Dear Everyone,
It sounds like things are going really well for all of you guys, and thanks for the stamps and such. I'll make sure to use them. As for Jeffrey's play, I don't really every remembering him slowing down with what ever he did, so it's no surprise that this is the same. By the way, it may be a big place, but don't leave it, at least until after i get home; have you never seen the RM?
And finally, "Swigs?" Yeah, it sounds very much like a teen bar.
Anyways, on to some of my life. To start things off, this week has been pretty awesome, all things considered. First, WE CAN FINALLY BREATHE. I never really know just how big of a difference that makes until it's gone. You'd think that i would remember, especially because it happens every year, but it always comes as a new surprise to me whenever it happens. So, with that awesome little development, we were able to get out a lot more this week, and we saw a whole lot more people. We even were able to find a new investigator, named McDaniels, who is a fairly recent convert's mother. She has seen everything that the Church has done for her daughter, and she is ready to see what it can do for her. She even said that she would be at church this Sunday, though that didn't end up happening due to Jessica (her daughter) having a super huge work load this week, and not wanting to come alone. We had a really great chat with her on Tuesday, and got to know who she was as a native Nampa woman. It was really fun, and I am excited to get to teach her some more.
Some other cool things that happened this week include Elder Richie getting to go to the Temple for his half-way mark, something that came with a bit of a grind on me along with the awesomeness for him. When missionaries up here go on their temple trip, their companions get paired up with each other until they get back, and i was paired up with a mini-missioneer named Elder Valle (pronounced viiiyay). He is an... interesting guy. I spent the majority of the time that we were together setting up appointments for the coming week, so i didn't end up talking to him very much, but the next few days we went and saw some of the people who he ended up teaching on splits, and the most common description was "Bible thumpy." It's an appropriate one---kinda. Elder Valle is of the opinion that the only parts of the Bible that are true are the sections that are talked about in the Book of Mormon, so he is a bit more "Mormon Thumpy" in my opinion than anything else. So, we spent a bit of the week after that doing some damage control.
Now, that was a whole ton of not so cool stuff, so let me reiterate the cool part; Elder Richie got to go to the temple! Aaaaaaand on to some more stuff.
Possibly the coolest part of the week happened yesterday and the day before. We went back over to Keiran's house and were able to teach him most of the fourth lesson in Preach my Gospel, "The Commandments." After we finished that, we talked to him and his dad, and confirmed that they are moving out this coming Saturday, which kind of undermines the original plan we had for his baptismal date, for November 8. So, after we finished the lesson, we talked to Keiran about baptism and how important it is, and we gave him a new possible time for his baptism; this Friday. Like i have said before, the kid is as smart as a whip and twice as quick, so we really felt like he was ready for it. we talked about it for a while, and his dad texted his mom to see what her thoughts on it were. She said that, even though she would love to be there, it was entirely his choice when he was baptized. With that in mind, we (including his dad) said that this was something that he needed to think about and pray about, and that we would ask him about it tomorrow. When we got to church the nest morning, he came up to us and asked us to set up his baptismal interview; he wants it to happen here! I have to say, it's always a really cool thing to see someone younger make big decisions fully understanding what they mean, and for that choice to be entirely theirs. I mean, it almost defeats the purpose if the choice is someone else's; is supposed to be a covenant between YOU and God, not anyone else. When that is the case, everything else really lines up.
Just a quick story to finish off. We were over to teach Kelly the third lesson (the Gospel of Jesus Christ), when Elder Richie started acting really strangely. By that i mean, stranger than he usually is. He was making comments all over the board, about everything from animal sacrifice to wiener dogs (yes, those were actual topics), and having an extraordinarily hard time staying on track with the lesson. By the end of it, he had actually passed the entire lesson off to me, so that i was the only one teaching. We finished the discussion, and were getting up to leave, when he made a weird comment about all of those people who like to wear their hoodies and sweaters down around their elbows, and the he proceeded to declare that he was going to wear his backpack that way for the rest of the day, to see what it was like, and to see if he could figure out why people liked it. We said our goodbyes, and started walking away. When we were on a path nearby, out of earshot of anyone, Elder Richie leaned over to me, and said, "Dude, we need to go home. My pants are super ripped." I look over, and hidden beneath his backpack, his pants had ripped right along the seam, almost all the way from the waist band to the crotch. Apparently, right when he had sat down to the lesson, he had felt them rip, and when Kelly had looked away for a second, he put his hand down to check and make sure that yes, he hadn't imagined it. From that moment on, he was having to try and concentrate on both the lesson, and try to think of how he was going to get out of there. Hence the whole backpack thing.
It made my day.
Well, that pretty much sums up our week. Hope you have a good one yourself!
Love and Insanity,
Elder Stuver
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