Wed. last and today!

Oct 14
Thank you so much for sending Martin the issue of the Ensign. He's going to love it. Dad mentioned something about getting him a subscription, but he's going to be getting transferred prisons soon and we dont' know where, so don't worry about that. But thank you so much! Yeah, we've been super busy this week. Elder Washburn has stepped off his pedestal a little, but he's still hard to live with. He's gotten in the habit lately of making up ridiculously specific scenarios to tell you so that he's never wrong. He just talks and talks adn says so much stuff that you just give up and he says "See, I told you so." So it's pretty tough, but its definitely a nice time to work on building my patience, right? haha Luckily Elder Nelson hasnt' gone too crazy with stress yet, but there's still time. He almost had a stroke the other day. We have a mission conference in Richmond tomorrow and we needed to find a ride down there and a ride back up, and he was FREAKING out about it going psycho! But everything is alright now and it's all taken care of. But there's a 70 coming to the conference, I dont' remember who, but we might have to do some one-on-one 5 minute role plays about the Restoration or the Plan of Salvation! How scary is that? I dont' know how to do those in English anymore? But it should be a fun time! Except for the fact that we have to be at the chapel at 7 am! We're donig this special choir thing, so we have to be there extra early! Oh well.

So we now have 6 elders in an apartment meant for 4. It's not working out too well, especially since our hot water has been out for the last week! I'm really sick of taking cold showers. And I mean COLD! Like, Lake Tahoe type stuff. The guy who owns the apartment is a member and he's tried abotu 4 times this week to fix it, but no luck so far. He's getting super frustrated and we're just getting sick of showering :)
But one of the elders in the apartment is Elder Jacob Justice. Not kidding. Superhero?? But he's the nephew of the Martin's from Washoe Valley Ward. Weird coincidence right? haha just thought that was kind of wacky!
So Santiago, the awesome investigator that we found that came to 2 conference sessions, we committed him to baptism. We were talking and we asked "se preperarA para ser bautizado?" which means will you prepare yourself to be baptized? and he just replies "Si, estA bien." And his biggest concern was that there wouldn't be a chapel down in Chiappas, Mexico when he goes back in 2 years. How cool? His biggest concern is that he'll go inactive. I love that man! He's so awesome. So yeah, his baptism date is Oct. 31st. We're still working with Ana because she hasn't been able to come to church and we're starting to worry that she'll just lose the desire. And she's been getting a lot harder to get ahold of lately, so we think she's already starting to lose steam! It's tough, but we're really really trying! But Rosi is doing awesome. She's just all sorts of sweet. We're going to set her sometime this next week I think. And then on Monday we found this lady Marizela and we came back on Tuesday to teach the Restoration and relate it to families. So we're doing that adn we invite her to church adn she says "Maybe, I dont' know." So we talk a little more and teach more of the lesson and near the end she asks what time cbhurch is at and we tell her and she just says "Voy a ir" which means "I'm going to go. It was super sweet. So we have another appointment with her on Friday. But we think she's got some pretty good potential.
So yeah, we've been super busy and getting busier. We're doing a lot of finding because we've been dropping a lot of useless investigators. I know that sounds harsh, but yeah, they're useless right now. So we need to find more to fill our teaching pool. So we do a LOT of finding now. But it's ok. We're outside walking around and it's nice.
Last night Juan Manuel and his wife invited us over for their nephews 9th birthday and made molay again. That is such a heavy meal. I wasn't feeling good at all all night. And as if stuffing us with tons of food isn't bad enough, then they fed all of us a massive piece of chocolate cake and a massive piece of flan. It was ridiculous. So all my attempts at losing weight and keeping healthy, right out the window. haha
But the reason we don't have many member dinner appointments is that Pres. Millburn banned the use of pass-around sheets for us to use because he said people feel obligated to feed us then. Which I personally feel they should, but I'm not the president. So then nobody offers to feed us and we end up going through our MSF funds way fast because we have to buy a ton more food. So yeah, that's the problem. We're supposed to have a member dinner everynight, but that doesn't happen if they dont' offer. So there you have it. Feed the missionaries! It means a ton to them, you have no idea!!!!


Oct 21
Ok, so yeah, I bought a winter coat at JCPenney. It's a big heavy duty wool pea-coat and it was only 70$, so I figured I'd jump on it because it has been getting REALLY cold here already. On Sunday, the high was 43*. Yeah, really cold.
So, this week was really not a great week. We started off in Richmond with Mission Conference(well, half of the mission) and Elder Kenneth B. Johnson of the 70 came. He was so amazing! It was absolutely incredible. But the entire thing made me think of how much stuff I could be doing better. So taht's what we've been trying to do lately. But it was amazing what he said- "I do what I do because I know the source of my calling." How cool is that? It really made me think about my calling and what I need to be doing to improve it. Unfortunately, that also made Elder Nelson go into overdrive mode on the "Let's be a perfect companionship" thing. So that's been kind of frustrating. And then on Monday Santiago, the guy that we thought was super awesome, dropped us. So no more baptism for him. Oh well. I was really upset and bummed out about that. But whatever. The Lord has a plan for him, and it doesn't involve me right now, so I've begun to focus on other things. Yesterday the Zone Leaders came up from Richmond for exchanges. I was with Elder Bishop and Elder Washburn. We were in this trailer park to knock some doors, and we look up from the car and there's just this kid with his pants pulled down pooping on a tree. In plain view. Not trying to hide at all. It was freaking hilarious! The kid's mom comes running over all embarrassed and this black lady next to us just had this shocked look on her face. hahahaha, oh man I was dying! Yeah, it was great. But then everything else fell through yesterday except Maricela, she's still sweet. She didnt' make it to church, but we're working hard on her. We know she's got some super potential. We just gotta do it right. And then we didn't have anything to do last night and we were right next to the apartment, so we get back to the apartment at 8:50. If you dont' have an appointment, you have to be back to the apartment at 9 pm sharp. So we get back and Elder Nelson is with the other zone leader and he has the keys to the apartment and the english elders aren't home yet, so we hang out outside for a bit. Edler Washburn starts freaking out at about 9:15 saying "Elders!!! We can't just sit here. We need to to get an appointment or something! We cant jsut sit in front of the house! This isn't what they had in mind when they said be back at the apartment at 9!" and he's freaking out and Elder Bishop and I tell him we can't go out to just talk to people so we can be out later and so he gets all mad and says he's going to go talk to the hispanics across the street (who by the way get violent when they're drunk, which is always) and so he just starts walking. And Elder Bishop and I can't see him and we have no idea where he is and so we start to walk over there and he is in the middle of the street and says "you could just bring the car you know." So Elder Bishop says "You could not just walk away from your companions and be disobedient!!!". Elder Washburn didn't like that one bit. So it was definitely an interesting night.

But yeah, that's really all that happened this week. We've got the Harrisonburg elders coming down on Friday for a district meeting and exchanges, and then on Nov. 3 and 4 we have zone conference and zone p-day which should be sweet.
Can you believe I hit 4 months out in 3 days? That's crazy! This past month went by SOOO fast. I can't believe it's almost november already! Thats' ridiculous. But yeah, that's my crazy schpiel for the week! haha
Oh, I also met the wife of the branch president up in Harrisonburg. Apparently Robbie Lund married one of her companions from her mission. Small world huh? I'm getting all sorts of connections here!
Ok, well I hope that's everything. Like always, I forget something everytime, but if I do, I'll let you know. OH, thermal garments! I just need those sometime, not any hurry right now. But just something to think about. But yeah, THAT should be it now. Haha. I love you all. Miss you. Have a good week.