29 November 2010

Dear Mom/the rest of the family,

Well, it's been a sweet week once again here. I mean, who can complain about the week of Thanksgiving, right? I've gotta start this email off on the right foot though and let you know exactly what happened this week starting with Tuesday, since I already filled you in on what went down last Monday. So Monday night it got really, really cold, and supposedly there was going to be a "huge" snowstorm. When we woke up, there was a little skiff that wasn't big enough to stick to the sidewalks or the roads, and it was about 25 outside. We did our studies as we normally do, then headed out at 10 to an appointment that we had scheduled. When we got to the complex, I was confused because there were a bunch of kids playing outside, bundled up like they were from the back country of Alaska and scraping the snow off the grass to throw it at each other. I asked why in the world these kids weren't at school so they could get an education, when the member we took with us said that they had canceled school because of the "snowstorm" that we had last night hahahaha. It was comical! All of the TriMet buses were chained up, some of the cars, and traffic was even bad because people were driving really slow! THERE WAS NO SNOW ON THE ROADS!!! It's super funny to see how extremely prepared for snow they are, and yet not haha. That was about our excitement for Tuesday though haha.

On Wednesday, we had district meeting with the Hillsboro elders, and we actually got there a little early, so we were waiting in the parking lot for the other elders when this kid came screaming into our vicinity in a 90's vintage Acura. While we were there, he was trying to drift some corners, and obviously he didn't care much that we were there haha.... it was pretty entertaining to see him yanking the E-brake to throw the back end, and then jerking the car to a halt instead of fishtailing like he was trying to. Eventually, he gave up and took off, leaving elder Van Hook and I chuckling. Then we realized that our Malibu has a traction control on/off switch, so we tried a little "Malibu drift"... it was fun :-)

Later that day, we had dinner with a family who introduced us to an interesting hot chocolate drinking variation. They have these cookies called "Tim Tams" that are from Australia I think they said, but anyways, they're rectangular, you bite off one corner, then the opposite corner on the diagonal, stick your cookie into the hot chocolate, and suck it up like the cookie is a straw. It melts the insides and you actually drink it with the hot chocolate, and then just before the cookie melts completely, you eat it. Weird, but yummy for sure.

Okay, now lets talk about Thursday. So we had a pretty awesome day. We got to go play football in the morning! Ah man I was so excited to be able to go out and play around for a little while. We didn't play tackle, don't worry, but I ended up playing quarterback the whole time... it was pretty sweet! I was about 50% on completions with five touchdowns.... but I also threw three pick-6's... dangit haha. It was such a mud bowl, it kind of reminded me of that last game I played sophomore year at Summit :-). Aside from that, we had a pretty special opportunity... we got to eat with President Dyches! Oh man I was so stoked! He is really such a great man. It was he and his wife, the AP's, the office elders, the blasphemous traveling sisters, and us :-) It was just a really good experience to be able to spend some time with him and eat thanksgiving dinner... gosh I love turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and everything else about it!

The one hitch is that we had two dinners haha. We originally had four, but one canceled, and the other one took pity on us and we only had to eat pie :-). The second one we ate was with a family who has some Mooneys in their family tree that live in Colorado... one whose name was Wesley Mooney? Not sure if it's any relation to grandpa Mooney, but I figured it might be.

Aside from that, Friday we had zone leader council which was nothing too exciting, and then Saturday, we actually had some legitimate time to work! Now, right now, we are planning on baptizing a boy named Adrian who is sweet! He's going to be baptized on the 5th which will be sweet. We just got done teaching him the law of chastity on Wednesday night, and it was really funny because he turned bright red and got kind of embarrassed, but we explained it really well and now he'll have no problems :-) We're also teaching a girl named Andrea, her older sister Cathy, and their friend Sabrina. It's pretty sweet! They're all reading the book of Mormon, all praying, and all came to church on Sunday! Ah man it was super sweet!!! The one hitch is that they said that in order to come to church, their mom (who doesn't like us much) said we had to go to the Catholic church... oosh. We went... but ooh man it was interesting....a lot of pomp and ceremony... not a lot of truth to it though... is it bad that I'm writing this? Maybe you should cut this out of the email mom haha. Anyways, sufficeth to say that I'm glad we have the truth. It really strengthened my testimony of the truth of what we believe in.

Ooh one thing that I forgot to mention about Saturday was that we went to Hometown Buffet... BLEH! Oh my gosh I think Hometown Blehffet would be better because the food was for straight up fatties! I really made up my mind not to go back not because the food was terrible, but the clientele was Ginormous! Not by amount of persons, but by amount of person per person if you understand my meaning! Holy cow there were some big boys in there haha. It was a fun experience though... at the very least, it made me feel more skinny :-P

So Sunday was a big day! We had church, where four investigators came (Adrian, Andrea, Cathy, and Sabrina), and the funny part is that we increased church attendance in the group by 25% haha. There were only about 12 people in church, so it was fun :-) They went with the young men/young women and had a good time though. Then there was the Catholic church I already mentioned.

After that though, I got to go to a baptism down in Woodburn for Ivelisse Cruz! Ah it was awesome! Not gonna lie though... it kinda made me trunky for Woodburn if that makes sense haha. It was funny talking to the members again and asking how things were going. Elder Rivera is a beast of a missionary, and Elder Page is as well, now that his Spanish is picking up. I guess they're not as stoked on the new missionary, but with time I'm sure they'll come to like him... they said I need to finish my mission in Woodburn, and I'm hoping that President Dyches will grant me a "dying missionary wish" and let me do that haha. The Baptism was pretty awesome though... gosh I love the mission right now!

I hope everything for you guys is going really well and that you had a great Thanksgiving... from what you wrote, Mom, it sounds like it was as awesome as ever :-) I hope you're all enjoying the snow. I love you guys so much. Have a great week, okay? I'm praying for ya.

Love,

Elder Kurt Mooney