Month: July 2019

This week feels like it has gone waay to fast. When I woke up to my p-day alarm, i thought my phone was broken. It’s not, so here I am!

7: Eugene Saturday Market is WEIRD We found out that there was a Saturday market going on and thought it would be a great chance to go talk with people! Also I wanted to see if I could pick up something cool. I’m going to give you the highlights because detailing everything would take up the character cap of this email. Highlight reel: Lots of high people, lots of girls who have GREAT relationships with their fathers, plenty of homeless people, quite a few guitar boys entertaining everyone, a really good lemonade and chat with the stall owner, a Spider-man magnet, but no knives (What is this, England?) Elder Evans talked with a stall owner in Spanish for 45 minutes, so I just sat to the side and talked with a lady who was selling handmade paper for $20. Didn’t buy any though, because it was really crappy paper. But hey, it’s good for the environment?

6: Patrick is a cool guy Last week we found a guy named Patrick, he was the first one who opened his door to us all night, and was also the nicest person we met that night! Well, he has continued to be the nicest person! We’ve had a couple lessons with him, going over the plan of salvation, and answering all sorts of questions he has. Good dude, has plenty of Scarface memorabilia

5: Being with Elder O’Bannon again! We had exchanges with our zone leaders, and I went with Elder O’Bannon, while our companions went together. It was great to be able to tract with him again, in an actual neighborhood!

4: Cereal is too dangerous I decided to TReAt mY SeLf and buy a fat bag of fruity pebbles. Well, because cereal is too easy to make in the morning I haven’t been making good breakfasts. Also I’ve gained a couple pounds. So I’m no longer going to listen to the siren song of Fred Flintstone’s breakfast delicacy.

3: Repentance is a happy thing We’ve been talking a lot about repentance this past week. A lot of people’s perception of repentance is that it is a scary thing, and something that you should avoid. But that’s not a feeling that is of Christ. He wants you to come and change for the better, just because you slipped up once on something doesn’t mean that you can’t access the eternal power of the Atonement. That’s Satan’s line of thinking, and he’s a punk. Screw him. Repentance is really a joyous occasion, you get to be better and feel better.

2: You know what else feels better? Air Conditioning! After weeks of hot, almost sleepless nights, we decided to jerry rig an AC. It’s sketchy and ghetto AF, but hey, we can sleep at night.

1: You cannot breathe Coke. No matter how hard you try. We have been doing service for the Eugene mission, and they had several large pallets of soda. The mission, should you choose to accept it, is to open all the soda cans/bottles and pour them out so the empty cans and bottles can be recycled. Because all this soda is expired, or can’t be sold for whatever reason, a good portion of them will explode. I regretted taking a shower that morning, cause I just took one as soon as I got back to the apartment. We spent several hours breathing caffeinated air. It was a barrel of fun!

Ya boi

Elder James Berky 

I don’t have much time, so ill go over some quick stuff. 

4: Tracting has finally turned up!  After hours and hours of fruitless tracting we found Seth and Kat! A wonderful young couple who invited us in immediately! Turns out they had both been meeting with missionaries but since they had moved they lost contact. Kat loves coming to church, and the fellowship it provides! We are really looking forward to meeting with them again!

3: Somebody sure is confident  I’ve included a picture of a doorstep we were on, where they left the keys just hanging next to the door. They might be fake, or booby-trapped (doubt) but it was funny either way.

2: church was awesome! We had some great talks about listening to the prophets, and Sunday school was awesome as well. Plus we got rice crispies! 

1: addressing the title So, elder Clark woke up with a really bad migraine. So he took some pills and passed out. For 4 hours! Yaaayy, time to clean the apartment cause you can only study for so long. When he woke up, I asked him how he was doing, and he told me we were going to the Urgent Care so be could get an IV drip. We got a ride over, and he got taken care of while I watched one if those home-makeover shows on the clinic TV. I don’t think I miss TV all that much, cause they kept running the same few ads, ugh. We were only there for a few hours, and had dinner at a Mongolian grill with a Sister Cook.

Well, I’ve got to get shooping But I know this church is true, and if you follow the guidance and council of the Lord’s anointed, you will receive blessings. 

Ya boiElder James Berky 

P.S. I made a BLT by weaving the bacon strips and it was 

So this week started off great, but then just hit a brick wall.

6: Wow, look at all this graffiti  Because Eugene is a city littered with people who have too much time on their hands, there is naturally a lot of graffiti. Some really cool, and some… really lame. We see a lot of it on the bike path that we walk every day, and every time we pass this one hammer and sickle I spit on it.

5: can I buy motorcycle? Saw a nice motorcycle for sale, only $1000!! We talked to the owner of it, and he just wanted to get rid of it. Could use a little bit of tuning he said but otherwise it was fine. Dang, don’t think that President Orton would want a couple of missionaries cruising around on that type of bike.

4: How can I become an elder? We got a call on Sunday, a call from Zach who wanted to know how quickly he could become an elder. Well, the first step is baptism we told Zach at our first lesson with him. He agreed to be baptized on August 10th! He’s got some trouble under his belt, and isn’t in the best situation, but wants to change for the better. We can try to take the people out of the slums, but they’ll fall right back in. That’s why we give them the knowledge of Christ. Who will take the slums out of the people, and they in turn will take themselves to higher places.

3: Hello, is anyone home?? I wish I could have shared that message with more people this week, but for some reason, we just couldn’t find anyone to talk to!! Only one out of every ten doors would open, and those who would answer were “fine where they’re at”. Ugghh it’s fine. We were working, and that’s what matters.

2: I miss the coastal weather The Oregon coast is it’s own micro climate, where the weather never got over 70° F. It was so nice, but here it has gotten high 80’s. I’m so spoiled, but grateful, so is it really spoiled? I don’t know, I’m just tired of the spicy sun that is trying to burn my skin off.

1: Spanish missionary work is fun! Elder Clark and I were trying to figure out a way to get into this one trailer park. It says “no trespassing” and “no soliciting” etc. Normally I’ll obey the “no trespassing” because violating that could land you in court and court sucks. But this was a PHAT trailer park and we wanted to knock it anyways. Normally if we have an “appointment” set up the park management let’s us do our thing. We didn’t have an appointment, but we did have a member! Sister Garcia, don’t know her, she might be less active. So we sent, said “screw you” to the park management (only joking) and said hi to sister Garcia. She was a Spanish speaker, and didn’t know about Come Follow Me, so after briefly explaining what it is we said we’d be back with a booklet. The next day, we talk with the Spanish elders and go on splits. One set would talk to Sis. Garcia, and the other would react some janky apartments that had plenty of Latinos in our area. Win-Win!

That’s all, imma go make a dank BLT cause I’ve been craving one this past little bit.

Love ya, but the Savior loves  you more.

Ya boi Elder Berky