Elder Samuel Burge: Discussions, Silverton Falls, & a Lesson on Homeless Microwave Etiquette

Hey,

Tell mom I said happy birthday, and that I did get her letter. I've just gotten backed up with a couple of letters so I haven't written her back. I figured since I write once weekly through email that she wouldn't be too upset if I didn't write her back right away.

Things are going alright here. Transfers are coming up, so by the end of this week (Saturday, most likely) I'll know if I'm getting transferred or not. The usual time a person will spend in an area here is about six months, but with the mission being split and divided come July I'm sure either this transfer or next I'll be moved somewhere else. We'll see how it all works out though.

This week was good, we've started teaching a guy named Andrew. His wife, Audrey, called us on Tuesday as we were preparing to knock on doors for at least a couple of hours and said he wanted to take the discussions. So we've taught him two lessons this week, and will keep teaching him this upcoming week. He's had the discussions before, and he has an interest in knowing about what we believe and figuring out for himself the truthfulness of it. He's quite skeptical though, but hopefully we can help him out. We've also started teaching this guy named John who I think I've talked about a little bit. He wants to come back to church, but he's been inactive for a long time and has a lot of vices that he feels are holding him back. It's been really interesting to teach him; but he seems to have a desire to come back which is good.

This week we were at the library on Friday, and as we were leaving this homeless, Asian man came up to us with a few questions. His few questions were extremely basic, and then he really just talked at us about his life problems for a half-hour and it was hilarious. His name was Sammy, and he is from Cambodia originally but he emigrated over in like the 80's. He was talking about how America has all these problems, and how other countries don't have the issues that we do (like how we treat the homeless, and how the crime here is awful). What was really awesome is he started telling us about his run-ins with the other homeless guys in the area! At some grocery store in-town they have a microwave that a bunch of these homeless people can use and the past few weeks another homeless gentlemen has been trying to seduce him! He started telling us about how he has to watch his step and be civil with all of them so he doesn't get his car messed with and so they don't try to rape him because he's a smaller guy! All of this with a thick, Asian accent... Best story I had all week.

Earlier today for preparation day, we went on a hike with the other elders and the sisters in our district to Silver Falls. It's near the southern border of our mission near Silverton, but I honestly don't know where it is on a map. It was really fun, it was an 8-9 mile hike around several really beautiful waterfalls! It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed getting out into the woods. We saw a lot of salamanders, which I thought was pretty cool, and this blue jay flew over to us while we were eating lunch and was looking to take some from us. I threw him some bread right by me and he flew down and started eating it; this little bird had no fear. Anyways, it was an enjoyable hike.

Sounds like things at home are good. Hope things continue to go well; I love and miss you guys.

-Elder Samuel Burge