Elder Keaton has always loved life and enjoys living it to the extreme. He never intends to live extreme in a bad way; he just loves all life has to offer. Sometimes extreme living finds him. I have seriously prayed about sharing this letter. Please be kind and don't judge harshly. :)
There are a few interesting things to know about Keaton and I have discovered that these facts will play a colorful role in his mission! He is color blind to a degree (fortunately not as bad as his older brother) so he makes up for the lack of color in his world with his colorful personality.
The second major fact of grand importance: Elder Keaton has NO sense of smell. The doctor believes a virus settled in his olfactory nerve area and left irreparable damage. It has been a minor issue before and this week we discovered it will be a major influence during the next two years! Fortunately, the Lord loves His servants, miracles are real, and my son has been blessed with both His love and His miracles.
March 31, 2013
Easter was wonderful and the best part was that on Saturday before Easter I received a package from you! I was really excited about all the Texas things, everyone thinks its funny how Texas is the only place with pride like that. I was also very pleased to find the bike tools inside because I searched EVERYWHERE for those this week and was so frustrated thinking that I had somehow managed to lose them. You're probably wondering why I needed my tools, and I'll tell you about that soon. But what I was also excited about receiving on Saturday was my scriptures! I now have my scriptures, patriarchal blessing, and friend's addresses once again and all is well.
That is a pretty flash swing (flash means really nice). I also did get to watch Landon jumping on the horse but I forgot to mention that in my last email, it was sweet as. I don't know if I can use the headphones here to watch Jay's mission call because that might be one of the rules that can be interpreted in different ways, and I've found that my interpretations are generally wrong. So, hopefully one day I'll watch it, but I'll wait for now. So now for that bike story :)
I popped my front tire! I always goof off a little on my bike because its a nice bike and I think it's fun, and I don't do anything really dumb - just stuff like ride with no hands. My companion has never popped a tire and pretty much thinks I'm an egg for popping mine so soon, especially when he already warned me about popping them on curbs. What happened was we were riding pretty quick and I hit a low curb because I couldn't clearly see how high is was, and that instantly deflated my tire. But those patches you sent me with work great so I was able to fix it that night after planning. I couldn't find my bike tools because I didn't have them, but fortunately my tires are really easy and I didn't need them. Then, the next day as we were riding I hit a similar curb and I was being very careful with my front tire, but unfortunately protecting my front tire resulted in popping my back tire. Now I know how to patch tires. :)
Another crazy thing here is drinking and weed, both seem to be very popular. Once we were talking with a guy and he busted out some weed right in front of us, another time we saw tons of it in our investigators garage (turns out he's a dealer) and my companion can smell it at many places we go. It's still illegal here but it doesn't seem to be a very enforced law. But there is also another drug very similar to weed that is legal unfortunately. And nearly everyone in NZ drinks. And drunk people love missionaries which makes for great funny stories. The other day some drunk guy called us over to them. The one I was talking to seemed to really enjoy smelling the Book of Mormon, he said it smelled very new and fresh which he liked. Now, I know what the Book of Mormon smells like. I always knew they smelled true but now I know they also smell new and fresh. :) They wanted us to pray with them, which we did, and then they kindly graced us with the Haka before we left and gave my companion and I each our first Hangi. A hangi is what you have seen in the NZ videos where the Mauri's touch their foreheads and noses together.
This weekend I got to ride in legit rain for the first time too. My backpack is pretty water resistant, which is nice, and the rain isn't too bad with the rain jacket except your legs get soaked from your thighs down. And, we take our shoes off before entering every house so having waterproof slip-on shoes is very nice. We haven't had to wear suit coats since I got here except to meetings, but that changes today. They have weird suit coat rules here. During the summer it's no coats and winter is always coats, but April and October we only have to wear our coats after 5:00 p.m. The work is picking up. We have more investigators now and some of them seem pretty promising. The one I'm most excited about is a family which we have been working with ever since we got here. They have been going to church nearly two months straight. It's a dad, his three kids, and their cousins. So if we could baptize them all I think that would be awesome! I think there are 6 who are baptizing age. The dad, Manu, isn't quite ready but the kids are all keen as. We think if we can just baptize all the kids within the next couple weeks then seeing that will help Manu want to get baptized as well. So, that is what we are hoping for.
India, sorry I didn't email you back directly, emailing just once helps me save time, but I hope I answered all of your questions. Landon, thanks so much for being an example and also for continuing to do all the work even without any of us being able to help you. Oh, and on p-days (preparation days) we clean, email, shop, eat, and then we go to the chapel and play basketball. There are a couple of nice views from some of the streets in our area and before I get transferred hopefully I'll be able to convince my companion to come with me on a p-day to take pictures of them, otherwise don't worry, you'll get to see much better views when you come in two years.
But good news! I've been out for over a month now. :) I'm practically a veteran. ;) I've got a super cool miracle I want to share with you, I thought about not sharing it till later but I want to make sure Landon gets to hear it before he leaves. I don't have much time left so I'll tell the shorter version. A man told us to get off his property, then a couple days later he called to us when we rode past and when we stopped and went to his porch he offered us some chocolate, which we foolishly took. We both knew better than to take it, but I guess we both had a brain fart and took it. Thinking Elder Denkers had eaten his, I ate mine immediately. After giving us the chocolate he was keen for us to leave. Once we were on the street Elder Denkers ate his, we both agreed it tasted funny, then he quickly spit it out. He said it tasted exactly like weed smelled. After thinking about it we realized this man had actually tricked us into eating weed. I remembered the scripture Mark 16:18 "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" and I prayed the Lord would bless me with this since I had actually eaten it. I felt a wave of highness as we walked, it felt almost exactly like the laughing gas at the dentist, and then it went away just as quickly as it had come. So the miracle was that I ate / took a harmful drug, yet it did not affect me. So remember that the Lord does protect his servants and the miracles in the scriptures are real and still occur today. I hope this story comforts you rather than makes you worry. I am grateful for the Savior, for the gospel, and for miracles. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter today. I love you :)
No comments:
Post a Comment