SISTER SARAH JOHNSON...Miracles...

Hello all!

So this week held a lot of really weird moments! But first, the baptism!

Rick's baptism was really awesome :). The Spirit was present and he was excited and his family all came, and a lot of the ward came out to support. We celebrated by getting Costa Vida, where a super nice lady surprised us by buying our dinner. It was an all around wonderful day, and I'm grateful I was able to start my mission off with this experience :). 

There were also 2 miracles this week. We maybe sort of ran out of money because my card was locked up for some transaction that didn't go through fast enough. So we bought what we could and figured we'd just make it work. I prayed a couple times for the food to just stretch so we wouldn't have to ration anything, but I wasn't really that worried. Then on Wednesday we cleaned this lady's house, and she gave us 3 boxes of cereal to take home. Then Thursday a ward member brought us over a huge basket of peaches and pears from her parent's orchard. Another member brought us a cucumber from her garden. And then that nice lady bought us dinner at Costa Vida. Woah! I was not expecting so much food to show up, but I definitely attribute all of that to a Heavenly Father who understand my undying love of food. Plus, 2 of the boxes of cereal were Honey Bunches of Oats, which I'd always categorized as "old lady food". But I am now a healthy addict to Honey Bunches of Oats, 100% no shame. Haha! 

The other miracle was a little more dramatic. Yesterday we were part of a missionary choir/fireside, where we combined 3 stakes and invited everyone. We got to sing in the choir, and it was a really beautiful experience, albeit an all day experience. After church and studies, we picked up the other sisters in our district and headed to set up and practice at 4. We had to be there extra early because Sister Barnes was in charge of the table of pamphlets and Books of Mormon, and we had to figure all that out. After the fireside though, we dropped off the other sisters at their apartment, and it wasn't 30 seconds later that they called us and said that their apartment door was wide open and all the lights were on and we needed to come get them. Long story shorter, we picked them up, called the Zone Leaders, called the police, and had the place checked out. Somebody had crawled through their window, stolen some of one sister's shirts and some jewelry and the camera from the other, their last bag of popcorn, and left through the front door. But the miracle part is that nobody's documents, money, or bikes were stolen, and that the sisters weren't there when it happened. We were all pretty shaken up by it, and we had the sisters over for a sleep-over that night. The Elders gave both of them really amazing blessings of comfort, and we're all feeling a little less jittery today. But scary to think someone was in their apartment going through their stuff! We are so grateful that Heavenly Father kept us all, and especially them, safe from that. 

Another weird thing that happened this week was hunting down a referral from the Elders. Their names were Fire and Lotus, and Fire is the girl. We finally found them, which was cool because we were given a slightly wrong address. But these people were some of the craziest looking people I've ever seen. Fire had this bright, bright red/orange short hair, and had white dreadlocks weaved into the back. Lotus had his head shaved, a Father Time beard (but brown) and tattoos all over his face. And in the apartment? At least 20 different reptiles and snakes, in addition to 4 hedgehogs and a sugar glider. They were super bizarre, and Lotus was telling us how they had to move into this apartment because their former landlord had pulled a gun on him and he defended himself with a hammer. Then they asked us for a food order from the bishop. That's when we realized they were probably not all that interested in us, and were probably interested in free food. We called bishop and gave him a heads up. It was fun to hold the hedgehog, at least. 

Oh! And I took over my area for a day! Friday, Sister Barnes went with Sister Blauer to Sister Blauer's area, and Sister Strate and I stayed here. But Sister Strate has also only been out for a month, so we were both just really nervous. Everything went awesome though! And I didn't get lost or yelled at, which is always a blessing! 

This week was intense, and busy and weird. But I kind of loved it anyways. I know that we are definitely watched out for and protected as missionaries, and I'm grateful to know how safe the Lord keeps us when we listen and pray. I know He's listening, and I know that when we do His work and keep His commandments, we are protected. 

Thank you all for your prayers! I love you all! 

Also, if you need a really good cry, "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" Is a really good mormon message video perspective on our Heavenly Father's love for us. :) Check it out! 

Love,

Sister Johnson

SISTER SARAH JOHNSON...A Tough Week...

Hello everybody! :)

So this week... was in all honesty kind of tough. And I think it was a combination of not getting to study enough, and all of our plans going wonky at the same time. Haha but at least we survived it and we're anxious for the next week!

One of the weird things that happened was that our Iraqi family was supposed to leave for Iraq on Wednesday so they could see their families for a few months and renew their Iraqi passports. They've been here for 3 years and can apply for citizenship next year, but their passports have to be current for that to happen. Unfortunately, their airplane tickets had the English translated name spellings on them (matching their refugee documents), and the airport threw a fit when it didn't match their Iraqi passports (because it's the Arabic spelling), and suddenly they were calling us in a panic from their home because they missed their flight. We helped them cancel their flights, and it was a really sad morning for all of us.

Oh and one of the scary/funny moments from last week! So we had our back door open while we did nightly planning (so air could come in- we have no AC) and I heard one footstep crunch on the rocks outside our door (but couldn't see anything because it was so dark and our screen and blinds hide everything) and I literally leaped across the room, slammed and locked the sliding door, and fell halfway down before I saw this tall man in a white shirt come to the door. My companion was on the phone with President, and yelled "PRESIDENT THERE"S A MAN AT OUR DOOR" and we were both in full fledged fight-or-flight mode before I could yell "WAIT WAIT, IT"S JUST ELDER MONSON!" Turns out it was just the zone leaders bringing us some handouts to pass out on Sunday, but man alive were we terrified. Haha I was almost crying trying to talk to them after that. I told them to come to the front door next time, and Sister Barnes and I had a good laugh about it the rest of the night. Good times.

Rick last week was having some anxiety about being baptized, and it worried us. He was having a hard time committing to tithing, which is understandable. He knows it's from God, and he knows God takes care of people, but it's a scary leap of faith to suddenly lose 10% of your income. We taught him about fasting, and we all decided to fast the next day so that Rick would feel good about tithing and be able to go forward with faith. And the next day he felt so much better! He passed his baptismal interview :) so now we're on the home stretch for his baptism this Saturday! The Lord provides, and fasting works!

I'm so grateful to be here in Spokane. The longer I'm here, the more I know that I was sent to the right place. My brother Matt said in his email, "I'm starting to realize that weird things just happen to you as a missionary, I'm not sure if it's because you are out on the streets more, you interact with a lot of different people, or maybe people in California are just crazy," and that's exactly how it feels sometimes. Haha sometimes it's all you can do to just brush off people's meanness and move forward with faith. But I know that it's the Lord's work and he's protecting us :). I love the Gospel, and I love all of you!

Love,

Sister Johnson

ELDER MATTHEW LEBARON...Korean Hair salons, Gossip, and Shampoo explosions

This week has definitely been an eventful one, I'm starting to realize
that weird things just happen to you as a missionary, I'm not sure if
it's because you are out on the streets more, you interact with a lot
of different people, or maybe people in California are just crazy,
many of these things I have considered throughout this week.

I have learned so much about the ward that I am in, even in the short
time that I have been here. I think that I know a little too much
about people honestly. Being a missionary is one of the weirdest
things in the world, especially how the members interact with you. We
will sit at members houses for long periods of times just listening to
their problems, and a lot of the time we find out all the drama that
is going on between sister so and so. I don't know why that is, maybe
people just think that we are some kind of sound board, it I have
heard way too much about people's marital problems. One of the biggest
struggles that I have found with the members is that they will take
all of your time if you let them, they have no concept of time, and
will often take 2 hours or longer for dinner or visits if you let
them. We visit this older couple in the ward named the Jacksons, they
are so old that they can't make it to church, so we will go and give
them a lesson, sing hymns, and give them service. Everything in that
house is old, the dogs are old, the furniture is old, the paintings,
it's all so old. to top it all of it reeks of dog urine, because the
dogs are so old, I'm pretty sure they just go wherever. During one of
our visits their son that lives there literally monologued for an hour
and 30 minutes no joke, there was no room for us to give a response,
nothing, I have never seen someone talk that long uninterrupted
before.

Julia the Korean woman we have been teaching told us that she would
cut our hair this week, so on Wednesday we headed over. When we
arrived she told us that one of her friends was going to cut our hair,
because she was in school trying to get her license. This woman
literally didn't speak any English, and I had a very unsettling
feeling as I sat in the chair, only imagining what was to come of my
hair. I tired to explain what I wanted, not being able to understand,
the Korean woman called over Julia and she translated for me. I have
never had a more painful haircut in my life, she was using the razor
so fast and aggressively it felt as if she was literally pulling my
hair out. As she was making the final touches on the sides I couldn't
help but notice that my hair was horribly lopsided. I looked back at
Elder low through the mirror, it was apparent that he saw how bad my
hair was as he tried to hide his laughter in the back of the room. I
wasn't exactly sure what to do, Julia was off running the shop, and
there I was, about to leave with this horrendous haircut. luckily the
last minute Julia came over and stood in shock as she looked at my
hair, both the Korean woman began to argue, rapidly responding in
quick high pitched tones in what I could preserve as gibberish.  I Was
no longer a person, but a mannequin with hair, both the woman began to
pull and tug at different parts of my hair trying to come to some
agreement on how to cut it. After five minutes Julia began to cut my
hair, and everything turned the way it should, although my hair was a
little shorter because Julia had to recover what was left of my poor
hair, I was happy with the results

When elder low had his hair cut, Julia decided she was going to cut
his hair. She quickly asked me if I could do her a favor. Since she
was doing elder lows hair, she couldn't run the store. Soon enough I
was sitting behind the counter, directing woman around the store for
different products, and explaining the pricing of different things in
the store. It was one of the strangest things in the world, and people
didn't even bat an eyelash at me, most woman didn't even question that
a well dressed 18 year old boy was now running the salon, and some
even respected my opinion of what shade they should get in their hair,
what a day.

A few days later Julia was apparently closing her store, so she asked
us to come and help clean and box everything. It was probably one of
the most fun service projects that I've done, mainly because we got to
throw a lot of things that were made out of glass into the trash can.
Julia decided that she was going to pay us with hair products, and
gave us probably enough shampoo for my whole mission. She loaded it
all into a bag. Me and elder low split it into two bags because it was
so heavy and headed our way down the street. Elder low was riding
behind me, and I was soon startled by a scream, and a crash, almost
immediately I felt cool water splash all over my back. I looked back,
and saw that Elder Low had torn the bag and Two of the shampoos had
fallen out and exploded all over the road, all over him, and all over
me. His spokes apparently cut the bag open. I'm starting to realize
that I can't trust that guy with carrying things on bikes. So we put
all of the shampoo products in my bag, what must have been 20 pounds
and put it on my handle bars, it takes quite a bit of skill to balance
things on your handle bars I have learned, it was a very terrifying
bike ride home. On the last leg of the journey It felt like my foot
had been drenched in water, I looked down and saw that my foot and leg
was covered in shampoo, one of the bottles we had put in the bag had
gotten broken, and it was leaking as the tore under the immense weight
of the bottles. Luckily we made it home, and I was able to get most of
the shampoo out of my slacks.

California is weird. People are so cold here and don't want to talk to
you, but it makes for some really interesting times when contacting
people. Me and elder Low have been cussed out in several different
languages, chased by dogs, and met some of the craziest people I have
ever met, all and all it makes for a good time, I love it here and
there's so much to do. Keep on praying and looking to God, he has all
the answers and will help us in the good times and especially the bad
times, we are never alone. Until next week,

Elder LeBaron

SISTER SARAH JOHNSON...One month down!

Hello again! :)

I survived my first whole month on my mission! We celebrated on Saturday with pizza with some of the other sisters in our zone. I'm grateful to be here! Sometimes it feels like just yesterday I was entering the MTC, and sometimes it feels like that was 27 years ago. But we've been busy finding people and teaching, which makes the days move by quickly :).

So funniest quote of the week goes to the guy with the family taking a walk who was raised Jehovah's Witness. He said his mom thought that "Dinosaurs were put here on Earth by demons to confuse us". Haha, we have definitely had a good laugh about that since then.

We've done a lot of "inspired tracting" this week, where we pray about certain sections in our area, and pick a quadrant based on both of our impressions. It's been amazing! Almost every time, Sis. Barnes and I get the same thought or quadrant. We found one potential investigator, Tim, who already has a Book of Mormon and is trying to quit alcohol. And we found a less active member, Lorie, who just moved to Spokane and has wanted to go to church, but is too shy to go without knowing anyone. She said she's been wanting the missionaries to stop by, but she was too shy to call them or talk to them first on the street. We're going to see her later today, and we're excited to get to know her and help her to meet some of the other members :). It's amazing how Heavenly Father directs us to those who are looking for something more! That's probably the biggest thing I've learned this week, is that He really does all the convincing and the preparing of these good people, and our job is simply to be guides so they know where to find more truth in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I realized that it's not my job to argue with anyone or prove how the gospel is true, because Heavenly Father is preparing people who are ready to learn and accept the gospel on their own, who aren't out to just argue or tear the missionaries down. I'm just here to help people find where they want to go for themselves, and it's awesome! :)

Oh! We got to go to the temple on Friday! It was so beautiful and peaceful, and I'm glad we got to go :). The Spokane temple is so tiny though! The church building next to it is probably bigger than the temple is (though I think Angel Moroni stands just a little taller than the steeple). I think it's cute :).

This week I was also made the "designated driver" in my companionship, so I get to drive us around on Sunday-Wednesday (until the other sisters take our car). It's really fun to be driving again. Except the mission cars have a little box on the window, it's like a prison bracelet. It basically yells at you whenever you go too fast, or accelerate too fast, or do anything too fast. And if you get yelled at too many times, you get "black dotted" and you don't get to drive the rest of your mission. SO! I'm definitely trying to stay within the rules of car usage here, haha. It's an adventure.

Anyways! I love you all! :)

Love,

Sister Johnson

ELDER MATT LEBARON....Bike crashes, mystery food and the hood...

Hello from sunny Southern California,

I think that all these prayers for my bike are working! I made it the
whole week without having any problems, what a Christmas miracle! I
have made it my job this last week to change my gears on a regular
basis, and to treat them gingerly. It's really funny to me how many
people emailed me and commented on the hashtag. Prayers changes lives
my friend! Thank you for all of die hard hashtagers out there, your
support means the world.

This week has actually flown by, it seems like P day was only 2 days
ago. We have seen so much improvement in our area, me and Elder Low
have been working off our bee-hinds. But we have seen such an increase
when it comes to investigators and progressing investigators. The Lord
really does see your efforts when you show him that you will not only
be exactly obedient, but also put in the work to back it up. We went
from having no one to teach to having 6 new investigators,  3 of which
are really promising.

On Friday a member and her son took us to dinner to this crazy
Peruvian restaurant. Everyone was speaking Spanish, and the waitress
spoke very broken English. Elder low can speak a lot better than I can
when it comes to Spanish, so he seemed to know exactly what he wanted
when he looked at the menu, which had maybe 3 words on it that I could
understand. The only way I could order was to just point to the menu,
I am so gringo, I could hardly even pronounce some of  the food items
on that menu, let only understand what I was even ordering. When our
food came, both the member and her son looked at me with shock in
their eyes. "Elder LeBaron, are you sure you want to eat that, you're
pretty brave to get something like that" I looked at what I had
ordered, it seemed to be shredded chicken, with some kind of creamy
yellow sauce on rice. Confident, yet filled with fear, I replied "
yeah of course" I still have no idea what exactly I ate that day, and
I'm not sure I want to know what I ordered. I just remember the look
of horror on both the members faces as I took my first bite, they
looked intently searching for some sort of reaction. At first I
thought that they were both trying to freak me out about some ordinary
food, but I actually really enjoyed whatever horrible creature/body
parts I may have consumed that day, but I will never forget the look
of horror on both of their faces as I took my first bite.

After dinner that same night that member gave my comp new shoes,
because his were beyond destroyed, like I said people spoil us out
here. He slipped the bag onto his handle bars and we were off to our
next appointment. As we were riding the bag kept swinging and hitting
Elder Lows front tire, annoyed, he tried to readjust the bag farther
from the time. He gradually curved into the road (no worries there
weren't any cars) just before making the last adjustments the bag got
caught in his breaks, My comp swerved and plowed straight into the
curve. POP! His tire exploded on impact, and elder low flew over the
handle bars. I immediately slammed on my brakes trying not to throw
myself over the handle bars as well in the process. He skid across the
pavement and lay motionless. Not fully understanding what had
happened, it appeared to me that Elder low just tried to hop a curb at
high speed. I hop off my bike and looked down at my comp, "what the
freak are you doing man?" I quickly asked, no response, a solid five
seconds of silence.  Elder low is dead I thought. I am so green and my
trainer just died, what am I supposed to do. Suddenly elder low Stands
up and busts up laughing, luckily the only thing that was hurt that
day was Elder lows pride. Well... Expect his tire, that got messed up
pretty bad. Just a lesson for you, if you ever want to try and ram
your bike into a curb at high speeds, you're going to have a bad time.

During the course of this last transfer me and Elder low have been
trying to work with a woman named Johanna, she is a recent convert to
the Church along with her daughter. She has a
husband/boyfriend/roommate (were not exactly sure what he is, but
we're also pretty sure he shouldn't be there) named Larry that lives
with her, he hardly ever wears a shirt and is literally covered in
tattoos, head to toe. We have been teaching lessons and trying to get
Larry more involved as we have been trying to help Johanna get to the
temple, which will probably be a complicated process. During one of
our lessons we were teaching them on there porch at their apartment
complex. Mid lesson this guy comes out of the middle of no where and
starts talking to Larry, I could hardly understand what he was even
saying, because he was talking ghetto, if any of you have experienced
it you know what I'm talking about. Suddenly Larry jumps over the the
makeshift wall separating his porch from the side walk. He begins to
chase down the ghetto man. Both the Ghetto man and Larry are sprinting
at this point, soon out of sight as they turn the corner. The only
thing I could understand from this situation was that Larry was
cussing the ghetto man out. There was so much swearing and screaming
it was hard to fully comprehend what was going on. Me and Elder low
both think that ghetto man said something about Johanna. We stood
awkwardly on the porch looking at Johanna's kids. We waited for a
couple minutes, but the screaming and cussing continued, slowly
getting diminished by distance. We told her kids to go inside and wait
for Johanna to get home. We looked at the time and realized that we
were running late for curfew, I'm not sure what happened that night,
but it couldn't have been good.

The area that I'm in is probably one of the nicest in the entire
mission, but it sure does have its ghetto parts, it goes from
mansions, to ghetto the lower you get from the foothills. It's got a
good amount of everything I think, but still nothing like Pomona, one
of the craziest places in the mission, or dirty p as they call it
around here. I was in P town one day on exchanges, and let me tell
you, my area is so incredibly nice by comparison. That's all I got for
this week, you guys can write me whenever you want, since I have an
iPad, I can read emails after 10 every night, I just can't respond
until p day. Thank you for all the support and emails, it's always
exciting to read about everyone's week as well. The Mission life is a
good life, and I'm excited for more adventures as they come.

Keep on keeping on,
Elder LeBaron

SISTER SARAH JOHNSON..Her first week in the field...

Hey there!
 I've survived my first week in the field! To be totally honest, it was the longest week of my life. But it was also super fun and interesting!

My trainer is Sister Barnes, from Ventura, California. She is literally the nicest person on the planet, and she has absolutely the cutest laugh ever. She's 24, and this is actually her last transfer :(. So I'll be taking over the area when she leaves, which means I'll be training my second trainer on the area while she trains me how to be a missionary. It'll be an adventure! But Sis. Barnes likes to run, so I still get to do that :) and she eats super healthy, which is very motivating for me to eat healthy too. Also I can always trust her to have my back in teaching situations, which helps my anxiety when we're talking to people. I think she's the perfect trainer for me!

I've inherited a baptism! His name is Rick and he's being baptized on August 27. He and his wife are so funny, and we get to teach them all the time. I have also met a really cool family from Iraq, though we're not allowed to teach most Muslims here because when they go back to their home country they are in serious danger if they don't practice the Muslim faith anymore. But we teach them English and help them with their mail, which is awesome.

OH! So the whole mission is reading the Book of Mormon in 40 days, and we're asking Heavenly Father for 40 baptisms this transfer. It's been really cool to read the Book of Mormon that fast, because the stories make more sense when you read them quickly. You guys should try it! ;)

I'm super pumped for P-day! Apparently we're going to play marshmallow dodgeball with the whole zone later. Sis. Barnes says the Elders are ruthless and we'll probably have bruises from the giant mallows. But I think I can take them. Haha it should be quite the adventure.

I love you all! Thank you for all the prayers and mail! :) You are the best!

Love,

Sister Johnson

SISTER JOHNSON - Arrived in Spokane on Monday 8/1...

Made it to the mission area, yay! President and Sister Dymock are super nice, and I'm excited to get to know them. Also all the people who got here with us are great! And I'm excited to meet my still anonymous trainer tomorrow.

The trek to the train station was rough, since I didn't intend to take a train, the trax, and a walk with 3 suitcases to get to the plane. But it was exciting anyways!

First thing we did when we got to Spokane was to go "fear-busting", where experienced missionaries take out the newbies for an hour to talk to people. I can't remember my nice sister's name, but we placed a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets and it was really fun actually. :)

Anyways, we're staying at some members' homes tonight, but they're still anonymous too. I'm anxious to get started, and I'm hopeful everything will be awesome!

Love you! :)

Sister Johnson

Mailing Address:

Sister Sarah Johnson

820 S. Pine Rd. Ste 101

Spokane Valley, WA 99206-5595

ELDER LEBARON - Race cars, lizards, and Air conditioning

I'll just get this out of the way really quick, but you guessed it, my
bike broke again. Wow, it's amazing to me how bad things keep
happening to good people. It's freaking Satan, and by Satan, I mean
Giant bikes. On Friday my peddle bar fell off again, so we called a
member who was able to drive us down to Monrovia to get my bike fixed.
The guy there told me to make sure to check the bar screw each week to
make sure it was tight, and that should fix the problem, because
somehow it keeps falling off a little bit and stripping the threading.
So we get home and try and hit as many appointments as possible, after
about an hour of riding our bikes, bam... It falls off again. So there
I am pitifully scooting my bike along the side of the rode, pushing my
feet off the ground in hopes of somehow keeping up with my companion,
who I have decided is on Cocaine, seriously that guy never slows down
for anyone. We ended up getting home late and had to walk everywhere
on Sunday, which was pretty horrible. It was impossible to make it to
some of the appointments that we had scheduled because of how slow we
were. We decided that the best use our time was to tract out some
houses nearby. I'm pretty new to this, but I can tell you that
tracting is not very effective. We knocked about 20 houses when we
came to one with a man that went by the name of Adrian. We started the
good ol' door approach expecting him to tell us that he is a inactive
Catholic who isn't interested, like 95 percent of people that live in
Glendora, but oddly he invited us in.  Even if we get people to listen
they tell us to come back in like a month, so this is crazy. We talked
for about 20 minutes and were on our way, it was a great discussion,
and he invited us to come back in a couple days. I looked at my comp
and asked if that has ever happened in his mission, he responded that
it was the first time during the course of his 11 month mission that
anyone had every invited him in during the course of tracting, so
that's pretty incredible.

Something that I forgot to mention, I also got another flat tire this
week, whoo-hoo that's two for two. We were able to get another member
to take us to the bike shop again today to fix my broken peddle and
bar. I told the guy that this was the 5th time that this specific part
had been replaced and asked if there was anything else that could be
fixed to stop this from happening. He proceeded to tell me that it was
because I was being to hard on the gears of the bike, and needed to
switch the gears according to the incline of the road. Dumbfounded I
couldn't help but think to myself, "this is a 500 dollar bike, I
should be able to ride this thing up freaking Mount Everest in
whatever gear I want" but apparently gear shifting is very important
when riding your bike around town? Also, where the heck was this guy
when I got it replaced the first time? I have broken this stupid pedal
five times, that means that I have broken it practically every week
this transfer, don't get me wrong, but that's a stupid amount of times
to fix a new bike. Anyway, lessons were learned today, and
unfortunately you can not use a moped while in the field, all I'm
saying is that 500 hundred dollars should get you somewhere with that,
am I right? My bike should be able to fly and shoot laser beams with
that kind of money, but no, it can't even stay together, because "I'm
being to hard on the gears" so please make it a hashtag and put it on
Facebook #prayforelderlebaronsbike hopefully with some prayers, the
good Lord, and some tight lock I will not have to go to the bike shop
anytime soon, also I am so grateful that I have bike insurance, best
decision ever.

On Sunday when we didn't have our bikes we asked for a ride from one
of the ward missionaries to church. He's kind of a crazy guy, and one
time we had to confiscate porn magazines from his house, he's just
crazy, I still wonder why he is a ward missionary, but I love that
guy, Elder Low does not appreciate him the way I do, but we always
have a good time when he's around. He picked us up in what looked to
be an older mustang. We got in and he immediately began to tell us
that this was not just any ordinary mustang, but that this mustang had
over 480 horse power to it. I have never rode in a car that had more
than 200 horse power, this was something I have never experienced
before. He asks if we want to see what it can do, without waiting for
a response he pops the clutch and we fly through neighborhoods, swerve
through traffic, and skid through turns. We must have made it to
church in 5 minutes. What a wild man, I feared for my life, but at the
same time was pumped from the crazy amounts of adrenaline that I had
when we arrived at church. I hadn't had the chance to see elder Low
during the ride, since I was in the front, but when we got to the
church he was visibly shaken, and told me that we were never getting a
ride from Brother Moran again. I was ready for round two but
unfortunately as long as elder low is my comp I don't think that will
happen.

This week we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I was lucky
enough to be with Elder Neilson who had the car. I can not express how
amazing it was to ride in a car, not to mention to have air
conditioning. I couldn't help but laugh as I imagined Elder Patterson
riding my broken bike in the heat. Since I have been on my mission I
haven't taken a nap, because Elder Low has told me that they are
against mission rules. During exchanges Elder Neilson explained that
he had no idea why Elder low had told me that because they took naps
all the time. Elder low is so crazy, most of the time he just
schedules us for 15 minute lunches and if he can he likes to push
dinner to 8 o'clock, on top of that, no naps? What a dirty dog. I'm
pretty sure he told me that so that we could work more during the
course of the day, like I said, that guy is on cocaine. Me and Elder
Neilson laughed, listened to some good hymns together, and had some
awesome lessons throughout the day. It was a paradise, not to mention
having the first nap of the mission, wow it was fantastic. And to top
it all off I caught a lizard! I made it a goal to catch at least one
my first transfer, and what can I say, through diligence, hard work,
and quick hands, dreams come true. That day was a good day, until
Elder Neilson dared me to see if the Lizard would bite my ear, I
couldn't get him off for 5 minutes.

Going state side is an incredible blessing, but sometimes it can be a curse, more specifically you get fed all the time. I have eaten so many dinners with so much good food, oh so much good food, but on a negative note the members often force feed you way passed the comfort zone. I'm not taking about full anymore I'm talking about pain. On Wednesday  we visited 3 members, one of them was a dinner appointment, but all three offered us food, already set out for us. I don't if you have ever started sweating because of how much food you have eaten before, but that's exactly what happened to me this week. After 3 servings of lasagna, a bowl of ice cream, and half a watermelon, I was ready to explode. We them went to teach a lesson, and she offered us huge bowls of pudding, ugh not even good pudding, we're talking gross pudding that I would have had to choke down even if I was hungry. I quickly ate all the pudding, taking breaks to gage a little bit, and make sure I didn't throw up, slowly but surely my pudding was gone, and I felt some sick sense of relief. My companion soon started to scoop his pudding into my bowl when the member was in the restroom, it was not a good time.
Something that was pretty sweet, was that one of the members decided to send 2 pizzas and a huge cookie to our door from Pizza Hut. The members are so nice to us and definitely spoil us, one thing many foreign missions do not have. This is the only time in my life where I have had a love hate relationship with food, I've learned that there is a tactful way to eat food so that members do not trip over themselves trying to give you 2nds 3rds or 4ths. It's been a good week, and the work is getting better and better every day that I'm out here. The Lord is so aware of us and he's just waiting for us to ask for help. I'm grateful for a Savior that suffered for us so we don't have to go through this life alone. This church is true, I know it. I hope everyone has a great week and keeps living the dream, until next week,

Elder LeBaron