Busy!

Dearest Mommy,

This week has been pretty dang eventful. I already told you about transfers and all that, but here's what happened from Tuesday on. We started off the day with double-duty district meetings where we got to know all of the elders in the Tualatin and Tigard districts. It was fun, and it's looking like we're gonna be kicking trash... especially now that we have two more sets of elders packed into our zone. That night, we didn't have too many exciting things happen... we went to a lesson with some active members and basically sang praises to Ella Rose the whole time because she's a prophetess, she's kind, almost like another intercessory because she's so righteous, and is down to earth enough to talk to anyone albeit a sinner or another fellow saint... pretty cool haha.

Later that night, we went and visited Allie over at the Steers' home and she asked if we could copy the files from her work laptop onto a different computer so that she can use it when she prosecutes her boss... it's a long story. I don't wanna get into it haha. Anyway, so we took this laptop hard drive over to sister DeLong's house feeling like we were secret agents, and tried to figure out how to do the transfer, cause we most definitely didn't have anything to hook it up to wire-wise into sister DeLong's computer. We end up taking apart her tower and hooking up the hard drive into the secondary hard drive cables and trying to transfer the info over, but unfortunately, it didn't recognize the computer and totally shut down. It locked us out of opening the files and denied all copying or transferring... epic fail. Guess I don't have computer hacking skills huh? It made for an adventurous late night though, that's for sure haha.

Wednesday was nothing special. We had district meeting in Mac, then shot the rest of the day getting the oil changed and the tires rotated... bleh. That night was sweet though because it was my turn to go teach Allie on splits, and it went really well! I was assigned to go with Colin Hales, a guy in the ward who I'm finally getting to know. Good thing I am, cause he's a freakin' stud! He grew up in SLC and was recently reactivated up here a couple years back. He's super laid back, but has an awesome testimony and seems to be able to talk to anyone. Fun fact for the day about Colin: we have three things in common: (do you like how there was a colon inside another colon in this sentence?) 1: (okay that was just for kicks and giggles) we drink diet Coke. 2: we love Jeeps. 3: we both spent a lot of time in Daybreak back in Utah... turns out that one of the sweet colonial style houses that I used to drive by every day working up there was his! Kind of a small world amongst the Mormons eh? He's a way sweet guy and his family matches him perfectly... he's one of those people I wanna keep friends with after the mission for sure.

Anyway, jumping into what happened that night, we ended up teaching Allie a little bit about the plan of salvation and just talking about how she was feeling about her baptismal date, etc., and she decided that she wants to move it up to the 30th so that the Steers can be there for the baptism as well as the confirmation (they're headed out of town the following Sunday morning). On top of that, she wants to get her baby blessed after her confirmation... kinda cool, huh? This girl is making all the right decisions, and the Lord is definitely preparing the way to help her get there... it's awesome!

Thursday... it was an interesting day. We had our normal service over at Scott and Heidi's, although they weren't there, so we just did what we usually do. We mowed the lawn and bought some weed-n-feed for it, and it laid down quite nicely. After that, we got back to the house and did some cleaning in the garage. It was kinda therapeutic in a way, considering the stress load that was tacked on. It's funny how things change in your life... I used to hate washing dishes, organizing/cleaning and doing yard work, but now that's how I keep my sanity.

That night, we had another lesson with Allie where she made us some dessert and we taught her the rest of the plan of salvation by drawing on a whiteboard... it was pretty dang fun. The coolest part of it was that her kid brother was there, and he liked it as well... unfortunately, he lives kinda far away, so we're not sure how we can swing it without handing him over... driving to Eugene to teach him might be a stretch haha.

Friday, we did some service for my DCBFF, and it rocked! We took some time to clear out her garage that was full of Tupperware bins and schtuff that needed to be junked, and we made it look nice and pretty. In all honesty, we were just the brawn and she did most of the "braining" to figure out where she wanted it put and how she wanted it organized... I have to say though... it looks pretty dang good :-) The sweetest part about it is that she was so sweet and cooked us an amazing brunch complete with breakfast burritos and sticky buns... she even topped it all off with some good ol' diet Coke with lime :-) All bribes and favors aside, she's one of the people that I wanna stay in close contact with after the mission... she's a way awesome person. Convert to the church, spiritual giant, and still finds room to drink diet Coke haha.

Anyway, that night, we had another good lesson with Allie at the Steers where we were talking about her group of friends and what her role is with them. It's kinda funny cause everyone calls her "mommy" because she takes care of them and gives them advice on life... she realized that with the influence that she has with them, she could majorly bless their lives by showing them the way that she herself was able to change... I just hope it works and we can help out her friends as well!

Saturday, we decided to JW it by doing some door knocking, and it kinda paid off... well, on two doors at least. Most of the people didn't want to answer the door, but the ones who did were pretty cool. Well, minus one guy who was a Presbyterian minister anyway. We bumped into a lady who has been less active for like ten years, but said she'd be cool with us coming over to talk with her and teach her, so hopefully we can get her records transferred into the ward and we can get her going to church again... as the saying goes: we'll see what happens. One other person we knocked into was a lady who's actually the mom of a kid who plays soccer with Nathan Steers (momma steers' boy), and it sparked a great conversation with her... she doesn't really know anything about the church, but after talking to her there, she seemed pretty stoked about talking to momma steers and setting up a time to come over for dinner with her. We kinda had to finagle it that way because her husband is a big time Delta-Bravo. It's funny because I had already talked to his wife about knowing Spanish, and he was talking smack in Spanish behind the door while we talked to his wife, and obviously didn't know that I speak it... the look on his wife's face was pretty priceless. Anyway, it was a good conversation.

Aside from that, on Sunday we had a couple of people to church, which was sweet. Allie was there and so was the Steers' neighbor friend named Sage. We need more Steers families in our wards! They're totally rockin' it right now! Church was good, we didn't have anything too eventful happen... oh except for during the last hour of church (we were there for eight hours on Sunday haha) we got a text from Mia (the girl who was Allie's roommate) asking if it was normal to have scary experiences before you get baptized. I was a little sketched out by that, so I stepped out and talked to her. Turns out that the day she announced her baptism, that night she went to bed and had a scary, scary dream where she woke up terrified and wondered if maybe it was a sign. We talked and I explained that it's normal for people who are trying to change their lives for the better to have Satan try to step in and muddle things up, then showed her Alma 37:37 that talks about the Lord watching over you as you sleep if you pray to him to do so... she'll be okay though, and she's super excited for her baptism... she says that one of us should be allowed to perform her baptism and the other could do Allie's... sounds like a good excuse for a trip to Colorado right? haha

Anyway, that was the excitement for Sunday aside from one more lesson with Allie to cover the word of wisdom.

The only other fun thing that happened was that this morning we got a text from momma Steers asking if we could help her with her garage. When we got there, we found out why... somehow, the opener had totally trashed the top section of the door... the first row on it has glass panes, and the force of the door had shattered ALL of them somehow, so we spent some time fixing it with some deck screws and carpenter nails after cleaning up all the glass... it seriously bent the top panel in half it had so much force behind it! Anyway, it's fixed now, and at least it'll open and close without doing what it did before haha.

Well, I'm off to enjoy a nice relaxing p-day, so I hope all is well on the home front and that you're all doing what you're supposed to. I love you all and will talk to ya later!

Loves,

Elder Kurt Mooney