week 63

We went to our investigators house. The investigator with a baptismal date. All his family are members except him. He is the stepfather. He finally decided that he wanted to be baptized. He will be baptized this Friday night at 7. It is so exciting. But anyway... We were at his house on Monday night. They feed us Pupusas. Oh they are so good. It is like different types of quesadillas but they put the stuff in the dough, then they pound it out. and then cook it. it is soooooo good. That type of food is mainly from El Salvador or from Guatemala.

The problem was that the next morning both me and the other Greengo (American) were sick. Elder Weeks was not feeling good either. He was there as well eating them.

I was sick that whole day. I did not feel to good at all. I pretty much did not eat or drink anything for 8 hours because I would throw it up. After 8 hours I started to drink some water little bits at a time. That night I ate some toast and I felt fine. The next morning I was great. However, I did have a fever that day. I would get a bad fever minutes before throwing up but then after, it felt like I just had a mild fever.

That night I was sick. I stayed with the other sick elder and my companion went out with his companion to work. Out of all the 10 people that ate pupusas only the two Greengos got sick.

The other day we were teaching this one new family. The father has heard a lot of anti Mormon stuff and he has a lot of doubts. However, he is finally motivated to listen to the message we have a little more seriously because his sons want to be baptized. The English elders already are teaching them. The father does not want his family to be split one bit so he is finally listening a little more.

  

Week 62

Toe Juice!!!!!!

The other day we ate with the person who markets the toe juice stuff. He is the owner of the business, his Father is the one that created toe Juice. He gave me some good ideas of ways to use toe juice. It was amazing.

Elder Sewelen has been sick sense the time I was with him. It has been 8 weeks or more. He ended up getting sent to Pocatello to be taken care of. The president then decided without giving him any warning that he was going to send him home to Sweden. He told him after they had already talked to missionary medical, and decided to send him home. The plane ticket was already bought. He went home on a plane on Friday. He was crying. He did not receive any notice that he was going to be sent home. He wants so badly to serve. He is going through a really rough time.  It was sort of sad. I hope he will be all right.

Week 61

 The new mission president had pretty much eliminated all the old rules. It is very simple. We simply follow the white handbook and stuff. And oh, everyone is so happy. This is the best way to do it ever. That is what everyone thinks. However, I know what is actually going to happen, just like it always does. The missionaries are doing dumb things and the rules start to come. For example, a while ago all the missionaries were instructed that they should try and use Mormon.org in their missionary work efforts. So, we were to go and look at what Mormon.org had for 1 hour every week. Some missionaries have been doing it for 2 hours or more several days a week. (some missionaries... not all) and the mission president just made a rule that we are not to do that any more. No more time on the computers except for Monday's emails. I think I might be the only one noticing that the rules are all going to be coming back.

Elder Sewelen has been even sicker. I am no longer his companion, but he is still in the area. well... sort of. He got sent to Pocatello with the mission nurse to keep an eye on him. It turns out that he does not have a parasite but it look like just a bacterial infection. They have him on the strongest anti bacterial meds ever. He is still in bad shape. His companion, Elder Weeks, is now in a threesome with us.... basically.

That is crazy how many girls are going on missions. The mission field is going to be flooded with girls. Right now I would say it is about 10% are girls in this mission. I would also say that is pretty normal for many missions. Some missions have pure guys and others have a lot more girls, but I am expecting that instead of 10% it will be more like 20 or 30 percent are girls.

Week 60

The TiWi said something new.  It used to say "speeding violation."  Now it says, "Check your speed."  It still says, "Aggressive driving"  I have never heard it say, "seat belt violation"  I guess it still says "RPM violation" if your RPM is at 6000.  But just the other day it actually said something useful. "Your battery might be low".  My battery was not low; it was just that the light was on because I had not actually started the car yet.

Elder Weeks was my trainer’s companion in Pocatello before I came in. I replaced him in Pocatello. I have always had a good relation with Elder Weeks throughout the mission. Now he is Elder Sewelen's companion and he is the district leader in my district. I am excited. He goes home this transfer.

Elder Sewelen got sick again and Elder Weeks was in the hospital with him overnight. They are finally taking the diagnostics seriously now because apparently it is not a parasite and they don't know why his body is acting up so bad.

So, the other day I finally got to eat something really disgusting. They would not tell me what it was until after I tried it. Even though I was pretty sure I knew what it was. It was a soup made from Cow stomach I actually did not have a problem eating it, but it sure did not have any flavor to it, and the texture was not that desirable. My companion from Guatemala didn't like it either.

So, you need to know. Scott D. Whiting the one that spoke in General conference came to our mission a couple weeks ago for the "mission tour." I got to shake his hand. He spoke to us. And when he did, the testimony he gave made me feel like I was listening to an apostle. He is amazing.  Also, one of the 70 spoke. I can only remember his last name. Perkins. I believe I home taught his son at BYU. His son is the one that had the 70 inch TV in his apartment.

Week 59

 Unfortunately, I don't really have much to share this week. See, what happens is that I share things that are out of the ordinary for me.  However, Miracles are now ordinary, so I forget to write about them.  The work in my area continues to get better. We are inviting more people to be baptized but we still do not have any set dates.  We are finding more people to teach, and I am so busy I can’t describe it. Sometimes having an additional hour of comp study to train is really annoying because it cuts into proselyting time.

We don't actually leave the apartment until 1 on a normal day, but only Wednesdays and Fridays are normal days. Monday is P-Day. Tuesday is District meeting, which takes an additional 2-3 hours out of our day. Thursday is weekly planning so we don't get out until 3 o’clock. Saturday we have coordination meetings. Sundays we have church. So what ends up happening is that all those days we are stuck inside until 3 or 4 o’clock. That means that on the two normal days we have to go do additional things for training new missionaries on the computer. That is one of the two free days. And the other we have to go to look at mormon.org for 30 - 60 minutes to update our profile or to look at how to use it with our investigators. So, even on those days we have free we still don't get done until like 2 or 3 o’clock.  It just takes up too much time.

This last week I had mashed potatoes made out of cauliflower. It tasted exactly like mashed potatoes... well really close. It was just a bit too liquidy.

I think that is everything I have to share to day. I love you all and hope that everything is going well.