Insanely difficult trials...

Monday November 10, 2014

Today was a pretty good week, other than we had one insanely difficult trial: we had to exchange our 2014 Corolla, Rachel, for a 2011 Corolla because of repairs. We named her Bertha since she is way less attractive than a Rachel. Mission life is hard sometimes.

The other insane trial I had this week was I got a cardboard cut on my finger. You think a paper cut hurts? No, cardboard is infinitely worse. 

The weather was amazing this week, and then today we got snow all day and 20 degree weather, so no more sun and nice days for, oh, 4 months or so.

I found out that Eminem is releasing another album soon. How dare he. How dare he take a 3 year hiatus and then release another album after only a year as soon as I leave. My companion advised me to "not listen to his music even when I get back, that'll show him".

After seeing the name of a BBQ place, I've decided on the name of my first child: Bubba Biggins Bacon.

It has gotten to a depressing level when I think about the things that give me joy. I was so excited to try out a new mouthwash I bought. We spent about 4 minutes debating which one to get, based off of the flavor, the cavity protection, the presence of alcohol, the doctor recommendations, etc. 

One of the missionaries in our district had the most brilliant idea of all time. At Chick-fil-A now, they occasionally have receipts with a free chicken sandwich on them if you do a survey, so his idea was to go through the trash and find more. Flawless, right? I think God showed us that that wasn't a good idea when we showed up, went in, and a member visiting from another city offered to buy us lunch. Tender mercy. That also happened when I went into a gelato shop to try and talk to the owner about the gospel. Lesson of the day: the Lord blesses you, sometimes when you have good intentions and sometimes when you have less good intentions, but we are always blessed if we look for it (hypocritical at times coming from me, I know). 

The family we are staying with found out through other missionaries I was only half joking when I was talking about killing their dog. This thing has an ear infection, and when he scratches it, that mixed with the blood mixed with just his natural fragrance is unbearable. He also loves to eat our garbage and make a mess as he does so. I haven't been confronted yet by them  (though I heard they laughed and only have the dog so that their kids wouldn't be sad if it died) but I think they hid the bleach and moved his water bowl somewhere I don't know about. 

Last I checked, I weighed 159, a solid 19 lbs more than when I left 68 days ago (but who's counting?). I guess I need to fatten up for the winter that is now here.

I hope you all like the pictures I took. I tried to take more this week.

The garbage cans are tiny here. And the wind is making me look fat, I promise I'm not that big. Also, it's not a flattering picture.

"Building the Kingdom of God"

A carrot with 5....legs? Stalks? Whatever they're called

Freezing at the food bank

Irony I'm sent here.

More clouds...they're awesome here

Cafe Rio, subs, and missionary goggles

November 3, 2014

Today is my 2 month mark, so 1/12 done! I can't tell if it has gone by fast, even in retrospect, or if it has been slow like I've been telling myself for weeks now. But this week was good! We had a first transfer meeting, so I got to see people from my district again and see how they were doing, and I also got to watch Meet the Mormons! It was actually really good, for those of you that haven't seen it. 

Random things about this week:

We went over to help a member of our ward set up for Halloween, and he had the nicest sound equipment I have ever seen. 2 1500W subs, tons of speakers...it was beautiful. He DJs in his spare time. Just had to mention that.

I was, at long last, able to go to Cafe Rio. Oh how glorious...I missed that sweet pork so much. Better than the fake real Mexican food I had in the CCM.

I have been doing pretty awesome at getting up at 6:30, and then one day during weekly planning my companion and I both fell asleep...for 2 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I think the lesson to be learned here is that God was saying "Look, if you get up on time and try to stay awake, I'll sustain you, but as soon as you decide to go to sleep, it's game over." Since then, I've been getting up on time (although that might have been from daylight savings as well as having to be inside on Halloween by 6, so I got some extra sleep there too).

I went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner on an exchange, and we got to talking about missionary goggles and girls. I wanted to make sure that my goggles were still off my head, so I asked him "So like our waitress is actually cute right, it's not just the goggles. She's cute right?" Before he could answer, she walked around our table from behind me with a peculiar smile on her face. So that's why you don't even talk about girls as a missionary.

I may or may not have been following the Spirit last night. We were going to visit an investigator, but she wasn't home, so then we tried to visit someone else. There lights were all off in the trailer, but I said that we should visit them anyway just to see, and also I really needed the bathroom. So we knocked on the door, someone answered, it was the wrong house, I asked to use the bathroom, and now we have a new investigator! We taught the first lesson and left a Book of Mormon, so we'll check up on him next week to see how he's doing. 

Thanks for all of the prayers and fasting in my behalf. I have definitely felt better this week, and I can't thank you enough. Sorry that I don't have any pictures of me. I'll try to do better at that. I'm not a huge fan of the selfie, so here are a few pics that I did take. Really the clouds here are just incredible.