A week in the life.. 6-5-2023

 On Sunday we went to a baby shower! It was superhero themed, my companion took home a Batman table piece for the apartment. 

Monday the preparation day was a good one, my companion Elder Peoples birthday is on Tuesday so we celebrated with the district today. The senior missionaries, the Updikes made us homemade sub sandwiches and lemon pie. We played board games and I won every round except for one. Elder Peoples mom got him a Target online pickup order of cupcakes, laundry soap, ice cream and soda pop. Our most progressing friend Chris Falgiani put himself on date for baptism for June 26 (my birthday, I will put my address down below if you feel obliged to send me a card or anything) 

Tuesday my companions birthday!! The Relief Society president came and dropped off eible-skevers for breakfast. They were pretty delicious. For service we volunteered at a place called Family Promise which houses homeless and helps them get back on their feet, the organization is inside an old abandoned hospital. After we cleaned the kitchen, we went exploring and the basement was creepy! Old murals, gurney beds, and medical equipment everywhere, felt like the setting for a horror film. There wasn't a whole lot of action this day but we had an incredible member dinner with the Olótugeis, they made my companion a cake and we sang to him and he got gifts. We went to our friend Bob who is a recent convert and he had gotten us both Dutch Bros and $75 Jimmie John's gift cards, later we were walking around

 and saw an Asian homie, long story short we got bashed by a whole frat house of Christ Church college kids, afterwards we had to rush home to pack to get to the other elders apartment for an exchange the next day. Traffic was busy because there was a whole airplane wing being transported down the highway. Elder Peoples opened presents on a call with his family. 

Wednesday was actually super duper fun because I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Stringham who is my district leader who was also my mtc companion! #throwback. We moved gravel and washed individual buckets of the material to move into a homes front yard-scape. We had to get changed into church clothes in his double wide trailer bathroom and there was a cat that was in there hiding I didn't realize. For lunch we went to the AW Diner and reminisced on old times. When we were out and about we helped some girl wish grass clippings, we talked to a few cool people and we found 2 Peruvian women, one spoke English and the other didn't. One of them is supposedly a model, and I have been helping them find housing and Jesus over Facebook messenger. I have taught Muslims, Native Americans, and all other manner of ethnic groups while I've been here. It's helped me appreciate diversity a lot more. We rushed home to de-exchange and I had the best night sleep of my life after a stressful zone call while trying to turn in miles while my companion was calling his sister for her birthday. 

On Thursday we had weekly planning, but after that we had to drive to Pullman to help Chris and Sandy move into a home. The previous home Sandy lived in was huge and the new one is small. She had like 7 couches we had to strategically put into the home. We had our zone leaders helps us, they are big bodies. Afterwards she slipped us some money for lunch and some 7th Day Adventist reading material, upon arriving home we realized it was $400! We are going to return it soon, that is so not cool of her! Elder Taylor and I worked my area in Moscow all day.

Fry-day (Sister Lonergan gave me her French fries at lunch) we had slept at the zone leaders apartment the night prior so we woke up and de-exchanged and drove home to finish our morning schedule and get ready for district council. I gave a little talk on Christ and how we can emulate his attributes in our interactions with others. We had lunch and just chatted with the other missionaries which is always fun. I learned a little bit of Chinese. Afterwards we had a lesson with Gia who is from the Nez Pearce tribe. She enjoyed the Book of Mormon and noticed a lot of similarities to her tribal beliefs, I wonder why..... We also talked to Muhammad who wants to come to church! We had a lesson with a friend named Tony, his cat scratched me and we taught the Restoration. We had dinner with a fun family who had some wild kids. The littlest daughter who is obviously in potty training randomly dropped her drawers during dinner and ran to the restroom. We did a lot of tech, and helped Chris formulate a plan to quit smoking in a few weeks.

On Saturday morning we woke up to a text from the APs saying we'd exchange with Elder Park (the newly called AP) so we went for a jog and then daily planned the best day ever. First things first we went and picked up Elder Park then did service for a lady found on the "Gardeners of the Palouse" Facebook page, thank you sisters. We helped her plant California poppies along a hillside, afterwards we went to Jim and Cathy Greys (black and white old Southern couple) and shoveled chicken poo dirt into gardening boxes and received 3 jars of grape juice in return. Following up on a referral we were out and about and found 3 new people in a parking lot. We had found another Spanish lady, then we found someone for the sisters serving in Troy and Potlatch (boonie area) and one for ourselves. At Alturas Park doing comp study we talked to an atheist and chatted with him for a while. It was structured somewhat like a philosophical debate

At our member dinner Elder Park spilled water all over himself by knocking a tech deck finger scooter into his glass. We talked books and hunting and ran off to an apartment complex to follow a spiritual prompting. We found Kassidy, I started talking to her about baseball at the mailbox, she then starting asking us questions about our missions. She has a friend serving in Florida, after talking for a bit she opened up and explained how she's been trying to avoid alcohol and drugs because it's been putting her in a bad spot. She's been abused and a few months ago she was escaping her ex boyfriend she drove away drunk and hit someone. Since then she's been struggling with recovery, having multiple surgeries and such and parole. Needless to say she's in a position humble enough to find God. We will meet with her soon. Ended the day by dropping off Elder Park with Elder Mac and Anae the other 2 APs. Went to bed and had crazy dreams.

The end.

If you wanna send me anything for my birthday here's the address!

1526 S Levick St Moscow, ID 83843-2560 United States

June 26th!