I hope you are doing great! You are awesome, and you are doing amazing, wonderful, beautiful things. Mom told me about the wallet bus mishap, and I’m hoping everything went the way you needed it to. I know you probably feel dumb for having something like this happen to you, but don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s no excuse, but dumb things happen to missionaries all the time. I only speak for myself: I accidentally almost signed up for a credit card while I was on my mission in my first area at a Kaye’s Jewelery store in Ames, Iowa. I felt the pressure from all the missionaries I was with to enter the store. What I was doing at a jewelry store, I don’t even know. I was dumb. That same outing in Ames, I heard about The Buckle Challenge. It’s a funny, stupid, dumb challenge you do at the mall in The Buckle store. You have to walk through the store, until you reach the back, touch something on the back wall, and walk through the store til you reach the front without being stopped by someone. The first and last time I did it, a happy-go-lucky/overly confident missionary named Elder Morraine, a clueless guy, got caught just overly doing the challenge, and the manager was like get out of our store, haha. Looking back, we were so stupid and clueless and innocent as missionaries. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, haha.
So, I am writing this in the back of Sarah’s mom’s car. It’s been a pretty interesting weekend for us. We travelled to Monterey, California, with Sarah’s mom and dad. Sarah’s brother Arnie and his family live there and the reason why we were up here is because Arnie was being ordained a high priest, and we later found out, in his sacrament meeting, that he was called as second counselor in their bishopric. Since his dad is a high priest, he got to ordain him, which was another reason why we came up. It was a nice blessing. Then he got set apart by a priesthood leader.
Sarah’s brother, Enoch and family, also made it down from somewhere near San Francisco, I think Roseville. Enoch is married to a very nice girl named Sonia from Guatemala. They have three daughters, named Melaney, Mia, and a three week newborn named Madeline. We had a great time this weekend. We rode a bus-like free trolley around the bay of Monterey and then we walked around to look at the beach from different vantage points. I think it was called Cannery Row. It was the place that inspired John Steinbeck’s riding. Yeah, we were around Salinas, California, and all those places like in books like Of Mice and Men.
Sarah and I did a lot of watching of the little kids while we were walking around. Five-year-old Laura, six-almost-seven-year-old Melaney, and three-year-old Mia. They all had interesting personalities. Enoch actually asked me to keep an eye on Melaney, who was wanting to go on a solo, and not buddy mission. Besides the mini-rebelliousness the kids were putting up at times, it was actually quite fun. It was also quite cool, you know, because it was a coastal city with coastal cool weather. It was also a very pretty location. Got some pretty pictures.
Later, Arnie took us to look at the military base he works at. He teaches different languages to different people. We got a nice picture of the ocean from his building he teaches at. Then we got pizza from Papa John’s that was super good. Arnie and Dila, his wife, are vegetarians, so no meat on the pizzas. My favorite was the all cheese, with some garlic dip.
Anyways, mom isn’t the only one that has been traveling. We took the five hour trip. I’ve been watching most, if not, following all the matches of The World Cup. Peru played Denmark yesterday. I wanted to watch it but was on the road. Helen, my mother-in-law, let me do mobile hotspot with her phone. However, it was hardly working, and I missed the only goal of the match. Unfortunately, that goal was against us. Not a very nice start, but fortunately, there are two more games in the group. We have a game against France and Australia coming up. Hopefully we win both, and make it to the quarters.
Well, since writing this, my computer has died, and several hours later, we made it back to Torrance, and later, to Bloomington. It is now 12AM. In the switch from her mom's car to her dad's car, Sarah fell asleep in the back seat, while I rode with Arno in the front and we talked about a lot of everything.
Other than this crazy weekend, our week has been pretty low-key.
Sarah and I went to the Cardenas family's house on Monday for FHE. They let us teach a lesson. Sarah had a video in Spanish that talked about bullying. We shared it because the older kids pick on the younger ones. Then we shared the John 8 bible video of the adulterous woman being brought before Jesus. I forgot to make it in Spanish, so only half the people knew what we were talking about. Then, I was in charge of the game, so we played "chicken." It's the game where you get a paper bag and pick it up with your mouth that the Knudsen family taught us. Of course, me and my competiveness got me about first place with one error. The 8 year old girl Ella was able to complete it, but she had a total of three errors. She was my competition.
For date night, I took Sarah to the Deseret Book and Distribution Center in Redlands. We looked around for a while. It was fun just to be out and doing stuff for date night. We didn't get anything, but we went to an Indian restaurant? that served Simosas. The food was all pretty good.
Sarah and I played tennis a couple of times this week. It was rather fun. Mom even said hi to us on her drive home.
Well, I am tired. More stuff probably happened, but alas, I can't remember.
I love you, Brother.
John
