Not. 
Although that actually happened this week; for some reason as we got ready
for bed Saturday, my math deficiency went into high gear and we were all hyped
up thinking that going forward would give us time. So Sunday was a bit of a
"buhhhh" kind of morning. However, this week has been intense regardless.
We did a bunch of exchanges this week; first on Thursday with Elder Flores,
and then on Saturday with the Zone leaders. It was cool to work here with Elder
Flores; he's Elder Buckmiller's previous companion, and he's a BOSS at
tracting. It seems like everywhere he's gone in his mission, tracting is his
calling, though he doesn't like it much. (I don't know why people don't like
Tracting, I LOVE it! That's when most of the miracles I've seen have
happened.) We had a good time at any rate.
We were finally able to get ahold of Mike again, though when Elder Gates
and I started talking to him, the adversary threw a fit. We hardly got past the
pre-existence when his step-father came out for a smoke and started raving about
who-knows-what, and then his girlfriend came out begging his help because poor
baby Lily had pooped all up her back. 
Gah! But oh
well. He's still excited to talk to us, because as he apologized and left, he
told us, "Next time for sure; this is my favorite topic!" So that's exciting.
He's going to love the Plan of Salvation. He didn't make it to church, due to
family being over. Next week!
With CJ, she's been in such bad shape, between her leg, her hearing, and
her age in general, that Elder Buckmiller and I decided to fast and then give
her a blessing of health to help her out. Of course, this also wound up
happening while Elder Gates was here with me, so I had the opportunity to give
the blessing. It was really great to be able to do that. As I was giving the
blessing, I felt to tell her that she'd be able to hear sufficiently well in
order to learn and grow as she attends church. I was very suprised and hesitated
a second on that, because she's so close to being deaf that we teach her with a
notepad. (or Ipad if a member brings one) So hopefully our faith, her faith
(which is INTENSE), and God's will combine to bring this about. Unfortunately,
she STILL didn't make it to church due to her sister falling ill. 
Next week!
The Harris family is doing pretty well; some of them have been reading, and
they've been praying. The biggest problem with them is that they don't remember
our appointments, so we only ever find them by dropping by. We did set them to
think about planning on being baptized on April 16th though! They also didn't
come to church yesterday, because it rained on (Friday?) so they had to make up
work on Sunday, and though we prayed for rain on sunday (Sneaky, right?
) it didn't seem
to be in the plan. Next week!
At any rate, as you can see from the above, we've had great stuff going on,
though Sunday morning was a bit rough. We struggled for most of the day to have
energy, let alone do any work. We pushed through the haze though, and one of
the coolest experience of my mission so far happened. We went to Taft Heights.
And we knocked "The Richies" These houses are MASSIVE. Several of them have
tennis courts and pools and stuff, and two of them have Tiled drives. It's
ludicrous. The first (and biggest) house we knocked was probably the biggest
house I've ever been to in my life. However, none of these people answered the
door. We'd knocked something like seven or eight of them, but right before we
went back, I looked at and felt really drawn to one of the two with a REALLY
LONG tiled drive. As we went we just felt good, and when I knocked, instead of
feeling nervous I felt excited. Then, we wound up talking to Carol and Dale.
They welcomed us into the house, and we talked a lot about who they were and
stuff. They are SUPER nice, and really friendly to talk to. In their house
(which was scary big and nice) Dale has a bunch of stuffed (more like totally
reconstructed) animals from all over the world, including his favorite room,
which is dedicated to his Africa trips. Some of those animals were crazy
huge! But the cool thing, was that in spite of their obvious wealth and luxury,
they were really wonderful,humble people. We taught them the restoration, and
though they had some very good questions and some doubts, Carol accepted a Book
of Mormon (Wanted to pay us for it! NO! ) and promised to read it and pray, and we'll be going back next
Sunday. WHOOO!!! It was really cool to see someone like them start to accept
the message.
In other news, Jose's been an absolute BOSS missionary, his way of
answering her questions is so good it's textbook. He says he "thinks about it,
prays a bit, and then tells her the first thing that pops into his mind, whether
he understands it or not." 
I wish I was as cool as this guy! At any rate, I must end mine epistle. We've been having a total blast out
here, and I've learned a lot of things that have really boosted my spirits and
made me a heap better.
Love you all! Be safe, be good!
Love,
Elder Matthew David Clough
