Naranjas from an Ex Drug Lord

 Aloha

So Elder Cotterell and I were walking the streets of Dorchester and this man, Omar, stops us and asks who we are. We explain we are missionaries and then he proceeded to explain his life story about how he used to run the streets and now people are really gangsters. It was so funny, and then he gave us oranges and said,"God decided to give you oranges today." The end.

Now for the series of fortunate events...

• A car drove past us and yelled at us for thinking that "being black is a sin". Just for those of you wondering, it is not. 
• We had transfers on Wednesday and I was reunited with The Framingham Caballeros, the Spanish elders from my first district.
• I got a new comp, Elder Ifopo and he is so legit. One night he had a sore throat and I had just thrown away cough drops earlier that morning. So we started digging through the trash and we got all the way to the bottom before I remembered that we took out the trash. Yeah he wasn't the most excited about that HAHA.
• Had a fun service at TGBFB with Kelly.
• Elder Ifopo and I got some fuego pics of the Boston Skyline from our parking garage. 
• First DC was good, I was reunited with my first ZL, Elder Ridenour. He is a party and a half.
• This Sunday there was a child who was screaming during sacrament meeting, loudest kid I have ever heard in a sacrament service. Legit sounded like the kid was getting her fingernails ripped off.
• District Pday in Downtown Boston because it is S.Schraft's birthday! 

We had an amazing miracle with Maria, it was a pass-off lesson with the STLs and I was the only one who really knew Maria so I got to lead that lesson. She has always expressed a desire to stop smoking but has never really been willing to give it up. I have asked her several times if she will give us a pack and we can throw it away and she would refuse. BUT this last time I felt prompted to ask again and she said "No". And immediately afterwards said "Yes, I want to stop". She gave us a pack!! Isn't that just amazing!! Her faith is inspiring. We also put our friend Ashley on date! She is a young mother who wants to learn so that's super cool too!

Two things I learned this week:

• The Spirit will do all the work I just need to speak.
• I can not eat as much as my Samoan comp.

Lots of pictures...

1. Classic Boston picture
2. I'm a flag 

3. Maria's cigarettes

4.  Ridenours editing skills

5. First DC
6. Modeling is my future career no cap
7. Distrito

8.  Dang who is he?
9.  Boston Clam Chowda 

10. Maybe one day...
11. No explanation needed
12. Get on my level
13. Maybe one day...
14. I GO JIM 

15. First night together 

16. Boston Skyline 

17. Food Bank service w/Kelly

18. Sexiness 

19. Framingham reunion 

20. The Book of Mormom is true

Bye bye blue & white bird

 Hi

One of our friends told us God sent this bird down in front of Dunkin Donuts to comfort her. So she bought the bird a donut and water and put it in her car. I do not know the rest of the story, so please pray for this birdie.

Transfer is over... that's CRAZY.

- This week was fairly eventful, and to start it off I locked my companion in a room until he ate my cake. I know what you are thinking, yes it was a good cake. And I had already eaten the whole pan and I did not want to finish the last piece and he refused to eat it. Needless to say, he gave in and ate the cake.

- I had a first this week, praying that one of my fellow missionaries could get a date in the next week, AFTER he gets home. I have never prayed for anyone to get a date before. 

- While we were waiting for a lesson I started talking to this man who said that he takes his mom to church every Sunday but never goes inside. So we got to talking and found out that he used to rob banks, and when he was a kid he used to take donations from the pastor. That was pretty funny.

- Almost an hour later we contacted another lady. The contact started in English then we started talking in Spanish. She had to take a call and then she started speaking creole. We got excited and pulled up a video in Haitian creole only to find out that she was from Cape Verde. And that branch of creole is Portuguese creole. And then she ran away to her bus. So many languages and we did not even get a number. Sad.

- I got called Socket again, but this time it was said, "What is the other one's name? Socket?! Socket, can you say the prayer?!" Rip my last name.

- At church I saw a man with Corona's in his suit pocket and I was sooo confused.

- They also tried to pass the water after blessing the bread (for the sacrament), when they finally realized and finished passing the bread. They tried to pass the water without blessing it. Thankfully Presidente Romero is paying attention. Because that would have been quite awkward.

Ok now lessons. We had 8 lessons with members participating. My friends, our backs are so sore from carrying the zone to our goal of 30 member participating lessons. We finally got to meet with our friend Yulen who we have been trying to get a lesson with for 6 weeks. They were amazing, said they did not care how far the Church was, they just wanted to hear the word of God. I don't know if I would have that same faith, so that was cool to hear. Cool story time. We went to knock on the door of an old friend and he wasn't home. We were walking back to the car when the name 'Gonzalez' caught my eye. I thought," That sounds Hispanic, we should knock". So we did and we asked if he knew anyone who would be interested in hearing about Jesus Christ and his restored church. This boy, Raymond, said "I do, come in". SO we went and gave the whole Restoration lesson and it was so cool. God is good. So moral of the story if you see a Hispanic name, knock the door.

Elder Cotterell is going home so I will be getting a new comp on Wednesday! Elder Ifopo is his name and we are gonna have some fun. 

One more thing. Sorry y'all. I just wanted to say how grateful I am for my family and especially my father's example to me. If I could be half as patient, kind and faithful as my dad is I would be well on my way to exaltation. I did not realize it until this week but he is incredible and I do not believe that I can ever tell him that enough. Love you Dad

Until next week my Friends

Elder Stockett

Brigham was not a woman...

 Yolo

As our wise district leader once said, "Brigham was not a woman, he had many women."

- For all of you people who do not yet realize this. English is a HARD language to learn.

-  We park our car in a parking garage that is a little bit far from our complex. There was a day we were running late and we forgot we parked in the 2 hour parking so we got all the way to our parking garage (15min) and realized that we parked 100 ft. from our complex. That's embarrassing.

- We had 3 baptisms planned for this weekend but then 2 days before all 3 got re-planned for next month. But it's ok because they didn't get canceled.

- This week my comp was boiling water and when it boiled over, he grabbed a paper towel and tried to wipe the burner. Bruh moment. And the paper towel started burning and it was so funny.

- I street contacted a guy and when I asked if he knew anyone who would be interested in hearing a message about Jesucristo. He proceeded to say "my family is all dead. And my sons are either dead or in prison" that was so sad.

- I kept getting called socket this week and I have officially given up on trying to correct people. 

- Also we saw some guy walking directly into Boston traffic with a wagon. Don't ask me why.

Sooo my friends. Juan and Julieth are planning their baptism for April and they asked me to baptize them! They are such an incredible family who are so willing to change their lifestyle to better keep the commandments. Maria is still having a really hard time and we can't seem to help. So keep them prayers coming please. Finally we are teaching this man named Javier who we street contacted a while ago and proceeded to block us on WhatsApp. But we got in contact with him and now we are teaching him. He is so willing to learn and we had a fuego restoration lesson last Tuesday.

Love y'all, keep grinding

Elder Stockett 

Magic Jack y Rat City

 YOLO

Some of you won't understand what Magic Jack is (and it might be one word). Buy one of the people we called those week had a Magic Jack machine and it was really weird because we used to have one when I was younger. Also there is this apartment complex that literally has so many rats. Easily hundreds and we see some every time we go, without fail. 

- At the end of last Pday we went to Boston Burger Company and I got the 420 burger and let's just say it was not good for my health. (Pic )

- We had exchanges this week and I went back to the HC area with E.Lindsay. I was walking in the snow with my hands in my pockets and i slipped and ate crap. It was so funny I wish I had a video. Twas not a graceful fall.

- I read through the BOM for the first time on my mission and I marked the Doctrine of Christ. It was a super good experience and I am for sure going to read it several more times before I finish. Shoutout to Logan, my brother because this copy I just finished is going to him. LOVE YOU BRO.

- We were driving back to the apartment and I saw a really old police car and thought it was cool, then on second glance there was some lady sprawled on the sidewalk. She looked dead. 

- We had stake conference yesterday and it was so good. One of the counselors talked about desires and how they will determine how happy we are in the end.

- We had a lesson with a friend and then another friend who we were not planning on meeting with walked by. So we invited her into the lesson and towards the end the original friend got up and left saying how friend 2 was being disrespectful and sinning because she was vaping. We felt the spirit so strong. Spirit of contention that is 

- Zone Pday today was Littttt.

We haven't had a ton of progress with a lot of our friends but Juan Julieth y Brahain are amazing. We had almost a 2 hour lesson with them cause they just kept asking questions. There examples of wanting to do whats best is so inspiring. We are still struggling with our friend who is addicted but we are also trying to pass her off to the STL's in the English ward. She is so attached to the missionaries that it isn't going to be good when we finally pass her off. So we will see where that goes. 

I'm still alive and it's already past halfway in the transfer which is crazy. Anyways, until next time friends. 

Elder Stockett