Brethren and Sisteren, it's that time of the week again! Coming to you from San Diego, Elder Coxson rambles once again!
If you guys remember, I started this week out in Black Mountain with Elder S. We finished off the week strong and prepared for transfers. On Friday I got transferred, and you won't believe where I am. I'm back in my assigned language! You heard it right, after being 7 months in English work, I am finally in the ASL branch again. I'm pretty hyped, it's gonna be fun and I actually need to learn my language now.
On Friday morning, all the Elders got together to change cars and exchange luggage to head off to our new areas. We also get our new apartment keys and SIM cards. As we go get our new keys, Presi Merritt comes up to us and tells us there's two sisters quarantined with COVID in our new apartment and that we couldn't move in until they got out of quarantine. But no worries, because we can just live in the mission home with our mission president... Neither Elder W or I were a huge fan of that idea, so we asked around and found out that there's a 4-man apartment with only one companionship in it right now. So we asked if we could move in with them instead and escaped the mission home! Phew! So now there's five of us living in an apartment in La Jolla Colony and it's a blast. We eat family dinner together, we watched Prince of Egypt on their SMSL laptop and played games after we all got home for the day.
On Saturday we went to a deaf get-together type thing. It was in a high school gym, and there were so many people signing to each other. It was at that moment that I felt like a greenie, because they were all signing so fast! We go around trying to meet people, and somebody comes up to me trying to tell me that all religions were fake. Just like hearing work, deaf people aren't any different when it comes to that lol. Time to start learning my language fr fr. That night we gave a blessing to a lady named Nancy, and her apartment had a jazz club playing in it. This isn't relevant, but I like jazz.
We had a lesson with a family of SEVEN that are all on date to be baptized next month. We are just teaching them the extra stuff life family history, and that's super hard to explain to somebody who doesn't know really any language, including ASL. This family moved from Guatemala, and are learning ASL themselves. They all want to be baptized, we just get to explain everything very simply. The work here is a blast!
Deaf church is always so fun. You just hear the weirdest noises while people are talking, and this week we had a high council member come to our sacrament meeting. They were a little concerned by all the distractions during his talk, while President Rozsa would interpret for him. I got to show one of the members of the ward how to bless the sacrament in ASL, and say hi to all the people I kinda remember from my first two weeks in the mission. How exciting.
After church, we got a call from a friend named Tiffany. She's on date to be baptized and was like, hey you haven't reached out in a while. We were like, oops sorry. She can hear, but said that she understands ASL better. We got her VP (video phone) number, and gave her a call just to make sure it worked. As soon as she picked up, my heart dropped. I took a screenshot of her face, and tried to play the conversation off like normal. We set up a lesson for Tuesday and hung up. I pulled up the Worldwide Do Not Contact list and found her face, and it was the same person as the VP screenshot. She's been baptized dozens of times across the US, pranking missionaries, and I knew her face from all the Facebook posts of other missionaries saying that they've been bamboozled by her also. Very cringe, go get a life. We talked to our Branch President about her, and apparently she's been baptized in our branch a few years ago under another fake name and she lived with one of the families in our branch for a few months. So watch out, other missionaries in the US reading this: go on the Do Not Contact list and make sure you don't have a friend with a face that matches her.
I hope y'all enjoyed this email more thoroughly than past emails. If nothing else from the last few weeks, I have learned that happiness truly is a choice. Your circumstances won't make you happy, your area or your companion won't either. The only happiness comes from your own choice and your adherence to the commandments of God. I hope y'all have an amazing week! We're alive another day, Jesus Christ has already won, and the cause of Zion goes forward! Love y'all!
-- Elder Coxson
P.S. I'm gonna actually start taking pictures now
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