INTENSE

Wow, good job living everyone! Sounds like that was an intense week you all had. A little more eventful than mine I think. My 4th of July consisted of going to Church in English and Spanish, from 9 to 4, teaching a class to a bunch of recent converts and investigators without any notice, then eating a pretty sweet El Salvadoranean dinner with some older people who actually celebrate 4th of July, then teaching a lesson to a man that was excommunicated and is coming back around. And then going to bed. Yep! Being Sunday, there were no fireworks here on the 4th, but there were some big shows up at the USU campus on Friday, a parade on Saturday night - the Cache Valley Cruise-in, like 200 old fancy cars parading down Main for 3 hours, making missionary work impossible, we should have just gone to the parade... but yeah, good stuff!

Man, I'm so dead right now. Let me take you through my P-day to this point. We got up at 6:30 after an intense night of me dreaming about a hurricane in Logan. Then we took our car, which has a flat, to Big O tires (so sweet, you walk in and "Elders! What happened and when do you need it back?" We say, "There's a screw in the front right tire, we'll be by at 6. Here's the keys." They say "Thanks Elders, see ya." Nothing else, no paperwork, no payment or anythng. Gotta love Utah for some things.) Then we got a ride up to Deep Canyon Gorge with the zone. Intense hike for 2 hours, looked steep, so we started moving with our little band of 8 elders, then realized it got steeper, and after an hour we were well above the valley, but still far from the top. Another hour of walking through dense foliage, well, really hiking is the word,(I like to pretend different parts of my mission are like other countries - today we were in like Brazil for a day), we FINALLY saw a patch of snow, and got to it, and collapsed in it, rolled in it, made snowballs, etc. At this point we could see Logan Utah, Preston Idaho, and well, a lot. Really high up there. My calves are still shaking from the climb, intense, with like only one water bottle. YEAH. Then we noticed some older guys further up, so we went to go contact them on top of a mountain, and noticed that it really was the top, and we were on the edge of the Cache Valley AND the SALT LAKE VALLEY, so we could look at both at once, and could see the Salt Lake (only that was ugly, all white and crusty looking, like you know, SALT), Brigham City, almost to Ogden.... and then hiked 10 MORE minutes to a HIGHER ridge that let us see all that AND Logan, really beautiful, the top of the world.... and THEN we had cell service, and our ride said he was going to leave us, so we RAN down the mountain, pretty intense. Our ride he was actually waiting for us halfway up and scared us on the way down, yeah, it was an intense hike. Then I took a power nap, a short cold shower, walked here to email my family, will now devise a way to get to a Walmart, pick up a car, then go preach the gospel of Jesus Christ for 3 hours, and end up by crashing in bed. P-days are not used for resting, EVER. Whoo.

That dream house of Uncle Steve's sounds pretty intense. A POOL COMPLEX sounds AWESOME right now. Ari-zion doesn't sound like the optimum location, but I'm up for anything.

You're painting the fort? No way, thats sweet. I cant wait to see that! Dont paint it pink!

Oh we got the packages today when we got back, pretty sweet stuff! Love the buzz ligtyear blasters, already have started a war with them. You can tell the Maguras that the Zuccini bread nourished me in my moments of weakness before my power nap. The two talks were EXCELLENT, good job Heidi and Holly! Heidi, thats a sweet idea about listening to that primary song before praying, it gets you in the mood! "a Childs Prayer" is one of my top 3 favorite primary songs, so sweet!

I am now in a threesome (still) with Elder Margolies and Elder Jessup. E. Jessup goes to Mexico City at any day now, and Elder M finishes the mission in 4 weeks, and is the most trunky companion i've had, haha, planning to marry a girl in Venezuela that he writes to and never had met. If you want to know anything else about Kelli I can tell you any detail you want. Suprisingly, we're still working full hours, so I'm good... Actually, cool stuff, we have Michael from Bolivia being baptized this Friday (HOPEFULLY), and a lot of miracle families falling in our way - man, yesterday we were walking in the morning, and I said hey lets go knock this door, I talked to him a few weeks back. We went, and I think we woke him up, but he said to wait, got his wife and a bunch of chairs, and invited us in. He explained that since he's been here (9 years) he's wanted the Elders to come by. He's asked them, been to friends houses when they were teaching, etc, and they never have come. Incredible. He said he had a lot of goals - this kid is like 22 maybe, and has GOALS, which is unheard of among the Hispanics here - and had the goals written on posterboard all over his living room. He said that one of the goals was putting God into his family, because if God is in your life, you will find success in everything else, right? YES. We started the lesson, and the wife ran back to bring up 3 books of mormon (book of mormons, copies of the book of mormon, however is correct to you). She said that her dad grew up in Mexico, the "Utah of the Catholic Church - one on every corner" and was devout Catholic, never went to any other church - BUT he had read this blue book, and told her when she was little that of all the religions, la religion Mormona was the mas bonita, or the most beautiful of them all. CRAZY. So we taught the first lesson. She was super excited about prophets - and when we talked about 12 apostles, she said "REALLY?" He husband asked if any other church had these things, and SHE told him that there definitely wasn't. She explained to US the apostasy, the need for a restoration, and loved the Book of Mormon. Amazing lesson. They will definitely get baptized soon. SO cool!

I love you all a lot, I know this is the truth, God works a lot in our lives and in the lives of us all. I am grateful for this country - we REALLY dont realize how awesome it is here, our police don't mug us or break in to our homes because they want our furniture for their own homes, or stuff like that. Its a country bought at a price, and we shouldnt forget that.

Love ya see ya and que gana la Copa Mundial Argentina! heheh. If not, Germany.
-Elder Chris thelin

Ps haha, no I havent gotten the SD card back...

Pspss 3000 lightyears away, a evil mastermind was hatching a plan. "We MUST stop the three female younglings from reaching the Elder!" he said to his servants. "Yes mi'Lord!" they all said. "You will tell our counterparts on the human planet to make way for the island of FIJI, and there you will stop them!" "Yes mi'Lord!" they all said. So, they started sending intergalactic messages to a small outpost in the United States of America, and from there the plans were laid forth. The small army was moved into voyage mode, and through some careful planning, made their way on a merchant ship to Fiji, where they cleverly put themselves in wide open view - as the Mautzs led the girls through the village, Amy noticed a store - "Hey, are they selling LORD ZERG toys from Toy Story over there????" Dun dun dunnnn