Elder Andrew and I are getting along pretty well. Our personalities are similar in some ways, and because he is a bit older than most new missionaries, he is more mature. Doing the actual "training" with him seems harder because he is more prepared, or at least more confident, than my first trainee was. So doing multiple role plays of the same thing seems kind of pointless sometimes because he catches on quickly. He likes working hard and he is very good about adhering to the prescribed daily missionary schedule. We work together pretty well and are able to pick up on each others cues. I still have to make sure I give him cues and don't just dominate the whole lesson, but for the most part things are going well.
As for teaching opportunities, this was a really rough week. And I would argue it was worse than last week because instead of nobody setting up appointments with us, they all just cancelled on us. We'd had a lesson set up with Isaac for Wednesday, and he called us last minute and rescheduled it for the next day. He said he'd been reading the Book of Mormon though, like 6 chapters, so we figured that was a good sign. But we showed up the next day with a member team-up, and after waiting and calling for 20 minutes with no response, we had to call it off. We'd also had a church tour planned for that night and had asked a member to come out with us and she cancelled it that morning. On Friday we had another guy tell us he'd meet with us, he just didn't know what time yet, and when we texted him on Thursday, he cancelled on us.
The icing on the cake is with Ketunge, the Kenyan lady. It's almost comical but also frustrating and sad. So she called us on Monday, and she was really hard to understand on the phone. But after 7 minutes of trying to understand her, we agreed that we would text her on Wednesday and set up and appointment for Friday. Well Wednesday rolls around and we set up the appointment for 11 at the church on Friday. We send her the address to our church and everything. Friday morning rolls around, we go to the church to get everything set up, our team-up arrives, and everything is good. She doesn't show, so at 11:05 we get a call from her that asks where we are. So we tell her we're at the church and she says okay, she'll meet us there. But shortly after that she sends us a text that says she doesn't drive and then calls us. So we tell her that we'll go pick her up and we start driving to her house to pick her up. On the way to her house, she tells us that she is at our church, so we ask her which one, but I can't understand the streets she is telling me, and everything I tried to look up in the GPS didn't exist. So I just tell her we're on our way and we start driving to one of the other buildings. We get there, and she isn't there, so we start driving to the other one. When we arrive, we see that she isn't there, at which point she calls us again and asks where we are and if we're really missionaries. So we frantically start driving back to the second building we'd been to, thinking that we had missed her. After being on the phone with her for about 10 straight minutes I just give up and tell her "There are 4 churches in Moreno Valley and I don't know which one you're at!" And she responds by saying "You're in Moreno Valley?" Apparently she had wanted to meet us on her lunch break at work at one of our church buildings, so she was in Hacienda Heights in Los Angeles County. So after 6 phones calls and an hour of driving around, we figured out that we couldn't even meet with her that day. Sad, yes. Ridiculous, yes. Sort of funny, maybe.
She is also very head strong so last night she texted us and asked us why we couldn't just come to Hacienda Heights and teach her there. We explained and I think it made sense to her. She also asked what our purpose was and when I told her it was to teach about Jesus Christ and the things he wants us to do, especially baptism, she told us "that's fine, that's a good teaching." So it is kind of comical to text her, but talking to her on the phone is sort of a challenge.
Overall it was not a super productive week, but our spirits are still good and it ended on a good note. On Sunday night we stopped by a potential, and they were actually home which is always good. Turns out they'd just gotten home from a vacation, so we had perfect timing, and while we didn't get to talk to the husband, he was with the kids, we talked to his wife and shared the video and she said she really enjoyed it and I felt the Spirit and I think she did too. Unfortunately she just took our number and said she'd have him call to set something up which is always a risk, but we can always stop by again some other time if we don't hear from them.
This week will be busy, since we've got a stake service project on Saturday, Multi Zone Conferences on Friday with Mt. Rubidoux, and we still have all our regular meetings. Also this Sunday will be a homecoming, a farewell, and Sister Tobler and I are doing a musical number as well, so it will be a missionary Sacrament meeting.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby