Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Week 29

Hello,

So this week has been pretty crazy busy. The weather is terrible, it
melts during the day then refreezes over night so it's a hockey rink
outside. Driving on that is super fun. Especially because Elder
Santana is the designated driver and he's from LA, so he drives very
aggressively. He admits it, it's okay for me to say it. It's weird,
because serving with Elder Santana is like serving with a 20 year old,
half Cuban version of dad. It's really weird.

Tuesday we had district meeting and stuff. Then we freaked out Sister
Treu (she's a new missionary) by telling scary stories at district
lunch. She's pretty much convinced she's going to get eaten by a bear
or killed by a moose now. Then we went around and got all our
appointments cancelled on us, so we went tracting. We found an
investigator for another ward, and when we called to tell them they
said that they had already finished tracting that area. And we managed
to not Tract into any of the same people. It was nuts. Then we visited
Marc, still in sweatpants. Sweatpants are the way to teach lessons.

Wednesday we went to do more service for the Iditarod, but since it
was super jam packed with people we left and went to another service
project at a place called Remade, which is basically a Value Village
but with restoration projects and stuff. I could have thrift shopped
for days in there. But they had us organize their basement. The lady
in charge wouldn't call us elders, and one of our zone leaders, Elder
Garver, almost threw down the gauntlet with this woman. A bike fell on
me. That wasn't fun. Then we double dipped for dinners. Alliteration.
Unintentional. Our first was with Dylan Faber and family, which was
suuuuper awkward. But the food was really good, we had lasagna. Our
second was with Erin and Rhiannon and it was pulled pork sandwiches
and by the end of the night I was so full it hurt. Then we went to see
Shantel Tamanaha, we taught them a super good lesson, and then they
gave us bowls of fruit. It's been so long since I've had fresh fruit
of any kind, I actually almost cried. There was kiwi. So good.

Thursday we went back to the Iditarod service and this time we
actually helped. We stacked bags of dog food for 5 hours. Fun, right?
We also played a bunch of games while standing in line to get handed
bags. I taught all the missionaries the umbrella game. They were
angry. They taught me boom boom boom, and I got angry. Good times.
Then our dinner cancelled. Then we were visiting with a less active
and his family gave us dinner. Score. Then I got a haircut that night.
Whitney cut our hair and she brought her friend Eric (who has a Zeus
beard) as the third male, so we were able to teach him. She gave me
hair product. Hair product is weird.

Friday was the first day of my life I used hair product of my own free
will and volition. It's still weird. We had dinner at 3, which was
strange. I'm pretty sure I ate around 7 tuna fish sandwiches. Don't
judge me. It was with Ben Siufanua who brought his girlfriend who's
pretty cool. She's not a member so we taught her with Ben, which was
pretty cool. Then at SASWAFN that night I slew some people at ping
pong. That's a joke, I'm terrible at ping pong.

Saturday was pretty terrible right up until the end when we threw on
the sweatpants and went to see Marc. He had to go early because one of
his residents was having some health issues but we had a really good
meeting with him. He's progressing really well so hopefully he can get
Sundays off soon. It's always a party to meet with Marc.

Sunday was awesome. Another super busy day though. We had snow that
night so the roads were pretty messed up. Then church was really good.
Then afterwards we had a munch and mingle, but it was a Valentine's
one because we couldn't do it last week. There was like no one there
though, so I ate all the spaghetti. I think I'm getting fat guys.
There was also a straight up blizzard, which was super cool. There
were snowflakes the size of small dogs. It was one of the coolest
things I've ever seen. It didn't last very long, but it definitely
made me feel like I was in Alaska. Then we had a lesson with Linda,
who we met two weeks ago while she was bussing tables. She showed up
half an hour early, but so did we, so we gave her a tour of the
outside of the Temple and talked about it and then gave her a tour of
the chapel and talked about it and then the members that were helping
us showed up and we taught one of the best lessons I've had on my
mission. She's golden for sure. This is why you talk with waitresses.

So this was a pretty good week. Hopefully next week will also be
pretty good. I've noticed that the near death experiences have slowed
down, so I'm going to try and bring that number up again. It makes for
more exciting stories. Alright folks, have a good week!

John