Nudge, Nudge

Hey Everyone,

This week feels like it blazed by, but then I talk to Elder Merkley and he reminds me that what I think was a full week was, in reality, just the last couple days.

So Tuesday, we were riding our bikes, when we both took a curve in the sidewalk too fast and we both bumped our tires on the railroad tracks. It was a little jarring, but we both stayed on the bikes and kept riding. We got to the top of the next hill and Elder Merkley stopped. When I caught up to him, I realized that his tire had gone flat. We were riding to meet a member anyway, so we locked up the bikes and had him pick us up. We went to a lesson with a part member family, it was a bit odd, but it ended up going pretty well. Then we went to a dinner with another member family, and visited a couple other people, all with this member, and I forgot to mention that he was one of the priests in the ward. So it was really good to have him out with us.

Wednesday we had an extended Zone Conference with Elder Hamilton, from the area presidency. He talked to us a lot about being converted and his wife taught us about pure testimony. President and Sister Mutumbo also talked to us, her English is getting so much better. At the end of the conference, Elder Hamilton had Sister Mutumbo come up and give her testimony in French while he translated because she isn't able to fully express herself in English yet. After the conference, we spent a couple hours fixing Elder Merkley's bike, he popped the tube on the railroad track, which included no less than 4 trips to Walmart because we couldn't get the right tube until the last try.

Thursday, the Frederick 1st Elders came to drop the bikes off for the day, and my bike had a flat tire (unrelated to the railroad tracks). It didn't look too bad so I pumped it up and went back to my studies. Right before we went out for the day, Elder Merkley noticed my tire looked a little off, and we realized it had gone flat again. So we took it apart and realized that there was a tiny little leak in it, seriously, the leak couldn't be more than 1/16th of an inch long, right next to the valve. Frederick 1st was long gone by then, so we called in some help from Brother Wight, who's been incredible while I've been here, and he took us to Walmart to find a new tube. We couldn't find one there (this Walmart doesn't have a lot of stuff) so we went to the closest bike shop. We found the tube we needed and went home. I started pumping up the tire, but it just bulged at the valve, it didn't inflate. So we took the whole tire and walked back to the bike shop. The owner took one look at the tire and magically inflated it, told us it was called sloppy tire syndrome. So we went back to the apartment, re attached the tire and brakes, and went out for the day. We had a couple awesome lessons that day and really got some good work done.

Friday we had a ton of miles left, somehow, so we could go pretty much wherever we needed to. We went by a part member family that Elders Merkley and Farrell contacted during exchanges. We started talking to her 20 year old son, the mom is the member and she has 9 kids, only one of whom is also a member, and he seemed really interested. After that we drove around and talked to a lot of different people.

Saturday was the real highlight of the week, we had a bunch of stuff happen, such an a Zone Leadership Council to follow up on what happened in MLC the day before, helping the Kidds set up for the Christmas party, stopping by an old referral that a set of Temple Square sisters have been asking us about, and stuff like that. We also got to go to the ward Christmas party and I got to really sing for the first time in over a year. I've missed singing like that, just being able to get lost in the music, it's an amazing feeling. We also had well over 200 people there, at least 40 of whom were not members. Sister Kidd invited a coworker who is a singer to sing as well, she and I ended up having a fascinating conversation. We talked about singing, music, about what I do as a missionary, and stuff like that. She even asked me at one point if God's plan was to have so many churches, so we got to talk about that for a while.

All in all, a pretty good week,

Love you all,

Elder Howell