Monday, March 9, 2015

This week we had a wonderful experience. This last Saturday was the Deafnation Expo. It’s an Expo where it’s only for those who are deaf, hard of hearing, CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), SODA (Spouse of Deaf Adult, or Sibling of Deaf Adult), or know sign language.

Our branch set up a booth for the event and for 9 hours, we walked around and talked with everyone. We met several members, less active members, and a lot of nonmembers. We’ll see how fruitful it was when we start contacting all of our referrals we got. We set up a TV that repeated the last chapter in “The Testaments” over and over, Made a couple posters, had a couple banners and had a counter top full of the missionary pamphlets, ASL and English Books of Mormon, and “My Family” pamphlets. Overall, I think it effected many people who came to stop by.

My receptive skills are improving rapidly, I can now understand a good 60% of what everyone in the deaf branch says. It used to be 20-ish. President Carpenter, the branch president who is the VP for Sorinson in Arizona (you can look it up), asked me to speak in Sacrament, 5 minutes before it started. They also needed someone to play the organ (don’t ask me why they need one when everyone’s deaf) so I got to do both. I actually really enjoyed it. I gave my talk, another two people spoke after me, and then the branch president spoke, and then we ended sacrament meeting 20 minutes early because he didn’t have anything more to say (that’s how effective sign language can be sometimes).

I am enjoying the missionary work in ASL, immensely. I’m really glad I get to spend 2 years in this sacred work.

Elder Sands