Hi Mom,
This key board is really annoying, it doesn't like to back space and is super stiff, so if a few words get spelled wrong, blame the keyboard.
This week was so much fun. We didn't get many big numbers, but that's totally ok. We did however do a lot of work and talked with absolutely everyone who walked by. It's rather fun to talk to everything and everyone that moves and breaths. Some times we were literally talking to the dog more then the master.
I'd go through the week, but not much happened. We started by doing a normal preparation day. I bought some more stuff at Costco that should last for two to three months.
On Tuesday it was district meeting, I made some cookies for the district, and nearly no one partook, so I ended up eating more then I wanted to. We also had a lesson with familia V*-R*. They're two of our investigators. They aren't married, so we are working with them on that. It was my first lesson with them, so I was just trying to get to know them a little better. We've talked about them, but that's about it. Elder Villanueva had made them a cheese cake, and they insisted on sharing with us. (I really am not a fan of Cheese cake and truly want to lose weight, so I wasn't too excited about eating the cake).
On Wednesday, we had an exchange planned with Elders Tyus and Rangel, but Elder Villanueva wasn't feeling to good, so we canceled and had a pretty normal day. We had a dinner planned, but it got canceled. So we had to eat in the apartment. Elder Villanueva made me a Mexican dish. It was sooooo RICA (Delicious (literal translation, rich)). I also found out that I ran out of MSF fund this week. OPPS.
Thursday we did weekly planning. We took most of the day to do it, but we broke it up and for one of our little breaks Elder Villanueva taught me how to play the melody line of all the hymns in the hymn book. Well, actually, he taught me how to teach myself how to play the melody to all the hymns in the hymn book. It's a super cool method, and I'll share it with you when I get home. It really speeds up the learning to sight read process. My six years of piano actually helped speed up the process because I knew a little already and could play a basic melody on the piano. After planning, we ran to a lesson with Familia V*. They're menos activos (less actives) we're working with. The lesson was on the restoration and went so well. We had dinner after with them, but we should have left because we had a lesson with Hermana del C*, an investigator we're teaching. We had a member lined up to help with it, but we went like, 30 minutes over and only had 30 minutes until the end of our day. So we ran by Hermana del C* and apologized and called the member to apologize to him as well.
Friday was a super trying day for me, and the trial of my faith is still going on right now. Elder Elder and Elder Gonzalez needed transportation to a pharmacy, so we drove out there to help. While they were getting the prescription filled, Elder Villanueva and I did some shopping in the snack isle, well, Elder Villanueva shopped, I looked at stuff (like pop-corn) and thought "That's just death in a wrapper". To make things really hard. Elder Villanueva bought a bag of Cheetos (which I hate to death), a pack of Oreos (which are the best cookies (except for grandmas) on the face of the planet) and a thing of Ghirardelli, mint chocolate squares (which I love almost as much as Oreos). That's not all, When we got back in the car. Elder Villanueva opened the bags and began sharing the Oreos, Cheetos and Ghirardelli with everyone. I took a very firm stand of "NO" which only started all the Elders in the car to tempt me with all the sweets. I managed to not eat a single piece of candy, but it wasn't easy. We then had a baptismal interview that night, the hermanas in the other Rama had a baptism on Sunday (more on that latter). Obviously the Hermana passed, but when we got there, they were all eating Doritos with Hot Sauce and everyone kept offering me them, and it wasn't even a stupid flavor of Dorito, it was the good normal Nacho Cheese flavor. I said no, and then to top it off, we didn't have a dinner, so we ate in the apartment again. This time I ate some ground turlky and rice and Elder Villanueva baught a thing of Cheesy bread from Little Caesars. I've actually wanted to try that for a long time, but after all the work I put into not eating junk food, I couldn't say yes.
On Saturday, I saw the fruit of my labor. A whole pound dropped!!! I was hopping for more, but one pound was good. We spent most of the day running around to appointments that either dropped or were with the hermanas to practice a special musical number for Sunday. That was the day. We didn't do much of anything else.
Sunday was really slow for us. We had Church. For the sacrament Talks, we listened to two gringos give talks in English while Elder Rangel and Hermano Skyles (He's a gringo in our rama who served in Florida speaking Spanish and is married to a Hispanic woman) translated. It was really cool to listen to the talks and hear how they are translated differently. After Church we had a little time before "Dinner" with the familia Bernal, So we ran into the primary and Elder Villanueva practiced for the musical number and then I practiced the one song that I actually know, "I stand all amazed". It's super cool to be able to play the piano. We then had dinner and then went to the baptism. It was so pretty and the Hermana was so excited to be baptized. After there was some free food in the kitchen, so we stopped by and had a bite to eat. Lunch was not enough to end the day. We then went home and ended the day with some studies.
RETUNR AND REPORT.
Trial number one, after all that work to NOT EAT junk food I have 182 lbs this morning.
I did 6/7 days in Spanish
Sources of mint found I think 11 but I don't remember
love
Elder Michael Blanding
OH, sorry. it rained really hard on Thursday right when we left for dinner. That really was it.