Monday, November 30, 2015

Idon'tknowwhatthesubjectshouldbesothisisit

Well, things are going well here in Concord...somewhat...😐. Thanksgiving was awesome. We went to the Dickinson's house with Brother Larsen and deep fried a turkey. We were kinda disappointed
because it didn't explode, but it was still interesting. We hung out there while the turkey was deep frying. We got to get to know Clair (Their 11 year old girl that is not baptized, we just need them to get to church!😬) a little better and she taught me how to do backflips and front flips on the trampoline...in a suit (we had to wear suits on Thanksgiving). I'm pretty good at it now. We then went to the Larsen's house and hung out there for a while before lunch. Everyone was amazed
at my LEGO building skills. I built a house and a spaceship in twenty minutes. I thought maybe they were so good that the children there would revere it. Ha! Within five minutes they were destroyed. I was a little sad, they looked pretty good, but I guess that's what LEGOs are for. We then had a huge Thanksgiving lunch. They probably had about 15 platters of food. It was all so good. The deep fried turkey was very good. They also had about 5 trays of different desserts. I was so full afterwards. We then went home and were planning on going out for a little, but right as we were about to leave, our dinner appointment called and said they would be picking us up in about fifteen minutes, which was an hour earlier than we had planned. They picked us up and we played horseshoes at their place for about 45 minutes. Then we had sat down for a huge dinner. The Concord sisters came as well (Twenty minutes late...of course 😆 #surprisesurprise). We were so full from lunch we didn't eat that much. Elder Nelson literally took one bite of his food and had to go lie down, he was sweating pretty bad😅. I was able to finish my plate but you can be sure I didn't get any seconds. I am so grateful for members such as the Dickinson's, Larsen's, and Eskelson's who were willing to spend their Thanksgiving with us. We had a lot of fun (and food).
Well, opposition in Concord is getting to an all time high. We had someone drive by while we were on bikes and, shaking his fist in the air, triumphantly yelled, "I'm atheist!!!" That was my first encounter with an atheist out here and I hope I will never see one again. I was so scared, I was quivering in my slacks.The whole world was coming down on me. I just couldn't believe he was
an atheist. I think my testimony is shaken, I might need to come home. No, everyone in Concord is pretty nice. Everyone is religious and believes in God and Jesus Christ (except for that guy of course 😨). We'll talk to a lot of people that say that they already have a church that they are happy with, but they often also say that they really appreciate what we do. It's nice that we can walk up to almost anyone on the street and have a good discussion with them about Jesus Christ. The problem is that everyone is so accepting of our message down here, we have a hard time sifting through them all and find the people that are actually willing to commit to anything. People say they will to commit to anything, even baptism, but a lot of the times they don't mean it. We have to continually try to get in contact with them (which is not easy at all, because they will say they will be home, but when
we visit, they aren't😤) and see if they are sincere or not. Time keeps on passing by really quickly. In a week is the next transfer already! Transfer calls are this Saturday. I'm pretty sure (confident)
that we are not getting transferred, but I am also pretty confident that Elder Skinner will be transferred. Which makes me a little sad, but he has been in Kannapolis for almost eight months now, and it's his first area, I think it's time for him to branch out a little. Sister Sandie probably will get transferred as well. We'll have to see.
Wow! Go Uncle Richard! What a champ! I can't believe he drove all that way with all those kids by himself! Seems like you had a group of pretty awesome people. You're just missing a couple. Kim of course, hopefully she gets better, and obviously someone else 🙄. Go dad! Showing up those young guns. Right now, I probably could not have run the mile, let alone the 5k. I'm still recovering from my Thanksgiving feasts. Luckily the bikes are helping, but it hurts to bike. I did end up hurting myself this week. I tried to clear a brick wall in my suit, but nailed my shin pretty hard. It hurts a lot. I have a pretty gnarly bruise and scrape. I would include a picture but I'd rather not gross people out, and I'm sure that nobody wants to look at my leg. The miracle of this whole event is that my suit pants didn't even rip or tear or get destroyed in any way. They are perfectly fine! Which doesn't make much sense to me because my leg sure isn't. How did my leg get scraped up, but my pants didn't? Weird 😉. I'm fine though and I'll get over it in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Well, I'm sad I missed the family reunion but I'm sure there will be some in the future.
Thanksgiving

Christensen, Huff, Nelson, Skinner
 Well, I've had an amazing week and hope that your weeks are amazing as well. Hope y'all can truly reflect on what this upcoming Christmas season really means as I know you all will. I love y'all and
wish you the best!
P.S. Make sure to see the new Christmas video that the church puts out on christmas.mormon.org. It's wonderful. We are using it a lot already!

10-4 Good Buddy (23 November)

Elder Huff & Elder Nelson
Hey'all!!! Another week has passed and now I can say I've been out in the field for over a month now. Whee! Everything is going splendidly and marvelously. This week started wonderfully, we went to shop at Aldis with the K-town elders and we met a member there and she decided to pay for all of our groceries!!! That made me feel pretty good. Thank you Sister Chrisman! 🏆 We then played our crazy ping pong game Elder Nelson created. That night we met a lady, who we thought was a former investigator, but at the end of the lesson Elder Nelson called her Jennifer and she said, "Um, my name is Jackie" 😳 Oops. Oh well, she accepted our baptismal invite though, so all's good. Elder Nelson and I have been churning out the baptismal invites. We have the most invites and people on date in the zone. Not that numbers matter at all, as long as we all are trying our best. We have Jackie on date, as well as Caleb, a high schooler, who we also found at a former's house, Wesley and Lauren, a young couple who wants change in their lives, and Dorian, who we have only met with once, but we have had amazing lessons over the phone and he actually accepted the baptismal invite over the phone! Things are getting heated up in here!
This week was also full of meetings as well. On Tuesday Elder Nelson and I went to a trainee/trainer meeting. It was really long but fun. It was good to see all the people that I came out with and see how they are doing. I hung out with Buffaloe a bit, but he seemed kinda detached. We had some good laughs and discussions but I actually talked to the sisters from my MTC district more than him, which kinda makes me sad. Maybe he just wasn't having a good day? Anyway, it was good to connect with him. We had trainings by the Alexanders about obedience. It was pretty good. We went over rules that are commonly overlooked. Elder Nelson says the Alexanders are totally different from the Cravens. The Cravens were super strict with rules, Nelson said they even had a lot that weren't even in the white handbook. The Alexanders are different. They aren't lazy with the rules, but they go strictly off the white handbook and leave the rest to us. They said if they can't trust us we shouldn't be on a mission. So therefore, we are to monitor ourselves and make sure we are in line with the white handbook but most importantly the spirit. I think it is good because we can each strengthen in personal accountability and that will help us when we are off of our missions.
It was at this meeting that the President told me my hair was a little long(something I already knew, but needless to say, his words pushed me a little 😐), so the next day Nicole cut my hair. She did an amazing job. And while she was doing so, we taught a lesson on tithing and she bore her testimony about tithing. It was really powerful. She told a lot of miracle stories about the blessings they had received because they had paid their tithing. She and Ben are doing well. They plan on getting married after she has the baby, but we're trying to get the bishop to talk to them and maybe speed up the process 😜. We visited them yesterday and had a lesson on Thanksgiving. It was a really good lesson and afterwards they were talking about how they had written down things that they were thankful for and taped them on the wall. Elder Nelson and I looked at them, and we noticed that Nicole put "The missionaries" on hers! Yay! That made me feel good. We go over there about twice a week and each time we go we see progression on Ben and Nicole's part. Becky, eh. Her kids are pretty cute though. Her boy, Jonathan, who is four, is a sports genius. You can ask him the record of any football team, the score of any game in the previous season, significant players on each team, or who a team is playing next week and he will tell you. I have only seen him answer one question wrong. He's going places.
Anyway, we had the training meeting on Tuesday, then on Thursday we had zone conference. It was an all day thing...😂. We had training, more training, lunch, more training, and even more training. Then we drove like crazy to get to the YMCA and did a service project there for the rest of the day. It was a big thanksgiving dinner thing for the homeless. We had a lot of fun and the YMCA people were very happy for our service. Elder Nelson and I were the front door greeters. We stood outside and welcomed people to the event. There were some pretty interesting people, man some awesome
people. We made friends with the security guard. We were all outside and he said, "Well since you guys are here, I'm going to go get some dinner. You guys hold down the fort." So now we are also security guards. I'm gonna have so much on my resume people will come to me to give me jobs. $$$$$$$$$$$$$ Well we had fun. After we exchanged and I went to Kannapolis with Elder Skinner. The day was pretty good. We talked to a guy named Phillip...for an hour and a half...I probably
said 50 words...Elder Skinner probably 75. Man Phillip can talk! We had steak at a dinner appointment with the Chrismans. Man she spoils us. We should pull her into the Concord ward. They are too good for the Kannapolis ward. That night we exchanged at the Thanksgiving dinner for the Concord ward. Saturday we went to dinner at Bishop Nanto's house (He was the one who sent the text picture, which looked just like spaghetti, but it was so much more than that. Delicious
Parmesan chicken!) and we put up their Christmas tree for service hours. It was pretty fun. Afterwards the bishop gave us some of his extra Christmas lights. Yes! We then decorated our house, until I fell off a table. Then we called it quits for the night and finished it in the morning. We feel all festive now at night when we turn the lights on. It's so exciting!
Question time. I will be here in Concord for Christmas. Training lasts for 3 months. That means I will be in Concord until January 20th and probably longer. President Alexander is doing less transfers. Elder Skinner has been in Kannapolis for 7 and a half months. It is getting more and more common for missionaries to stay in an area for up to six months since President Alexander has been here. So, I might be in Concord until April. Weather here is getting pretty chilly. Up until the middle of last week it had been pretty warm, but it has gotten pretty chilly since then. And when I say chilly I mean highs in the fifties. Not too bad. I haven't used my big coat yet except for when it rains I just use the outer liner. I am pretty sure that I will be using it pretty soon. I need something a little lighter because it is such a heavy big coat. Even just the inside is too thick. Oh well.
The lady that we saw with Elder Mautz has been kind of flaky. She is still interested, but we haven't been able to get a good sit down lesson. Her parents are opposed to it as well. We called her home phone and her mother answered the phone and she frankly told us that her daughter is a baptist and is not interested, but we saw Lisa at Walmart today and she wants to meet with us. We'll see. That stinks the Parkers are moving. You should tell them to stop by Concord NC when they go to D.C. Say hi to Jim McKean for me and all the other peoplz. I love y'all.
Elder Huff




Crazy Elders (Logan is on top of the fridge)

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Nice people take care of my boy (and think of his mom)

Just when I was getting tired of Facebook, and thinking I might quit, this happens. Now I'll never be able to quit. David and I were just getting ready to go to Lauren's Young Women in Excellence night when I got a message on FB.

"Hey sister Huff, just wanted to introduce myself. My family and I are in the ward that your sweet Elder is in. They came over to eat tonight and he is doing very well. Learning the southern ways. ; ) I made a,quick snipet of a video tonight and thought you might get a kick out of it. Hope you have a great night and again, your missionary is doing great."

I tried, but couldn't transfer the video, but here are some fun pictures.









She also said,
"Elder Huff and Elder Nelson's families. Y'all should be very proud of the two young men that you've raised. They are a great asset to our ward and great examples for my children, especially, our 12 year old son. 6 short years, he will be where y'all's sons are and I will be in your shoes. Again, be proud, y'all have done a great job."

She pretty much made my day. 

Monday, November 16, 2015

40 days!

Yup, I had my 40th day yesterday. That means I only have 692 days left.😳 I look forward to every one of them! That's crazy that you have an Elder from NC. I know where Highpoint is and I know(ish) the Paige's. He was put in as stake president the first Sunday I had here. He lives in Kannapolis so he's not in my area. The Kannapolis elders helped him clean out the garage. We got a ping pong table from the garage and set it up in the gym. We played ping pong most of p-day last week and plan on doing the same thing today. So you can tell the elder (Elder Baughan) that I might be playing on his uncle's ping pong table!😃
 I had a really crazy dinner appointment this week. The family we were eating at was a really nice normal family, but they made chili...really, really, really spicy chili. They put a bunch of chipotle powder in it. They felt bad about it, so they let me put a bunch of sour cream in it. At first they asked if we liked spicy stuff, and Elder Nelson really does, and I wasn't going to say anything, but he told them I'm not a fan, so they got the sour cream out and I bet almost half of the bowl was sour cream. 😫 It was still REALLY spicy. They had a good conversation, but I couldn't concentrate on a lot of the conversation because I was restraining myself from screaming...needless to say I drank four and a half glasses of water but I am proud to say, I finished the whole bowl!!! Elder Nelson didn't even finish his!
 On Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders 😬. And I took over my area as well. Elder Moutz came over to Concord and we did pretty well. We were walking to see Homer and we saw a lady outside and we started to talk to her, and before we knew it, we were on her porch, teaching the entire Restoration message, and inviting her to be baptized. She said yes!! But we haven't been able to contact her since...so I don't know if it's going anywhere. We'll see. We then found an inactive member named Mike and we raked some of his leaves and talked to him for a while. He's a really cool guy he just hasn't been to church for a while. He's in a transition state so he doesn't know if he's coming to church but he thanked us for reminding him to support his niece, who is on a mission in France so it was a pretty good talk with him.
I really like Elder Mautz. He's a lot like me. We had a good long discussion on which books we have read and movies we like. So, fun information, Orson Scott Card is in the mission, and he occasionally he has the missionaries over for dinner! I wish I can go to that area. Other fun news, Friedrich, from the Sound of Music, lives in my area! Crazy. Anyways, I like Elder Mautz but it's kinda hard to act normal around him because I always feel I am being scrutinized. Anyway, interesting story. We were sitting on this guy's porch and talking and a guy walked past and waved to us. I nodded in response, I didn't want to wave because I didn't want to distract from the lesson...I should have waved. He started yelling at me calling me an ungrateful, preppy, discriminative, white boy. He said some other things that I would rather not disclose at this time.
 We gave a blessing to a schizophrenic as well. She was a little off, but was normal enough to not deter us from giving her a blessing. She said when we ended the blessing, she felt a bad presence leave her.
Church was really good yesterday. We had the primary program and the Spirit was definitely there. It was interesting to see so many grown men cry. 😭 We had a good rest of the Sunday and a good dinner at the Nunn's with Homer and then we went to Ben Brown's birthday party! Nicole is having a boy! We stayed until everyone but Nicole, Ben, and Nicole's brother Colton left. We watched a little football (shh 🤐) and then taught the Restoration to Colton. Ben taught half of the lesson and Nicole gave a really good closing prayer. I am so happy with them. They are progressing well and I am excited for their future.
What is up with BYU? Losing to Missouri? Really? They only lose the important games don't they?
The people here are good, but it is hard to find anyone. The people that are willing to listen to us are so noncommittal it is scary. They will set up a time for us to meet, then when we go, they either don't answer the door, aren't even there, or say that something came up. All the people that would keep commitments are already content with life and don't want to talk to us. Eesh.
No more bicycle accidents to report, we got the car on Wednesday and are super stoked about it. The new church stance really hasn't made an impact on our investigators or anyone else either. It is a big thing in Charlotte, but the church's presence isn't really strong there anyways.
I heard about the Paris thing, man people in this world are just messed up. I see more and more of it everyday out here, but we have to realize that most people are good and would really help someone in need.
Sorry, this week I don't have any pictures, I'll make sure to have some next week.
I love y'all and hope everything is going well!

Monday, November 9, 2015

Hey'all

Well, this week has been pretty good. Tuesday we went and finished laying down the tile at Chris Sloane’s house. We did it pretty fast. I also found out what the guard does on a tile saw. It keeps it from spraying water and little pieces of tile in your face. I got really dirty. I got pretty good at using the tile saw, but I still hated it. Oh well. Here's what I looked like after the tile job. It's kinda hard to see but I have mud caked on my face.

When I took a shower I found a bunch of little tile pieces in my hair. This week I also went on my first exchange with Elder Christensen. He's a cool guy. He wanted a picture to remember the exchange, so he climbed onto the roof and took an interesting picture.


He then proceeded to jump off the roof onto the balcony, which was wet because all it does is rain here, he landed on his feet, but he then slipped and landed on his butt pretty hard. 😆 A good way to start the exchange. We had a lot of fun. We taught a couple people and I learned how Elder Christensen loves everybody and is kind to everybody. I need to work on that. We exchanged back on Thursday and that started my bike week.
I was kinda nervous about that because the one time we biked last week I kinda crashed into Elder Nelson...😳. I bet Brian Thomas is so proud of that. Luckily he stayed on his bike and kept it upright and I was the only one who got hurt. I got wedged between his back tire and seat. It hurt...a lot, and I still feel a little twinge there, but it's all good. Biking hasn't been all that bad, except for last night. We had a forty-five minute bike ride to visit the Dickinsons and the Browns and Nicole. It was cold, the first time since I've been here of course, raining of course, and of course there was no shoulder on the road, so I almost got hit by a couple cars. Man, it was dark too. It was on a country road so no street lamps and it gets dark here at five. All we had was our little bike lights. It was really cool though. I had never done anything like that before, so it was a good experience. We had a good visit with the Dickinsons, a less active family. We then biked to the Browns.  Ben, Becky, and Nicole were there this time, and we had a really good lesson. We then biked home, which was a little shorter than the bike ride there. I almost got hit by two semi trucks. I guess semis don't like yielding to cyclists on the road so I felt the heat of the engine as each of them passed and was almost knocked off my bike by the gust they produced. And I swear I felt one of them barely brush my elbow. Super scary but we got home safely.
We are still working on finding the elect. We have found a lot of different people, but they all turn out not very good. We tried to visit someone we had met with before. When we got there we were chased off by a boy probably around twelve years old with a 2x4. He said he would shoot us if we ever came back. It turns out that boy doesn't even live there. We were flagged down by the actual owner and were able to talk to him. We asked him about the boy and all he said was, "That boy needs serious help."
So the sisters brought an investigator to church yesterday. We had a Sunday School lesson about the law of chastity. Somehow, the conversation got into how hair highlights were rebellious. The teacher went on and on about how her daughter went a little rebellious and colored her hair, and how she had to let it go because you have to pick your battles and let them make their own choices and how she was happy when her daughter "grew out of it" yada, yada, yada. The whole time she was talking about it, the investigator, Carla, about thirty years old, was sitting there with a lot of purple highlights in her hair...😲. Okay sister, I love you to death, but I would think you would clue in and stop raving about the hair color. IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER!! Oh well, hopefully the investigator wasn't offended. She seemed like she was cool with it.
Okay, let me say, I need to see some sun. It has literally been raining here for the last two weeks now. And if it hasn't been raining, it's been overcast. This last week, I only saw the sun once...no joke. It's okay though, I like rain...except for when I am on a bike! Oh well.
Time for me to answer the questions I received from my family. My apartment is about average, maybe a little better than average. My companion says it is above average in the ones he has been in, but he also has only really served in ghetto-ish areas. Our mission president said at the very beginning that our missions' apartments are all pretty nice, some of the best compared to other missions. I'm enjoying the apartment. Okay, I love the Concord ward, but the dinner appointments are kinda sad. The Kannapolis elders have dinner appointments every night, while we are lucky to have four dinner appointments a week. And it is always the STP. Oh well, we eat okay at home...kinda. We have corn dogs, sandwiches, noodles, and sometimes mashed potatoes. I always make sure I get my bananas at the store as well. The other night was kinda sad. All I had was a corn dog and Elder Nelson had plain rice with butter and salt. Kinda pathetic. But I am maintaining my weight so far. Our exercise time is right as we wake up, which is not a good idea. We get up, lay on the ground and pretend to do sit-ups. Occasionally I get a few done, and maybe some push-ups, but usually we don't do much. We can't really play catch or something outside because it is dark, so...whatever. It's not really that cold here, just wet. Last night got into the forties, but that is as low as it's been.
Well, I don't really know how Concord is pronounced. The people with an accent say erd, while the people that speak real English say ord. I'm actually surprised, not many people here have accents. I mean, everyone has a little twinge, but it is really easy to understand. The only people that we have a hard time understanding are the elderly people and the people without teeth (there are a lot of those out here).
My companion was raised in the church, but he was mostly inactive most of his life until his little brother went on a mission. He then decided he wanted to go on one. So he did...obviously. He has a huge family of eleven kids, he being the ninth. We get along really well and we are actually similar in many ways. He is teaching me in a way I enjoy. He's kinda teaching by example. He lets me observe him do things before he asks me to do it. I feel like I have already learned a lot.

Don't worry mom, I am staying awake during personal study...most of the times.😜 I got over my cold and I have been eating the gummy vitamins. I love y'all and love your emails and letters. I still need to get some stamps and envelopes for real letters, but I hope I'll get there soon. Stay strong, 
love Elder Huff.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Whoo Boy!

Can you believe it?!?! Tomorrow, I've been in the field two weeks! And Saturday is my one month point! I still have about 100 weeks! How
exciting! So, I don't think I told you this last week, but I know when
I get home. October 9th. That's when my authorized preacher or
whatever card expires. Okay, now I need to answer some questions. So
last week was kinda crazy and busy. I kept having to write my email in
different places and my email was kinda scattered and I didn't get to
address everything, so I'm sorry I didn't answer your questions, I'll
try to do better this week. 

My companion has been out a year and a
quarter. He leaves next summer. My companion is pretty bubbly and
outgoing (well, at least he is more than I am) so he usually initiates
conversations with random people, but we are pretty close to 50-50
teaching already. He's better at finding scriptures and references and
then he wants me to bear my testimony about that subject, which he
says I do better than he does (I don't buy it, but I happily do it). 

Housing is pretty good. My companion and I live in our own flat. It's
a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom, AND IT HAS ITS OWN WASHER AND DRYER!
WHOOPIE! It's so nice because I can just do laundry whenever. Which was not an option in the MTC. We use one of the bedrooms for our study room. I have my own desk, of course. And my closet is in that room too. We spend most of our time in that room. Then the other bedroom my companion gets his closet in there, and the ironing board ( which I haven't had to use because of the awesome shirts I have🤘), and our beds. Those two rooms and my bathroom are upstairs. Then downstairs we have a living room, Then we have the other bathroom downstairs as well as the kitchen. Then we have a driveway outside...of course. Our front door is pretty awesome.

Of course it's raining...it seems like that's all that the weather wants to do here. Which is okay, for now because we have a car (a Chevy Cruze), but I am not excited for this Wednesday, when we give up the carLoudly crying face

Elder Nelson and I are doing pretty well, this week wasn't super productive because of the rain and no one wants to talk to us in the rain. We go around and marinate, which is basically walking around and knocking on some doors and talking to people outside. We meet some crazy people. We can't catch anyone outside. We also marinated around better off neighborhoods this week so people were a little more prideful and didn't want to speak to us. We did talk to a pretty nice older gentleman though. We caught him outside walking across the street to his house. We were all the way down the street when we first saw him, but since he was walking so slow, with his cane, we were able to gain pretty good ground on him. At one point he saw us and I swear his pace doubled. We had to speed walk to catch him. He was a pretty cool guy and when we asked his name he said, " just call me pops" which was kinda weird since we just met the guy. We taught for a while and he seemed pretty interested, so we kinda got our hopes up, but then he said, "Well, it all sounds good, but I go to my son's church." Aargh! Supposedly, his son is a pastor, and to make it even better he lives with his son. So, oh well. Maybe we'll talk to Pops again someday. 

Halloween was pretty chill. We spent all day tiling some guy's house. Elder Nelson did tiling for his job before his mission, so he knew what he was doing, and he worked hard while I sat back, ate chips, and killed cockroaches with a hammer. I did work though as well. I cut and laid down backer board in preparation for the tile. I also cut tile, which kinda freaked me out. It was really loud and the tools we were using were pretty sketchy, but I felt bad that Elder Nelson was doing all the work, so I did as much as I could. We worked there for about five hours, but I felt pretty good about how we spent our time, because this guy just lost his wife and his house is filthy. We did the best we could to make his house look a little better. We then had to go back to the apartment at six because that was our curfew. The mission president didn't want any shenanigans. So we played Marvel Guess Who, which was pretty fun. I destroyed Elder Nelson. I beat him six games to none. We had no trick or treaters at all, so that was pretty good because we had no candy for them. 


We had a pretty good fast and testimony meeting on Sunday. We had two investigators show up for us and the testimonies were really good. The lessons in Sunday school and priesthood were really good too. Hopefully Te and Nicole will get baptized, though I don't know if they plan on it or not. We had dinner at the Howard's house that night. Their son is a type 1 diabetic, so they have a diet of no meat or wheat. Crazy, but the soup we had was pretty good. They have five crazy kids (Reese, Eden, Jesse, Layla, and Logan. I am doing so well with names!) and Brother Howard is hilarious! He told us awesome stories of his mission is Chile. He talked about he got attacked by dogs all the time so they made contraptions that flung beans at dogs like a bullet.  We were laughing for a couple minutes. We then had a good lesson on faith and hope. Then we took brother Howard to Homer( a recent convert) and Te and had a lesson with them. We ended up crackin up there too. I don't even now why we were laughing, something about a crucified chicken and Kool aid. Whatever. We had a good lesson too, I have to mention that too. We had a pretty fun p day today. We went to a trampoline park and then went to the church and played volleyball.  I love y'all and I love all your emails. I'll see you on the flipside. Hopefully I answered your questions.