Questionaire (03/09/2010)

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

Do you have many opportunities to play the piano? Just in district meeting once a week.
Now that you serve only in the Spanish branch, do you spend most of your day speaking Spanish? Yeah pretty much. I only speak English with my companion sometimes.
What do you do for service? Actually not much. We are always asking but Hispanics don’t like to accept help. So just randomly we will do things.
What is your favorite thing about your mission so far? My favorite would probably be when people start asking us questions because you know the Lord has put us in their path and they need to hear something about the gospel.
Do you give talks or teach lessons at Church fairly regularly? Not really. This branch is really good. I have had to bare my testimony once and teach gospel principles once. That’s it.
Do you ever need to do any cooking or do you have dinner appointments regularly? We only cook for lunch. The rest are just dinner appointments.
You mentioned that you do a lot of talking on the streets. How does that work? It works fairly well. You never know who is ready for the gospel, so you have to talk to everyone.
How big is the city of Yakima? I would say about the size of Glendale’s population-wise. Maybe a little smaller, but a lot more condensed. (Look here to see what the population is.)
Is Yakima a farming area or is there another industry there? It is all fruit orchards. There are a lot of apple trees.
How often do you end up tracting? We normally only tract for about 5-10 minute increments. Only if the first plan we had falls through as well as the second, then we tract.
What is different now that you are the senior companion? Not much, I drive and I am responsible for pretty much everything that happens.
How many members are in your ward, or is it a branch? There are about 130 that come to the branch.
How big is the ward area? It covers all of Yakima and surrounding areas.
Do you spend every P-day with the other Elders in your District? Yes
Do you play basketball at the church? Yes
How many Spanish Elders are there now? Elders – 26, sisters - 6
You seem to have spent most of your mission in basically the same area. Is that where most of the Spanish speaking people are? Yes, this is where all of the farm land is.
Will you most likely stay in that area or are there other areas in your mission where there are Spanish speaking Elders? I will probably stay on this side, there are only two Spanish areas on the west side.
People ask me what they can send you. What is the thing that you most appreciate getting in the mail? I love letters, I don’t need anything else, just a letter in the mail.
Tell us about the person that you have taught, that you have seen the biggest change in. It is probably Jorge here in Yakima. I have seen him go from an ornery old man who thought God was never going to forgive him of his sins to a happy guy who is trying to fight through Satan’s temptations to go to church.