guess it wasn't to bad since all we did was walk for hours in the snow and door knock and have every Potential lesson fall through. But Forrealzies I am not taking him out teaching with us this week. The only words Of how I can describe my feelings for him are best said in the correct way By Anakin Skywalker in Episode 3 "I HATE YOU!!!". I prayed all day that I could forgive and forget, especially FORGET!!!!!!!! I joke about this in the way I said this but.... Forrealzies you didn't need to say anything about who dies in the movie.

We were talking to that sister though and we asked her if she was going to come to church and she had a concern that I never heard before. She is like in her 60-70's and she said "I might not get enough sleep because I need to stay up so I can play World of Warcraft and raid with my team so I can get geared up."... ?What? You have grand kids and maybe even great grandkids and you play that game? She came to church and told me all about how the raid only lasted 2 1/2 hours unlike the 3 plus that she thought it was going to take...=p

Holidays for missionaries are pretty sad, you tend to get a good dinner appointment because people feel bad for you, but no one else in the world wants to see you =(. 

We were on the one week off for car rotations this week. Yes it was said to be the coldest week of the winter here. I prefer us having to walk than the sisters in my district who were sick though. The most we did in one day was about 13 miles in several inches of snow.

We went on trade offs this week and when we got dropped off at our apartment the east half of the city blacked out. The thing is here there wasn't any lights at all, and since the trees are still pretty thick it was super dark. It was freaky! Especially when we would walk down the street and not be able to notice the people who were walking around, and there seemed to be more than usual out that night from what we could see anyways. Our apartment building felt like the super dark building in "I am legend" and even the emergency lights ran out of power since it blacked out for 6 hours. "Sam.....Sam" As we were walking down the hall one light turned on and there was a person who was sitting under it! We also learned that we had no flash lights at all, so we planned under the light of a lightsaber and a camera. 

P-days here are so much fun! 

We got a referral and when we tried them since they would never call us back some lady answered the door and said "how did you find me?". Turns out a less active partmember family moved to that house 4 days ago and the only member in the house answered the door... =p um yes please! We got all of her info to get her records shipped in as well. In 2 weeks we now have 24 changes to make to the directory where about half is actually useful info, the rest is bad addresses and phone numbers. 

It seems like here in my district we are really low on lessons. But I don't think this is a bad area at all I just think it needs to be more organized and have better records. We have 10 less active lessons set up for next week  already. 

I loved all of your emails this week they seriously made my day and I am going to read over them again before I have to go because of how funny they were. Ella Congrats on finally writing me, I hope it was Refreshing. =p ha ha hah aha. Hamilton, aint nobody got anything on "the Elephant King" But "The Ham Snap" sounds pretty impressive.

Sorry this week was lame Hope you don't get in a bad mood by my story on starwars because it puts me in one whenever I think of it.

Bye I love you have a good day!

Don't get shot!

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

Bear one anothers Burdens = "DO stuff together"‏

I cant cook anything in my apartment without the fire alarms going off... It drives me crazy. Every single time we open the oven when it's turned on it goes off, it's not even a gas stove or anything. So we take them off and throw them in the bed room, shut the door when we need to cook.

I like being here alot, I get fed like nothing but my district is loads of fun. Elder S used to be a professional gamer and made big bucks playing Call of Duty in tournaments, when ever he would log into live and play a game people would screen shot and post about it on twitter that they were playing with him, his account would always blow up with notifications when he played on live. I told him I would own him with a riot shield and he had like a 10 minute rant ha ha. 

Elder F came out with me and he got special permission to bring a guitar on his mission and so we Jammed on p-day! It was healthy for me to hear music like that, He is way good!

Problem is though since we are on car rotations we had to be their slave child and drive them every where. E. S spent for ever shopping for new pants and belts, but hey when you drop 10 sizes I guess it's about time to celebrate and get new pants.

I went on a trade off to Western Michigan University with my zone leaders. That was a totally different experience of contacting then I have ever had before. Since people were walking from class to class to their dorms they didn't really want to stop walking so we walked every where with people to talk to them. It was fun because you had so much more time than you do when door knocking, I mean what are they going to do run away from you? Well some one did! ha ha! 

But I had to address things totally differently just because of how strong college kids are against certain words or "Kill words". I couldn't say church, Religion, God in the first 4 seconds or they would cringe. So we asked if people are spiritual, or if they believe in an energy which we could then relate to God. It was good for me and helped me with my finding quite a bit, especially with "atheists". 

I felt super cool doing it too; because how they do it is they will walk around campus and set up a appointment to meet with them in one of the study rooms that people could reserve through this touch screen terminal. So I felt like a Professor who was hired by the school to help the students with their spirituality! Thats how we made me feel anyways we wouldn't say we were hired though, because we aren't. That was a super cool lesson though that we had in that room of glass, it had one wall that was a white board so we would draw on the wall to emphasize the Gospel dispensations and the Great Apostasy. It was super cool Because I was able to do it all in a rolling office chair and I never had to stand up.=p

District meeting is a little different, my crowd is a little tougher than before I really have to work to get every one involved since I have several new missionaries and not Old returned missionaries who are here for round 2 who are dying to teach something. I used the email you sent me Hamilton that talks about magnifying your calling. After I sent my email I checked the district meeting topic on line and it was on Magnifying our calling ha ha. 

All of the missionaries are trying to coax me out of my MSF money...

We were walking down town which takes a long time to get their without a car to go to a lesson we set up with a less active. The good thing was there was a lot of people we could Pc on the way over there. So while we did that there was this lady who was just standing alone in the sunlight. It was rather odd. I let out a over enthusiastic Hi and then asked how she was doing. She responded, " I am doing terrible=("... I stopped dead in my tracks, and dropped my whole walk with swag past you and let you turn around and walk to me when I ask you a question. I asked her about it, to end up hearing this sad story. 

She was from Carry indiana and she took the bus up here to Kalamazoo to visit some one. After she explored this city she had never been in before she eventually made it to a bus stop where she found out she had no phone, no card, and not enough money to get her bus ticket back home. She was only 5 dollars short. She was in this city that she had no clue how to get around she didn't remember where she came from so she couldn't get help from her friend. She eventually was picked up and brought to the mission (a homeless shelter) for the night by a cop. Where they gave her clothes so she could stay warm and a meal. 

She was terrified in the mission (I don't blame her!!!! I have been in twice now and it seems more like a concentration camp) and spent the whole next day in some hobo clothes that were way beaten up and not warm, with one glove. She went from church to church begging for 5 dollars and was turned away several times. They would have helped her if she lived here and she couldn't pay her bills but since she had a husband with a good job back home and kids who were well off they wouldn't do anything for her. 

She got to the point where she did what she never thought she would have to do in her life and beg people on the street for money which was terrifying for her! She attempted  to ask for money from a mother and a child since she would be able to relate to her in her circumstance but she was turned away. All she needed was 5 dollars! She eventually was super cold and couldn't just stand in places for fear of being kicked out for loitering, and was determined not to go back to the mission. So what she did was stand on the side of the road in the only spot of sunlight there was to warm up and pray for help.

And then some funky tall skinny dude gives her a over enthusiastic "Hi!" and listens to her and watches her cry buckets of tears as she recounts what has happened to her in the past 2 days. She was super sincere! And she didn't look like she was prepared enough to be homeless, her thick hair was all over the place from not having a brush or anything  or being able to wash it. But was rather clean. She had the look of a mother and seemed to be healthy.

So from what I discerned spiritually and visually I couldn't find any fault in what she said. Not once did she ask for anything from me! So I opened my jacket and pulled out my 2 unopened hand warmers that I picked up out of our closet the night before, and gave it to her. She was super happy! and broke out into tears again in gratitude that some one gave her the time of day, just listened, didn't judge her, and showed they cared. That meant the world to her!

I felt it was the right thing to do so I opened my wallet and went for my 5 dollar bill, but when I opened it up I saw a 10 and realized that that will be a several hour trip back home and gave that MSF money to her. She quickly shoved it into a inner pocket in her original clothes (not the hobo ones) and then ran and hugged me and just cried. (No it is not against missionary rules to hug some one! Read Pg 33-34 in the white hand book). Then asked where the nearest bus stop was and I had no clue. But we gave her directions to the library so she could use the computers there. I then said "you probably will have some time until that bus comes... So you should go to this website and check out some of the videos on it." and gave her a pass along card =p. 

We were door knocking and had to go into one of the amazingly beautiful houses that a land lord ruined by making it into 7 apartments. As I walked up the stair case my mind flashed (I like to think of the tv series "Chuck" in circumstances like this) My mind flashed and a whiff of air swept into me and I realized I had seen this place before. I then walked where I knew the that the person would answer the door and knocked. They answered. And after dispelling his thoughts of me being  J.Witness' he then saw our name tag and told us all about how he used to be a foster kid in a mormon home 40 years ago. And was baptized.... Sweet! He said he wasn't gonna open the door since he saw us from his window but felt like he should.

I lost my library card and am out of time BYE!!!

Love you!

--

- Elder Truman Rex Crockett

       

Back-woods to Big city Boy‏

We have that Crockett Ancestor who was baptized by Wilford Woodruff when he served his mission in the Fox Islands; So are those the Fox Islands that are here in lake Michigan?

My new companion also was showed starwars xwing by the missionary that showed it to me. The missionary who showed it to me gave him all of his stuff until he finishes his mission; that missionary spent like 3 hundred dollars on space ships...........So my companion has like one of everything and we have alot of missionaries around to play it with. The games a money pit and a p-day pit! It's so much fun but now I actually have things to do on p-day so that can wait. Also Will If you remember Before I left I said I had the thought to take my boxing wraps with me. Well I got a companion who trained a little and has boxing pads and gloves to practice with!!!

I am amazed by this place, I swear this isn't even Michigan! It's like Philadelphia and Michigan had a baby. But it's not as nice as philli. There is no snow on the ground, I am not even wearing a sweater any more all of the snow melted this week. There is alot of traffic, classic crazy michigan roads, I have a tiny area, tall buildings over 2 stories (unlike up north). There is a set of Sisters in the ward that I am serving in as well. They share half of the ward with us which leads to alot of things like area poaching, dinner calendar poaching, and of course the sisters being fed and babied more than us. The dinner calendar situation is so bad for us that they have their years of plenty and apparently the elders here would dinner poach from the ward 5 miles away from us.

Dad I always appreciate how you say you will pray for my investigators. Truth be told about this area is we have zero... But the ones I taught in the past still need it!

My assumption that I made when I looked at the key indicators last week were more than accurate, near spot on on what was happening here. Elder went home this week I took his place and he is already engaged now... That and inaccurate key indicator counting so all of the referrals were the same ones counted over and over and over again. We had 8 media referrals for bibles when I got here and the way the zoneleaders rule down here they only give us 2 bibles a week. I am ticked about it. They like to ration everything so we all have nothing... 

But Kalamazoo is great though. I have been door knocking for days. We did 5 hours in a day and I wanted more because I was having so much fun. There is a lot of black people here and I constantly hear from the windows when we knock on the door "WHO I'D IT?" ha ha. Also I have never even heard of a Black Santa Clause, I heard of Black Jesus but here there is loads of statues and big plastic santas that are black =p. Their names are the best! I always have to have them spell it out for me. I never get driven crazy by silence because you always hear loads of Rapp music being blasted. Some people say this place is ghetto but I don't think it's bad, But we have heard a few gunshots and sirens. 

We helped 2 members move (that took for ever, we probably would have had 2 more days of door knocking for 5 hours but that was where we needed to be). One of the people who was helping us told us that he saw some one laying down in the middle of the road on the way over, the ambulance came shortly after. Hit and run I guess. Those moves were great though, one of them was moving down to south carolina and they were fitting everything into one u-haul type truck. 

 

They were in trouble with the way things were set up in there and they weren't going to be able to fit everything in. Surprisingly I learned alot from Elder Ekins and another member who used to work for a moving company and I fixed things up being able to put boxes to the roof, weaving them so they don't fall and playing some awesome games of tetris! No one really got when I was doing when I was singing the tetris music but I thought it was funny and it improved my game =p. 

 

The next guy we helped had 2 heart attacks, several back surgeries and shoulder surgeries. He couldn't really do anything to help much. But that was the easiest move of my life! it just took alot of driving since no one else in the ward came except the Elders Quorum Prez. It could have been done in 30 mins with a u-haul and more people. One of our zone leaders seemed a little irritated we were asking for permission to move some one else this week and how long it took, but I don't care at all because We were where God wanted us to be and thats the important thing about what we do. 

 

That really is the important thing that we all should strive for is not to get to stressed about what others want you to do, no matter how doctrinally sound it might be to do it, but really discern what God wants us to do with all things we are given; thats the more important thing. But the Doctrinally sound thing will always play its role in what you do if it's the right thing to do. Thats my theory anyways.

Yes Hamilton I am still a district leader, thanks for your thoughts like you said I don't think you have to worry about it though. I got alot cut out for me to do! In my district I am a leader over a set of elders, and two sets of sisters. One of the sets of Sisters is the Sister Training leaders. There is 2 other people in my District that I came to Michigan with Elder F and Sister T. This should be her last transfer. It makes it so much fun having Missionaries close to you. 

 

We are on Car rotations 2 weeks on, one off our district has 2 cars. The STL's don't use a car since they are on WMU campus. But we picked up the Elders and are doing like everything with them since they don't have their car. I am super excited for our week of no car; I contacted a Part member family and they told us that the missionaries that were here before my companion and his old one companion were white washed in had their bikes stolen from our second story balcony... SO we will be walking for now I guess.

Well I gotta go Bye I love you have a great day!

Don't get shot

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- Elder Truman Rex Crockett