Ungodly Hour‏

So our P-day has been officially moved to Tuesday. Next week I'll be writing on Monday but after that just expect on Tuesday. Let me explain why. Last Tuesday we had our Zone Conference. It was quite enjoyable and I certainly learned a lot. President Bassett always shares his concerns with us and any changes that will be made during the beginning of the meeting. He said that after careful thought and prayer that P-day will be moved to Tuesday. This puzzled us because Monday is one of the least effective days for missionary work(which is true because yesterday we had 4 appointments fall through). He explained one reason is because the temple is not open on Mondays. But the main reason actually has to do with emailing in libraries. Because of budget cuts all Mesa public libraries close on Mondays except for the main one. So every Monday this main library would have 80 to 100 missionaries show up. People began to get into arguments with them and they were persecuted greatly. President Bassett really struggled with this but he said there wasn't really any other option. I haven't really noticed because in North Phoenix theres only 8 of us.

I titled my email the ungodly hour when it really should of been ungodly hours. Let me explain. I've quickly learned that 1 pm to 5 pm pretty much stinks. There isn't a soul walking around in that heat. So we aren't finding a ton. And it seems that with the summer coming people have become more irritable. Its definitely a different feeling than my first few weeks. Another thing we struggle with during that time is keeping our eyes opened. It just zaps your energy. I thought it was just me but Elder Yates had felt tired and he was getting frustrated from it. Then we went on splits with one of the zone leaders who said he's just been exhausted the past 2 weeks or so. I began to discover that other missionaries felt this way too. Its been quite tough.

So I guess this week I'm going to center my topic on members. Our investigators are all at a stand still. Jellys are most promising one stopped moving forward. Our forsure baptism on the 11th said yesterday that she may want to push it back a week. Its puzzling that most of these people accapt but they don't do anything about it. Anyways I wanted to share some experiences I've had with my favorite member here. This guy is a super missionary/convert from Africa. His english isn't great but he's the best member missionary we have. His name is Brother Aaron Camara. He does everything that he is suposed. He has somebody for us to see everytime we see him.

Going off more Brother Camara adventures I have to tell you about an experience we had. In the Mesa Mission we have the gift of having a visitor center in front of the temple. It is a great tool for missionary work. As I've previously stated in past emails we are teaching in an apartment complex full of African refugees such as Jellys and Bro. Camara. We decided to borrow a 15 passenger van and take a bunch of investigators down to the visitor center. We showed up Saturday night and went to the two apartments we were picking up people from. We got the first two but Elder Yates went to the other one and none of them could come. We went down and including ourselves we only had 6 people for the van. We were sad. Brother Camara asked where the other people were and Elder Yates said they're up there. He then puts his phone away and walks up there. He knocked on the door and walked in. We waited outside and after 5 minutes 9 people walked out of that apartment ready to go. It was awesome. He also said one of the funniest things I've heard on my mission. We taught a lesson in his home last night. It was visual lesson. He walked us to our car. He told us "Man I love you Elders, you illustrate your lessons so well that no matter how dumb the person is they have to understand what we're teaching." He was completely serious and we had a hard time not busting up. Theres a careful line between doing missionary work with members and hanging out with members. President Bassett always reminds us that none of the members like you. You have a tag on and you affect them in no other way. So stop hanging out with them and get to work. He has a list of the families missionaries shouldn't be around. I see where he's coming from. We show up for what 3 months?

Well thats about all I got, no pictures this week forgot my camera(and also I didn't take any.)

love,Elder Caywood aka as Brother Camara would say Elder Wood