04/04/2009 (Questionnaire)

We recently sent Matthew a questionnaire (in bold). His responses are italicized.

As I said I was going to do in my last letter, I have made a questionnaire for you to fill out at your leisure and then mail it back when you can.

How many missionaries are there in your mission? 180’ish
How many of them are Spanish? Only about 30
What do you usually do for breakfast and lunch? I usually have Fruit Loops for breakfast. For lunch, one day a week, we get a free meal at like a diner. We usually go out ourselves one other day and just make whatever on the other days.
How often do you go to the grocery store? Every Week but just for like milk and stuff
Are their Sunday School and Priesthood meetings in Spanish as well as Sacrament Meetings? Yes
Have you had an opportunity to play the piano yet? I do in district meeting but not in church.
Do you have enough money for the things that you need? Yes
Do you spend most of your day speaking Spanish or only a small part? Probably 50/50
Are you teaching anybody else consistently other than Todd? Consistently, no. With Spanish you get in a lot of doors but they don’t really progress.
Is Todd a Spanish speaker? No
What does he do for work? Right now nothing. He wants to move back to Vancouver with his wife so he is looking for a job there. He was a plumber but says he doesn’t want to do that anymore.
Has he been a member for a long time? Yes, his whole life.
Is his wife a member? Yes
What do you do for service? A lot of moving in. We helped a guy we met tracting re-sod his lawn. People have been here so long that they have basements full of crap so we have cleaned out basements twice. We have had service every Saturday so far.
What have you been doing to get your service hours? Well we don’t need a certain amount of hours but the last question answered what we do.
Have you been able to teach a whole discussion in Spanish yet? Yes, the first and second.
What is your favorite thing about your mission so far? How close you get to people. I have like 200 best friends already.
Have you been called on to teach a church lesson or give a talk in Spanish yet? Not yet.
What do you usually do on your P-day? E-mail and play basketball
Are you able to get pictures via e-mail okay or does it take too long to download? No, it was real easy
Does the Spanish branch have its own Bishop and leadership or do they combine with the English speaking ward? They have a “group presidency” but that’s it. Just three guys that are in charge of the group. That’s all.
Do you ever need to do any cooking? Just like macaroni and cheese and stuff.
Did you get any serious investigators out of your special sacrament meeting that you had? Not yet, Most of them were less-actives that came.
Are you living with Spanish speakers? no
Are there any other people in the home besides Mom and Dad? Nope
Are there a lot of farms in the area? Yes, grape farms for wine.
What seems to be the major industry in the area? Wineries or the penitentiary or working for the city.
Are the Spanish members pretty good missionaries? Not really
Are there Spanish families or mostly single people? A couple of families then a couple of singles that the husband won’t go out and what not.
Are you fed mostly by the Spanish members? Probably once or twice a week.
Do you serve the Spanish branch and the regular ward or are you just assigned to the Spanish branch? We do both
How often do you end up tracting? Maybe an hour a day. Not much so far.
Is the English speaking ward very big? About 150
Are most of the English speaking members long-time members or are there a lot of new converts? A mixture of both. I would say more converts than our ward but not a ton.
Do there seem to be many baptisms in Walla Walla and/or your mission or is the work kind of slow? Kinda slow. The last baptism was in October.

Well, I can’t think of anything else to ask right now. Fill this out when you have time and send it back. You are doing an awesome job. We love you.