short letter...I fell asleep

I know what it's like to be super tired; i actually fell asleep mid-letter today, and woke up an hour and a half later on top of my notebook. It was pretty funny, but used up pretty much all of my writing time I had today.

I've also been reading Jesus el Cristo again (en espanol this time) and it's pretty awesome. I've gotten to the point where I can read in Spanish almost as well as in English, my only real problem with understanding people is the accent... also a couple idiomatic expressions still throw me. I can't think of the words to use as well as I can understand them though, but that will come with practice, which I take every opportunity i can to get. I was actually able to talk to a couple mexicans the other day who agreed to meet again, but I had to refer them to the spanish elders.

Haha I've also met quite a few people who are quick to try and point out faults, and I've gotten quite a knowledge of good bashing scriptures down. I haven't used them, though.

It actually did get cold enough here a few times to wear a thick coat. Mostly it's pretty warm though. I'm excited for the warmer months, though. Apparently the wildlife gets pretty crazy.

Well, I've got to head out now. I hope everything is going fantastically. I love y'all :)

Hi y'all

So yeah, nothing super exciting happened this week. We did find some new people to teach, and lost some old ones. It's weird... So much happens in such a short amount of time that it's really hard to remember anything specific by the time I get to the computer... Funny story, Alma 8: 11-13 is very much like our experience in a few apartment complexes... I read that this morning and it made me laugh. Also, look at the connection between Alma 5: 28 and Ether 12: 27. Also, Alma 48: 17 talks about how cool Moroni was and how we should all be like him, then verse 18 talks about some other guys who were like him, then if you go back to Alma 17: 2-3 it tells you how they got to be that way. It's good stuff.

We've been finding more bilingual people who like to talk to us in English, but also speak Spanish, so I've gotten some more practice that way. I'm relatively comfortable talking to people who enunciate clearly now, but that's not the majority of people... haha. I do most of my reading in Spanish, though, so I pretty much know the words and grammar and all that.

I wish I had something more exciting to tell about... so many things happen and there are litle miracles that happen every day, so nothing really stands out... We did meet a guy who thought we baptize dead bodies. That was kinda funny. He also said he might buy us a car or something, at least some wedding gifts... Surprisingly nice for the misconceptions he had. haha I'll have to find a way to keep in contact with him. I also scraped a dead lizard off a lady's door. That was fun.

We found a dog in this one neighborhood who followed us around the whole time we were there, and answered when we called, and sat and stayed when we asked, too. It was pretty hilarious. I took a picture of him, so I'll send that some time when I get my pictures printed.

I'm trying to pick up on more of the Texas slang and accent, though there isn't much in this area..but I did say howdy without thinking one time, and I do say y'all now....

Alright, gotta go, love y'all

Another week..

(Brock asked us to express to everyone his thanks for the cards and gifts he received for Christmas. He is trying to write everyone a personal thank you note but it is taking more time than he has.  He wants everyone to know how much he appreciated everything everyone has done and continues to do for him.)

 

So this week was not super exciting, we kinda had a lot of people bail on us, so we did a lot of going door to door.  I'm considering carrying around a dictionary so I can show people the definition of the word "solicit." We got kicked out of a few places and yelled at by a few people for soliciting. One guy actually said he didn't care if we were doing what Christ would do, but we could come in his house while he called the police... Soliciting is asking for donations, or selling something. It is completely okay to knock on somebody's door to offer service and ask if they would be willing to listen to a message (that doesn't involve asking for money or selling anything), then leave if they say no. To prohibit such would be a violation of first amendment rights. We do leave if it is a private neighborhood or something and they tell us they don't want us there, but still... 

 

Anyways, I went on exchanges with another missionary to hillbilly country and it was awesome.  One guy answered the door in his boxers, and told me he liked my tie because it was his two favorite colors, chrome and paisley. I also almost got eaten by a dog. Luckily the knot held and he couldn't get off his rope.  There were some of the nicest people I have ever met up there... Actually, the first door we knocked on invited us in, gave us water and had a nice conversation with us before inviting us to share our message.  That's kinda funny compared to the richer area I'm in haha.  It's great though, I really do love the people in my are, it just requires a very different approach.  The wards we cover are so amazing, they are all very missionary minded and invite people to all sorts of things and host activities for neighbors and all that.  They fellowship like crazy, which makes our job a bunch easier.

 

So as much as I'm trying to eat well for the meals I control, I have disovered the deliciousness that comes from wrapping everything in a tortilla, then frying it in butter until it's crispy... It's pretty bad haha. There is some good food down here, though. I'm still waiting on some real mexican food... I've mostly just had tex mex. Except, we do actually have some homemade tamales in the fridge right now... I also had the opportunity to get a lengua with sauce on it, but I decided I'd do it next time. haha

 

So apparently there are a bunch of scorpions here in the summer. I'm pretty excited. There is a good chance I'll try to catch one. I also hope to eat rattlesnake before these two years are up, though it doesn't seem to be as common of a dish as I had hoped haha.

 

Alright, I've got to go now, but I'll try and do some super exciting stuff for y'all to hear about next week. Paz fuera.

 

Elder Katzakian

Typing at the library

So I know I sent you a letter, but I'll do a brief runthrough of how christmas went anyways. We had breakfast and lunch at two differrent member families' houses. Basically I ate a lot, because people didn't realize other people were feeding us too... Then We had dinner with the Briggs, who we're teaching, and they also fed us a lot. I pretty much had to roll myself into the apartment that night.

 

At the end of this month, there is a pretty good chance that we'll be moving in with some members, so my address will change then. Also, transfers are on the twentieth, so it's possible (but not likely) that I'll be moving then, too. If you're going to mail anything that week, just go ahead and send it to the office to be safe, or to be super safe you can just wait untilI send an email sing where I am for sure. Monday would still probably be okay to mail though because the twentieth is a thursday... so yeah.

 

Kelly Briggs is getting baptized!!! We had a lesson with her, basically just trying to really firmly establish the Book of Mormon and the restauration of the authority to Joseph Smith, then ended with baptism. She said she'd do it but needed time to get ready... so give her maybe about a year. We told her we didn't want to push her into anything she wasn't ready for... but we knew that she could be ready by the end of the month (the date is the twenty-second). She laughed a little and told us we were crazy, but that she would pray about it. That night after she prayed she had a song pop into her head that something about don't wait until tomorrow because tomorrow might be too late, so the next day at church she said she'd do it, and now we are getting her ready for baptism :) We pretty much did little happy dances because we had been praying really hard for that, and fasting, and yeah... It's just so awesome because I know it will help her a lot. She is doing a lot for her whole family and has a lot on her plate right now, and baptism is such a great strength... then the gift of the Holy Ghost will help carry her through all her trials. I know everyone needs it, but of the people we are in contact with right now, she needs it especially and is very ready for it. It's awesome.

 

The lady who we were way excited to get to the christmas devotional has started dodging us. She got nervous and chickened out on going to church. Her son likes to talk to us though, and I think we'll be able to get back to her that way. A lot of other missionaries weren't able to get to her... but I have a really strong feeling that by now she has been prepared enough, and if we are persistent and loving, we will be able to help her overcome her challenges.

 

We have some really good things happening, and some really good people investigating. This next week, between the three wards, there are something like fifteen people who we think will come to church if we can be faithful, obedient, and hard-working throughout the week.  That would be exhausting and I don't know how we'd be able to manage it exactly... but as we prayed and planned we felt good about every single one of them. So yeah, we're just going to hit it as hard as we can and I know God will help us accomplish. I've seen us be able to do so much more than we thought we could, or really should have been able, through following the spirit and just being obedient to the rules and the promptings. It's intense. Then, at the end of the day, we pretty much die in our beds.  I've never been so tired in my entire life, and I've had two full days of work where I didn't sleep between them before... so yeah.

 

So yeah, still way behind on thank you letters for christmas... probably won't be able to write any today... we had more car problems and we have to do extra shopping, and crazy stuff all over the place. So we'll see.  So yeah, if anyone get's something from me saying thanks sometime in february, it's from christmas haha... Thank you, though, to everyone for the love and support, and thanks for the Christmas things. We had a sweet little fiber-optic tree that we lit up for christmas and it was fun.

 

Oh, ashlie, you said something about my sugar comment and I forgot to tell you... for a while before my mission I was showing some symptoms of hypoglycemia, though i never went to a doctor to actually be checked... but yeah. I never really have sugar highs at all, I just crash really really hard, but if I don't have any sugar, I get shaky and light-headed. I try to be careful out here and it's not getting worse, but it's tough when I have to work all day, so I need to eat to have energy, but I don't have control over what I'm eating for the last meal... so it's usually more than what I need and just packed with carbs. It's not as bad as this probably made it sound.. but yeah, my companion needs to stay low on sugar too, so we're gonna work on it together.

 

Padre, te agradezco las historias de tu mision. Fue super chevere escucharlas. Tambien es bueno poder relatarme a las cosas asi.  Es extrano ser misionero, aunque maravilloso.  Si tienes mas historias, ?puedes eviarmelas? Me ecantaria, y probablemente me ayudaria tambien. !Mucho amor!

 

Thanks for everything!!! I love all of the love and support I get, and I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to everything.  I've gotta go now to finish up our stuff today. Talk to y'all later! Love you.

Casi Navidad!

So the biggest thing that has hit me this week is how little everyone knows about us, and how difficult it is to inform them as a missionary. Almost everyone just assumes we are robots coming to assimilate them and don't even want to look at us too long. There was even a lady who saw us coming and opened her door before we even got there and shouted no thanks and slammed it. No one really realizes that we are real people who have made and are making big sacrifices to be here because we care about them.  Obviously we think it'd be fantastic if they listened to our message, felt the truthfulness of it and joined the church, but we don't force it on them. We just invite to learn and help people come closer to Christ, and if they don't want to do that, then we're always happy to just do some service. We're not as aggressive and forceful as they think... but that's the first thing that comes to mind when they see the suits and nametags. That's why regular members are so much more effective at finding, they are just seen as normal people, and they make friends first, then when it's known that they are Mormon, the other people don't run away.  The people who understand that we are just there to help, even if they don't want our message stop and talk and we always have a pleasant conversation. so I just want to encourage everyone who reads this and is a member to make sure everyone who knows you knows it, and if missionaries ever come up in conversation, just make it clear that we are here only to help and teach and uplift people, we don't want to force them to do anything or fight or whatever... That way we might get a little less flak when we're trying to jsut brighten their day.

Another challenge I'd like to make is to anyone who is reading this who is not a member of the church. If you haven't taken the time to learn about the church and it's history and beleifs, do so. A great way to do that is to read The Book of Mormon, or tak to the missionaries. I promise that neither of those things will brainwash you. You can even tell the missionaries you just want to learn and not convert. They'll probably still ask you to pray about the things they teach and maybe even if you'll get baptized, but don't let it scare you. Your obligation is not to them, but to yourself and your God. So just do what feels right to you. We had a lady get really mad at us and not really let us talk because she said that she only studies from the Bible, the word of God, and not from a man made book, but I'm sure she hasn't ever even looked at the Book of Mormon.  We only really had time to simply say we know the Book of Mormon is of God before she closed the door.  What I would say to her if I had time is this: I have read nearly all of the Bible, and I have felt it's truthfullness insomuch that I would say I know it to be the word of God, but I have also read The Book of Mormon and have felt the same testimony of it's truth and know it to be the word of God as well. What qualifies us in saying that God can't give us more testimony of His son? and if He did, would you deny it? So read the book first, then look me in the eye and tell me it isn't a good book, tell me it's not from God. You won't be able to, for it is.

Something that made me happy, though, is the daughter in the Briggs family. They're the ones I wrote about last week who we found by talking to people at the dumpster. Anyways, she took the time to let us share a little bit of our message, and to serve her and her family, and she told us that she's been to a lot of churches, and we are the first ones she's met that really try to do what Jesus would do. She's impressed by that and wants to get involved. See what happens? if you just give us a couple minutes to learn about you and help you, you'll see we aren't bad. Then, if you give us a little more to teach you what we believe, you'll see that that is good too.  You don't even have to agree with us necessarily, it's just nice when people recognize that the work is good and we are only extending a hand of support. So tell your friends how nice we really are. It does wonders.

We also went to check on a lady who was being taught by the missionaries a long time ago, and they kinda stopped teaching her because she said she wanted to come to church and do stuff, but would always bail out at the last minute and just wouldn't keep any commitments. Some members of the church still wen't by periodically, but the missionaries didn't really have time. So yeah, we went back and talked to her and were very nice and offered tours of the church and stuff to make her more comfortable, and invited her to a christmas musical devotional that was last night. She had kind of a hard time... Her husband died ten years ago and she still cries at the drop of a hat about it. She got remarried briefly, but then got divorced and has been going through huge custody battles in the court ever since and is dealing with the mother's pain of feeling like she's losing her children and people calling her a bad mother all the time, and criticizing her ability to be a parent, while her children just tell her that they want to be with her. She prays, and tries to be forgiving, but she's put herself in a little bubble. She takes a couple classes, but doesn't work. She goes to a support group where it sounds like people just go to cry and complain to eachother and be told that everyone there is having a hard time, but not really be helped in any way. She goes to counseling, but the counsellor just seems to try to tell her that she's really strong enough to deal with it all and needs to not worry. That is actually counter productive because she keeps feeling the need to just keep trucking on by herself, because she can be strong enough, but then she gets overwhelmed and does nothing. So she gets up and goes through the same, meaningless routine every day hoping her problems will go away. She says she believes Jesus can help her, but doesn't do anything about it. We were pretty blunt with her and told her that God will answer her prayers and show her the answers and His love if she'll just show him. She needs to get out of her little bubble, out of her comfort zone, and then she'll be able to see changes. Once she actually does something to cope, she'll be able to overcome that pain and sorrow that she has just come to accept as part of her burden. The atonement of Christ can lift us to infinite heights, but only after we have done all we can do to do what he has asked. She seemed touched by that. She actually came to the devotional!!!! After like a year and a half of zero action, of saying she wants help, but doing nothing to get it, she actually got out of her little comfort zone, did something she was scared to do, and it was awesome. She really enjoyed it. It was like pulling teeth, and we were half an hour late, but she got there and loved it. I think that means she's going to make it to church too. She said it would anyways... but yeah. It was a huge step. She has a lot of potential.

So yeah... I was going to say something else, but I forgot... I still get to practice Spanish. Every day I pray for opportunities to use is it, and when I look for them I always end up talking to at least one spanish speaker. It's harder than you might think here. My area has the lowest hispanic population of the mission, and I'm in an english ward, so yeah... anyways, thank you for everything, sorry if my email doesn't really make sense, my brain is tired. I love you all :)

IN TEXAS

How's life in Idaho? send me the latest scoop. I'm pretty curious. I hope you're all doing really well. Everything is fantastic here.

So the first night here in San Antonio, we went down to the Alamo and placed copies of The Book of Mormon. It was pretty awesome. The weirdest part is that I got to be very confident and good at talking to people in the MTC, even people who acted super real, but as soon as I got here and started to taking to people who really need it and really matter, I got super nervous. I'm way better by now though. If you haven't figured it out yet, my P-day is Monday here. 

On Thursday we got our companions and our first assignments. My trainer is Elder Lish. He's pretty cool, and we have his old companion with us until Wednesday when He goes home. Elder Lish is the district leader as well.  We are both Spanish-speaking elders, but we're in an English area, so it's really hard to keep up on the Spanish. I'm doing alright, though. My first street contact in my area was actually in Spanish. She would've taken a Book of Mormon, except I only had English with me, so I just left her a pass along card and referred her to th Spanish elders in the area. Since then I always carry Spanish and English, and I have had the opportunity to use both. There are also some members in our wards that speak Spanish, so I can practice with them. We cover three wards here, and it is the wealthiest area in the whole mission. the worst aparments here push two thousand dollars a month, and almost every community is gated. It's really hard to find people, but when it happens, they are solid.

One of the things I like most about Texas is that almost everyone is really nice. Much nicer than in California... However, there are still very rude people every now and again. They especially don't like us, which is silly because all we do is come and ask if we can help them in any way. Even if they don't want to listen to our message we are always happy to just do service for them. It's kinda silly.

It has been way awesome to see miracles every day, and feel the Spirit guide us to the things that God wants us to do. The kinda frustrating part is that I know it could happen even more, but not everyon in the group wants to be totally obedient to all of the rules... and people who have more experience or are in authority or about to go home are not very open to corrective suggestions. That's okay kinda.. but I need to be a little more forceful when I know somethng needs to be done differently but the others don't want to.

Anyways... probably the coolest little miracle I've seen so faris this: We had an appointment cancel on us, so we didn't really know what to do. We pulled over to the side of the road to pray and seek guidance. As we then looked at our area map we felt prompted to go to a certain apartment complex and check up on some old dropped investigators. While we were there we had a bunch of doors closed on us and a bunch of people not home. we got down near the bottom of the complex and were knocking on a door, when a black woman pulled up and got out of her car to put her trash in the dumpster, which was pretty close to us. We decided it was a good idea to talk to her, you know since it was three men in the dark, by the dumpster going to talk to one woman. Makes sense. Anyways, she was a little freaked out at first, but then recognized us as Mormons. She said she wasn't interested because she's "non-denominational," but her sister is Mormon and lives in the complex if we wanted to visit her. She called her to ask, and the sister said she'd like that.  We went there and found out she had moved to Texas from New Jersey about a month ago for cancer treatment, and had just had chemotherapy the day before. She was living there with her husband, son, daughter and daughter's two sons, who are all not members. The folks in New Jersey said they'd send her membership records here, but haven't yet, so nobody knew she was here, and she hasn't had the energy or strength to go out and find someone. Her husband can't walk, we didn't figure out exactly what was wrong, but he was sitting there on the couch with some big things on his feet and a catheter. He has some serious depression and is losing his voice because he very rarely uses it now... The son was asleep, but the daughter was there, and wants to take the discussions because she remembers when the two white boy missionaries knocked on their door in the projects. Good story. Anyways, we got all of the woman's info. (her name is Kathy) so we could pull her records here, and shared a spiritual message with them. It turns out they picked up and moved so fast that she forgot her scriptures, so we left some there for the family. At the end we gave Kathy a blessing and it was way awesome. The husband and daughter wanted one too after that, so we gave three blessings in that apartment. They were all really awesome, and I know that family is going to have a lot of help and support and miracles over the next little while.  Kathy insisted we come back tomorrow for some fried chicken.  That made my day. It was awesome to see how the lord puts His servants where they will be able to succor his children. The church is true.

Okay, so my address is:

Elder Brock Katzakian
20211 Huebner Road #915
San Antonio, TX 78258

Anything that's been sent to the mission office I won't get until the next big meeting at Christmas, so the apartment is the best place to send things, unless it's close to transfers. I'll let y'all know when those are coming up (they are every six weeks, and it's the only time that I'm guaranteed to have a big meeting where I'll get the stuff that's at the mission office). I did get the blankets, though. Thank you :) I know packages can be sent to the apartment too. I don't know if there are any mission rules or anything about where they are supposed to go or whatever, but I do know that the apartment office is able to recieve them.

There is so much awesome stuff happening all over the place here and so many awesome people that I can't even come close to sharing all of it, so I'll just try and do the best ones. I've got to go now because there is a lot to do today. Oh, by the way, I know why missionaries get fat. We sit in the car all day, then peole feed us ridiculous piles of food. We had three desserts yesterday. Three. And people get all excited to give it to you, so you can't say no. And since there are so many members in this area, they always have our dinner, and it's always something special, and there is always some ridiculous dessert... every day. We have three lunches scheduled for tomorrow, and a dinner. I don't know what to do. and most of the missionaries don't want to get up early to exercise, and don't want to run. We're not supposed to get up witout our companion and I definitely can't run without them. I'm doomed. It's okay though. This is way more important than my health stuff. I'll just deal for two years, then I can do what I want. I'm just a little worried about all the sugar because I was starting to have some issues before I left and now I can't really get away.. but yeah. Love you all :)

Elder Katzakian's first member dinner in San Antonio

(I love that we have been able to get more updates in the last few days than we have the last 3 months!!)

Hello Parents of Elder Katzakian (can't remember how it's spelled!),

We just fed your son tonight and were pleasantly surprised to be his first meal at a member's house! I think we fed him well...after eating it, he said, "I vote YES to all of this food." It's always fun to have a "greenie" over and we never would've guessed it had we not asked him when he got here.

I just thought you'd like to know that he's in good hands and has a great companion, Elder Lish. They're in a threesome right now with Elder Phillips who goes home next Wednesday. This area of San Antonio is awesome, and we know the elders will continue to touch the hearts of the people around here.

Living up to the stereotype, "Texas pride" is already being fed to your son :) We informed him that we have the absolute best ice cream here (Blue Bell) and gave him his first taste of it. He talked about his mother's love of peppermint ice cream and how the freezer will be full of it this time of year. Well, I believe we honest to goodness have the best peppermint ice cream here and you've got to give it a try if you come pick him up in two years! I'll make sure he tries some of that flavor soon! :) Thanks for sharing your son with us and rest assured he's got a great trainer in Elder Lish. They'll do good things together. Enjoy the pictures!