Pagoda!

June 20, 2016

Well I get to stay here another transfer, but Elder Fisher is out.
It's always interesting changing companions! Anyways we had a fun last
week. We saw a sweet miracle this week! I was going through our area
book, and I found a former investigator who is a members fiancé. The
reason she was dropped was because they lived together and wouldn't be
getting married till the summer. Well it's summer so we should go
teach them right? Last week we got a text from bishop that said "I
just married Kory and Ben, when's the baptismal date?" So we were
pumped to teach them. We planned on getting in contact with them
Monday night. So last Monday morning we got a text that said "hey
elders, want to come for dinner? We have a bunch of leftovers from the
wedding!" So of course we went and it was wonderful and we set up a
return dinner appointment so stay tuned for that one!

I got to go on exchanged with Elder Stephenson this week, and man that
was fun! He's such an awesome elder! We did service all day, helped
demolish a kitchen, so I can't complain. Speaking of service, an old
couple named the Hazards, asked if we could come garden for them. Let
me tell you, Hazard isn't just their last name, it completely
describes them. We showed up and they pointed us to a huge pile of
weeds and said "there's the garden!" And asked us to weed SOME of it.
They wanted us to leave some plants. So we start weeding and all of
the sudden Brother Hazard comes out with two lawn mowers and starts
mowing down all the weeds! Now this isn't one of those mowers that has
a bag, it just shoots out the side, so all this grass, weeds and rocks
are just flying out of this lawn mower! The entire garden was gone
hahaha. Not to mention Brother Hazards dog got scared and bit him when
he started the lawn mower. So we clean up the mess he made and turned
over the dirt to get ready to plant. In the mean time Brother Hazard
salvaged one purple flower and replanted it. We go to grab gloves and
Brother Hazard comes out with a tiller. He starts it up, but for some
reason has a twisty tie on the trigger so it's razor sharp blades are
just spinning as he carries it out! I thought I was going to see his
leg get all mangled as he played around with the twisty tie, blades
inches away! So he tills the garden and Sister Hazard gives us all
these seeds to plant. Corn, lettuce, sunflowers, marigold, peas you
name it! And this flower bed is the size of my sleeping bed! So we
start to dig rows and garden like we should, when Brother Hazard comes
back out, takes the seeds and just dumps them all over the garden, so
we follow suit! I think my mom and grandma would have had a heart
attack with how terrible our gardening went because Brother Hazard got
the rototiller back out and tilled the dirt and seeds, then had us
toss topsoil to save the seeds from the birds. Before we left, Sister
Hazard said "how will I know where the rows are so I can water them?"
And we proceeded to tell her just to water every few inches and she
should be fine! Oh I hope something actually grows haha.

So other than my unnecessarily long service story, Paul got confirmed
this week so that was sweet! The Gift of the Holy Ghost is such a
blessing! The fact that we can have that comfort and guidance all the
time is.. Well it's comforting! Anyways I'm pretty pumped for this
week and transfers because I get to drive down to Broomall with Elder
Stimpson! I love you all, have a great week!

1) Elder Hillstead! He's on his way home
2) Last picture of the district!
3&4&5) us and Dontá went to the Pagoda today, so here's some cool
shots of Reading