April 21, 2014

April 21, 2014

Hey mum

So first off, you will never guess what???!!!!!!??!??!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!

Anna, the girl who was our referral, the college student who is 19. Well it turns out that the friend that she has who is serving a mission in Lyon France is named Karson Pape. This is the funny part – She was one of Tori’s companions in France!!!!! Her friend is one of the reasons she has decided to learn a little about our church! How great is that? So we taught her again this week and that went really good. Her one hold up is the church and its position on the same sex relationships. She feels that if God wants his children happy and he says no acting on same sex feelings then why would he make them that way. Any way we are trying to work with that. I am praying I find the right things to say. I feel if I can she will progress for sure.

Funny story from this week - on Thursday we were supposed to go to Bath which is where the sisters are living. They had the car and we needed it. So we needed to get to Bath and get the car. We had no ride to Bath so our only option was to bike! We start biking there on this nice really nice little bike path, and suddenly we come to these barricades and the path has flooded because of all the ice that is melting and coming down from the rivers and there is water all over the path. Me and my companion stop and look at the water for a bit and then I start going though it … figuring it can’t be too deep. I think that I can just bike through it, well when I get in deep enough that the water is up to my pedals the bike stops! I have to step off into icy cold water! At that point I figure what the heck! My feet and ankles are freezing and I am going to be wet any way and how deep can it be any way? I start walking across the path and the water gets deeper and deeper till it is almost to my crotch! It WAS DEEP! And it was SOOOOOOO COLD! I kept going figuring if I was already wet why stop? Besides that at this point my companion is already following me so we are both wet and cold now so we might as well keep going forward right? We both make it through and get back up on our bikes and keep going. We are very cold. Do you want to know the only problem with water proof shoes? It is that they don’t just keep water OUT – they also keep water IN! So that part was no fun, but we keep going and what do we come up to? A SECOND flood! This time I think that if I can get the bike going fast enough I can just go right through. So I get the bike going as fast as I can and hit the water attempting to pedal through….. Needless to say I didn't make it … at all.... and again I walk through waist deep water but luckily that was the last flooded part! After that we just had a 6 mile bike ride left to the sister apartment. Oh also this whole time I have a bike rack,(You know the kind to mount bikes on cars) strapped to my back, so we could get the bikes back after we pick up the car! Mom, it was a blast! I mean it was tons of fun! I only wish I had a video or pictures of it, but we were too cold and didn’t think about taking pictures until it was too late. I guess I came about as close to swimming on my mission as I will ever get! I still really like my companion. Things are really good, I am happy to be here and I love the gospel so much mum, I am so grateful to be serving a mission, to be able to have all of these experiences.

So yeah I love you mom, have a good week

love elder dean