Part member families that have been super willing to listen and learn

Nachin - an awesome member who moved to Oregon

Well it was finals week at the university out here. Which meant that we couldn't bring any members that were students out to lessons with us. We couldn't really get into contact with any of the other students either. Everyone was just studying and testing. The semester out here has been pretty crazy cause of hurricane Maria. The students got such a long time off of school because, well, they didn't have any power or anything. However, that just meant the rest of the school year was going to be super crammed. Watching all these other students taking finals just does not get me excited for college.

We'll see how the summer goes out here. It seems like everyone we talk to is heading back to stay with their family on other parts of the island for the summer. Hopefully there is still a decent amount of college students that stay.

As far as the week goes, it was pretty normal. I mean I say normal, but it was actually probably a pretty crazy week. The more and more I do the work out here, the more normal it seems. We talk to way to many crazy people every single day on the streets. You just get used to it though. I could probably have a conversation with someone talking about how aliens are coming to take over the earth, and completely forget about it in five minutes.

We've been trying to focus a lot of our finding efforts through less actives as well. Which has been going awesome. We've recently found some part member families that have been super willing to listen and learn. We even found one family that is way into fishing that said they'd be down with feeding us a big fish dinner or something every week. That got me pretty excited.

I can't complain about P-day either. We didn't get to go a crazy beach or swing through the jungle on vines or anything. That's alright though. We went over to the university and played some basketball for a while.

Balling at the university

The Assistants to the President and one of the senior missionaries were also down in our area so they took us out to a bakery out here for lunch which was so good. I also had like almost all of the staff in the grocery store helping me look for something. I didn't know what the name of something was in spanish or where to find it, so I just asked if they had it in english. Which led to them talking to every single other person that worked there. The entire grocery store knew that I was looking for something and everybody was bringing me to a bunch of random different products. It was pretty funny. Turns out they didn't have it. Puerto Ricans just don't give up though. They try everything possible to help you out.

Hurricane Maria wreckage

We don't always see the blessings of our work right away.

So our week was super awesome. It started off super awesome, and well... it ended super awesome as well.

The whole story starts off last Sunday. O sea, the day we were out in the pouring rain literally all day. Nobody let us in like at all pretty much the entire day, and we ended up just getting soaked wet. Anyways I was thinking to myself, "we probably could have just stayed inside all day and it wouldn't have made any difference at all cause nobody let us in." However, my whole mind got changed when we went out on Tuesday, we walked by some similar places as the ones we stopped by on Sunday. And what do you know, there were a bunch of people that wanted to talk to us and were super willing to listen just because they saw us out in the pouring rain earlier. Sometimes you don't always see the effects of your work right away, but there are so many people paying attention and just by giving a good example can change someone's attitude on something. We don't always see the blessings of our work right away.

Along with that, we had a bunch of other super cool experiences. We found a less active family by knocking a fake address somebody had given to us, which was crazy how it all worked out. The Lord truly does guide this work. If not this church would be done for, cause we have a bunch of teenage kids (missionaries) in charge of sharing it with everyone.

We also went to like the coolest baptism ever with one of our investigators. The place was packed full, and everything went super well. There was even like an 11-year-old girl that gave a talk on baptism which was like the best talk ever. It was super awesome to be able to be there.

In addition, we were able to have a Family Home Evening with a bunch of the YSA in our ward and two of our investigator's. We kicked it at one of our member's house in the student housing. We had pizza and smoothies while we all hung out and shared a spiritual message on the importance of the Book of Mormon. It was super cool to be able to have such awesome members in our ward that are super fun to be with.

And of course the fun parts of the week: I banged out on some teenage kids in a caserio in my dress clothes. It was great to be able to know I still got it in me. I felt kind of bad though cause we embarrassed them so bad the people around were making fun of them..... Long story short they weren't really in the mood for listening to our message afterward.

We also went to El Faro and the salt flats out here for P day with the District. Which was like the coolest looking place ever. We went on a cool little trail along the coast and then headed over to the park to play some sports afterward. Then we finished the day off with some Pizza at a famous place out here. Overall, I'd say we had a decent amount of fun.

On shores of Puerto Rico with Elders

Looking out on shores of El Faro

Brian on shores of El Faro

Brian with comp on coast

Comp unity at Salt Flats

Talking to everyone we see and having a blast doing it

We had transfers this week. Both my comp and I are staying for at least another six weeks. Matter of fact our entire District is pretty much the same. Only one of the missionaries got switched up. I'm super excited though cause our ward is way awesome out here.

Preaching in the rain

As far as the week went... It was awesome. I ate my first hot food since I got here in Puerto Rico when I got the Jalapenos on my subway sandwich. I'm still trying to get used to no Mexican food. I bought some Sofrito or some seasoning like that today though. Apparently Puerto Ricans put that on everything. It's like a Puerto Rican salsa that's not hot. We'll see how cooking with that goes.

We found some really awesome people this week as well. We met this one Dominican kid that is just super cool. He loves when we come over, and now we're trying to start teaching their whole family. We also ran into quite a few people that grew up in the states. We're starting to teach like 3 people from New York.

Probably one of my favorite parts of the week was our dinner with the only two gringos (white dudes) in our ward. And get this, one of them is from Newbury Park and the other is from Thousand Oaks. Or in other words I know the two white guys that grew up like twenty minutes from my house back home. It's a small world. It felt so weird talking about basketball and sports on the way to their house in English. We ended up having some Honduran enchiladas (His wife's from Honduras) looking out at the water from their beach house and speaking English. The only way it could have gone better is if it wasn't a cloudy day.

Dinner with Gringos on the coast

As far as the rest of the week. It's been the same old daily missionary grind. Talking to everyone we see and having a blast doing it.

Driving an abandoned boat

Book of Mormon Experiment

Well we did something this week that most missionaries probably don't get the chance to do. We got to ditch our name tags and change into regular clothes. Then our entire zone participated in a Book of Mormon experiment  inspired from the experiment done in the video "Let the Book of Mormon speak for itself" at the college campus in our area. We pulled a bunch of pages from Book of Mormons and then went around asking people if they wanted to participate. What they had to do was read the page and fill out a sheet on the back asking them questions like where they thought the page was from and what stuck out to them on the page. There's rules however that we can't proselyte on campus. So we got permission from our president to go in regular clothes without our tags. We didn't even need to do it with our companions. We just had to be near each other (sight and sound) while we each talked to our own people.

Book of Mormon Experiment with District

Brian Book of Mormon Experiment

Page out of Book of Mormon used for experiment

The results were incredible. A total of 12 missionaries participated. The experiment lasted for a little less than 2 hours. There were a total of 170 people that participated in the experiment. 89 people gave us their contact info saying they would like to learn more, and 32 references were given as well (Name and number of a friend that might be interested). Overall we got a total of 121 names and information which we have now been contacting throughout the week to coordinate visits. Almost everybody that participated wanted to learn more. Of the 17 people that I got to participate, only 3 weren't interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon. I'd say it went pretty good.

As far as the rest of the week, nothing too new has happened. I'm going to stay out here in Mayaguez for another transfer with my companion Elder Jenson. The power went out again. It wasn't for the whole island though, just our street. We had the craziest thing happen though. We didn't have any dinner appointment set up so I was planning on just eating a can of cold beans or something when we got home. Right before dinner we stopped by a former investigator that we had never met before. After talking with him for like 20 minutes his wife came out and told us to come in and eat. She had made us a meal before she even met us. Overall not to bad of a week.

Sunset in Puerto Rico

First water rejection - most missionaries in PR go their whole mission without that happening

Brian next to "cool pier"

Another awesome week. We finally got to have a zone activity out here. Which was super awesome. Puerto Rico is such a pretty place.

Anyways the work out here is going amazing. We were able to get 13 different lessons where a member came out with us. The ward here is the best. In one of our lessons a member was telling us the sacrifice he made to be able to come out and teach with us. He said it was all alright though cause "God called first." Those are the kind of moments we get to see that just keep motivating me to go out and preach.

So there's these things called Colmados out here in PR. They like little all-purpose stores that also sell alcohol. We met one of the owners though and recently we've been teaching him in his colmado. It's the hardest and funniest thing ever though cause we're just surround by a bunch of borrachos (drunk people) and the places are just disgusting.

I also got my first water rejection. Most missionaries here go like their whole mission without that happening. It was the weirdest thing. She just said no. My companion and I were so confused. That shouldn't happen in Puerto Rico. We were also given the most disgusting sticky cups with water this week as well. Which of course we had to reject.

Then there was the time when there was a huge traffic. We looked over to the other side of the road and an entire lane of traffic was driving in reverse. It was the funniest thing ever. The drivers here are just don't care. Everyone drives on the shoulders and runs the lights and stuff. The cops don't really seam to care. I guess everyone just got used to driving with no stoplights from the power outages.

Zone grill out

View of Mayaguez near the water

Zone pic with zone T-shirts

On the way to zone activity with comp Elder Jensen

At the beach but not in the water

Teaching Peruvian, Haitian, and Dominican college students

Pic by the church

This week was yet another amazing week. The work is moving so fast and I feel like we never have enough time for anything. It feels like I was just writing home like yesterday as well.

We're finally working with a bunch of different investigators now. Our days are now filling up with lessons instead of finding activities. Interesting enough, a lot of the more solid people we are working with aren't even Puerto Rican. We're teaching a Dominican student, a Haitian student, and working with a Peruvian student who was just recently baptized. They've all come out here to study at the Mayaguez college which is apparently a really good school.

As far as Puerto Rico goes, I guess I'll share some culture differences that I think are pretty funny:
- All of the school buses are pimped out. I'm talking about flashing lights, blasting music, and I swear some buses are low-riders or something. I still can just not get over this one.

- If you ask someone for directions here be prepared to get a 10 - 15 minute lesson on where the house you're looking for is. Even if it's only like three houses down. I'm not even exaggerating. They literally come out of their houses (like no matter what they're doing) to come and give you the most detailed yet most confusing directions in the world.

- Nobody refuses you for water... Ever. They could be yelling at you to leave, but if you ask them for water, they'll still go get you some.

We got to have zone conference this week as well. It was super awesome. We drove down to Ponce and had it out there. I got to see a bunch of Elders that I knew for the first time since before I was sent to New Mexico. Our President focused super hard on ministering. It doesn't matter who you are. You could be a missionary, student, or an old dude. Everybody can minister. It's how we can continue the Lord's work.

With President & Sister Smart and Elder Jensen (companion)

Pic by coast

Dealing with 36 hour power outage

So today wasn't too crazy of a week. Just the same old finding all day every day. It'll be nice to get a solid pool of people to teach. We are still trying to build our teaching pool. A lot of people we are teaching are just some people from the casarillos (free housing) that don't have all that much potential. And believe it or not, I haven't done any service out here.

Whitewashing is opening up the area. We didn't know anybody cause both of us were new to the area. We didn't even have a map of the area. We didn't know where to shop, where the church was, or how to even get home if we went anywhere cause we didn't know where we lived.

Wait never mind, the power shut off over the whole island for like thirty hours the other day. I guess it wasn't that normal of a week.

It was like around lunchtime and all of our fans and lights turned off. Then our mission president texted us saying the power went out on the island for who knows how long. Funny thing is, our water in our apartment didn't work either. That must have been a completely separate thing though because we were the only ones without water. We ended up just doing regular missionary work throughout the day. When it got dark though we had to go to a restaurant (with a generator)  because we didn't really have food that doesn't need to be cooked.

We decided to treat ourselves to some Chinese place. Or should I say "Chinese place." We ordered Chow Mein and got...... chicken and rice. I guess that's what I should have expected from out here. Long story short though our power and water eventually came back on.

As far as the mission goes, I've had to change up my teaching style completely out here. It's amazing how different the work is. However, as different as my day to day routine is, the nature of the work is exactly the same. We offer the same message, and the same blessings. We study from the same books everyday, and the joy we get by getting to share the gospel with everybody is still la mejor cosa del mundo.