Deaf people are everywhere and nowhere at the same time

Hello all!

My week has been wonderful for the most part. Why? We found dozens of new people to teach, most of them actually coming from the street. Even better, ALL of them were interested into learning more about the gospel. I think I can safely say that the Lord knows that I choose to take my mission seriously and decided to help out by placing deaf people into our paths. Usually, I find deaf people in public only once in a blue moon.

Last Tuesday, one semi-active family brought their friend named Sim for us to teach. Nice lady; asked a lot of questions. Friday, we found a woman named Vicki, who is hard of hearing but can sign. On Saturday, we most certainly hit the jackpot. What is it? A car full of deaf/signing people! We were biking from appointment to appointment to save car miles and gas.

The cool thing about people like me is that I have 180* vision and eyes in the back of my head. (it's near impossible for people to sneak up on me. Ask my brother, he'll confirm that fact!) We were biking from appointment to appointment to save car miles and gas. As we were biking home, I caught one woman moving her hands out of the very corner of my eye. I shouted to my companion to stop, and we looked back. Sure enough, it was sign language. Two deaf women introduced us as April and Hope. I think there's more of them because a little boy who was with them signed also. We got their cell numbers and invited them to church so we'll see what happens.

Eddie Parker is continuing to improve and Branch President Sutton says he will be able to interview for entering the temple on March. Sadly, we found out that David Turner has a slight Word of Wisdom issue (drinking coffee), so we are continuing to work with him, and President Sutton has decided to delay his priesthood/temple interviews until March, if David can improve and put aside his coffee habits.

The branch is growing steadily, activity-wise. With two companions working on two different fronts of the Los Angeles area, it's going well. All of us hope to be able to add one more companionship to the lines so the work can progress more rapidly. After all, we want a bona-fide Deaf ward, don't we?

Oh! this week, we just committed a young man named Marcial Martinez to baptism. He want to be baptized more than ever. The missionaries has been working with him in the past and he has a testimony of the gospel, but he is still afraid his mother will object, since she is a devout catholic. She isn't against the church though, so we told Marcial to be brave and sit down with his mom and really share his feelings to his mom because I know she'll understand. Basically, something to the extent of "Suck it up.". We'll see what happens in the next few days.

We don't know what's up with Nancy though. She's been skipping church lately and it's been hard for us to contact her. We think she's just nervous so we're just being patient with her.

Anyway, that's pretty much the highlights of my week.

FUN FACTS

1. Ever since arriving in Los Angeles almost three weeks ago, I've lost 8 pounds. So far, that makes a grand total of zero pounds gained on my entire mission. Goodbye, MTC food, and never again! Hello, future six-pack abs!

2. While thinking randomly, I discovered that if you look at my last name like an anagram, TRITSCH becomes

T(he) CHRIST

cool huh?

3. In big cities, you tend to meet some of the strangest people you'll ever see in your entire life (in a good way, mind you all!). one time, we saw there was a man dressed in woman clothes on the bus, and another time, we saw there was a person that you ABSOLUTELY can't tell if is a man or a woman.

Also bald chicks.

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Bye for now


-Z