Monday, September 2, 2013

What's good fam?

Well family,

 Another week has come and gone, its crazy to me to see how the time flies. This week went by especially quick, it felt like it was Sunday before I knew it. After I hit six months in the mission it feels like time got put into fifth gear and the weeks just fly by. It also helps that I´m still in my first area. I think I´ll probably be here till the end of October, which I´m okay with it´ll give me time to work with some of my recent converts and hopefully get a couple people baptized before I go. I kept all of you in my prayers starting school, hopefully it made a difference, it's weird to think that you are all in class right now. Strange. Anyway it sounds like everyone is doing great as far as school goes. I still can´t believe that Anna is starting her Senior year, and Maddie is a Sophomore. They will always be my little baby sisters and it´s hard for me to imagine them moving on in high school. Fun and exciting times. 
    This morning we went into cleaning mode on the house. It is actually a huge relief, no more grime on the shower walls, and the whole house smells like Lysol, I enjoy having the house clean. I think Mom would be really proud. Anyway as far as the mission work goes this week was pretty good, we had a new family that came to church and we hope they liked it. Its the son of the first counselor and his wife, the P. family. They are super awesome. When we read 2 Nephi 31 with them I asked the husband how he felt about it. He said he felt it was written by a prophet and he should repent and get baptized. It was like taking a huge drink of ice cold water after coming home from church on fast Sunday (it was glorious) The wife is a little more stubborn but we´ll see what happens with them. 
    I am hoping to get to work a little bit more on my temple carving today, I hope to send some of the pictures I took of it last week. It was way fun to get to work on it, and make something with my hands. Today I want to make some dumbbells out of concrete and some steel tubing. I´ll let you know how it goes. We are going to try and go running every morning this week and work out a little more. I think I will be a lot happier and healthier if I do, but its hard to get the motivation at six in the morning. We were going to go running today but it didn´t happen. Another thing that is getting me excited is we are buying another plastic tub to do laundry in. I know that sounds really dumb but with two tubs we will be able to wash a lot more clothes. (You don´t want to wash socks, pants, and white shirts at the same time trust me) Doing laundry by hand is kind of a pain but also its kinda fun, it cool scrubbing away the dirt stains. We also are going to put up another clothes line in the house to help speed up our drying capacity. We both have those CTR socks, which are awesome, but they take about 2 days to dry all the way through and so they suck up time on the drying line. It also doesn´t help that the clothes line gets a little bit rained on, September is the peak of rainy season (It's hard to believe that we are just getting to the peak of rainy season) So hopefully we will be able to wash our clothes despite the hurricane that comes through every night. 
    We are also are trying to eat a little more healthy, buying fruit, less pupusas, veggies, and whole wheat bread. I had gained a few pounds in the past couple months but I´m starting to lose most of it but I want to keep that trend going for a little bit. The last change I remember I got pretty stressed but this change I have tried to make sure that I don´t get to worked up about the little things that happen every day. It has helped me alot to take things a little bit slower and not worry so much. Reading the scriptures in my spare time has also helped a lot, the Liahona, patriarchal blessing, etc... I am super excited for conference in October I can´t even describe it, I am almost counting down the days, I just am not quite sure what day during October it will be. September 15th here is independence day, so I am going to imagine that the whole country is celebrating Anna´s birthday, and Esme´s the next week. Anyway sounds like you all are doing really well. Love and miss you all, have a great week! 

Elder Schriever