Awesome Crazy Week

Mi querida familia,

Holy cow it's been a crazy week haha let me give you the blow-by-blow for what went down:

Monday: P-day. Church funds didn't come through like they're supposed to, so we had no money on our cards to buy groceries etc.. That night, we started an exchange with our district leader Elder Retis.

Tuesday: I spent the day in Woodburn with our district leader, taught seven lessons, and went on divisions while we were on exchange... crazy! Finished the night at about 9:30 (normally ends at 8)

Wednesday: We had district meeting in Woodburn, so we were there for about 4 hours... crazy long this week I don't know why. That night, we taught Alvaro about the word of wisdom and law of chastity... he accepted both.... BOOYEAH!

Thursday: We headed out to Tualatin for zone conference. Started at 9:00 in the morning, and ended around 5:00 that night. Our dinner appointment canceled on us that was supposed to be at six, but while we were over at the Martinez', Silvia decided to cook dinner for us (awesome) That night, we started exchanges with the zone leaders for Friday.

Friday: I was on exchange with our zone leaders in Tigard... Elder Benjamin Roush to be more exact, and it was sweet! Again, another day with six lessons, and lunch at an amazing barbecue place whose name escapes me, but honestly, the most amazing BBQ sandwiches I've ever had! Then we had dinner with a lady from Argentina that says 'Posho' instead of 'Poyo', 'esha' instead of 'eya', etc. which was really funny, but what was amazing is the fact that she is a widowed foster mom with no joke probably 20 kids in her tiny house. She was having troubles transporting all of them, so she bought a bus. Yeah, a BUS! It's hilarious because you see this little short-bus parked in the driveway with 20 little carseats, all attatched in every row of it, it's a crack-up. Aside from that, all the lessons went really well, we taught a lady that night for what was supposed to be only like 20 minutes, but we were there til 9:20 and she is GOLD! Elder Roush and his companion found her two weeks ago, and she never knew how to pray. Now, she prays morning and evening, and gives more beautiful prayers than general authorities. She wants to pray! That, and after she said the closing prayer, she said "I love to pray because it brings such a sweet feeling to my heart" As soon as she said that, I taught her that that is how we feel the holy ghost in our lives, and she was STOKED! She wants to get baptized as soon as she can, so probably in the next couple of weeks she'll be taking the plunge (no pun intended... well.. maybe a little bit haha).

Saturday: Since we didn't have time on Monday to do shopping and we didn't have time thursday for planning, we decided to go shopping at Winco (completely missed our turn to go back to the freeway and drove for 20 min into the Eugene mission...don't worry about it haha), came back to the church and planned for a few hours, and then had a couple appointments after dinner with the Ramirez.

Sunday: This was an epic day for sure! We woke up, wrote a progress report for our investigators to take to correlation, had our meeting, then decided to go invite Silvia and Guadalupe to come to church, because they haven't come the last couple of weeks. We went to their apartment, their car was gone, and we knocked the door and nobody was there! We were afraid they'd bailed and gone to the outlets in Woodburn again, so we left them a note and headed back to church. When we arrived and went to open to the door to principios del evangelio, I about fell over dead. There in the room was Silvia, her husband Salvador, Guadalupe, and her younger sister Andrea! Oh my gosh it was amazing!@!!!! Not only that, but Alvaro was their, and so was Dana! that's a record high for us.. six investigators, and two of them have a baptismal date! (Alvaro of course, and Dana again if we can convince her grandma)
Oh! one other funny thing that happened while we were there. As sacrament meeting was starting, there was a Polynesian guy dressed like a thug sitting on the last pew where we normally sit, so I went over and introduced myself to him and asked him what he was doing in here. I told him, "you may be brown, but you don't look like you speak spanish... where are you from?" (not in a racist way, I LOVE brown people haha) but yeah... within maybe ten seconds of talking to him, I could tell that he was absolutely SLOSHED! Not only that, but I think he had taken something along with it because MAN I don't think I've ever seen anyone that messed up... at least not in a sacrament meeting hahaha. As the meeting was starting, he was talking loud and so I took him out into the foyer and oh my geash this guy was trashed haha. The first time I asked him where he was from, he told me he was from the island of Chook, later he told me he was from Saipan, then he told me he was Tongan, then he told me he hates Tongans and that he was samoan, then he switched back, then he told me he was born and raised in the united states, then he said that his parents were from India... all upon demand when I asked him where he was from. Then he wanted to fight one of the guys in the ward for money, said he would do it for $500 bucks, then began to take off his clothes until he was in just a pair of basketball shorts and a wifebeater in the foyer of the church!!! It was hilarious! Somebody called the cops, and they booted him off the property, but oh man it was comical for sure.

Another exciting thing that happened at church was that Alvaro bore his testimony! I was so mad because I didn't get to hear all of it (mainly because I was talking to a drunk idiot out in the foyer), but yeah it was sweet!

I'm trying to think of what else we have going on that's exciting... well, today we're triple booked for dinner, so that will be interesting! We have dinner with Silvia and the Martinez at 3, we're going out for pizza with a guy in the ward whose getting ready for his mission at 4, and then we have dinner with another member at 5... bleh haha. It's a good thing we run every day here!

Anywho, that about wraps up the excitement here, but thank you for the updates mommy, it sounds like everything is going sweet there! So you're listening to spanish radio? haha I would advise looking into Jessie & Joy they're sweet and a lot easier to listen to than strait up spanish radio with all the banda crap they play. I'm actually gonna send some lyrics I translated from a song of theirs to Katie so that she can look it up... I think she would LOVE to sing it because it's like right in her range. Anywho, I've gotta get writing to Josh and finish my letter to Katie and such, so I'll talk to you guys later I love you!

Con amor,

Elder Kurt Kay Mooney/Martinez