The letter home. . .

Hello family!!

Another week gone by. Nothing too terribly exciting happened this week. Just my birthday!! It was actually a pretty good birthday. We ate with the Elders quorum president and his family, it was some really good food, they gave me a pair of socks. :) Then we went to our weekly district meeting and there... I got cake thrown in my face. :D After the meeting ended I was surrounded by the elders in the zone and as they sang, one took off my glasses and Elder Mohlman, of all people, put the cake in my face. Haha, it was funny. It´s a zone tradition. Apparently before they would throw the cake, but too many missionaries were dodging the throws, so they opted for just holding the people down. :) It was funny, a kind of cake fight happened afterward. I managed to get him back a little bit. So that was nice. Then later that night, a convert family from down here made me pizza! So, all in all, it was a really good birthday. :)

Moving on, to the weather report and the Pday report. It was been kind of hot the last few days. Then on Friday night it started raining, so all of Saturday and Sunday were pretty muddy days. It´s a really sticky sort of mud that gets all stuck to the shoes. It can start to feel like you have a couple of pounds extra on your shoes. It really tires you out as you walk. Walking in the sticky mud works muscles that you aren´t really used to using. Last night there were all kinds of crazy clouds all over the sky, lots of lightening, and such. But it all just disappeared and it was a really nice night. Just a little bit humid. I ended the night smelling like smoke though. Alot of people here burn the branches and stuff they cut, and some neighbors were burning a lot of them. The wind was blowing in such a way that all of the smoke came right at us and was getting us the entire time. It was kind of gross. Whew, Pday. We are writing now, and then we will be off to play this game called padle, it´s a kind of version of tennis here. We should be getting the food we ordered here in a couple of minutes. Then... to get a haircut!!

Alright, events of the week. Our branch is amazing, we are really starting to get things organized. We have planned a bunch of visits to go and see the less active members and try to move towards our goal of becoming a ward. All of the members are really excited. We have found a bunch of good investigators the last few weeks. We have a baptism this Saturday that I´m really excited for. It´s a kid named Brian who has been wanting to get baptised for a while, but we wanted his mom to come to church a little first and get to know it, and... she came his Sunday!! And she liked it alot, the talks that were given seemed like they were given especially for her. It was cool.

A quick funny/strange story. We were sitting in a lesson with this 18 year old kid and a bird flew by; he then ran inside and pulled out a slingshot. He proceeded to shoot the bird off the power line and then pick it up and go give it to his cat. It seems like for the cat it was nothing new, and that it was also routine for him. Meanwhile my companion and I were just sitting there in a kind of stunned silence. I couldn´t really believe what happened. Haha. Well, I´m happy, healthy and loving the mission!! I must be off!!!
I love you family!!
- Matthew