Rain and Goats

So your off to Heritage Hall (BYU Dorms), eh Levi? Sweet. I hope that your taking mission prep next semester and not this one, because I remember very little since I took it during fall semester. (One of the only things I do remember is that the teacher divided us up into companionships to have a more mission-like experience, but since there were an uneven number of guys and girls, I ended up with a girl companion for the semester. Kind of ironic, I think. The only thing I do remember about the mission prep class is that it's nothing like a mission.) Good luck with the dorm, although I´m pretty sure they have microwaves there for you already. I never had to bring one. A toaster might be a better option.

Oh yeah, and congrats to Mat6t on his mission call. I´d love to be at the farewell but I´ll be outta town. I´m sending Levi to represent me at your chapel.

So the buzz around the town is that USA and Brazil are gonna go at it in soccer at the Olympic's. As much as I like my area, I gotta lend support to me home country. USA!

This P-day looks to be a fairly boring one, as Pres. And Sis. Leal are coming to town tomorrow to do some interviews and house checks, so every things gotta be spick and span. We did some cleaning this morning already, and I managed to discover the biggest spider I´ve seen here in the country yet. It was hiding behind our outside sink where we wash clothes. Big and nasty with a tinge of electric blue. I took a picture so I´ll send it home in a bit.

Also this week, it rained about 5 days out of the week, which greatly hampered our street contacting work. On Thursday it rained incredibly hard for about 4 hours, (like monsoon, rain-forest style) and we wound up hiding in different stores seeing if we could find some people to talk to.

We found some more people to teach this week. We were knocking doors for about an hour or so, (an activity which is probably the hardest that I know of on the mission. I can tell that Elder D. doesn´t like it too much, so I try to act cheerful as we get various forms of rejection.) and found a whole street that was disinterested in the message. One older guy told us that he was born Catholic, will die Catholic, and will be resurrected Catholic, and that he had no time for us. But we did find a brother and a sister, (about 17 and 15 years old I would guess) who we taught the first lesson two. It was a good lesson, and the girl was eager to give the prayer at the end of the lesson. (A rare thing in my experience. Most people the first time around are too shy to pray in public.) We got to teach a good part at the end of the lesson as to the true nature of the Godhead, (they´re from a church that teaches the three-beings-in-one thing) We also got to teach them the importance of saying prayers to God.

Another guy we found, named Daniel, about 38 yrs. Old or so, was sitting on a bench outside his house. We were in the poorer part of my area, (dirt roads, houses of wood or just brick, etc.) and we started a conversation with him and his friend. Turns out that Daniel´s house just burned down about a week ago, and he´s living in a borrowed house with his family. We´re going by on Saturday to help him as he rebuilds his new house. And although we don´t know much about housebuilding, I take confidence in the fact that:

#1: The Lord will help us serve him, and
#2: This type of house you just stack the bricks and put the cement on with a trowel.

So how hard can it be, right? Hmmm… Maybe I better think more about #1…

On a final note, this week a saw a bunch of kids messing with a herd of goats this week, only to have the goats turn and chase the kids all the way to a bar that borders a church (very common here. I guess you get the opportunity to sin then worship or vice versa.) While not a very interesting story on paper, it was my favorite memory for the week to see a kid mortally afraid of a goat, yelling “If you kill me, I´ll kill you goat!”

Welp, I believe that´s all I have time for, so thanks again people.

Excelcior-Me

P.S.-I´d still like to receive a copy of the Magleby blog, if that´s still possible. [I forgot to cut and paste a copy of this into his last email. Sorry!]