‘Tis the Season

Our week started off in a way we could not imagine. We got a call before knockout on Tuesday from the mission president saying that the Elders covering the east side of our area got emergency transferred out and that we would now cover the entire ward (whether this is permanent or not, we know not). This has helped us to feel more busy and has also left us confused as to trying to figure out their area book and so on–a need to have iPads to make our work less about paper work and more about missionary work (I’ll talk more about this in a minute).

So we were able to set two baptismal dates for our investigators. Our fifteen year old investigator, Dean, we have scheduled for Dec 20. We picked up a new investigator on Saturday who is the husband of a new move in to the ward. He has met with missionaries in the past before they moved here to Southern California and now we get to teach him–yay!

There is not much more to report on teaching wise here. Yesterday, we helped with the Nativity Festival in Burbank. It was sweet! It was nice to see so many people come and feel the spirit of Christmas. We had people from many different religions. We even had a group of Nuns come. I will freely admit (please leave this in here) that I make fun of Catholics on occasion, especially using the sign of the cross when I see things I like (technology, geeky items, and things that make me laugh) mainly because it looks so freakishly funny when Christians do it. I doubt that most of them know what it even means. I don’t claim to know what others believe in, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that we know the Bible more than everybody else combined. We’ve had several bashers before and they tried to beat around the bush about what a scripture meant while it clearly is laid out that it means what it says in the Bible. I know I shouldn’t be so judgmental, but it’s so hard not to.

I’ve kind of learned how to drive manual. In the car we’re in, we have the ability to switch back and forth from manual and automatic while drive. It’s kind of fun and I think I know more about how I ought to be shifting on a bike as well.

So while we were at the Nativity Festival, the Armenian missionaries from the Arcadia mission showed up (I guess they cover our mission, their mission, and the LA mission) and in their hands were iPads. It prompted me to write the following:

Unofficial Declaration 3

1 For I have seen an iPad, I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it.
2 O iPad, where art thou? And where is the box that covereth thy hiding place?
3 How long shall thy screen be stayed, and thine camera, yea thy pure camera, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy missionaries, and thine microphone be penetrated with their cries?
4 Yea, O iPad, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine processor shall be softened toward them, and thy circuits be moved with compassion toward them?
5 And whosoever has committed iniquity, him have I punished according to the crime which he has committed.
6 Yea, we believe that missionaries must be punished for their own sins, and not for other missionaries’ transgressions.
7 As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the iPad over the Earth, we have been grateful that missionaries in many missions have responded to the call to share the message of the restored gospel and have joined the army of God in ever increasing numbers.
8 This, in turn, has inspired us with a desire to extend to every worthy missionary all of the privileges and blessings which an iPad affords.
9 Aware of the promises made by general authorizes that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all missionaries who are worthy may receive an iPad, and witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom an iPad has been withheld, we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, thy missionaries, spending many hours in the upper room of the Temple, supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.
10 He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy missionary may receive an iPad, with authority to exercise it’s divine power, that they might share how the restored gospel has blessed them in their lives and see how others will enjoy the gospel in their lives.

Yours truly;
Tommy Monson,
Hal Eyring,
& Silverfox Uchtdorf

Now that I have been able to see the area book for myself and have showed it to other missionaries that were there, we are quite frustrated that we don’t have the blessing of not using iPads, especially having been promised that we would get them. Like I said earlier, to have our area books on our iPads will mean less paper work and more missionary work.

Elder Blodgett
California San Fernando Mission
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints