West Jordan August 23

	I loved your emails!!!!!!! That sounded like the bestest most craziest funnest week ever! jaja Mom you tried a gainer!?!?!??! or at least thought about it... jaja that's insane! What a great mom. That's so cool. Just don't die, or break your back. Your week sounded so fun though! Lagoon, sleepovers, cabins, rivers, and all sorts of fun stuff! Awesome! That's so cool. I'm glad you got to have a lot of fun before school started again. I can't believe it starts Wednesday!!! Time goes by so quick. Thanks for all the info too. It's really fun to hear about everything and all the news and stuff. It sounds like things are going to be really different when I get home with mom becoming a gymnast and dad redoing the cabin all the little childs going on big roller coasters, Savannah becoming a bow hunter, Matthem getting the priesthood, Rachelle getting jobs and driving in a year and a half... Holy gracious!!!! but that's what life is. Change. So hooray! jaja I ended up finding the brownies and stuff. Thanks so much for the picture savannah. I hung it up on the wall. The brownies were... yummy....   ........ jaja. But ya I got all that stuff and the rest of the letters too. We get mail every monday. the zone leaders pick it up so I did get your letters and stuff last week which was really nice. But anything you send during the week I'll usually get by Monday. I have no idea how it'll work in Mexico but at least for here thats how it goes.  Thanks for getting the medicine mom. I really don't need anything. just the pills too I guess. Alright so now for the week!!! This week was insane. Friday we had zone conference which went from 8 to 4. ALLLLL DAAAAYYYY.... but it was really good so I can't complain. They're teaching a lot of cool new things and really making the missionary work bar go up even more. It's getting really intense but really cool at the same time. It's all about just teaching by the spirit and nothing else. Because even though we don't have discussions anymore a lot of missionaries get into the same habit of just teaching lessons the same way. So they're teaching us the doctrine in depth, but then teaching us that we take all that knowledge and simplify it and teach it to investigators as the spirit directs. It's so crazy!!!! But Friday night we had the opportunity to start applying that. We taught Frank the guy who just got out of prison. We didn't plan anything so we just went over and started talking. Just by listening to what he was saying I felt like we should just teach him about a change of heart and what that means. It was a really good discussion and we ended up teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ and committed him to baptism. We couldn't set a date though because he's probably going to be on parole after the pretrial thing he was talking about. We're not allowed to baptize people on parole but I like it better because now our goal isn't a baptism, it's keeping this guy strong. So we really emphasized a change of heart and becoming a new person and told him the importance of church and scripture. He said he didn't feel comfortable at church because he had no clothing. So I let him borrow some of my stuff and he showed up yesterday!!!! He only stayed for sacrament but it was awesome! So that was fun but the rest of the week was straight awful. Tuesday afternoon we were out working and Elder Herrera and I got a flat tire. So we went around to members houses trying to fix them but to no success. So we had to go all the way which is way out of our area which took up a lot of time. Then we couldn't get anything to work. We wasted an hour trying to fix these stupid bikes because everything kept going wrong. So we didn't end up getting out till 5!!!!!! So we went to dinner and after dinner our other lesson feel through, so that night we had nothing. But So Wednesday we had hopes for though cuz we had potential for like six lessons that day!!!! So the day started and our 1st appointment dropped. Then our second. Then we got two more flat tires but no time to fix them. So we just walked our bikes. Then it started to rain. Then pour. We were soaking wet, my pants got all muddy and ruined, our tires were flat and then our next appointment fell through. We then had time to fix our bikes and have a quick correlation with a ward mission leader. After we went to our dinner which was a nice dry break, but during dinner got 2 phone calls informing us that 2 other appointments we had scheduled for that night cancelled. So we had hopes for 1 left. After dinner we went over there and he wasn't home. So we just did some tracting and went home. Then thursday, the same thing happened basically. All appointment except one dropped and more tires popped. All in all we had 7 flat tires and 9 dropped appointments over three days. Awful. But it was one of those expeirences that you learn a ton from. I can't explain everything I learned but even though we had no success and a ton of other things go wrong, it was still a good week. I learned so much of the value of missionary work plus like a thousand other things. After zone confernce Friday we ended up having a decent end of the week. We were really able to apply the principles and things started improving. But we still didn't have a lot of success. Most of our potential is gone but it's ok becauss now we're going to work even harder to try and get it back. This weekend also ended nice with some service that we did. We ended up finishing off the cement stuff Sister Brown sent you pictures of and we got to wax a bus!!!! jaja this guy in one of the wards owns a day care and so we helped him wax one of the buses. That was really fun. Then to thank us he took us to Wendy's. In the bus!!! jaja it was a lot of fun. We were out there for two hours rubbing turtle wax into this big yellow bus. That was some good times. Then that night we stopped by this members house and she loaded us up with stuff from their garden. We have a fridge full of cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, eggs, plus a ton of chicken they gave us too. So sweet!! That's one nice thing about a mission in Utah. Members hook you up. jaja I love vegetables now. I used to hate all that stuff but now I can eat tomatoes straight. I love it. Also this week the zone leaders house flooded so they and their visa waiter are staying in our house too. Its crazy. We have 6 of us in there now sharing one shower and a washer. It's been fun though. They keep us straight and they speak spanish so I'm doing language study with them now which makes it so much easier. After a certain point you just have to hear how people talk because especially in Mexican spanish its all idioms, manners of speech, and just the style of talking. You just have to hear it and get used to it. So thats hard right now but it'll come quickly when I get to Mexico, one day when I go there. jaja I saw James again at zone conference. He's still here!!! He's been here 8 or 9 weeks now. sheesh... but he said a bunch of people from his district have gotten visas and things are picking up. So hopefully sometime soon. But we heard there's been a lot more killings in Chihuahua and Tijuana and stuff so that could possible hold it back. I'm not sure. Transfers are this week so I might get put somewhere else. Hopefully Mexico but we'll see. jaja So I've officially been on my mission over 3 months now!!! My 3 month mark was Thursday. Sweet! then to celebrate we got asked to speak in church yesterday. jaja it was actually really fun. My first talk as a missionary. I spoke on receiving forgiveness and I think it went pretty good. It ended up being a really good expierence. Well that was it pretty much for the week. I'm glad you guys are having a lot of fun at camps and all the other crazy stuff you've been doing. Have a fun time starting school this week!!! Be safe and don't be lazy and do all your homework and work hard on the piano. jaja (good job mom not being a nazi anymore jaja chiste) but thats awesome. A lot of cool things coming up! I love you guys and miss you a ton. Be safe and read your scriptures every day =) Love Elder Florence