Hello Friends & Family,
This week has been that of many miracles!! And yes, a chihuahua broke through a window this week.
Let me set the stage...
Elder Hallsted and I had gotten a referral from some of the Hermanas. We decided to go drop by and see if he would like to have the missionary lessons. As per Missionary standard, we are supposed to contact a referred person within 24 Hours of them being referred. We saw that the address was on Donald street, and parked near the end of the road, thinking it was close to the address. To our dismay, the address we were looking for was 3032, and we were closest to 3964. The correct house was roughly 4 blocks away. We decided to walk there anyway, and maybe find some people to talk to along the way. We had gone only about a block when I thought I saw a woman using sign language talking to someone in a car. Because of previous happenings, (lots of people just talk with their hands, not actually using sign language) I brushed it off.
We walked past the car, but I felt like we should turn around. We both agreed and began our trek of 30ft. As we turned, I saw a Chihuahua jump out of the window of the car. I quickly tried to get the man's attention. He saw me frantically waving, I then pointed to his dog (now in the road) and he lurched out of his car.
He then told us, "I can't hear!",
to which we responded (In ASL) "That's okay!! We know sign language!"
His face suddenly turned to that of surprise. After cornering his rather adventurous doggo, we proceeded to introduce ourselves. The woman we saw earlier came out from the store and we met her also. We have a lesson with them tonight at 6!
I know that this was absolutely an answer to our prayers. Finding Deaf friends to teach is very hard. We have tried many strategies to find them, but mostly to no avail. Yet in our efforts to find someone else, we happened across these 2 new friends.
"Coincidence? I think NOT" -Bernie Kropp
Every 2nd Saturday of the month, there is a Deaf event at Tyler Mall. We always enjoy going because that is typically the largest event that we can find people at. Most of the time, the population of this event is college students attempting to learn sign language. The majority being in ASL1 or 2. It is very entertaining to tell people that we have only been learning sign language for 4 months, and watching their reactions. Everyone always assumes we have been learning for at least 3 years. I like to take the compliments every once in a while.With the large amount of ASL work we did this week, we have even more stories to tell.
One more quick story is when we were visiting our friend Frank. Frank is an older man and, similar to my Dad, (and eldest brother) he enjoys naps throughout the day. We went up to his door, and through the Storm door, and were able to see him asleep in his chair. The only issue was that Frank was Deaf. We had no way of waking him up. We shook the door, tried jumping up and down (to shake the floor) and also yelling. We even tried shining a flashlight through the door, but nothing worked. Our scheduled visit was ruined by the sweet lulls of a nap.
I could share many stories similar to those, but I also do not want to write about them. Because I have already written in my journal, I feel that is good enough.
For P-day today we are going to explore the Historic Mission Inn in Riverside. I will send pictures is it suppose to be amazing.
Thank you again for the emails!
-Elder Vance 
 |
| Mission Inn |
 |
| Mission Inn |
