Family,
Holy Cow! Where did the phrase ‘Holy cow’ come from, it’s very puzzling. I’m already more that halfway through my second transfer. On Tuesday I’ll be going to someone else’s area and I’ll get to be the senior companion for the day—its possible that I’ll even get to drive. (!) I finally feel like I’m getting enough sleep every day, and no longer feel the need to doze off when we are traveling from place to place. It helps that I just got over a cold that was wearing me out. It stinks to feel sick as a missionary, because you can’t really take a break and sleep it off, you just kind of have to wait it out.
I was really sorry to hear about whiskers. I still can’t believe it happened so quickly; the house won’t be the same without her. I can’t even really remember a time when Whiskers wasn’t’ hanging around sleeping in tiny little boxes or making sure to sit down on the only piece of paper on the entire floor. I’m glad you were able to bury her in the backyard; you’ll have to put a flower on her grave for me.
Besides that it sounds like everything is going pretty well back home. At least everyone sounds pretty busy, Dad gone on vacation/work (just kidding, I’m just jealous of all the cool restaurants), Mom with seminary, Becca with physical therapy, work, school, dance, potatoes, and crayon coloring lessons. Zach with high school and biking and seminary, and breakfast cereals. I’m mostly quessing about Zach because I haven’t actually heard from him yet, but that’s alright I understand how hard it is to write letters (you PUNK!). It was great to get letters from you guys, I like to be able to read them more that once, Becca’s day care sounds just as hilarious as ever, just thinking about kids saying the words, “Ms. Becca” makes me laugh. Especially in the context of tackling and licking. “Ms. Becca we need to talk”, “About what?” “Lady Bugs”.
It is getting pretty hectic right now, we’ve been really busy for this part of the week or so, teaching more people that I ever have before. One guy who we are teaching is this Native guy named Brian. We met him a number of times outside his apartment building before he finally agreed to meet with us. The first appointment he set up he didn’t show up. However we were able to see him a few days later and gave hi a Book of Mormon. Later that night he gave us a call. He told us that he had been studying it for hours and was amazed by it. He told us a story about how his Great Grandfather used to tell him that long before the white man came, The Creator visited his people. It’s hard to get people to even turn off the TV for 5 minutes to read a little bit, much less a few hours. So after we met him we taught him about the Restoration and committed him for baptism on October 7th. (This was around Sept. 7th) Not only does Brian read everything we give him, he even looks for more on his own. After his first time reading he asked for a Doctrine and Covenants. The third time we met with him he showed us a copy of True to the Faith that he had bought at a thrift store. He had a little trouble with the word of wisdom because in his culture it is normal to eat huge amounts of meat and drink a lot of tea, because they grew up in poverty and that is all they had. We had one scary appointment when he had just found out that he was going to be evicted and he told us he probably didn’t think it was going to work out seeing us anymore; but we fought for him and explained how much he had learned so far and how obstacles would come in his way, but that he needed to work through them. He finally set a time we could come back a few days later (previously we had been seeing him everyday). He didn’t turn up for that appointment so we were kind of worried because he wasn’t returning our calls and was never home when we dropped by. About a week after we last saw him, we were dropping by to see if he was home, we were worried that he may have already moved. Before we got out of the car Elder Brennan decided that we needed to say a prayer, so we prayed for help in finding Brian. Just as we got out of the car, I saw a couple walking a little ways behind us and I thought, if were going to get help in finding Brian we need to show that we are willing to put in some effort. So even though the couple looked pretty sketchy, I went over to talk to them and ask if we could come teach them some time. As I was writing down their information, Elder Brennan looked behind me and said, “look who it is”. Brian was riding his bike down the parking lot directly toward us. He stopped and told us how he had been having a crazy week trying to find an apartment and being out late looking for his son who kept running away from his mother’s house. Then he showed us how he had bought a Gospel Principles Book at the Book Barn along with 2 extra coping of the Book of Mormon so that he could give them out to anyone who was interested. He came to church that week and loved it and since then we’ve taught him everything and he’s still scheduled for baptism on General Conference Sunday. Just last night after teaching him the law of tithing he said, referring to our discussions, “it’s getting better all the time.” Which he explained is an old Indian saying. Anyway, there is only about one more week in this transfer and as of the 27th I’ve officially been out 3 months, which is 1/8th of two years---so it’s already going pretty fast. I hope you are all doing well, and having a riot in the fall, so far it’s been extraordinarily warm up here, but I think it’s about to drop.
Love Josh,
(picture of sleeping microphone)
