Eating Balut

Kayla, our 16 year old investigator, is progressing very well.  She asks the best questions and says wonderful prayers.  Her prayers are super sincere, engaged and personal.  Kayla is on track to be baptized on August 20.  She moved the date so her sister could attend. 

Madelene has the new member “glow” :)  She looks like she belongs.  She’s happy and understands what is taught more readily.  She took us out to dinner and told us about growing up in Beverly Hills.  She lived near Marilyn Monroe.  They were friends with Frank Sinatra and Madelene had met Shirley Temple’s family.  Madelene said that Shirley was a miserable little girl who just got bossed around by adults.  That was sad to hear because Shirley is such a cute little girl on television. 

Funny story (sort of):  Elder Bronson and I were on exchanges in his area.  We were on bikes and trying to talk with this guy on the sidewalk, when from my left side I heared this super loud train honk.  I turned toward the sound and there’s this guy in his black suburban holding out his iPhone.  He laughed at us and yelled, “In the name of Jesus!” and then drove off.  The guy we were trying to talk with was embarrassed and walked shamefully away.

Another story: We ate dinner with a Filipino family.  The last time we ate with them they joked that next time they would feed us balut.  Well, they didn’t forget.  Thankfully, they fed us a wonderful meal and then they brought in 10 boiled duck eggs with the embryos inside and expected us to try them.  They were still hot when we got them, so as I pealed mine and waited for it to cool down a bit, I did my best to muster the courage to eat it.  The kids were laughing at us and video taping us, but they didn’t want any balut.  This was a bad sign . . . Finally, I was ready.  Although it looked disgusting (veins on the yoke and the mangled, hairy baby duck, gray on the side) and smelled a bit odd, I just closed my eyes and bit in.  I just got part of the yoke in that bite and it didn’t taste too bad.  That gave me a little more courage to finish.  Honestly, I felt the way I did before going down that slide at the Kalahari that drops you and then climbing the stairs to do it again.  I knew I would finish it, but I was not comfortable.  The baby duck was a bit crunchy and kind of stringy.  I finished, but one was enough for me.  Elder Palmer did it too.  His baby duck was a little further along in its development, so his was more crunchy and feathery.  He was a good sport though.

Transfers were last week.  Hyrum stayed in Thousand Oaks, but got a new companion.  Only 7 of 80 companionships stayed together this transfer.  He is now a Zone Leader and had to move into an apartment with another set of elders.  His apartment was going to be given to some sister missionaries.  Twenty-two new elders came in this past transfer!  As of today, Hyrum has 5 weeks!  He will return home September 14!!  We can’t wait :)

This week our ward got to do a training for the entire mission leadership (district leaders, zone leaders, sister training leaders, and YSA missionaries). We were chosen to show what we do to be so successful and to give the missionaries tools to use to help the other missionaries in the mission become more unified with their wards. We received a lot of good feedback from President, the assistants, and the missionaries.

Elder Palmer & Elder Ruby at a picnic

Twins: Elder Ruby & Elder Palmer