Whoa....... March 24th

Woah, it is the last week of March, a quarter of the way through the year what the heck is going on with time!?!!?!?!

So this week, have a couple funny stories, the main one is last Thursday I auditioned for choir, mainly because I am pretty confident I am going to be a "tech" person, so I figured what the heck! why not? get involved see both sides of the audition... it would save travel stuff. 

Anyways in the audition and the guy running the whole mission choir thing is some actor who has been in the Bible videos. He has us all warming up and after about 10 minutes he looks at me asks me what my name is I tell him and he has me start the song, I didn't do to hot because the bass part was high, anyways after like 10 seconds, he asks; "Is your name really Elder Slapcheck!?" Everyone of course starts laughing and I am like "No it is Sobczak" and he says; "You see elders and sisters - singers must be able to sing as well as properly pronounce things (Making a crack at himself) then says; "Elder Sobczak we are going to invite you not to audition for choir"! 

Oh man it was hilarious! ;) 

Then for the rest of the time I just got to sit in there and listen to everyone else auditioning and some good, some terrible and listen to the guy just beat up on the people singing.  It was not to good of an environment for a missionary to be in, you spend all day getting yelled at then you get picked on at choir by a church member so it was for sure a laughable, awkward non productive experience. 

Another funnny story was on Saturday night we went to a social gathering for old singles that were on the ward and in the stake. You see us as missionaries will go to any activity on the grounds there will be people there that will be nice and food to eat, maybe even people to connect with to eventually teach!  So we go, it is at someones house, actually the home of an ex-communicated member, who loves the church. The food is eaten and then all of a sudden a Karaoke thing is turned on and everyone is singing oldies from like the 60's and 70's. It was so weird ... weird I tell you, seeing 45-60 year olds singing and dancing in someone's living room singing to old songs with Karaoke machine!!!!

Those are my funny stories, the work is going good. This is the last week of the transfer so on Saturday we will all be finding out who is staying and going. Should be fun and exciting to see what will happen. 

Yesterday had the opportunity to interview a lady for baptism that is always a fun experience. Her husband has been a member for about 3 years and she is now making the decision to enter into the waters of baptism so it is always awesome to hear people's stories on how they got to where they are, experiences they have gone through, and lessons learned. 

Glad to be out here on the mission. Life is good and miracles really do happen every single day. Keep your eye focused on the little tiny blessings and IT WILL never seem like life is difficult hard or tuff!   Those things do happen, but it is dwelling on them that makes it all worse.

Keep up the good awesome work and do all you can to be guided by the spirit. 

Love you all so much and again thank you for all you do for me. 

Have a great week :) 

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

March 17th Happy St. Patty!

So Friday night we were on the Peninsula which is Satan's home!!!  We were out walking around the area doing some stop by's around 7-7:30 at night.  At about 7:45 we get back to our car and right before I get in I notice this girl crying sitting against a wall. I asked her if she needed any help and well this is when all crazy breaks loose...she in tears is like "Seriously someone just stole my car" I am like oh dang, what can we do, have you called the police? Her: (In Tears) "Can you call them for me I do not know to work technology" hahaha!!! at this point I realized, we all did, how drunk she was, so drunk, just a basket case of drunken emotion. 

So we call them for her and she is just crying, just has no control of emotion at this point. She starts going off about how "It was probably the (Bad Word) homeless guy" -(who we had just seen).   "I (XXXXX) cannot believe this just happened to me".   "I (XXXX) just got kicked out of my (XXXX) house and have no place to go." 

So at this point we have no idea what to do . She and her friend start yelling at each other. The first girl comes back holding a purse freaking out because she doesn't know where her purse is, she throws the one in her hand down on the ground and just walks, walks towards all the bars about1.5 miles away at the end of the peninsula. Her friend then comes over, a little less tanked ... So her friend is on the phone when all of a sudden, she GETS IN OUR CAR passenger side and sits down. She starts asking us for our keys and we have no clue what is going on. Finally she gets out holding a Book of Mormon and Bible, she is now without her phones, because they are in the car. She grabs her phones and then gets on them again. Mean while we have no idea where her friend went.

Finally we are walking around looking for her car assuming in her drunken stupor she just forgot where she parked, and while we were walking around we swear someone was video taping us or taking pictures and thought we were going to end up on punk'd or something!!

 Finally her friend comes back, got a taxi back to where we were, still drunk and still a basket case.... by now it's 8:20. Finally by 8:30 we said our goodbyes, the second girl tried to give us back the Books she took but we told her she could keep them! The second girl also wanted to go back to the bar because she left her ID and credit card there but her friend, still in a drunken basket case state of mind said "I cannot move I am frozen" of course in tears. 

Moral of the story ... Do not drink, ever! they were insane and needed someone to slap the stupid right out of them. But they are still children of God so hopefully they will read the book and I pray they got back home safely. God moves in mysterious ways - right!?!?!

Well that is all I have to say for this week. Work is going good and really starting to pick up. Keep up awesome work and as always I can not wait to hear from all of you. As you can tell I need uplifting letters ASAP!

Love you all bunches

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

March 10th

Elder Bosley and Elder Davis

Floating dock of a members house where we had dinner last night - Super Awesome!

Well, this week has been a pretty good one I would have to say. It is starting to settle in that - hey I am living in Newport Beach California which is pretty awesome!!!!  This past week was even better because we had zone conference which was great!!

 

 

Had exchanges with my Zone Leader Elder Epperson, he was in the MTC with me so it was really fun to go out and work with him and learn from him. A lot different going on a exchange with someone who has been out the same amount of time as you so we had some good talks and learned a lot from each other as we went out and worked. 

We met with an RM who is in LA and is currently working on coming back to church. He served in the Tacoma Washington mission, knew where Elma was at and served in Shelton for his last area. So it was cool to talk with him and see his desire to draw closer to Christ and admit that he needs to get better at doing the basics. Always cool when people realize this for themselves. It was funny he was like look guys I served a mission I know what you are trying to do. The missionaries before already tried that and it turned me off, I know the doctrine and I know the church is true, I just want you to come over sit down and talk with me, go over some scriptures and answer any questions I may have.  It is always weird dealing with people who actually are aware of what you are trying to do so it should be pretty fun. 

Along with that we met with a lady who is Romanian. We went over the Book Of Mormon with her and asked her to read it from the beginning all the way through. It was so funny she saw the pictures at the front and was like  - "I didn't even know these were here, I guess thats what I get for only opening up to random pages and not at the beginning."   She is really excited and is looking forward to reading it.

 

Zone conference was good, had it on Thursday and basically we were RE-trained on a training we got about 6 weeks ago on how to more effectively teach, you know the church always trying to find that more effective way. So it was really good, President Orgill gave this awesome training on inviting the Forces of Darkness and Light into our lives. How we can be more obedient and more consecrated and what we need to do to have the forces of light in our lives to help us overcome sin and temptation .

 

Oh as well, President Orgill submitted my Ecclesiastical Endorsement to Provo, so I am just waiting on my high school counselor to send in her recommendation to the school. Anyways, hopefully I can get a hold of them today and get that straightened out. Good thing I have 6 months to get it in. Just need it done because summer is going to happen really quick then I have lost her.

 

Hope all is well, the companions are going good. Still prideful and love to talk about themselves and have an experience for everything that is always better than your experience, always. So that is fun to deal with. Hope you have a great week and cannot wait to hear from you.

Love you all lots keep up the awesome work!!!:)

-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

March 3rd Crazy goings on....

So first things first no pictures this week as I seem to have misplaced my camera in my car or apartment, so hopefully next week i will able to send you some stuff. 

Anyways ... this week has been a really good from a personal perspective, a pretty lousy one from my companion perspective but I will  not bore with the lousy details. Life in Newport Beach is exciting to say the least, but really not my cup of tea haha. Yeah the beach is nice and the weather is awesome, but it gets old, maybe that's how people feel about the rain, I of course never get tired of rain but get tired of sunshine!

Meeting lots of people not to mention any names but in a nut shell one thinks this really wealthy guy is out to get her killed because she wrote a play that incriminates him and will get his "Story" out to the world. I think if she is right, it will be a movie, if she is wrong and stays this crazy, it will be a movie, so either way from the way I see it, I am going to be involved in a movie!! ;)  She is super paranoid and thinks all are out to get her.  We invited her to go to something at night and she said the only way she would is if someone that was rich and well known was driving so it would make the news.  So ... yeah! Some crazy goings on here in California!

I find this amazing just a general thought, In my opinion no one should be on government assistance and not do anything, the way I see it if you don't do anything and let the government take care of you ... well anyway the government shouldn't pay people to live on the beach!  You live in paradise for free essentially. Anyways, rant over.

 

So I think I might be onto something with a career/major. So you know how i mentioned last week that verse from Alma do not seek after money or the vain things of this world? 

Alma39-
 12 And now the Spirit of the Lord doth say unto me: Command thy children to do good, lest they lead away the hearts of many people to destruction; therefore I command you, my son, in the fear of God, that ye refrain from your iniquities;

 13 That ye turn to the Lord with all your mind, might, and strength; that ye lead away the hearts of no more to do wickedly; but rather return unto them, and acknowledge your faults and that wrong which ye have done.

 14 ^aSeek not after riches nor the vain things of this world; for behold, you cannot carry them with you.

Well I wanted to reevaluate what I truly loved doing. I have realized I like this whole Middle Management bit, I am close enough to the people (Missionaries to District ratio is about 4 - 1 in terms of companionships maybe 6-1) Instead of this upper management deal (Zone Leader to missionary ratio 1-15 in terms of companionships)  and Assistant is 1 - about oh 70 or so in terms of companionships. Thus the conclusion that I was thinking is to be somewhere in Management where I could be with the people but still know the big guys and also be in theatre. So i thought of getting a degree in Business Management and Technical Theatre = potentially set/light design or stage management. Let me know what you think about that idea.

http://www.wwu.edu/majors/theatre-ba

https://cfac.byu.edu/tma/ 

All in all the work is going great. This week has been a real eye opener for me and has let me see that God and Christ really are looking out for us in all ways. It does not matter what we have done or haven't done they care about us and want to help us in anyway possible. It is awesome to see and feel of the love the Savior and what He has for you. He truly has taken upon himself the sins and bad feelings of the world and will help you through all of your trials as you are willing to continually accept him in your life and look for help and guidance, He wants to help us and will help us, we just have to invite him to do so.

 

Keep up the good work, I am so thankful for all of you do and cannot wait to hear from you. Have  a week full of miracles and wonderful stories. 

Know I keep you all in my prayers and know that the Lord is watching over each and every one of you. LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!
-- 

"Fourth Floor Last Door"

Elder Amric Zane Sobczak

California, Carlsbad, USA

January 2013-June 2013

California, Irvine, USA

July 2013-December 2014

Stay within the Lines