August 6th, 2012

This was another good week! We had a few interesting things happen this week. On Friday we went to dinner with the Beeston family (YSA - 4 kids in the YSA - they are awesome!), the thing that was different this time is they asked me to cook! Elder Bradley told them on Sunday that I could cook so they had us over and told me I could make anything I wanted to and they would go get the ingredients. So, I decided to make twice baked potatoes and broccoli cheese soup!

My family sent me the recipes and on Friday we showed up to cook! I was surprised when I got there, instead of feeding 6 of us there were 11 people! I have never cooked for that many people before but of course that was fine! It ended up being the Beeston's, their older brother and his wife, a girl I have never met, the other YSA elders, and the two of us! It was really fun! It took me forever to get all of that cooked (Steven Beeston helped me while everyone else went and played croquet), but in the end it actually turned out pretty well! I had never cooked the potatoes before so I was a little nervous but everything actually turned out great! It was probably the best soup I've ever made before and the potatoes worked really well! We had a great time over there, as always, and it was really fun to have that experience!

Our church schedule changed this week. The YSA changed the meeting time from 11 to 1. Yep, so now we can go to all of both wards. We show up at 8 for meetings, and then our deaf branch starts at 9. After that, we do all of the tithing and the welfare and then we have just enough time to get to the U of A institute for the YSA ward to start at 1. Then, after all of those meetings we still had more meetings and we ended up leaving church sometime after 5! So, only 9 hours of church! ha-ha. But don't worry; we did have that 15 minute drive in the middle that gave us a little break! ha-ha. Actually, I do really like it! It isn't that bad to go to that much church!  I don't think I will ever complain again that the three hours of church is super long!

Yesterday, when we got home, we had a huge monsoon that came through and knocked out our power for an hour and a half, so we just kind of hung out in the apartment and each took a nap! ha-ha. What is sad is that after I took an hour nap at 6 at night, I could still go back to sleep at 11! Crazy! That was basically it for this week; it was slower because of transfers and a few other things that happened! But it was good! I hope everything is going well with all of you!

Elder Banner

July 31st, 2012

             How is it already the end of July? One more transfer gone! Wow that is weird! I swear it hasn't been that long at all! Anyway, it was a fun week!! It was Elder Bradley's birthday this week so we did some fun stuff!

We went to 5 guys, and we had a "surprise" party for him. The reason why “surprise” is in quotations is because it was crazy! Basically, the plan was to go to 5 guys on his birthday after district meeting.  Right after district meeting, Elder Scorrato (one of the zone leaders) pulled me aside and told me that the Agardy's had a surprise lunch planned for him. So I was like great! When are they expecting us? And he said "now”!  “So you need to find a way to get Elder Bradley to Danielle's (one of our recent converts) house."

Oh dang...... How am I going to sidetrack Elder Bradley from 5 guys? So I lied... Yes missionaries do lie sometimes too.... ha-ha.  I pretended to get on the phone and then I walked away! After awhile I came back and told Elder Bradley we had to go to Danielle's to help her with something, of course the answer was yes. But as we were driving he was going to turn (to go to 5 guys) instead of going straight to get to Danielles.  I told him not to turn; we had to go to Danielle's! He was like, "Wait, now?! We are going to 5 guys can't it wait?" Oh he was angry! Ha-ha.  This would not be the first time that I told people we could do something that we really had no time for!  And, to make it even better, when we got to Danielle's........No one was there! Ha-ha.  Only Danielle! So the two of us and the other missionaries went into the other room to play pool. Of course we had to tell him what was going on and that everyone was coming.  

Everyone did show up soon after! The Agardy's, the Belnaps, the Flores' and most of the zone! It was super fun! We had an amazing lunch and everything was awesome! We also had institute that night and Danielle came with us for her first time! It was a great lesson and it was funny that it seemed to go with exactly what we had been learning about lately! It's cool how that happens!

            Last night we had Family Home Evening with the YSA and we had Christmas in July.....meaning we make cookies, decorated them and then went caroling to people in the ward! Yes, that was interesting! People were pretty shocked when they opened the door! Ha-ha.  It was really fun though! We had some good time to chat with some of the members and they are beginning to really like the two of us.....but really....who wouldn't?!! Ha-ha.  It is good! We got to know a non-member that was there last night pretty well! Hopefully we can see him again sometime! Last week we actually had FHE with Danielle and her brother and mom, both non-members! It was fantastic! We had a great dinner then gave a short lesson in which they were really involved! I really like that family!

Well that will be it for now!

Take Luck!

Elder Banner