So apparently I had no idea what summer was...

I would like to begin by saying how sad I am that Robin Williams died. No one told me and then I just saw it on a magazine at the store. NOT cool.

you know what else isn't cool? anytime the temperature goes over 95 here. It hit 100 for the first time this week, and it was one of the worst times EVER. There was about 5%of my shirt that wasn't completely soaking wet, and i had to carry a towel in my bag. It was bad.

On the bright side, it's been a pretty good week! We had a zone conference and learned a lot from that, plus saw a bunch of spanish missionaries (pic enclosed). We had a lot of people show up to play volleyball this week, which hasn't happened in a while, either! As far as our investigators go, we haven't found any old members this week. One of our investigator families invited us to be baptized in their church before we could do the same, which was kinda awkward. 

Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week! the heat was brutal, but we survived without any major problems. Have a good one!

Elder Reay and Elder Dyorich at a Primary Baptism entertaining the troops for a minute

Spanish Elders at Zone Conference

Where on earth did all these less actives come from?

Numbers wise, this was a pretty slow week. I mean, we went places and all that, but no one really listened for more than a minute. We did find this pretty cool lady named Veronica, a single mom of three whose only job is making food and then selling it. I have no idea how she's getting along, but I guess it's just mom magic. 

Our newly found member, Sara, wasn't able to come to church because her car key stopped working in the JCPenny parking lot and she had to wait for three hours. She is reading though, and will be there next week. 

So in our spare time when nobody including their dog is home (which is basically every afternoon) we decided to spend some time looking for some of the old investigators. We managed to catch a few, which is nice, but we also found one that is a bit of a mystery. We need a bit of help with this.

Here's the story: We met this lady, L. O., about a month ago. She said she had talked quite a bit with "the elders" (when they say that, you know they have) and we were welcome to come back anytime. We couldn't catch her for a while, and then we talked to her this week. As we talked, it turns out that Luz attended the branch back in the day, and knows most of the members. That surprised us. But when we got home, we found a record for a Luz, and it was attached to a record of someone named A. M., who was baptized in Texas- the place where L. says she got acquainted with the church. Then we talked to a member, and she said that L. was actually A., and that yes, she was baptized. So at this point we are not sure if her name is L. and she was baptized under the name A., or if she just lied about her name, or what. Either way, we have another old member to restore. 

Well, that's about all! Weather this week is supposed to go into the 100s right about the time we go on bike week! WHEE. 

First Quarter Wrap-up and Review

Today marks my sixth month since I left for my mission.

SIX. MONTHS. ALREADY. 

Question to all of the returned missionaries, does it always go this fast? I can't believe my mission is 25% over already! That's nuts! 

Ok, rant over. This week was pretty good! We met a lot of new people. The interesting one would have to be Roberto. He is from Peru, lives in a nicer part of town, and has religious beliefs that are off the wall, as far as the average South American goes. He was born Catholic, but no longer considers himself that. More or less, he takes good parts from every religion and then keeps it. He compares Jesus Christ to Buddha; a good guy with good teachings, but not the Son of God. He'll be a fun one, I'm sure. 

I have realized this week the importance of patience. i don't mean to complain, but the past few weeks had kind of been weighing on me, more because of our low numbers than actual success level. But yesterday, we contacted a referral one of the missionaries gave us who they met at Golden Corral. She had said she talked to missionaries before, so we were excited. We met her yesterday, and SURPRISE she's actually a member, who wants to come back, doesn't work on Sundays, and wants to bring her kids and grandkid, who are nonmembers. Needless to say, I am on top of the world. I have learned my lesson, and i am ready for this week.

Missionary Moving Co.- Cheap, fairly quick and we don't break a lot of your stuff!

Well, another bike week has come and gone, and we seem to be getting very lucky. This week went down into the 70s and 80s again, which everyone says is super weird for summer. I'm just thankful that the Lord gives us tender mercies like that on bike weeks.

This week was kind of slow, but mostly because we couldn't go faster than about 15 miles an hour (but going down hills at full gears, I think I hit 30, that was exciting.) Bad news about Ricky. He has decided that while it would be awesome if we could go with him every Thursday to the book of Mormon reading class, He will not go to church with us because it would be "playing with God" to go to two churches. Our member, Brother Coy, asked him why he got baptized into our church if he isn't going to go, and he got kind of ticked and said "that is something between me and God." and that was the end of it. So grrrrrrr New Life. In the words of our mission leader, Bro. McKinney, "I can't see how people would believe in a church that is started by a MAN. They're trying to compete with Six Flags over there."

So as a result of transfers, we got a new sister and a new elder. Sister Clarke is from Tropic, UT (no idea where that is, either) and Elder Soelberg, also from utah. He will be going home for school a few weeks early, so we will have a solo zone leader for a bit. Stressful. Elder Wright is no longer here, and has moved to Pine Bluff, AR, with among the highest murder per capita rate in the nation. He is super excited. So yeah, that is my week! Hope everyone is having a good time getting ready for SCHOOL, and I will talk to you later!

P.S.  (after I (mom) asked for clarification:

Oh, yeah, hmm. Totally forgot about that. We didn't get in too many doors, but we did talk with a lot of people outside. That's the curse for bike week, it's normal. We met some people with potential, like this one guy who has a Mormon friend moving here from Mexico in a month, so we are hoping for some good fellowship there. We also met quite a few Jehovah's Witnesses, and quite frankly, I don't really get their beliefs.  Also, forgot to explain the title of the email. So there's a newly married old couple in our ward, The Nunleys, who needed help getting her stuff to his house. Naturally, we volunteered. So we got there and there were about three more people. And she had a LOT of stuff. We ended up going for 6 and a half hours, from 9 to 330. And Elder Dyorich hurt his back so we didn't go out the rest of the day.