West Jordan August 16

	brownies???? I must have missed them. When we go back home I'll look for them, but probably someone stole them. jaja people...(editor's note: The children and I took brownies and cards to him on Saturday and left them on his doorstep). So gracious where to start? Dad I'm sorry you were been deathly sick! that's no fun! your week sounds a lot of fun and I'm definitely jealous of lion king and the real game. That sounds so sweet!!!! Well I only have 15 min. dumb library. so I'll just tell a few quick things that happened this week. On wednesday we had a way sweet meeting for everyone learning a language in this mission and all the visa waiters got to go to. I haven't been studying spanish at all but that meeting really motivated me to work harder. not just at spanish but at everything. I was getting kind of lazy but that day with the meeting and then after we went to the temple I had a lot of cool revelations that have really helped me here. I figured out part of the reason I'm here waiting in Salt Lake and a bunch of other cool things too. The gospel is amazing that way, how if you have problems all you need to do is ask and listen. Heavenly Father knows EXACTLY what we need and we just need to be worthy of those things and follow his plan. It's so sweet. At the meeting I got to see all the Elders from the MTC which was fun and I saw James!!! He's been here 8 weeks now about! that's insane!!!! but there's a reason for it. He gave me his mom's number so you can call her if you want. its 210 896 3734. But ya that meeting was just really good and I learned a lot of good things this week. Thursday I went on exchanges with the spanish elders in our district. It was way fun. It was just me and Elder Mueller going around. I was suprised at how much I actually understood and could communicate. It's amazing that even though I'm getting less spanish here than the MTC, as long as I keep giving a good effort to my studies, even if I can only get 30 min, the Lord still blesses me incredibly. I was able to talk to this mexican lady for like 8 min. not a long time i know, but it was still cool. jaja I taught her about keeping the commandments and the importance of reading the book of mormon to gain a testimony. It was way fun. The rest of the day we got a lot of other cool contacts and taught a lot of lessons. Then for dinner we went over to this Colombian peoples house. They fed us this giant plate of rice and noodles with spicy meat and potatoes. It was pretty good but ridiculously filling. We talked soccer with them for a while and then played ping pong! It was so much fun. Then right after I we went to another dinner. That's what spanish people do I guess. Just feed you. jaja so I was already full going over to this Mexican family and she gives us each a giant bowl of mexican stew stuff. It was spicy and had bananas and stuff in it, it wasn't that bad for the first couple bites but then my stomach realized it wasn't hungry. But Elder Mueller is telling me in English that I have to eat it so she won't get offended. Literally the last couple bites I was praying not to barf. jaja it was so bad! But i made it through!!! When we got home I was dying all night, but the next morning I was fine and it was just a funny story. So that exchange was neat. It's so different than english!!! Everyone will talk to you in spanish but when you ask them to read or pray or come to church they kind of back off. You say so will you?? and they're like, ya.... claro que si.... and then you go back and you say so did you read? and they say lo que pasa.... and then the rest is this giant excuse and lie. jaja its so funny! everyone will talk to you, so the hard part is getting people to keep commitments. So that'll be fun in Mexico. I'm excited. So remember Tyler the Bible guy!? we went back this week to just stop by and he came out and just told us he'd been praying a lot but just can't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet!!!! no!!!!!!!!! he said he cared for us a lot but couldn't continue to read the book of mormon and meet with us. So he gave me back the giant book of mormon I got for him and that was it. It was so sad.... The that was the bummer for the week but the rest of it was really good. Over the last three days we've received like 6 really good referrals!!! One is this hernandez family. They speak english and spanish but they decided to have us teach so i can get practice with some spanish. They're super golden though! So it'll be really fun starting to teach them. We haven't been able to contach any of the referrals yet but we're praying this week it goes well and we have sucess with those. so sweet! Then this week we picked up three new investigators too!!! Frank, Bessy, and Al. Frank is the guy who just got out of prison. He's super cool and we're meeting with him regularly now. He's having a lot of problems trying to keep his life straight, but he says and believes that this church is the only thing that will help. We're having a hard time getting him to come to church and keep commitments but we'll get there. Then Bessy is this black lady from new orleans, we've taught her once and are going back on tues. She needed support from the bishop since she has a huge family, no husband, and came here as a hurricane survivor. So the bishop said she had to meet with us first. She's baptist so we thought it would be bad, but she was actually really interested and was excited to read the book of mormon. AWESOME!!! Then Al is this guy from Croatia. Super funny. He didn't understand much of what we taught but we had a pretty good understanding and he felt the spirit and wants to get baptized. So we put him on date for Sep 18!!!! SUPER SWEET!!!! Then to end the week we had the baptism of Daniel the 17 year old tatoo artist kid on Saturday. All the youth and people from the ward were there and it was just sooooo awesome and spiritual. He's going to be so great and we're actually going to have him come teach with us this week! Such an amazing kid. So that was it for the week pretty much. Oh last night we talked to this straight up Jamaican. He was so cool. He talked about god and his beliefs and we helped him wash his car and we listened to reggae. It was so much fun. we didn't teach anything. just listened, but we're going back on thursday so that'll be sweet!! But so for p days we just do anything really. We always go to wal mart and then the afternoon we spend doing whatever. We do our laundry of course, but then like 2 pdays ago we went bowling. Today we're playing soccer and frisbee... just lots of fun stuff. We got out at 6 so the day is spent just getting groceries, emailing, and playing some kind of sport of something. it's a pretty good day. Well there was a lot of other things I wanted to say but there's a bajillion children here that take up all the computers. Once school starts I'll have more time to email. Have fun this last week of summer!!!! I love you guys!!!! Tell hunter and jordan I love them too. I can't believe they're going to be leaving in two weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! holy canolis time flies!!! that's so cool though. I can't wait until we're all in our missions. Jarom's email was so cool!!!! tell him i love him too. Give me his address too if you can. Oh and if you could get my medicine one more time before I leave that would be great. I just want to stock up so I don't have to worry about it in Mexico. Thanks so much!! I love you guys!!! Talk to you next week!!