Nothing fancy this week—just good missionary stories. And an exploding pen.
Subject: yes, we just had a slight weapon malfunction, but everything's, fine...here...now...thank you. ...How are you?
Ten points for anyone who can get that quote, by the way.
So the other day I walked into Office Depot to buy some stuff. It was almost completely empty, but there were a couple other people there. They were: a completely decked out soldier, two female monks, and a priest. And us two Mormon missionaries. I felt like it was the beginning of some joke.
First, Dad asked a few times if I got a new camera. I did, and the money transfer did in fact come fast enough. I ended up getting a Panasonic DMC-FH5, so you can look it up. I didn't have much time to shop, and there wasn't great selection, but it's got 16 MP apparently, and I like it. I pulled together one or two or four hundred pictures that I'm uploading right now, but I can't see the progress because the computer I'm on wouldn't let me use the easy upload service. But there you go.
Since when were you not planning on putting money into the BMW, by the way? The way I always assumed that would work is that I would get back from my mission and Michael would leave and I would be forced to take the car with me to BYU since there would be nobody else to drive it. And that you would keep paying for gas. And Steven could stay at home or get a ride from his friends or take the bus or something. It's good practice for the mission. Just so you all know my expectations :)
The talk I was going to send, by the way, is one that Elder Holland gave in the MTC a couple months ago, so I doubt you can get it anywhere else. I'll see what I can do to send it this week, though. It is a fantastic talk, which I've now seen like four times in both English and Spanish, where he talks about what Preach My Gospel is and why it was created and why it's so important. It´ll probably be really good for Michael to see, since he's starting to get ready to go. I have it on DVD with another great video that you might have seen called "The Quest for a Go-Getter" which is about this blue vase a guy's got to go get. I think what I'll do is see if I can compress a copy of the DVD image to the point that I can send it next week. Or I might actually be able to have a member upload it to the server for me. I think I'll do that, actually. That way I'll have more time next week to upload pictures.
Last weekend I actually got pretty sick. I had a fever of 102 ish and it just felt like Dengue again, to be honest. My body was aching, and it was bad. I took a ton of Tylenol on Saturday and just delt with it, but Sunday it got worse. So, after church, I asked for a priesthood blessing. I can't really describe how that went, but it was cool. And then I went and slept for fifteen hours straight. When I woke up, I was just hunky dory, as if I had never been sick in the first place. So I guess the priesthood really works. Who knew?
We sat down with the Diaz family and went to work with them. By the way, in the pictures I'm sending I believe there are a couple with them in it. A couple were taken in President's house, so he and his wife are at the table with them. Just so you can get an idea of who they are. But I told my comp before going in to talk to them that I would not leave their house until we had, first, reviewed the baptismal questions, and second, create a list of the exact things that we need to prepare for their wedding. With that in mind, then, we sat down, had a great lesson, and after we just kept asking specific things, like how many people would come, until I got the whole list together. It was really interesting, because we had always talked about them getting married and baptized, but had never really planned for it, and I think Rene especially was just figuring that it would never come. We uncovered and solved a couple more of his doubts while we were at it. I guess those are some blessings for being up and doing, as Moroni once said (I DO get things out of your emails, Dad).
By the way, all of you should tell Michael to start studying the scriptures like nobody's business. And to start memorizing scripture references. Missionaries can share their testimony and be great teachers, but if you can do it out of the scriptures you'll be in a whole new league. And you have to be if you want to help people.
We also have the Merino family, and since we are going to be moving to Santa Ana in a few weeks, we're really pushing with them. We're planning it all: FHE with the Bishop, with the old Bishop, with a couple other families, bringing them to activities, teaching them with members, etc. We really, really want to get them dunked before leaving. By the way, they're awesome. We taught them again on Wednesday, and the wife, Fatima, was telling us how much she loved the idea of FHE, since she believes that families are super important and that they should have time together, instead of spending all of their free time during the week seperate, or even in church meetings, which normally split up the family for the meetings. That's why we want to have some awesome FHEs with them and some members. Clever, right?
We had interviews with President, and they were really just fun, to tell the truth. He was in a super good mood, and we had a good, friendly chat. I like President. He pushes us super hard and no matter what we do he wants more, but he's also just a great guy. I'm going to miss him when President Cordón comes.
So the family affairs sound quite exciting. I'm honestly excited to come home in a year and go to one of Steven's baseball games. Dad makes them sound fun. And it'd be cool if, when I get there, Emily and Dave, and Julie and Dave, all have jobs there in Oregon close by. I never really cared much about the other two sisters of mine, whatever their names are, so they can stay out there. Just kidding! That sounded super mean, but it wasn't. Trust me.
Alright, I've got to go. I hope you all have a great week!
Elder David Arrington
PS: Yesterday I was in ward council meeting, and my pen kind of exploded. It ended up leaking a ton of ink on my shirt. So there's been another casualty in my mission clothes stash.
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