The Bombs Bursting in Air!

(Letter July 9, 2012)
Hola Familia!

I'm happy to hear that all is going well, and that everyone is having a good summer. I must say, I was quite shocked to hear about the news of Julia and Steve. I thought the whole Denver thing was a sure deal. It's ok Hermana, No se preocupe (Don't Worry) everything will work out. It just means you'll find an even better dental practice! This week has been pretty speedy, and now it's week 6. Most likely Elder Ferrell's and my last week together before I enter my last transfer of the mission. We'll find out this week if I'll be training again or not. More news on that next week. 

As far as our teaching pool goes... We had to push Makayla and Nicole back one more week to the 22nd of July because the majority of the ward is going to Cumorah on the 14th and 15th. I thing the change of date will be for the best though, because Makayla and Nicole missed church again yesterday :(. I feel like I've been jipping you all of with my letters lately, so this week I'm going to copy my journal entries in and expound on them, to see if that gives you more about my week. 

7/2/12
   Today was an extraordinary P-day. We did all the normal stuff like shopping, Laundry, etc. We also got to play some b-ball with the assistants which is always fun. We found 2 new investigators! Our finding drought is over! First we taught Beatriz (From Ecuador, she contacted us the other day in the street wanting to learn English) English and then a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. We also got to teach Soy Esperanza de Consuelo (Her name literally translated is :" I am Hope of Comfort." Cool name huh?) She is super prepared. She was a member referral from our ward mission leader, and she's totally going to get baptized. This is the same lady we taught English a week before, but now she's been to church twice, and she is planning on going to Cumorah with the ward next week! Yeehaw!

7/3/12
   Happy 4th of July! oh wit, it was only the 3rd... But we did get to enjoy some fireworks tonight as we stood on a deck overlooking all of Dover. It was amazing. The only bad part was that everybody around us was drinking beer.

Oh well... We had an awesome zone conference today, and Sister Jeppson dressed up as a pirate to teach us about having manners. Her slogan was "Mind Ye Manners." (Think of her talking with a pirate accent, an eye patch on, and a stuffed parrot on her shoulder. She's such a funny lady. It was a great zone conference, unfortunately it was be my last :(

7/4/12
Happy Independance Day! For real this time! I have to admit this was one pretty awesome 4th of Jly. The morning started w/ the usual routine, and before we went to zone mtg, we went to Cliff's Ice-Cream. I didn't get anything, I'm kind of boring. But zone mtg was awesome! We did some role-plays, and afterwards we headed to Fudrucker's which was quite delicious. We didn't really get to teach anyone because nobody was home on account of it being a holiday, but we had a really good lesson with our investigator Juan and headed out to see more fireworks in Chatham. The fireworks there were super amazing, especially the finale which was full of amazing explosions. Probably one of the craziest firework finale's I've ever seen. Luckily I got it on video. I'll have to show it to you one day.

7/5/12
Amazing walking day today! It actually wasn't horribly hot, but I think a big part of it is that we taught 6 lessons today, so we didn't have to spend much time outside walking around. Hermana Vasquez is doing awesome! She quit drinking coffee and she's slowly reactivating. I guess the big miracle of the day is when we taught Ines. We were teaching a less active named Yetlennesi and her uncle about he parable of the sower, and as we were about to close, the daughter of the uncle came in to listen. We taught Ines the restoration w/ the Bishop, Edwin, and the girls dad helping out. She was really receptive, and I think she will get baptized in the near future. Hopefully the Elders in NY will follow up with her. We had a really good English class w/ the help of the Ariola family (from Paraguay) as we taught Beatriz. The night ended with some Domino's at Fausta's. 

7/6/12
Today was excelente! Although it was super hot, we didn't get too fried. We took a trip up to Newton again and visited with Papi. We're still a little unsure if he's accountable or not. He remembered some things but other things not so much. etc... Noting else really interesting on this day...

7/7/12
Today was a super exhausting day. This morning we went and played some B-ball which got pretty intense. There were a lot of really good players there and E. Smith and E. Tippetts invited some guys that played b-ball in high school. We were a little disappointed today w/ the number of appointments that fell through. We had a pretty crazy lesson with an old member. Taught an awesome lesson about conversion to some teenagers in the ward, and then had an awesome FHE activity in the church. We talked about the Apostasy and Prophets, playing 2 different games. First we played telephone which turned out to be hilarious. One of the funnies was one that started out with "Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees to pray." changing to  "Prophets like to dance!." Don't tell me how that happens. I guess in Spanish it get s a little more confusing. We played some Simon says changing it to "the prophet says" which also turned out really well. I even got my first watermelon today! Not a bad day, although I might have gotten heat exhaustion from the crazy humidity when we played basketball. 

7/8/12
Today was a rough day.... The first day in my mission where I have had to stay in from working. I may have got some sort of flu bug, or heat exhaustion yesterday, or a combination of things. I didn't end up making it to church, and so I sat home all day, slept, watched church videos and the such. Elder Smith was nice enough to stay home with me all day. I went to bed at 8:40 pm which was really good for my body, even if it took forever for me to get to sleep. 

And here we are today, I'm feeling a lot better today! Sadly Elder Ferrell got sick yesterday too, and was pretty sick this morning. But now we are both feeling better, we just need to stay out of the heat, and take it easy for a few days. 

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. I love the gospel, and I'm so grateful for the kind of person the mission has made out of me. I hope that for these last 7 weeks I can do all that the Lord would have me do. I love you all so much. You're all in my prayers!