WHERE DID JUNE GO?!?!?!

Hi Mom and Dad. And all others.

I just had a very frightening revelation. Do you realize that July 11 means my mission will be 1/3 over? Where on earth did the last 8 months go? Well, I can say this: Forget those high school summer vacations. Missions are the one that needs to SLOW DOWN. June flashed past as if it had only been a week long. I LOVE LOS ANGELES.

Well... you know, anyway.

Elder Franco is amazing. Definitely miles better than old Elder Pessimism. Franco has a very open, very positive attitude, has a lot of cool ideas, and we agree on a lot of things. I guess as long as I have him, everything will go swimmingly, but I don't know about Elder Van Dam yet (STILL not yet in the ASL program. Fancy that...) so we'll see what happens. I hope he does come in soon. He's a great guy too.

Vitaliy (The deaf Russian guy) is off on a cruise with his family, so he will not be at home or church for awhile so we can't teach him. Bummer... We did on the other hand commit him to baptism on July 11-18 and he happily accepted so we're staying hopeful. Three weeks ago, Franco and the other elder (I was not yet transferred) taught him the word of wisdom since he's a big coffee drinker. They said that Vitaliy was really bummed about it. Well, the next visit, I with Elder Franco, of course, found that he has TOTALLY kicked out his coffee habits and substituted on Pomegrante juice and milk. He's made amazing strides since then. I guess the true gospel really does inspire people to take better courses in their lives.

Well, I'm absolutely giddy. Why? one of our investigator houses turned out to be this mini deaf community. The investigators' names are Ana, Juan, and Jennifer (That is as it is at the moment) and they have a big family and a LOT of deaf friends who drop by every now and then, and maybe even more to refer to us. The three are very interested in the gospel, and they feel they're "the foundation of all their peers", so we think this is a golden, nay, DIAMOND opportunity. Why? If we can help them accept the gospel, most likely all others will follow them in their example. We are talking about not 5, not 10, but at least 25 potential baptisms, making the branch leadership goal of 40 baptisms in a year ridiculously easy. Wishful thinking, I know, but I'm a believer of miracles along with fasting and prayer so I think everything will work out great. I think that if we just "Do it", with all the help from the Lord, the Torrance 4th Deaf Branch is well on it's way in becoming the Torrance Deaf Ward.

And that's only scratching the surface.

According to intelligence (our branch president), There is enough deaf people in all of LA county to form at least 4 or 5 Deaf stakes/districts. A humbling thing to know, don't you think? But one step at a time. One step at a time. Focus on the little snowball first.

Time's up. gotta go.

____
-E.T.