Good Week :)

7/3/10......Hello, Last week was a good week...which should have been obvious due to the title of this email...haha. It started off really well. Last Monday was a good pday and later that night we went and did family home evening with a less active family. It was so much fun! We played Apples to Apples, which I rock at, and then had a spiritual lesson.There is a young man in the family named William. He's a little weird, but in a really funny way. He'll do these little strange dances and say strange stuff. It's super cool. Tuesday and Wednesday were good days too, but nothing too epic happened. Same with Thursday. Friday and Saturday were great!

Friday morning Elder Brandon and I, along with a few ward members, went and did a service project for a recent convert in 2nd Ward. We cleaned inside his house and also did a ton of yard work. It was so nasty. Inside he had piles of Coke boxes and pizza boxes stacked up along with a bunch of other clutter. I remember whenever I would pick up some boxes a bunch of cockroaches would scurry in every direction. Luckily I had gloves on so I didn't worry about it too much. It was gross...cockroaches were everywhere. We filled about 10 big black garbage bags just in his kitchen and living room. There was garbage everywhere. I then went outside to help with the yard work. His yard was so overgrown. You could barely see his house from the front. His lawn was so long that we had to use a commercial lawn mower to get it done. We also trimmed his bushes so that when we left we could finally see the house. It looks so much better. I know it will definitely help him be happier. While I was there I also got bit by a bug on my left pinky. That is another story in itself. After the service project we went to Gainsville to meet our new mission president, President Barry. We were there for a few hours, and it went really well. He's going to do a lot of great things. After that we went to dinner with the Cruz family. I think I've mentioned them before. They're a wonderful little family with a lot of love. We've been trying to help them start studying the scriptures as a family every day. They're still having a hard time keeping it going. They are making progress though. While we only did three things all day Friday, I feel like we did a lot of good.

Saturday was fantastic! That morning we started off with teaching Tommy. Brother Byrd, the 1st Counselor in 2nd Ward, came with us. He actually drove us because it's super far from our house. Our area is huge!! Anyway, the lesson with Tommy was so amazing! We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is: Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We also went over the Word of Wisdom again with him. That's where things got really great. Tommy has been trying to quite smoking and drinking tea, but was having a hard time. On Saturday we were planning on trading some herbal tea for the tea he had been drinking. So we started the lesson with that and by the end of the lesson he had given us all his tea, cigarettes, and coffee. He also gave us all his ash trays and lighters. It was so cool watching him dig out all his stuff so he could give it to us. Brother Byrd helped so much. He bore his testimony of how much the gospel has changed his life and helped him conquer his addictions. His testimony was SO powerful! It made me tear up a little. The Spirit was amazing in that house! Tommy committed to completely obeying the Word of Wisdom from that day on. Also, he committed to being baptized on July 17th. His baptism is going to be really special. His brother is going to fly in from Washington and will baptize him. Later that day we went to the church to set up for Sam's baptism. While we were there the Spanish Branch had a baby shower, and we got to go enjoy some of their food. It was delicious. Things got really interesting after that. Remember when I mentioned the bug bite on my left pinky? Well, by that time my hand had really swollen. My whole hand was all swollen and huge. It looked really nasty. A sister in the Spanish Branch had seen it, and wanted to help me. She explained that she would pop the bite and squeeze out the poison. Then she was going to rub garlic on it. I guess it's an old Hispanic remedy. She went home to grab the garlic, and during that time Leslie and Katie showed up. Katie is Leslie's little sister..just in case I haven't mentioned her. Well, when the sister got back she was ready to do it. So she said a cute little prayer, she said it in English and speaks very little English, and then it was time to start. She grabbed my hand and was looking at it for a minute. Then all of a sudden she BITES MY PINKY!! She bit it really hard and was trying to suck out the poison! It freaked me out, but was SUPER funny too. I was doing everything I could to keep from laughing, and I still couldn't help it. So she's biting and sucking on my pinky then spits in the sink, looks up at me and says, "Sorry" then bites it again! It looked like she was trying to eat my pinky like someone eats a chicken wing. She did it a bunch of times. Then she grabbed the garlic and was rubbing it super hard on the spot she had just bit. It hurt really bad. She kept doing this cycle for about five minutes. Afterwards she grabbed another piece of garlic, put where she had bitten, and then wrapped my pinky in a paper towel. Then she gave me a big piece of garlic and had me eat it. I just swallowed it and drank some water. It was totally nuts. After that we had Sam's baptism. It was wonderful. I'm so happy for her. Before I came out here I didn't realize how much the gospel changes our lives for the better. I'm so thankful I have it in my life.

On Sunday we confirmed Sam and then church was the same as usual. I didn't really do much for the 4th. Elder Blair and I went to Brother and Sister Waters, members in 2nd Ward, house with Leslie and Katie and had dinner. When we got home we lit off a few bottle rockets then went to bed. So the 4th of July was like most other days...nothing special, but I did enjoy it.

Oh, my hand is looking much better. It's actually just about back to normal.

Last week we found out that Elder Day is scared of frogs. One night we were back at the apartment getting ready for bed and it was raining really hard. Elder Brandon still needed to do his laundry and when we went to put it in we found a frog. First thing Elder Brandon did was pick up the frog and throw it at Elder Day. Elder Day freaked out and ran back to the apartment screaming. So we caught another one and took it back with us. Long story short we spent quite awhile trying to get Elder Day to hold the frog. He was so freaked out! He ended up locking himself in the bathroom. When he did that we proceeded to throw frogs under the bathroom door. There were six in there. When we finally got the door opened he was standing on the toilet hiding behind a towel. It was a good time.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Love Always, Zach