Season 10 Episode 1: New Transfer = New President

Season 10 Episode 1: New Transfer = New President

Hey Y'all!! Nothing too crazy to report, so this might be a short one.

By the time you read this Email, President and Sister Hammon will be home! They have improved the lives (and also work ethic) of all they come in contact with! My Vocabulary is in surplus now, and I will ever be grateful for their selfless actions. 

President and Sister Watson should be here by now, and I have the opportunity to meet him on wednesday!! I am very excited.

This week's district activity was at the request (sort of) of the sisters in my district. Some of them didn't think that the hot sauce we ate in the videos wasn't "that hot". So, all of us ate the HOTTEST hot sauce I had, and the result was spectacular! (Stay tuned for the video)

If you know of the Facebook group "Worldwide Unified", tune in this Sunday at 7 pm (MT) to watch a livestream by yours truly! They invited us to host this week because a lot of the attention our videos get is from that group. 

Our Sunday Worship service this week was much better, everyone was muted! 

All is well in the work of the Lord. 

Correction...

All is worthwhile in the work of the Lord!

-Elder Vance

Season 9 Episdoe 5: Deaf Branch Disaster

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Hello Friends & Family,

With Elder Larsen is on his way to the mission office and then home.  I am now in a tri-panionship with Elder Hallsted my MTC companion andElder Cluff our new ASLder.  Elder Hallsted and I are District Leaders but over 2 different districts, even though we are companions.  I am also still one of a few Social Media Specialist for our mission.

We had a rather slow week, 0 lessons taught, 0 new people being taught. We had a few home-visits, but even those were canceled on us. Our A/C is broken, so it is basically a sauna here (I guess that's nice at times). Then onto our "Worship service"...

Let me introduce you into some of the struggles of ASL. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Zoom web app, this is our main method of communication for church meetings (as we still cannot meet in person). It has some nifty features, including moving the camera automatically whenever someone makes a noise or talks, the only issue is when this feature is applied to the Deaf Branch. The host for this week forgot to select "mute all mics upon entry" and so background noise was ever present, not a huge problem if everyone is Deaf right? Wrong
Any time someone made a noise (or someone in the background) the camera would switch to them, and away from the speaker/interpreter so most if not everyone missed what was being said.

Furthermore, children running and screaming in the background at full volume that equals Pompeii is not very inviting of the spirit. My frustration reached a peak when I heard the same thunderous children proclaim, (and I quote)
"Don't worry! They are Deaf, they don't know!!"
I just about crawled through the screen to silence those children myself for their complete lack of self-control (they were 12+ years of age). Little did they know there were quite a few of us who could hear their disrespecting tones.
Worst of all, I could see many of the members who relied on the interpreters (as a stake counselor was speaking) to get the message, be very confused and frustrated that the screen kept switching.
Finally, in the middle of the first talk, the Zoom time limit capped, and all of us were kicked out of the meeting. I still am not sure if they re-started the meeting, as we never got any notifications of such an event.

Elder Larsen should be in the mission home right now. It felt strange just to talk to him about going home. It still seems afar off, but my year mark is coming close. I am very happy to have been able to serve with him, and know he will do great following his release as a Full-time missionary to share the same messages still!

Lots of missionaries are still flooding in on their Re-assignments, stay tuned for the full count.


-Elder Vance

Season 9 Episode 4: VP (aka Video Pizza)

Hello Friends & Family,

Elder Larsen is still nervous about heading home, but is very excited. We began teaching a new friend, only to find he is already a member, so we began home-visits with him. Later in the week, while calling through our contacts save on the VP, we met Eduardo! He is very interested in the idea of modern day prophets and also about eternal families! 

 Our area President gave the ASL Elders new boundaries.  They are the ASL branch boundaries.  

This will allow us to go to a lot of ASL events and to meet a lot of new friends...At least when we get to socialize again!

Unfortunately no one was able to make it to church, but we still thoroughly enjoyed our ASL worship service! There was a rather distracting man who would not stop chewing for the entire service, which normally wouldn't be a problem, if he didn't look like the Easter Island head from "Night at the Museum" (I say that in the nicest way possible). It was so funny to both Elder Larsen and I, that we had to turn off our camera so as to not disrupt the rest of the participants. We then noticed someone else (in the video call) started laughing, and pulled out his phone to video what we assumed was the same man chewing. One of the best Sunday's I've had in awhile.**


For P-Day, we decided to meet up with the other ASLders and Elder Barnes/Page at the Mall. 

We went there at the pre-designated time, and then made a call to inquire where the others were. (apparently all of T-mobile was down, and so we couldn't call, but we could video call with Facebook) Elder Barnes answered the phone. I asked where they were, and Elder Barnes laughed and said "On the way to the ER".

I was obviously confused until the camera shifted to the top of Elder Cluff's head, which had a large red incision on his crown. It was from what I could tell 3 ish inches long.
Elder Cluff replied, "It don't make me feel too good", and that's when I knew he would be fine. I don't have the full story so stay tuned.

*
Another story that happened today:
Because our phones were down, we had no way of ordering our weekly "P-day Pizza" (Sponsored by Mamma Vance). We were all disappointed. Then I remembered we had 2 working phones, VIDEO PHONES!! It has always been on my mission bucket list to call and order pizza via an interpreter, and that is what happened today! After a full belly, it was a successful endeavor.


-Elder Vance

Season 9 Episode 3: ASL is a thing!

Hello

Hello Friends & Family, 

Let me get on a little soapbox right now;

If you as a missionary are teaching someone Deaf, and dont know sign language, please refer them to the correct missionaries who are ASSIGNED to that language! We have had 4 companionships now that have asked us "how should I prepare to teach (Person)? He/she is Deaf"

Here is how you prepare, you give us a call!

To help everyone understand, if you are teaching someone who relies on Sign language as communication, and prefers to use that, dont force them to Lip read. It might work, but in the long run typically slows down lessons.

To put it in a different perspective, if you were to teach someone in Chinese, would you call them through an interpreter? Or would you refer them to the missionaries who are supposed to teach people with that language? 

Obvious answer.

Anyway, that's some of the frustrating things about being in a lesser known language. Everyone assumes they know it!

True story, we had an Elder (who found a Deaf Friend), and needed help teaching her (after trying to have her lip read for 2 lessons). It wasn't even the Missionaries who contacted us, it was a member who knew a little bit of sign language, but asked for help interpreting (which is perfectly fine). When I asked the Elder what his experience was with Sign language, he said, and I quote;

"Well, they offered it as a class at my high school. I took chinese, BUT I thought about taking ASL."

Sheesh

Alrighty, we had some fun filming new videos this week!!

First of all, we got permission from President Hammon to wake up earlier than normal, to try to get the sunrise in our video shots. We woke up at 4 AM, and then proceeded to hike Mt.Rubidoux in our suits. It was lightly raining the entire time, but we had already come super far so we decided to film anyway. I hope you agree when I say the final product looked great!! 

Elder WooChing and Bryce helped us film (because we all needed to be in some shots) and came along with.

A bit of behind the scenes, I absolutely destroyed my suit pants. They will never be in use again! On Mt.Rubidoux, there is a bridge called "Peace Bridge" which can be seen in our video (we are all under it). After filming that scene, I took a lunge to get over a tall rock wall. Almost immediately I felt and heard a tear. This wasn't super bad because it was only right beneath my crotch, and so no one could see it. Later in the video, as the 3 ASLders are climbing stairs, I was behind the camera for 2 reasons; 

1. To get Elder WooChing and Bryce in the shot

2. So no one would see the now larger hole in my pants as I climbed the steps

**

All was well descending the Mountain,
 until I went to get into the car.
It was a rather low car, and being 6'3" it was a hassle.
My pants thought the same, as I heard a
louder rip happening,

I knew exactly what happened.

They tore completely from
back to front (with a few inches surviving). 

We also filmed a new "Spicy Chicken, with Spicy Questions" video, it hurt alot to film, so stay tuned for that to be released this week.

I went on a enlightening exchange with Elder WooChing, and we had a District activity this week and played Volleyball.

That's about all the highlights!!

-Elder Vance

Season 9 Episode 2: Hot sauce & Hot missionaries

Hello Friends & Family,

 We had a very successful week!

Our A/C has been leaking for a little while, Elder Larsen suspected that the pipes had ice on them, and if we let them melt it would work again. This seemed to do the trick! We let it thaw, and cleaned up the water and it is no longer leaking. So no more 90⁰+ apartments.


We have a new VP (video phone) set up! When the Sorenson tech guy came to our apartment he offered to replace both VPs instead of one. We accepted of course! After he set them both up, he saw that one of our screens had a crack starting to grow on it. Because you need a TV to use a VP, Sorenson usually provides a package with a TV when they initially set up, so he offered us a replacement. Once again we accepted!

Later in the week, we filmed a new video for our ASL page "Spicy Chicken with Spicy Questions". It Is an interview type video, where we answer common questions about the church, and also questions about the soul. Before each question we have to eat some chicken doused in rather spicy sauce. This makes for both an entertaining and enlightening video! I finished editing it and put captions on the entirety of the video, only to have it accidentally deleted. However the Show must go on! I will edit it again and post it likely tonight.

We had a miracle from our facebook page.             You would expect someone Deaf to contact us directly, hopefully with an interest in learning more, but this miracle was not as expected.                           Our page was messaged by a member in Blythe California, this is not in our mission boundary, but is in our ASL branch boundary.                                           A member who was helping interpret for a Deaf investigator in Blythe, contacted us and asked for help in teaching the lessons.                                          She had a minimal background in ASL, so she didn't know some of the religious signs. We set up an appointment and met our new friend Mel!

It's been a great week, Things are starting to pick up in exciting and interesting ways.  The Lord works in mysterious ways.  Always be ready for what He has in store for you.  Be prayerful & humble and you will see what He has in store for you.

-Elder Vance