Happy National Singles Awareness Day....

Dear Mommy,

Sorry if this letter is scatterbrained, but I"m gonna give you the quick skinny on what happened this week before my time runs out in 15 minutes.

So Monday was a pretty boring der-ty-derr P-day where we went for a drive to keep ourselves entertained. We ended up meandering over to Powell's books for a little bit, and it was pretty fun. After that, elder Van Hook and I decided to treat ourselves to some Olive Garden because elder Van Hook hasn't gone since before his mission, so we cruised on over. It was pretty crowded for some reason, but the food was super scrumptious (definitely an improvement over the cereal with milk that we were going to eat haha). Anyways, time came to pay our check, and our server said, "oh don't worry about it, someone paid for you." We were both a little flabbergasted and felt really humbled that someone would be so kind to do that for us... I hope they get a bunch of blessings because "we got served".

On Tuesday, it was a pretty normal day with district meeting in Portland and some knocking afterwards. One thing that made it pretty sweet was the lesson that we had with a guy named Mario. We've only taught him a couple of times, and this time we talked to him about the restoration. He liked it, and at the end of it, I felt impressed to ask him to be baptized on March sixth. He accepted, no questions asked. Score one for Moondogg :-)

Wednesday, we had district meeting in HIllsboro and afterwards I went to the doctor because my back has been bothering me (I guess that's what happens when you get old... on the mission :-P) Long story short, the guy's a member and he's sweet. He hooked me up with some 800 mil ibuprophen and some muscle relaxants to help me sleep at night so my old fart back doesn't bother me haha. I think what happened is that we've started playing soccer on fridays and it gets kinda intense sometimes haha.

Thursday, we had a full day of knocking (dangit), and there was only one funny thing worthy of being noted. after seventeen months of being on a mission, I had a hispanic woman slam a door in my face for the first time! Oh my gosh I just sat there in shock! I mean, white people do it all the time, so I'm used to that, but hispanic people WILL NOT DO IT.... except for this one I guess haha.

Friday, I was on exchanges with elder Jimenez, and in the morning, I had the distinct impression that we needed to visit a member that we hadn't talked to in a week or so. Just as we got there, he said that he needed a blessing because he had a gnarly migraine and had to go to work in like 15 minutes. We gave him the blessing, and poof. Migraine gone. That's the power of the priesthood and the importance of following the promptings of the Spirit. That night, on a less serious note, we played soccer (yes, after visiting the doctor and all). I'm starting to get a little addicted to it because it's so dang fun! Not to toot my horn or anything, but I knocked in a couple goals during the game and felt pretty good about it... I might have to change my name from Mooney to Rooney or something :-P

Saturday, unfortunately, was another all-day knocking bonanza (dangit, dangit). One highlight was that we were knocking in this complex and a five year old kid answered the door and asked what we wanted, so I said "we want to talk to your parents about God." Without missing a beat the kid told me "oh, no thanks, we don't believe in God." and WHAM! He shut the door in our faces haha. It was pretty comical, but man it's sad to see that somebody that young can have that instilled in them.

Sunday was interesting in that I got to see a stake presidency reorganized for the first time in my life. It was a pretty interesting deal to see the process of election and all of that. It was a good meeting... I don't really know what else to say.

Well, that's about the excitement aside from it being National Singles Awareness day today. I hope you guys have an absolute blastie and remember that I love you.

Talk to you next week!

love,

-Elder Mooney