First things first. My new mailing
address is 2101 31st street Great Bend Kansas 67530
Man alive what a week. I gotta write
about a few funny things I did before leaving the MTC just in case nothing
funny happened once I got out here. I didn't want to disappoint everyone. A few
days before I left, me and another Elder in my district wanted to have an ice
cream sandwich eating competition so naturally we did. We both skipped dinner
since it was gross and just started on ice cream sandwiches. I think I ate
around 13 or 14, but honestly, I can't remember. It feels like so long ago.
Needless to say, I won that and I made the other Elder throw up. The scary part
is I was like not even phased by it. Like I felt a little sick later into the
night, but I was feeling great right after it happened, so that concerned me a
little, but I'm all good now.
So, on Tuesday I left the MTC at
like 6:45 am and made my way to the airport. I'll spare y'all the boring
details. You're welcome. Anyway, I got to Wichita around 6pm I think. We were
met by the AP's and President Ernst. They took us to the mission home where
Sister Ernst had dinner waiting. We had some training and then we got to ask
the AP's tons of questions while President held interviews. We were told
stories of miracles that just made me excited to serve, and to see miracles
like that happen for myself. We spent the night at the AP's apartment which was
pretty wild. There was just a lot of Elders and not a whole lot of space. The
next day we had to sit through more training and safety stuff. We got warned
multiple times about bed bugs which I didn't actually know were a real thing...
They're nasty little buggers. We were assigned our new companions and our
areas, and then we were sent out with different missionaries while our trainers
got some training. My new comp is named Elder Grassi and he's from Dallas
Texas. Me and him get along just great which is a huge blessing. He is a super
cool dude. Love him to death. We are serving in Great Bend Kansas, which is a
pretty big area.
One thing I've noticed about this
area is that it is super hard to get people to come to church. The ward
boundaries are 100 miles north to south, and 60 miles east to west. So, some
people have to drive quite a while to get to church. We're making it work
though.
One of the first few people I met
here is named Mark. He lives in a pretty run down house with his sister Chris
in Larned Kansas. He was excommunicated a while back for some stuff, but
is being rebaptized in October! Mark and Chris are originally from Paraguay, so
they're super big into maté. So here I am in the middle of Kansas, sitting in
this run down house drinking maté just like I was in Argentina! It was pretty
wild. The mate he made was nothing special, but it was loaded with sugar which
made it taste just a little better, but after a few sips the sugar was gone. I
didn't want to be rude, so I just had to force myself to drink it. Hopefully he
doesn't make it for us again...
So every Thursday we go into Larned,
and it literally rained the whole day. We didn't have a car, so it only seemed
fitting that it rained on my first full day in my area. My white shirt took a
beating, but I'm sure it'll was out... Hopefully you can see it in the picture.
Saturday was one of the craziest
days I've had here so far. We drove out to St. John to do some service for an
older lady in the ward. She is your classic horder/ cat lady. I'd bet she had
around 20-25 cats living in her house. We had to clean out her garage because
there was cat poop everywhere and then scrape down the walls in her house. We
were warned as we were cleaning the garage that there were brown recluse
spiders everywhere, and boy they weren't kidding. Anything you moved had
spiders in and around it. I went to move a leaf of a table and after I set it
down, I realized there was a spider right next to my arm. It scared me half to
death. If you don't know, I'm very allergic to cats, so I was not having a good
time. We all had on like doctor’s masks and latex gloves to help. As we cleaned
more, we had to start putting the cats in cages. Well these cats didn't exactly
want to go into cages. Elder Grassi tried to grab one, and it started flailing
and screaming for lack of a better work. I looked over and just saw latex glove
pieces flying in the air from where the cat had torn them to shreds. In order
to escape, the cat had to bite Elder Grassi twice before he finally let go.
They were mean little cats. We finally got everything cleaner, and this lady
was only allowed to keep four cats after we were all done. We got back into
town and there was an absolute bonkers storm. We were on tornado watch, which
means the weather is perfect for a tornado, and then around 9 we went on
tornado warning which means there is a tornado and we're supposed to go
directly to our safe spot. Well we figured out that we don't have a safe spot.
Thankfully nothing happened. I was a little mad it came at night because I
couldn't see anything. It was honestly a fitting ending for the day.
Another guy I met is named Joe
Hernandez. He was taught by the other Elders who were here, but is totally
ready for baptism. We went over and visited him once, and I invited him to be
baptized, and he said yes! I'm praying he follows through.
The last person I wanna write about
is Bree. The missionaries who were here before were working very hard with her.
She got pregnant at 16, and has the cutest little daughter now. She's 17 now
and we have her on date to be baptized sometime in September. We always have
scripture study with her, and it's so cool to get insight from non members on
the Book of Mormon.
Well I guarantee I'm forgetting
something, so maybe you'll get a little more from me later, but if not, the
church is true. Hoorah for Israel.
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