"February 5, 1988, Friday – We went tracting today for my first time. Didn’t get in on any doors but it was great. Elder Grounds took the first couple and then it was my turn. We were on this U-shaped street with several houses on the long side and just two on the short side. My door came on the last house when the lady of the house answered. She stuck her head of the window above the door and asked who we were. She wasn’t interested and so we moved on. As we were walking around the house to where we had left our bikes we suddenly realized that we had knocked on the back door!"
As I would discover later, in many neighborhoods in Palo Alto, the residents had a courtyard with a gate which some would use as their front door while others left the gate unlocked so visitors could go to the actual front door. Apparently, my companion thought the gate to this home's back yard area was actually a gate to a front courtyard, and that's why we went to the back door. Oops!
For me, tracting didn't get any easier the next day:
"On
my three or four doors I got in only one word, 'hi.' No one was
interested and they knew who we were. But Californians, at least in
this part of the state, are too polite to slam the door in your face.
Even so, it was a pretty discouraging street."
My companions and I would encounter many reactions during the next two years, but I can't recall a single incident where the resident slammed the door in our faces. Northern Californians had a reputation for being polite, on the roads as well as on their doorsteps; I have found it to be ironic that, considering the predominant religion, Utahn's have the opposite reputation, but I digress.
My companion got sick, so several days passed before we got out to work again. After tracting without success in the morning, we went on team-ups with the other two elders in our apartment:
"We
got to the street we had selected for tracting, and Elder Lewis (names have been changed to protect the innocent) and I
started to go door-to-door. It was refreshing to be with a different
elder. Right away I was more assertive; I even took the first door.
We were coming to the end of one side of the street and we came to
house number 915.
"It was my door and as I gave my approach the man
who answered the door expressed some interest by asking how long it
would take. I said 10 minutes. We stepped inside the gate and sat down at a picnic table
in his front patio/courtyard area. Then we started to tell him about
the Book of Mormon. He expressed interest and we asked him to read
the book. He agreed and we gave him a copy. We also gave him our
names and our phone number before leaving.
"Wow!
I got in my first door! I’m really fired up. This will
definitely help my confidence. Life is good!"
That was the my eighth day in Palo Alto; the slowness of the area, combined with my companion's health issues, were already weighing me down and I was feeling discouraged and lonely. This area was a rather affluent one, and times were good. I saw many BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, Jaguars, and even some Italian super cars. I heard rumors of a yellow Lamborghini Countach parked regularly in a downtown parking garage, but I never actually saw it. In anycase, affluent areas can be difficult ones as prosperity can lead to spiritual complacency. As we see over and over in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites tended to forget about God when they were prosperous.
After experiencing problems with my companion in the MTC, I was no doubt of a mind to be very cautious in dealing with my trainer and apartment mates. Additionally, I allowed myself to feel intimidated by these three elders. Actually, my district leader and his comp were good guys, but my trainer thought I was much too quiet and, perhaps, even blamed me for the members in the area not wanting us to teach their friends. That was while we were together, much later he apologized and we became good friends. Nonetheless, the two months we spent together were difficult, compounded by some health issues my comp was having.
On top of all of that, I didn't get any mail during my first two weeks and was experiencing money troubles due to my insistence on using an out of state checking account. Eventually I started transferring money each month to an instate account which the mission had helped me set up when I arrived in the field. Until I started doing that it was always a hassle, which often annoyed my comp, to go to the bank to get cash so I could by groceries.
As for the mail, that was probably my fault. You can be too rigid in following certain rules, like writing home only on P-day. I no doubt waited until my first P-day in Palo Alto to write home with my new address. It is within the spirit of the law to drop a post card in the mail with a short note that all is well, so your parents will know you are okay as well as where to send letters.
When you're having a bad day or week, getting in a door tracting, or having the opportunity to teach someone can suddenly make it all worthwhile.
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