Boy oh boy, do I got some stories this week! A lot of neat-o stuff happened this week (and a lot of not neat-o stuff) so imma skip the begging for responses for now so I dont make this too long. I'll start off with some good ones and end with the less-than-optimal ones (Positivity!). Onward!
So, this week we had a few meetings with members in our ward to see if they know of anyone that we can teach, this turned out to be rather effective because we got a few names from it. Sadly, we have not been able to meet with any of them yet becaue they were all busy this week. We also did a ton of door knocking, and I have finally gained the courage to actually knock and talk to the person, rather than having my companion do them all!. We only managed to gain one solid investigator through it though. His name is Brandon and he is a super cool dude, he has 5 kids and is very well versed in his bible knowledge. He has a few interesting beliefs, but none that interfere much with our truths, so we are not worried (for example: Noahs Ark was found in Turkey, Jesus is black [this one is very common out here], and that biblical giants may still exist). From this week though, I have really nailed down that I just have to get used to rejection and develop some thick skin. Usually, the people pretty calmly say "not interested" *door slam*, sometimes we get some mean words, a few times its just wierd/funny (one lady just opened the door and said, while shaking her head, "nope, nope, nope, nope, nope...nope *slam*, and we didnt even say hello XD), Then there are the 5% that let us explain what we are and the 1% that lets us set up an appointment to come back with a Book of Mormon. Its really interesting to just see all of the different reactions, haha.
Another good story! This week we met an awesome lady named Lisa! She is older and just moved down here with her mother to help her...live. She actually recieved all of the lessons about our church and fell in love with it back in Seattle from another set of missionaries, but she could not be baptized because she was still on parole (the state gets mad when churches baptize people on parole for some strange reason). She was just released last month though! THis means that we just have to help her out with any problems she might have and then we get to baptize her! She is super sweet and has an insurmountable amount of faith of this restored gospel! We are super excited to help her out!
One more good story! As you all likely know, Puerto Rico got absolutely destroyed by hurricane Irma, and in many places is still without clean water, food, electricity, etc. This week we got the chance to go help out down at a huge project by Feeding Children (not 100% sure that is the right name). We got around a table with a bunch of boxes of food and made an assemble line where we put one of everything into these little lunch-box cartons and then put them into a bigger box. We were there from 9:00am to 5:00pm on Saturday, and it was AWESOME! Not only was it super cool to help put together all of these boxes for famalies that need it down there, but they were playing normal music which I miss dearly, so that was an amazing bonus XD. It was super fun and as a zone, I think we got like 40,000 boxes made that day (there was about 5 people to a table and like 20 tables of our zone filled by our zone). Overall the project is going to have made 4.4 million by the end of it (it has been going on all month and will finish by next month). Super fun time! I loved it!
Yay, time for the bad (humorous) stories! So, in this mission we have bikes and cars to get around. Each area is either full-car, car-share or full-bike. Full-car and full-bike mean you only use a bike or car, car-share means that you and another area take turns with a car every other week. In our Spanish area (which is pretty big) there are four different english areas, and each of them is full-car...and we are car-share... This was our first bike week, and I realized that I am not a fan of biking here XD. We ran into a ton of problems in the beginning too. On the first day, my companion realized that his tire was flat, so we tried to use a little hand-pump we found to pump it up. This ended in use trying deperately to figure out how to use this tiny thing for about an hour before finally accidently ripping the bike tube's valve out of the tube... Luckily, we got the people we are care-sharing with to get us a ride to a walmart the next day to buy a new one. We then got home and started trying to get that tube on, after about 30 minutes of struggling, it dawned on us: this tube is the wrong size... Nonetheless we forced it on, and finally attempted to pump it up, hoping that it would work well enough for us to bike to a bike shop about 4 miles down the street. After another half an hour of trying to figure out again how to use the stupid pump, the tube basically exploded... We decided the best course of action would be to cancel our appointments for the rest of that day and work on calling members and figure out what to do (so entire day wasted). The next morning, we came to the conclusion that the only way we could do this without wasting more days waiting, was to walk to the bike shop and back to get the tire. That is an almost 9 mile walk, in the blistering Florida heat and humidity, in churh clothes... would not recommend, but we done did it! We got the tube! Put it on! And then realized that we still don't know how to use the pump! We finally figured it out though, and began to pump up the tire! We were so excited, then suddenly, we hear a hiss, and watch in horror as the tire deflated. We almost cried XD. Lckily though, we figured out that it was the pump, not the tire this time. We found a small hole in the back that was letting air escape through it now, so we did the logical thing and, with very little thought, super-glued it shut! We were so proud of ourselves until the glue finally dried... we realized that we also managed to super-glue the air intake shut as well... There was a ton of super-glue an no way to dig it all out... We then decided to go around and ask the people in our apartment if they had a bike pump. A few say that we were missionaries and did not even let us get the question out XD. We ran into a guy named Ace though, he is a super buff dude with a ton of really nice cars and some very... non-PG pictures all over his garage, but HE HAD A PUMP!!! He pumped up Elder Cooks tire and we were finally done with thiswonderful series of unfortunate events and got to start biking! I then learned that I really wish I would have worked out more! Because we ride around 20 miles a day! 10/10 car-share is the best thing ever!
You wanna know what's fun? Going on a nice bike ride in some cool weather in some normal clothes. Wanna know what's not fun? Biking 20 miles every day in 90+ degree heat and 80%+ humidity in church clothes. Wanna know whats fun? Going on a 9 mile hike in mountain fresh air. Wanna know whats not fun? Walking 9 miles in the same conditions listed above along a highway in a dense city. Wanna know whats fun? Playing in the rain in clothes that can be taken off when you want to dry off. Wanna know whats not fun? Biking through the equivalent of a waterfall for 20 minutes (while still being hot enough to not know if sweat or rain is dripping down your face) in church clothes. Wanna know whats fun? Meeting new people and getting to know them. Wanna know whats not fun? Getting yelled at because you just wanna share something you think is awesome and eternally helpful. In all honesty, most of the mission seems to be things that are just not fun, but holy cow are they WORTH IT! I we didn't bike every day we would not be helping everyone. If we did not have to walk and get that bike stuff, we would not have ran into Brandon while he so happened to be home. If we didnt bike through that storm we would not have had the chance to go give Virginia (a super sweet old lady who is having helth issues) a blessing before she went to the hospital. If we were not willing to get yelled at, we would not be able to find those people who are ready for this blessing of the gospel! Overall a mission is not by itself a fun experience (there are definetely times that are fun though), but so far, it is one of the most WORTH IT things I have done! I have seen the power that this gospel has and the happiness it can bring! I am honestly so grateful for this opportunity! Trust me, there are definetely times where school and work seem so much easier, but I don't think anyhting but having a family will be this worthwile! Sorry I got a little preachy there, haha, I just love this stuff so much! And I love all of you back home! You all mean the world to me! Have an awesome week, and keep me updated (I can read emails every day, only write on mondays)! I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!
<3 Elder Fox
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Feliz Cumpleanos Quince! Love Ya!
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(pls send me your birthdays if you can, I wanna remember them)
Spanish Practice:
Este semana yo trataba de hacer los bownies de platanos que mi mama cocina muchos veces. Primero yo accidentalmente agregué demasiada crema agria. Pues, me di cuenta que uno de las bolsas de azucar en polvo fue vencido. Entonces, yo use azucar regular por la mitad. Idea malo. En el fin, no sabia tan mal, solo tenia una textura muy extrana, jaja.Tratare de hacer otra vez en el futuro.
Pictures (once again, not alot, sorry. My family did just send me an AMAZING Halloween package with my camera though! Photos will improve from here out):
1-7. Photos from the service project!
9-10. Stuff I got fomr my family's Halloween package!
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