Burning Down the House

Wow a lot's happened this week.

 

First, I got my new companion, Elder Doolhoff. I think the best way to describe him would be "loveable goofball." He's a pretty good guy. Very positive. I'm always amazed that he just seems to expect the best to happen and then weirdly it does. He was serving for a transfer in an English ward before coming here, so his Spanish is a little rusty.

 

Also, our Church building burned down early Friday morning. At first I thought it was just a bad joke until I had confirmed it from two different sources. But yes, the Tolleson building burned almost completely early in the morning Friday. The sister missionaries live close by and watched it burn at 5 in the morning. It was weird waking up and no longer having a Church building that we'd parked our car at the night before.

 

They're still not sure what started the fire. It's now a federal investigation. Everybody suspects arson but I think that's mostly because that would be a lot more interesting than just a bad toaster. We drove by on Friday and there were a bunch of police and news trucks there. It was burned pretty bad. Only one wing survived and the whole chapel is gone. Fortunately no one was hurt. The building was pretty old and didn't have a sprinkler system. It was built in the 50s.

 

The positive of the whole thing is that it's led to great missionary opportunities. Lots more people want to talk to us now. And there were a lot more people at Church on Sunday than normal (we switched to the Stake Center temporarily). I guess the Church burning down was a bit of a wakeup call that you need to go because you just don't know when it'll burn to the ground.

 

So now we have to go to a different building about 6 miles away in a different stake. And Church'll start at 8 in the morning. I'm a little worried that now it'll be more difficult to get investigators to Church, but I guess it'll just be a test of faith. Still, I've noticed that the earlier Church starts the more investigators seem to not make it.

 

The same day that the Church burned down we also got a flat tire on the freeway. We were fixing the flat when our jack crumpled. Thankfully, Elder Doolhoff moved his arm before the car fell on it. That day was kinda stressful. Fortunately, we found an awesome family of 7 that same day, so it made up for it.

 

Things are starting to pick up in the area. I think it's just Elder Doolhoff's faith or something. We've just been able to get in contact with a lot of people that we've been looking for forever. We have one investigator on date for the 22 and she finally made it to Church this past Sunday.

 

Overall it was kind of a crazy week. Hopefully this next week will be a little less eventful.

Love,

Elder Grasley

P.S. I've developed a liking for "cabeza" or head meat. I think it comes from the cow's cheek. It's kinda fatty but good.