August 7, 2017

Hey, sorry, I definitely owe you a good email this week! I'll try. 

Well--yup so the kidney stone is doing fine. I passed it the same day. Holy cow it was like the worst thing I've ever had to go through hahaha and mom!...l I have like 1 soda a week, and it's been like that for like 8 months! I've been doing good but yeah it really got me. Sorry Jared. I know what you feel like. 

The past 2 weeks have been pretty exciting! So we get this referral named R--, and so we go to contact him and no one was there. So a few days later we decided to call him and see if he is still interested in getting a Bible, and he was, so we set up an appointment to go see him the next night. We had a priest-aged kid with us the next night (he was teaching with us) and we go to see R-- and he wasn't home again. So we called him while we were on his doorstep and he answers and in tears and a way-shaky voice he says, "I crashed my motorcycle into a kid and I think I broke my leg please come to the park!" ..... k alright so we headed over there and he's just like laying in the bushes grabbing his leg and his motorcycle is laying to the side of him and he explained he was coming back to his house to meet with us and then a kid ran into the middle of the road and he hit the kid and launched himself off of the motorcycle and wrecked himself. His brother pulled up and we helped him up and got him into his brother's car. Hahaha man I shouldn't be laughing but it honestly was really funny because the priest we were with was so shocked and just terrified and then after we helped R-- into the car with tears running down his face he looks at me and says, "Can you come back over tomorrow?" Hahaha so we said, "Sure! Of course, if you'll be alright by then." It turns out he broke his leg in 4 different places. But he still kept the appointment the next day--it was priceless. R-- is a good guy. We are going to wheel him to church on Sunday in his wheelchair. He lives like 1 minute from the church. Haha the poor priest we were with....honestly, it was so funny. Good stuff!

So we have really been working on rebuilding our teaching pool because we have a few great people, but not nearly enough so we've been working on that. It's always a frustrating process doing that but it will pay off and get back to running really well.

We have this less-active we are working with--his name is Brother J- and he has no leg and has struggled with coming to church because he was just really nervous to go back, knows it's a struggle for him to move around, hasn't been in over 2 years, etc. But he finally came! We tried so hard to commit him to come for like 3 months and he finally came.....the thing is he's perfectly worthy, and because of his disability people have been bringing him the sacrament at his house but since he is coming to church now he's ok to exercise priesthood. So it was a really cool experience for me because less-active work has been a problem for me my whole mission, I feel like I've worked with so many people who were sooo close to coming but never really made the final push. But Brother J-- did, and what made it truly a cool experience was I got to push him in his wheelchair around to pass the sacrament to the congregation. He was so happy to be able to do that again, and for me it was just way sweet to be able to participate. 

I also was able to participate in a baby blessing! First time I've ever stood in on one. It was different, and the baby started to lose its mind mid-blessing. First time for everything! The past couple weeks have been good, we've taught a lot and found a lot, just trying to rebuild! 

Love you guys! See you soon.