I'm not giong to lie, it has probably been the most exciting week of my entire life. And by exciting, I mean that more has happened and I've had to deal with more things than ever before. It all started out awesome when we first went out Wednesday night. We found everyone at home and had a bunch of lessons, which is super unusual. Thursday is where it started to get a little crazy though. We started out the day by waking up super early and going for a big run. We had already been running for quite a ways when we took a couple turns and ran into massive dead-ends everywhere. We hit one after the other until we eventually ended up re-tracing our steps and going back the way we came (which was not a short ways). So we were exhausted and did a sweet workout with weights. It's actually pretty cool - Elder Johnson has a ton of the P90X workouts written down so we're starting to do those every morning after we run. But anyway, after that Elder Johnson had some pretty interesting experiences with OYMs. We talked to this old lady on the street, and let's just say he saw more skin than he wanted to... We run into some pretty crazy people.
But then... the highlight of the week, I totally got into a little accident with the car! We were pulling up to this intersection, and I stopped at the stop sign - I looked both ways and then continued ahead. All of the sudden this car came speeding out of nowhere and I hit his back end. The sun was exactly where this car was coming from, so I'm pretty sure the glare from it hid it from view. So we had to wait around forever to find that nobody was sure if the other guy had insurance and I got cited for not yielding at a stop sign. So that was kind of a pain, and now I'm going to take a traffic class online (hopefully next week on P-day) so I don't have to pay quite as much and also so I don't get any points taken off my license. So we've been on bikes ever since then and our car got taken to Tempe to get worked on. But that wasn't even the end of the day. We didn't have any batteries for the LED lights that we had just bought earlier that day, so we had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up batteries (you can't ride bikes at night without lights). Somehow both of the "speedy" check-out lines we were in took 20 minutes! So we got a way late start. Then, we headed to the other side of Yuma to visit this investigator David Limones - who is actually getting baptized this Saturday - and after going miles and miles across town he wasn't there! We did catch him as we were leaving though, which was sweet, and had a quick lesson with him. We sped-rode back home to get in before 9:30 and when we got there I searched my pockets and couldn't find my keys!! I was about at the breaking point and immediately got on my knees. I'm pretty sure I prayed harder than i just about ever have. The second I opened my eyes the phone rang, David called saying the keys must have fallen out of my pocket at his place, and he brought them over as we chilled outside our apartment. Meanwhile, the mission president's wife Sister Howes was trying to call me and the phone kept on dropping her calls! It was definitely a day for the record books and life hasn't seemed to get a whole lot easier since then. But we decided if Satan's going to work that hard on us, we're just going to outwork him and show him what's up! :) So that's what we've been trying to do.
It's actually been pretty sweet - we've been having a decent amount of lessons and everything else seems to be going really well, all things considered. We've been getting greenie blessings since every day last week we got a new investigator. That's always been a tough thing here, getting new investigators every week. But even though our teaching isn't terribly great (our Spanish is getting the practice that it really needs), the people seem to feel the Spirit and things are going well. So yeah, David is getting married and baptized this Saturday morning! They're going to do it real simple and real quick, because he just can't wait any longer. We stopped by with our branch president Monday night and finally got everything worked out. I'm so excited for it - he's an absolute stud with just a radiating Spirit - and I've definitely learned a lot from him.
I also found out why Hermana Amparo hasn't been baptized yet last week! We've been really working on asking inspired questions so we can help people better, and we found out that it's because of her Catholic baptism and her parents. She really loves her parents who were super good people who didn't know the Gospel. She doesn't know how she feels about being baptized again and thinks maybe it's going to somehow take her away from them or go away from the things they taught. So we have a lesson with her tonight and hopefully we can set up a baptismal date and show the need for it. But it's been fun with Elder Johnson as we focus on the basics and really stick to the fundamentals. I think our lessons are much more effective this way and people will be more willing to act when they're more involved in the lesson and can see how much we care.
We've also been teaching and helping out this less-active woman here, because she really wants to come back to Church and have her daughter baptized. She is awesome, so full of faith, and wants me to baptize her 8-year old daughter so we're going to teach her and hopefully do it soon. Younger kids are so much easier to teach because they are so full of faith and so much more open to the truth. I wish that more people were like that. So anyways, that should be pretty sweet.
But yeah, it seems like Satan never really stops working on us. Every day is certainly an adventure, but it is definitely never easy and things have been somewhat difficult lately. We woke up this morning to find that the water had been turned off in our apartment, so we couldn't shower, use the bathroom, or do all of those somewhat necessary things. I definitely find it all somewhat amusing that this many things could all happen in one week. I do know, however, that it's going to do nothing but make me stronger and that I'm going to be all the better for it. Thank goodness for prayer and the scriptures, that help us out so often in this crazy life. I honestly don't know how people get by without it - I know I would be lost. And it's funny too - my body has been destroyed this week as I've gone from not much the past 3 months to ridiculous amounts of workouts and bike riding in one week. Hopefully I'll get adjusted to it soon and maybe we'll get a car here too.
So that's it for this week - nothing else too terribly exciting :) it's a good thing my companion's a stud and has an awesome sense of humor. We get along so good, and are so similar. I've laughed a whole lot more recently than I have in a long time. We definitely enjoy life no matter what it dishes us and work like crazy since that's what wrestlers do. So life is good and busy, and seguire adelante! Thanks for everything!
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