October 05, 2009
HI, how’s it going?
Monday was p’day. We finally cleaned the apartment. It smells nice now. Well, not anymore, but it did for a couple of days. The rest of the day we just slept because my comp was sick. Elder Valerio is from Valdivia, Chile and its pretty cold where he lives so the heat has been making him sick. He also has to watch what he eats because he has Gastritis and sometimes he gets sick because of that as well. Elder Valerio is a really cool guy though. He knows English really well. He learned here on the mission. He is also learning Hebrew. He has been teaching me a little bit. Anyway the highlight of my p’day/b’day was when we went to a menos activa named Shirley’s house to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watch "Testaments". It was pretty sweet. We also ate pbandj sandwiches with Diego and Fam last week. Everyone loves them.
On Saturday we took 5 investigators and a menos activo to Conference. I basically begged Diego, Lourdis, Daikline, Dalia and Shirley to come because they haven’t been able to come to Church yet and I wanted them to see conference. So Saturday morning we met Shirley at the bus terminal and then took the bus to ‘Guapiles’. When the bus got to Astua, Diego and Lourdis and their daughters Daikline and Dalia, and Dalias daughter Natalie, got on the bus, like we had previously planned. The bus was pretty full and Natalie (Dalia´s 5 year old daughter) kept yelling "Gingo, Gingo, Gingo!" (Gringo) at me because thats what she calls me. Anyway it was an hour bus ride but we got to the Church in Guapiles just before conference started. Shirley and Diego´s family could only stay for the first session but i think they liked it so it was pretty sweet.
We stayed and watched all the sessions, which was good because last General Conference we had to keep working and couldn’t watch conference. On Sunday we also watched conference. The night before we had ran over to a menos activos house, Hermana Molina, and begged her to come as well. She said she might come but then she didn’t. We also invited many other people but they didn’t come either. The good thing is that at lunch, my ZL Elder Carr and I went out and brought two random people from the street in to watch conference with us. One of the guys was kind of drunk and he kind of invited himself as we walked by, but we just washed him up and just kept an eye on him (put him between two Elders) but he was pretty calm and was asleep half the time. The other guy we brought in to conference was pretty good and I explained everything to him and answered his questions. The Elders in Guapiles are going to start visiting him this week so all in all conference was awesome.
In other news, I left my umbrella on a ‘Sagrada Familia’ bus last week. At first I was like, "o, darn.", but then I remembered I had extras at home so I was ok. *Ü* But the sweet thing is that on Saturday when we were at the bus terminal about to go to conference, some random lady handed me my umbrella and said she’s been looking all over for me to give it to me. I thanked her and got her address so we can pass by and share the gospel with her. I was just really surprised and it’s awesome that she went through all that trouble to give me back my umbrella. Anyway, I don’t have my umbrella again because Shirley was holding it in her purse for me and I forgot to get it back after conference, but luckily we’re going to visit her today so I can get it back.
At 1 O’clock early this morning we woke up to our neighbor banging on our door. My comp jumped down from the top bunk and exclaimed, "What the heck!" because when his feet hit the ground there a splash was. Our apartment was a half inch flooded with water. One of our pipes under the bathroom sink had burst and water had been spraying upward and out at a 45 degree angle hitting the ceiling right above our desk, where my scriptures and my comps journal were laying wide open. As you probably already know what goes up must come down so our stuff was all wet. I don’t know how long it had been spraying out but it had to be for awhile because there was a lot of water. I don’t know how we didn’t hear it because our neighbor heard it from his apartment and luckily woke us up before we drowned in our sleep (JK). Anyway we swept all the water we could out of the apartment and put our stuff out to dry and then we went back to sleep. (I guess your apartmant is ALL clean again! *Ü* ) Luckily my scriptures will be ok and my comps journal, although a little smeared, will survive. (send us pictures)
Today for p’day we are just going to buy food and go to the Church to play the piano and guitar, play soccer, read the scriptures, and rest. I’m glad everyones doing fine and having fun. The new house looks pretty sweet. Thanks for the b’day letters and packages. Peace.
October 2009 General Conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
