Happy Fourth!

Hello world! Happy birth of AMERICA!! I am so happy to be here in America where we have AC and burgers and paved roads and Wal-marts and be-flowered baby girl headbands and FREEDOM and trashy magazines and the gospel and Abraham Lincoln and fake tans! This is the land of privilege, and it is so good to be here. Especially here in Stockton, CA. This week we have been teaching a lot. We're currently teaching an 8 year old deaf child named Isaiah. His parents are being taught by elders but they want their son to be a part of all this too and be baptized with them at the end of July, so the elders asked us to team teach the family with them. We've been teaching Isaiah for about a month and his signing level is low enough that I can teach and communicate with him fairly well in American Sign Language. Our other deaf investigator is a different story. His name is Fue (he's Hmong) and he is an extremely skilled signer. I can't understand a word he says ever so Sister Despain is pretty much on her own with him. But that's okay! She's doing great with him. We picked up another mormon.org investigator this week who more or less referred himself to us. His name is Tony, and he told us that a few years ago we wouldn't have caught him dead listening to a word the Mormons had to say, but things have changed in his life and he's ready to hear it now. We taught him lesson 1 (the Restoration) with a member last week, and it was probably the best first lesson I've ever taught. He was so ready and open. A friend gave him the Book of Mormon on CD and over the last few months he's listened to 19 out of the 23 CDs. Pretty impressive! He's very interesting. Anyway, that's all the investigators I have time to tell you about, but please have a burger and light a firework in the name of American and enjoy the 4th!