March 31, 2008

Greetings from Wilmington home of the brave and the drunk. This week
has been a very hard week for me to say the least. I have been very tired
and extremely sick. Elder Toolson and I have decided to try and run
every morning, but every time that I start running I begin to get sick.
Last night I got little if any sleep. This was in large part due to
the fact that the gay homosexual transvestite drug dealer who lives up
stairs was in the middle of a large drug deal. Many of his friends were
outside cursing and what not.
Monday night was very odd to say the least. Once me and elder
Toolson arrived home and started preparing for bed we heard a loud explosion.
We ran outside and we saw that the building across the street was on
fire. From what I can gather the fire was either an accident or an act
of violence. Luckily no one was hurt, but for a while a women was
trapped inside the house. I was pretty amazed.
We are teaching an 86 year old lady by the name of Dorris Daniels.
She is the craziest and funniest old lady in the world. She calls us her
boyfriends. She is in love Chuck Norris and that’s all she talks about.
Dorris is really slow but keeps all of her commitments and both Elder
Toolson and I believe that she will eventually get baptized. The second
meeting we had with her she told us that she wanted to change her live
and she knew that the Book of Mormon was true, but she also told us
that it would be a long time and one that would take a lot of patience.
Both Elder Toolson and I are finding enjoyment and happiness in her
smallest achievements.
This week we stumbled across a girl who was balling. We asked what the
matter was and she said that her brother had just been shot and killed.
It is amazing for me to see the depression and sorrow that is the
everyday life for the people that I try to serve. It is amazing to see how
people here believe that their lives are normal. Shootings, drugs,
rapes, and fathers abandoning their families seems like it is just another
part of life.

March 24, 2008

I have been contemplating many things in the past week and I have come to some conclusions. First, If you are a pacific Islander you can be one of three things, an awesome muscian and singer and whistler, a football player, or an alcoholic. Second, once you have drunk cobra beer and have smoked a Newport Cigarette there is no turning back. You are confined to a life long sentence of being lower class. Your hair immediately shapes to the form of a mullet. Your teeth will fall out. Your house will foreclose and you will live in the streets. Third I have decided that pet fish are nothing more than a really expensive screen saver. Yesterday was Easter. To say I was homesick would be a grave . I was desperately missing my family. I was also very mad at Elder Toolson because he made me go outside and tract at ten oclock on Easter morning. It was a very unproductive three hours of tracting and I was even more depressed then I had been before. We made our way to our car and then started driving to church. While driving we saw a man in a wheel chair with no legs in the middle of the street. After passing him something told me that I should go back and help him out. Reluctantly I told Elder Toolson to turn around and go back to help this man. He agreed. We asked what his name was and where he was going. He replied Robbie and he was going to the Sunday breakfast mission which was about two miles away. As I began to push this lame man a feeling of peace and happiness came over me like nothing I had ever experienced before. In some small way I understood what Easter meant. I thought to myself "We are all lame individuals pushing our way to a far off destination. We are all in need of a savior who can walk with us and push us as we travel to our destination." It was then I understood why I had chosen to serve a mission. It was not for the experiences that I would recieve. It was not for the number of baptisms I would or will have. I am on a mission to do good. I am on a mission to push a lame man to his destination. I am on a mission to help people. I am so grateful for the chance I have to serve this mission. It has done so much for me.
Elder Toolson and I had a knife pulled on us this week. We were in the middle of a street contact lesson when the man we were teaching pulled out a knife and told us to get the Flip (not the real word he used) out of hear before something has to go down. I ran like a girl and Elder Toolson kept on Teaching him like it was no big deal. He also gave him a pass along card. Elder toolson is nuts like that. This week we also witnessed an accident and a lady had to get put on a stretcher with a neck brace. Elder Toolson tried to give her and the ambulance krew a pass along card with our number on it.

March 17, 2008

Greetings from Wlimington Delaware home of Dupont and thats about it. I am amazed at how nothing good has ever come from Delaware. It really is hard to imagine that such a state can exist. Mom to answer your questions no one feeds me execpt for a West African family that gave me the fu fu. Elder Toolson and I cook for ourselves. He is staunchly oppossed to any and all fast food because it is against the word of wisdom (Which I am fine with because it keeps me lean and good looking). And the only excercise I ever get is lifting a four hundred pound black lady named Lucille into a van every Sunday. There is no way that I can excercise immediately when I get up. Its just not in me. I have jogged a couple of times, but the cold and humid Wilmington air leaves my lungs hacking and coughing in search for oxyegen.
On Wednesday we were walking down the street when a large lady who was reminiscant of a giant hairy sesmi street character named snufaluffagus asked us what we were doing in the middle of Wilmington. When Elder Toolson replied missionary work she said thats decent (which means really good in Philly WIlmington lingo). Elder Toolson then asked if she wanted to come with us and do missionary work and suprisingly she said yes. For the next three hours she went around passing out cards and book of mormons telling everyone that the second comming drew near. She then left. We saw her at church yesterday which was very suprising. She lives in another area and the missionaries there have taught her a first and will commit her to baptism tommorow. Hopefully she will be a good strong ward missionary one day. As soon as we get rid of her fascination with baptist doctrine.

March 10, 2008

Greetings from Wilmington Delaware "where women have beards." On Tuesday I was lucky enough to try an African dish known as Fu Fu. It tasted and looked like a steaming pile of white turd. I can't even explain how horrid it was. However, I managed to eat all of it and the lady sent out the second course which was a two week old cold fish and some delicious rice. It was not my favorite dish but as I ate both of these African delicacies I thought to myself "this is what the mission is all about. Eating dirty food that might kill you and teaching the gospel of christ."There are many things that Romulus Jones is good at. One of these things is being funny. Another is being a nice guy. However, if there is one thing he is not good at it is cutting hair.This morning Elder Toolson asked me to cut the back of his hair. I said no but he insisted. A bad job would not describe what I did. It is a mess. Luckily he hasn't looked at the back of his head in the mirror but when he does I am sure we won't be on talking terms.

March 3, 2008

Greetings from Wilmington "the land where the streets are paved with broken glass bottles and garbage." Alot has happened in the last week and I dont know if I can cover all the things that I want to.I believe that I was sorely mistaken when I said that Wilmington was the worst part of the mission. Wednesday was retraining and I was able to see what my friends from the mtc were experiencing. It is a thousand times worse than anything I've been through yet. The urban landscape in north philly is littered with bullet wholes, gangbangers, and condemned ro homes. There is about a murder a day in West and North Philly, which alone makes Philadelphia the most dangerous city in the United States. Elder Richins told me that he hears shootings every day all the day. Roaches just chill in everyones houses and it is not unusual to have a roach or two climbing on your body. Elder Moorehead told me that he was in the subway and was sitting next to a girl. When the subway started to go she immediately started punching herself in the face and then ripped off a piece of her own flesh. I can't wait to go there. I am so excited. The letters I send you will be so good. One of our investigators who came to sacrament meeting was a large 70 year old black lady. I will say that she added quite a bit of soul to our meeting. Infact during testimoney meeting everytime anyone would say amen she would stand up and do a little dance and jig. I enjoyed it, but I am not sure that anyone else did. She also told all the babbies in sacrament meeting to stop crying. She really didn't like the meeting until I started talking to another large old southern lady. We talked about fried chicken and then Lucille jumped in our conversation and they became the best of friends. I am quite excited about this. It puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
-----Original Message-----

Letter February 25, 2008

There are individuals in this world who are monsters. Whose very existance makes children run to their homes and babies cry to their mothers. On Saturday we were doing less active work and I saw the scariest thing that I ever did see. Her name was Phylis Kiefer and whoever baptized her is insane. She is about four hundred pounds mentally handycapped and has a fu man chu gotee that hangs down to her shoulders. Her legs are wrapped with bandages because she randomly gets olsers. There are no adjectives that I can use to describe the stench of a phylis and no adequate words to describe her voice. When I walked into her house she opened her door and invited us in. Her house and all of her walls are covered in stuffed animals and bottles of lotion. I don't think she knows what a toilet is either. I have never been so afraid of anything in my life.

Letter February 18, 2008

Where I am stationed may be worse then Camden, New Jersey. Wilmington as a whole is not as bad as Camden, but where I live is undoubtabley worse. My street is the worse street in all of Wilmington. In the past year there have been at least twelve murders that Chantel can remember. My guess is that there have probably been more. I thought it would be funny to count the number of gunshots I heard, but I lost track after the first few hours I have been here. Last Monday was the first day that I heard no gun shots. The average is about five per day. Drug deals happen all the time. I can't walk down the street without seeing a drug deal being made. My area reminds me of something out of Mad Max. It is so very lawless. Cars are beat down and barely run. People usually ride their quads, dirt bikes, and crotch rockets around everywhere. Its quite odd. Cops don't seem to care about hasaling people about riding offroading vehicles in the middle of the city, but then again cops don't seem to exist where I live.
Chantel has become our golden less active. On Tuesday night one of her five baby daddy (I originally told you that she only had two, but I was mistaken) stole her childrens social security numbers and is now using the money that was alloted to the children to sustain his growing drug habit. It was quite sad. Chantel, however, was not about to take it. She's got some soul. She managed to rip off a table leg and stomp out the door. We tried to retain her, but it just wasn't working. She threw both me and elder olsen off. Eventually she calmed down. We later learned that she had beat one of her baby daddy to near death, but he didn't press charges because he was too embarassed. She was in jail for attempted murder when she was twelve. Her uncle raped her and she came back at him with a knife. It was quite interesting. However, since Tuesday she has managed to progress rapidly. She felt as though we were angels sent to stop her from killing her baby daddy. She is now listening to what we say. On Friday she gave up smoking, kicked out her Boyfriend, and broke up with the boyfriend who is in jail. We are beginning to teach her friends and family now. She was going to go to church, but her breaks went out. I was quite sad. Friday the AP's came. Friday was also a landmark day because it was the first time that I got into a door. The AP did most of the work. We taught an eighty year old man named mike. He graciously let us into his house and we taught him the plan of salvation. I was so excited. Then a man came into the house and asked ""who are you."" We said we were the missionaries and then he said, "'no not you that old man sitting and smoking a cigarette in my house.'" It turns out that mike is some crazy homeless man that broke into some guys house. Quite sad actually.