Okay it was awesome possum getting those pictures for Mormon prom! It reminds me of my high school prom! So did he go to the priest/laurel conference on Saturday to go with the dance? I remember that one Wilcox guy came and spoke to us at the Del Mar building across the street from Torrey Pines high school. I got one of the packages today from the USPS but can't wait until the other two get here. That's totally fine if you send them to this address. Transfers aren't here until the end of the month so you can send things to the mission office when that date comes close because even though I am pretty certain I am staying here, I can't expect to stay.
All right. Now to tell you about my week. It was up and down. Last Monday we had dinner with this part member family whose father/husband is totally against the church but lets his wife go every week. He takes the kids with him to his church. I don't know where his church is. I think it's in Argonia. Believe it or not there are actually like 5 churches in Argonia when in PQ there's what? 5 in the whole city? Just kidding probably more than that. I remember going to church with the Cowarts once. I had no idea what was going on but went to "primary" and played this activity where you held water in a spoon and took it across the room and poured it into another pitcher without spilling. I don't know what the activity meant but I remember it. We also taught a recent convert a lesson that night. Tuesday, however, was more eventful. Because we were running low on miles, we drove to Wellington in the morning and had a member take us up to Wichita for our district meeting. The zone leaders attended and I taught about the Book of Mormon in chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel. For lunch, I ate at Arby's for the first time in my life. Dad said he doesn't like that place so I never ate there. It was pretty good this time. Later we traded our dinosaur box phone for the normal slide/touch screen phones at the sprint store in Wichita. We had some good lessons that day including with a guy that said he's going through tons of life problems right now and has started to realize that the Book of Mormon is true. So that was way cool. We also taught a guy named Rocket. His fiancee is one of our investigators and their living together but weren't engaged until just recently. She is like 35 and he is about 55 so there's quite a difference there. More on that later. Wednesday it started to get cold again and overnight Wednesday-Thursday it apparently rained like crazy and got super cold. I also got into my first car accident on Wednesday! It was nothing too big. I was just backing next to this long truck besides us and ran into their rear bumper by turning the wheel too soon. Our car only got some minor scratches but the other car got a broad, shallow dent. The car seemed beat up anyways. There was no one in the truck so we just left our card telling them to call us. They haven't called us in the week or so since so I don't know what's up. Nothing else really happened that day except that we had a lesson with the alpaca guy that night. We invited him for baptism and he understood but will need to take his time, we think. He still goes to his church in Argonia with his parents. He lives in Milan which is like 6 miles away from Argonia. Thursday after our weekly planning (every Thursday) we went out into the cold weather and got stuff done. We then had an appointment with these people that live in a trailer with their 3 boys. They move back into a house in Michigan this weekend so we'll send them some men with white shirts and ties when they get there! Later, we had an appointment with an investigator who plans on being baptized sometime this month (he didn't come to church yesterday). He is reading the Doctrine and Covenants since he's already read the whole Book of Mormon and absolutely loves it. Despite his sarcasm, he is very knowledgeable about the bible and religion in general. Within all of the investigators on my mission, I've had the deepest discussions with him. We were talking about his reading in D&C 29 and talking about Michael the archangel and us becoming Gods. I was like "I don't know" whenever he asked us questions. I feel like my answers were false doctrine, haha! But he wouldn't have any of it and wanted an answer right away. I always love talking to him just because he knows so much. We then later gave a blessing to this guy who just had surgery the day before and was in a ton of pain for the recovery process. He is a member but we were the only Melchizedek Priesthood holders in town so we just did it. Home teachers are normally supposed to do stuff like that right? His wife smokes too which kind of bothers me. After dinner that night, I saw my first armadillo! We were driving home and I almost ran it over, haha! But good thing I was paying attention. Friday was a good day because we set a baptismal date for one of our top investigators. She is the one who is getting married this Wednesday and then baptized this Saturday! So it's exciting. She was in a relationship with Rocket's son but that left a sour taste in her mouth and now found the father and is enjoying life! They both have health problems but that doesn't matter. We talked a lot about the temple with them and they thought it would be a good idea to get prepared for a year from now to go together. The closest temple to here is the Oklahoma City temple. So it's out of our mission. We later read D&C 121 with a less active sister too. That is my favorite chapter of scripture in all of scripture. It applies to me in so many ways it's unbelievable. I know it's Mom's favorite too. For dinner we ate with this family that lives on a farm (and on that farm he had an igloo ee-ey-ee-eye.... -Daffy Duck). They showed us their baby cow and chickens and goats, oh my! I loved it and think it would be fun to live on a farm even though it would be lots of hard work. Saturday was a day I had been dreading all week because we were to go down to Caldwell again. Today was different though. We went tracting and found lots of new people to teach! Finally the hard work down there is paying off! We taught something like 4 other lessons and got like 3 new investigators so we are in business! Later that night after dinner in Wellington, we went and talked to this guy that was watching the NBA playoffs. I had to tell him to turn it off (I normally say that to people if they're watching TV) because I knew I'd probably end up watching that with him. After dinner that night, we began our mission wide fast. We fasted for President Keyes and all who are involved in the transfer process to be inspired as to where to send the missionaries with the mission split coming up. I think I'll be in the Kansas, Wichita mission but who knows what the Lord has in store for me. Sunday was a good day as well. Although as we were doing the sacrament, I said the water prayer and the deacons were lining up to bring the water back when they needed another bread tray. I knew that they needed to wait until sacrament was over for them to eat the bread but didn't act. That bothered me for a few minutes after the sacrament was over and during the Bishop's testimony but then decided to drop it because it was in the past now and need to focus on the future. So that was a cool experience for me. Yes Mom, I did bear my testimony too about the San Diego temple 20 year anniversary and just the work in general. After teaching gospel principles and listening in Elders quorum, we had to wait close to 2 hours after church for brother Brundage to take us back home. He had to do all the tithing and fast offering stuff so we were there for a while. When we got back, we went to Harper to go with this spanish speaker in our ward. While we were at his apartment, we were talking to his roomate who basically speaks all Spanish. He was from Guatemala so his Spanish is a little slower and easier for me to understand than those from Mexico. We had a nice conversation even though my vocabulary struggles. Did you know that I love speaking Spanish? It's true, I do. After a lesson in which the spirit was extra strong with a couple with a baptismal date, we went and tracted with a young man before breaking our fast with dinner at the Leavitt's! They made curry for us and it was quite good, I have to say. The brownies that they made were super good too. Sister Leavitt really wants to move back to Utah, she says. I didn't really talk about San Diego with them only about my testimony and the temple, so sorry. Nothing else. So that was my week! Pretty interesting, huh?
To answer your questions, yes the people were thankful that we were able to help and do a little of the dirty work for them. I enjoyed it and I think they appreciated it. I wonder how the show went.... The guy with a mountain man beard doesn't have a baptismal date anymore because he didn't come to church yesterday but we will go see him later this week and reset it. We do have a baptism coming up this week, though. So that'll be the ultimate birthday gift. Okay some cities for you that are south: Hunnewell, South Haven, and Caldwell are all pretty down there. East: Oxford and Belle Plaine. West: Attica. North: Conway Springs. So there's our area. It's pretty much a box if you connect the dots by 90 degree angles. (Don't worry, I'm eating lunch as I type this). The Hansen's had ANOTHER baby? She wasn't pregnant when I left, was she? Wow! Good job brothers for bearing your testimonies! Keep up the good work! And keep getting haircuts; they're good for you. That's awesome about Jordan's mission and how you talked with him about it! He has some stories, I bet. What did he do during the tropical storm a few months ago? If you want me to talk during the skype, you might want to prepare some questions! Just kidding. We can talk about whatever. Well I believe that's it for me. I can't wait to see you on Sunday and hope you have a great week! Love,
Elder Sutherland
PS: "My friend's in there."
"Congratulations."
...
"It's his first time on his own."
"Once again, congratulations."
........
"Popcorn get your popcorn!"
"Ugh! 2 hours is long enough!"
"Hey bubble buddy, you're finished!"
"He kept us waiting for a bubble?"
"That's nothing! He called us fat!"
"Dudes, he made me experience high tide! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"
"He poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and ruined our picnic!
"He did?!"
"Noooooo! But are we going to wait around until he does?"
"No!"
"I say, we tip something over!"
"Yeah!"
"Now what?"
"Get the lifeguard!"
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