#CRA$HBROTHER$

Hey Friends and family. This week was pretty crazy so I'm just goona write a list of things and expound on a few of them. 

- So the craziest thing that happened this week was actually right after p-day. So to get from Iowa to Nauvoo you have to cross this big toll bridge. So we were crossing back to Iowa after P-day and the lady working the booth let us across the bridge. So we're driving along minding our own business and all that. Then all of a sudden there this giant crash and our car stops in place. So we look back and this giant metal gate that blocks cars from crossing the bridge comes down ON TOP OF OUR CAR. It scared the heck out of us not goona lie. But yeah so this 2 ton gate came down on top of our back windshield and smashed our trunk as well. Pretty much wrecked our Malibu we were pretty salty. But good news. The bridge is paying for it all, and I didn't end up having to pay a $735 dollar ticket for not having our insurance with us.. 

-So funny story now that our Malibu is in the shop (10,000 dollars of damage, thanks bridge!) we had to take the Hermana's car from them so we could get around the Zone to do exchanges and get to the different D-Meetings.  So the Hermanas have walk around there area lol. Sorry not sorry sisters. Granted the average weight gain for a sister in this mission is 40 lbs so we are actually doing them a favor if you think about it.

- So this week we were able to do exchanges in our area for a few hours. I was with Elder Perez for the day he's a cool homie from Nevada. He's pretty young in the mission, but he's an awesome teacher and hard worker. So we worked hard and found 8 new investigators together it was a great day. One of the cooler experiences I've had in a while happened during this exchange as well. So we were trying to contact this referral and I typed her address into the the GPS. It was 2305, so we are driving and I go up to the house to knock it and it's a super wrecked and run down duplex. Then I looked at the door number and it was actually 2205. So I was like oh it's the wrong door I'll just walk down and find the right address. But before I left I had a pretty strong impression to knock this nasty door. I ended up being like naw I've knocked it before and no one answered, pretty sure it's abandoned yada yada yada excuses and crap. So we leave and try the right address and no one was there. Later this same day we just got out of a lesson and we got a phone call from a lady named Jennifer. She told us she was baptized in 1993 and fell away from the church after awhile. Long story short she moved to Burlington to get a fresh start and brought her young son with her. She told us she wants to come back to Church and get to the temple, she also wants her son to be baptized! Here's the kicker, her address is that 2205 house I should of knocked on. She told us that day she had been praying for the missionaries to find her. #HUMBLED. Always follow your promptings from the spirit boys and girls. I'm glad Heavenly Father gave us a second chance on this one! 

-Fun story for the Day, on Saturday morning me, Elder Anitok, and Elder Zinn played three black guys from Chicago in Church ball. And we totally wrecked their day. #WHITEKIDPOWER.

-Also we had to give the Hermanas their car so they could drive to pday so we made them makes us breakfast since we had to sacrifice and get up at 5:30 for them.

That's been our week though. Pics to come. 

1. Post crash pic

2. When the sisters have to give you a ride home. Embarrassing. 

3. Breakfast feast courtesy of our needy sisters.

#ClownSpotted

This past week was pretty solid, kind of slow but it picked up towards the end. The week before transfers always seems to drag on way long especially if you pretty much know you're leaving. But Elder Esplin and I have been staying pretty motivated and we got a lot of good work done this week. We have been working with Jasmine and her Aunt Arielle and Arielle's three kids. They are looking real good to be baptized on October 29, they have been trying really hard to come to Church but their car is broken down and they don't have a ton of money. All of that combined with the fact we aren't allowed to ask members to give people rides to Church, makes it tough to get them to Sacrament meeting. But they should be coming this weekend. I'll probably have to find a way to come back for their baptism though because transfers are Thursday! My boy Elder Eslpin is all done training and it's time for him to leave the nest! (technically it's more like me leaving him in the nest) but I'm going to miss my son and this awesome area if I do end up getting the boot. 

This past weekend was Stake Conference which was pretty awesome. All the Elders from our zone needed a place to stay cause the ones up north live like 3 hours away and they had to be at both sessions so we had 11 Elders in our house for a night... It was a party. I'll just leave it at that. 

President and Sister Badger came and spoke at our Stake Conference and it was awesome! They spoke a lot about member Missionary work which was really awesome. Then the Stake Prez got up and spoke about Parenting and Marriage and all that stuff. I'm glad I'm a missionary. 

So this past week we have been teaching all of our "Chicago Refugees" and they keep telling us to be careful about the "Clowns" and we've been like "What the heck, why is everyone talking about clowns?" Turns out, (I don't know if this is going on in the west at all, I guess it started in Chicago) there are people dressing up as clowns and going out and attacking people at night and there's been people getting attacked in Cedar Rapids as well. So our AP's texted us and told us to be careful and if we see any clowns we are supposed to text them #ClownSpotted it's pretty funny. It's kind of messed up I know, but I just get a kick out of how crazy people around here are. 

Alright well as all of our investigators would say "I'm finna dip out now".

Love you guys

Craziest Week of My Life

Alright this week was straight up insane. By far the craziest week of my mission, probably my life too. There's so many things that happened this week I probably won't be able to write about them all without this turning into a novel. But I'll try and sum up everything that has happened this week accurately. I'm just goona jump into it. 

#1 

So on Tuesday it was a pretty fun day we worked a ton and found a really solid guy named Nathan Gapo, he's from the Congo. We are going to teach him with our Recent Convert Tresure who's also from the Congo and speaks French fluently. I'm excite, Trey is a great member missionary, and he's only been a member since June! But anyways we got a call from a member who is from Sierra Leon, he invited us over to have African food... Safe to say we were kind of nervous, I personally felt kind of cheated I thought I was safe getting called to Iowa. But since I've been in CR the only people I talk to are Africans it's crazy haha. But we had a nice meal of Cassava Leaves (Peanut Butter, Potato Leaves, Goat, Pork, Jalapenos, Habaneros, Sardines, Bones, Some kind of sticks and Rice. We ate it all though, I'm not sure how I just took a bite and drank their African Soda and repeated about 30x. Heavenly Father Knows how to challenge us :) 

#2

So Elder Madsen and I were on exchanges and we were teaching our new Investigator Tauheed. He is a cool kid, he's in college and plays basketball. We also found out he deals. Like drugs. So we were teaching the Plan of Salvation and he kept getting texts and stuff and was super distracted. So he gets up and excuses himself for a second and starts rummaging around with this plastic bag and he sits back down and says "Y'all ain't cops righ?" and I'm just like "haha..no?..." and he's like "Y'all act like it some times...haha just playin mahn!" and I'm just like nervous laughing looking at Madsen like what the heck is going on. Then his friend came in and took the baggie and left "Something" on the counter for him. So I got to see a live drug deal up close and personal this week! Stay tuned next to hear about our Word of Wisdom lesson this Tuesday at 3:00! :)

#3

So I don't know if word travels all the way to the West but Cedar Rapids is actually flooding. So we have been evacuated out of our area and are living south of Cedar Rapids in a town called Ely. So the rest of this transfer will be interesting to say the least. The members are really cool, they just moved from Nampa and they are super familiar with Eagle. It's kind of like being home it's weird. But we spent the last few days Sandbagging houses and doing service for people in our neighborhood. The River is supposed to be 31 ft higher than what it normally holds, so that means our house will probably have about 5 ft of standing water in it when it crests tomorrow morning. So yeah it should be crazy but we are safe! Our city was on ABC breaking news though! 

#4

Ok last Crazy thing, we got in a car wreck. Elder Madsen and I were up front and Esplin and Jackson were in the back. But we were at an intersection and we had the green and a guy ran a red light going like 40 and we T-boned him and he spun out and hit another lady who was turning so he took out 3 cars in all. The ZL's truck is wrecked pretty bad. But we're happy he didn't T-bone us or else Jackson and I might have gotten pretty messed up lol. But once again we're safe and grateful no one was seriously hurt.

So that's all the crazy stories in short form. We had Zone Conference this week that was pretty cool! Our investigator Alex is still wanting to be baptized, but his brother is trying to block it so we will have to figure things out with him. 

I hope you all have a great and safe week! Love you guys!