Week Seventy Five - Happy Halloween and Missing Utah!!

This really made me laugh because Hermano Darquean is one of the kindest, most innocent people I know.  He said he has never even seen the movie because it is too dark for him.  He tried super hard to pull it off, but I couldn't stop laughing! 

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HOLA!

I want to thank you for the update on things back home.  It sounds like you had a good time with the missionary parents the other day.  Sister Wyss's mom sent me a picture!  I don't get to hear much about baseball here.  I think partly because the Rangers didn't do as well as they should have this year, and also because Hispanics are way big into soccer, more than anything else.  So that is super exciting!  It is hard to believe that the World Series is here already.  And even harder to believe that the Royals are in it!  I remember a couple of years ago when James Paloukos told me that they were his favorite team, and promised me that the Royals would be good in a few years.  Who would have thunk! 

   A little more about Lance - that was one of his 12 "uniforms".  He has them in all sorts of colors and patterns.  He claims to be the chief designer for the S.S.A. and has been doing it nearly all his life.  He told us that he is always outside of Kroger showing off his uniform and looking for attention.  And boy does he get it!

   Elder Alkonis and I had a decent week.  It wasn't anything too special though. Every body we are teaching right now are women.  I don't think we are teaching a single man!  What's up with that?!  But we did make some good progress with one of our investigators, Lily, that we found almost two months ago.  She is just barely over coming cancer.  She is very humble and soft spoken, and very sweet.  She goes to another church, but doesn't feel like it is satisfying her spiritual needs entirely.  The people at her other church told her not to read the Book of Mormon, and she told us that she feels something deep inside that urges her to keep reading.  The Spirit, duh!  So she said she is going to keep reading.  She also came to Stake Conference this weekend with a member and liked it a lot.  I have a good feeling that tells me she will be baptized one day, but I think it will take a while.  Another one of our investigators had their interview yesterday and will be getting baptized this Saturday.  Woohoo!

   So this weekend was the Richardson Stake Conference, and every single talk was about missionary work!  President and Sister Taylor are in this stake, and we got to hear from the both this weekend.  They are superb speakers.  Sister Taylor has a heart the size of Texas!  She can never say anything at the pulpit without crying.  Normally that would be kind of annoying, but she is just so loving and sweet and genuine that it touches your heart every time.  I don't know if I have ever met a woman so passionate about the gospel.  

   We also had the branch Halloween party on Friday and it was lots of fun!  Hispanics are funny.  In Hispanic countries, the tradition is el Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated on the first of November.  It is a day to worship the devil and is a very evil day.  So lots of members didn't come, others refuse to dress up, or let their kids dress up, and they just don't like Halloween.  Lots of people we have talked to lately ask us about Halloween and tell us that it is a very evil day.  One of our new investigators is from Guatemala and she told us that one Halloween/Dia de los Muertos years ago in Guatemala, she was walking passed a cemetery when she saw a lady dig up a grave, pull out a dead body, open up the head and eat the brains.....Kind of hard to believe, and maybe I just don't understand the culture, but all I want to tell these people is "lighten up!"  It's all about where your heart is, folks. There is nothing wrong with dressing up like Mario or Superman and getting lots of free candy.  

   Saturday night Elder Alkonis and I discovered the most horrific scene of my whole mission.  Elder Truman and Elder Walters finally moved out on Saturday.  So as we were rearranging the beds, Elder Alkonis discovered a little bug on the box spring... Yup.  You guessed it.  BED BUGS.  Elder Alkonis let out a shriek and starting freaking out and immediately took the box spring to the dumpster.  The feeling you get the moment you discover that you have bed bugs is a terrible feeling.  I want to compare it to the feeling that you get when you hit a car.  NOOO!   and you want to say some colorful words, but you don't because you know better.  So that night we had a hard time sleeping, and Sunday we spent a big chunk of time finding more and then blazing our whole apartment with a heat gun to kill them all. I feel like we did a pretty thorough job, but Elder Midgley from the mission office is coming by today to treat the apartment more.  So that was the scare and frustration of the week.  Do bed bugs even exist in Utah?  I want Utah!

-I don't know how President Taylor is with the hair policy, but my hair doesn't do gel well, and helmet hair looks unprofessional! so as long as I'm on a bike, this is how I'm doing my hair until he tells me otherwise. 

-I don't know how President Taylor feels about missionaries being picked up by their parents.  But I have given a little thought to that, and I think I would prefer to have the traditional experience of arriving at the SLC airport with my family waiting for me.  Is that okay with y'all?

-I will send you a Christmas list!

-My feet are all better!  The doctor told me to use the medication until it is gone to prevent it from coming back, and I finish up the pills tomorrow.

Thank you all for the emails and love and support and prayers.  I love and miss everybody!  I hope everybody has a spooky but safe Halloween! 

Elder Williams

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