Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 10:12 AM
This has been a long week.
It's always been a joke amongst the Spanish Missionaries, how we look like migration workers. Well, this week it's become more of a reality! Our normal mode of finding as Spanish Missionaries is knocking. While walking through apartment complexes, trailer parks, and more impoverished housing we look for signs to help us out. To side track for a moment I'll enlighten you on these signs.
When you examine a door, the first thing you try to find is the Satellite dishes. Dish Network is the most popular amongst Hispanics, and the satellite of choice is the Dish 500. It has two prongs, and simply says Dish 500 on it. This is an 80% chance that the door you are about to knock is Hispanic. Occasionally you will take a visual check, and see where the cable runs; if you are working an apartment complex with Breeze-ways. This is the first sign.
The next sign is a mop outside. It is usually a standard mop. Wood handle, painted blue or green, and the mop head. Rarely is it anything but this. Whenever you see a mop outside the door, you just knock it. It is a 99.99% chance of being Hispanic. This sign is not as prevalent as others. However, when seen, there are no questions asked!
Those are the big ones. The ones you pray for when you hit the pavement and go tracting. Others include, shoes outside the door, broken blinds, bed sheets in place of blinds, Dora the Explorer toys (I'm not joking), Bottles/cans of Corona and (or) Modelo Beer, Mexican flags, signs on the door that say "Este Hogar es Catolico, no aceptamos propoganda de ninguna orta religion" (I especially like knocking these doors), and if you are looking from afar, Honda Civics that have more than three colors, and Auto Zone Chrome pieces.
These are a few of many signs that help us narrow down which doors to knock. At times they are tricky to find, so we'll just starting knocking. If it is English, we’ll try to get in, and teach. After the contact (and or) lesson we ask if there are Hispanics that live next to them. If there are, they are more than willing to point them out!
So, this is our normal way of finding. I don't recall if I've ever went over this, but, if you have. It's good stuff to know if you want to go find some good Mexican Food! This is what I've done most of my mission to go find new investigators, but as of late, it's not working.
We will go up to doors that meet these stated qualifications, and they won't open. Little kids will look through the blinds, squelch something to their mom, and immediately lights will go out in the house. Then, silence. I've had this happen a few times on my mission, and it's worth a chuckle. We break out some pictures of the Savior and it usually helps. However, we can't rely on that anymore!
This isn't blind fear either. We have seen the migration workers out and about doing their jobs. They go two-by-two, in white shirts and ties. The only thing that separates them appearance-wise from us... They have patches, we have name-tags. They have utility-belts, we have backpacks. So it's easy to see why there is a mix up.
Just a quick story... Last week we met a man named Noe. He had just moved from Indiana to Columbus. He is Hondurans, and going to try his luck here in Ohio. We set up a return appointment for the following week. We came back to our lesson the following week, and nobody answered the door. We left a note, and tried back the next day. It took knocking a few times but his wife opened. She said she got our note the day prior. She said if we hadn't of left a note explaining who we were, she wouldn't have opened the door (Thinking we were migration). She then told us that her husband was picked up by migration while leaving the apartment complex, a few days before! We were shocked!
So this is the situation we are working with. It's been a struggle. However, it is the Lord very frankly telling me, "Go work with the less-actives". So, that is what we will be doing in these coming weeks! Hitting the less-actives because they don't think we are "La Migra".
That is the tempo here in Columbus. We are going to take the Lord's blunt counsel and hit the pavement!
I love you all and hope all is well back home. The weather can't decide what it wants to do. So, I imagine it's better on your side!
I love you all a bunch, and hope you don't think this is a migration document!
Para Siempre,
Elder Ipson
The Great Ohio Columbus Mission
It's always been a joke amongst the Spanish Missionaries, how we look like migration workers. Well, this week it's become more of a reality! Our normal mode of finding as Spanish Missionaries is knocking. While walking through apartment complexes, trailer parks, and more impoverished housing we look for signs to help us out. To side track for a moment I'll enlighten you on these signs.
When you examine a door, the first thing you try to find is the Satellite dishes. Dish Network is the most popular amongst Hispanics, and the satellite of choice is the Dish 500. It has two prongs, and simply says Dish 500 on it. This is an 80% chance that the door you are about to knock is Hispanic. Occasionally you will take a visual check, and see where the cable runs; if you are working an apartment complex with Breeze-ways. This is the first sign.
The next sign is a mop outside. It is usually a standard mop. Wood handle, painted blue or green, and the mop head. Rarely is it anything but this. Whenever you see a mop outside the door, you just knock it. It is a 99.99% chance of being Hispanic. This sign is not as prevalent as others. However, when seen, there are no questions asked!
Those are the big ones. The ones you pray for when you hit the pavement and go tracting. Others include, shoes outside the door, broken blinds, bed sheets in place of blinds, Dora the Explorer toys (I'm not joking), Bottles/cans of Corona and (or) Modelo Beer, Mexican flags, signs on the door that say "Este Hogar es Catolico, no aceptamos propoganda de ninguna orta religion" (I especially like knocking these doors), and if you are looking from afar, Honda Civics that have more than three colors, and Auto Zone Chrome pieces.
These are a few of many signs that help us narrow down which doors to knock. At times they are tricky to find, so we'll just starting knocking. If it is English, we’ll try to get in, and teach. After the contact (and or) lesson we ask if there are Hispanics that live next to them. If there are, they are more than willing to point them out!
So, this is our normal way of finding. I don't recall if I've ever went over this, but, if you have. It's good stuff to know if you want to go find some good Mexican Food! This is what I've done most of my mission to go find new investigators, but as of late, it's not working.
We will go up to doors that meet these stated qualifications, and they won't open. Little kids will look through the blinds, squelch something to their mom, and immediately lights will go out in the house. Then, silence. I've had this happen a few times on my mission, and it's worth a chuckle. We break out some pictures of the Savior and it usually helps. However, we can't rely on that anymore!
This isn't blind fear either. We have seen the migration workers out and about doing their jobs. They go two-by-two, in white shirts and ties. The only thing that separates them appearance-wise from us... They have patches, we have name-tags. They have utility-belts, we have backpacks. So it's easy to see why there is a mix up.
Just a quick story... Last week we met a man named Noe. He had just moved from Indiana to Columbus. He is Hondurans, and going to try his luck here in Ohio. We set up a return appointment for the following week. We came back to our lesson the following week, and nobody answered the door. We left a note, and tried back the next day. It took knocking a few times but his wife opened. She said she got our note the day prior. She said if we hadn't of left a note explaining who we were, she wouldn't have opened the door (Thinking we were migration). She then told us that her husband was picked up by migration while leaving the apartment complex, a few days before! We were shocked!
So this is the situation we are working with. It's been a struggle. However, it is the Lord very frankly telling me, "Go work with the less-actives". So, that is what we will be doing in these coming weeks! Hitting the less-actives because they don't think we are "La Migra".
That is the tempo here in Columbus. We are going to take the Lord's blunt counsel and hit the pavement!
I love you all and hope all is well back home. The weather can't decide what it wants to do. So, I imagine it's better on your side!
I love you all a bunch, and hope you don't think this is a migration document!
Para Siempre,
Elder Ipson
The Great Ohio Columbus Mission
