January 2, 2017

Happy Birthday Mom!                                                                       January 2, 2017

Once again, I'm still grasping the fact on how the house is the only project I remember where it's not just Dad and I who are working on it. And it's even weirder to see how smoothly it seems to run. You know, I feel like I'm identifying to be a "desert dweller" as far a climatology-home goes. People tell me when they hear I'm from Vegas that I'm not used to the snow. I guess I've seen both white-out and sandstorm.  Can't wait to see what else that goes too.

I also find it funny that between your 3 sons, Daniel has the most class when it comes to how mission culture affects us. I can see Daniel singing Italian while making pizza, bread, and pasta perfectly, but I can't really see Paul singing hill-songs over a BBQ, and I can't really see myself singing who-knows-what grilling hot-dogs at a Seahawks tailgate.

Meh, good times!

Speaking of Good times, what did you do for your birthday? Can you believe that 2017 is already upon us? Hard to grasp, but we got a great start to the week this past week! On Thursday Elder Mayes and I went down to the food-bank to serve from 10-12. We weren't able to get a ride back, and our afternoon plans were super loose, so we considered staying from 1-3. It felt odd, I'm still working off the E-burg service surplus from that time, but we felt oddly at ease with staying. So after lunch at the local teriyaki joint (that was nostalgic), and a very fun walk back to the food bank, we went back to work.

 Eventually the whole zone showed up, and we were all making senior bags in an "assembly line" manner. I was at the end with another volunteer tying the bags together. All of a sudden, this guy asks me, "so what is the Book of Mormon about anyway?" So we got talking, learned he's very religious and loves to read the bible, and in the end he took a copy of the Book of Mormon and told us he was very interested in reading it! His name is Mark, and the sisters who cover his ward were there too! They got him hooked up, and Mark said that he'd like to come to church, and also try to invite a friend! Go humanity!

Another experience last night also makes the highlights. Kid you not, we were walking around in a blizzard around 4th ward. Not only was it snowing, but it was drifting too. We figured it'd be a good chance to get inside with some potential investigators. When I first came into Moses, we tracted into a lady named Stephanie. We decided yesterday to go try by, (previous attempts hadn't worked) and she let us in! And we got talking to her family, and they are actually super-interested in getting some life questions answered. Stephanie's whole family is LDS, and we also got to teach half of a mini-Restoration to their 9-year old son, Issac who is super curious about God. The husband, Nick, is the owner of a local pizza joint around here, and he said we were more than welcome to swing by for lunch sometime and we can talk to him then. He believes in a Higher Power, and although he doesn't really know why so much bad happens in the world, he wants the best for his family. Kind of goes to show, someone tells you you can come back, never doubt it. This will be a great moment for teaching in 4th ward. 

And Bishop in 7th is going to set us up for a lesson with his friend who came to church too! 

Yep, good week this week! I also got the chance to make some Hokkaido bread on Saturday when we couldn't proselyte, and you know, bread-making is pretty fun! Therapeutic I would almost say. And speaking of medicine, don't worry about the Aczone stuff, I've got it covered with what I got. I'd love to talk more about what happened, but I am out of time. Until then, know that I love you! 

Michael