COOKIE NIGHT

Hey, halloo,


Well, this has been a week, I'm pretty dead. Worked a LOT, did a lot, etc. Sounds like you all are still more crazy though, hah. Hope Aladdin goes well, that sounds like a pretty demanding organization you got running over there.

Hmm, so what DID happen this week? We tried to do something new - we had done it up in Ogden a year ago - Cookie Night, with the youth. Got everyone hyped up about it all week, and then Sunday night headed over to the Garcia family's house (coolest family here, son is in Brazil, so they take out their concern and wishes for him on us.... so we're well fed, well cared for, heheh) We invited some 50 kids, but only 15 came. But that's ok, 4 were non members. We started out with a lesson on the Atonement, something short. We watched "The Mediator", an old Seminary video about justice vs mercy and how the Savior balances that out, and then we did a demonstration by doing pushups to pay the price for everyone to have their reward - cookies (LOTS of cookies). I did 160 pushups straight, no joke, it was intense! Then we played a game that really had no sense to it - tied balloons to our feet and tried to stomp the other team's balloons... but we also filled them with water, and Elder Baquedano wanted to fill some with red kool aid... and while the youth were trying to figure that out, the killer dog of the family (sister of the other crazy dog that Holly should adopt) got loose and ate at least 5 balloons while the youth were running trying to get away... needless to say, it was intense, and we stained a lot of nice clothes with koolaid. But we ate cookies, and are pretty sure some people are getting baptized, so it works out.... cookie night. Good stuff.

We had a good stake conference here - it was a broadcast for the area, with Elder Hales and President Eyring. Good stuff, talking about Zion and how we create Zion in our personal lives in the community. Also cool because a lot of people showed up who we were not expecting, one guy we have invited for 6 months actually came.

We also have a funny investigator that says she really wants to get baptized - Esmeralda - but she is absolutely crazy - we tried teaching her young son about the apostasy after the death of all the apostles, and we  made some little churches with Jenga blocks (thought that was pretty creative), and right at the most spiritual moment, when we are about to talk about Joseph Smith's prayer and the restoration of the full gospel of Christ, the mom here randomly blows them all down and laughed and laughed about how funny she was. She also can’t understand my Spanish, and whenever Elder Baquedano draws a smiley face on something she isn’t satisfied and thinks its frowning. It’s fairly hilarious. Patience and love. We'll get there.

Wow, a lot of mission calls! Steven, Heath, Christina, Nick, Henry, man, Culpeper is booming... can’t wait to see where they all end up. That's awesome about Megan going to SVU, nice!

Hmm, so I don’t have a lot to say, I guess - Sunday I'll try to call maybe at 4 our time, so 6 your time. I'll call to Grandma’s house - should be fun! We'll try to avoid talking about cashing checks for so long this time, ha. I guess it’s the same in all family's calls, it’s better not to say anything serious, well not much of a problem for us, haha - not fair the family with their son in Brazil talked for 4 hours with their son! He, was secretary to the mission President, special privileges or something... Well, we're excited for it, see how it goes!

Love you all, happy Cinco de Mayo (celebrates a battle between France and Mexico in the state of Puebla... who knew? Some older guy in the ward was rambling about it...) Talk to you Sunday!

-Elder Thelin

PS THE LONG LOST STORY CONTINUED...they were being followed by a pack (school? group? frenzy?) of sharks! The started to run to the Krusty Krab, but they were surrounded! They were just about to be made shark bait when they heard a little voice singing "JUST KEEP SWIMMING JUST KEEP SWIMMING...."