Virgin Parade

Family!

Ahoy! It’s just so good to hear from you guys! I’m glad you had a really great week there in New Mexico and that you guys got to go to the temple. That was so cool about meeting someone named Elder Russ—what a cool thing. We will def have to hit up that Manti temple when I get back.

It’s been a great p-day so far. We hunted high and low in Centro for marshmallows so we could make s'mores. As I was waiting in line at one of the stores "Sultans of Swing" came on and it reminded me when Carl took me to see Mark Knopfler in concert. I tried explaining my excitement to my comp but it comes out as an absolute different language to him. He does the same thing to me with sports, though. He can talk and talk and talk about sports all day and I maybe pick up on like 6 words out of a 20 minute conversation:  "Touchdown....Kobe.....Final Four ....Hoobastank...." and so on and so forth. Good kid though, absolutely insane, but a good kid.

It was a great week here. In transfer news, there is none. I’m killing Adams (mission term which means I’m his last comp) and no one in the pench got switched up. In news of you-should-be-jealous, you guys are missing out on the “virgin parades”. Yes, it does sound like it should be a group of 28 year-old Weird Al fans that work at Chuck-E-Cheese walking down the street but that’s not the case. In the month of August the Catholics go around town with a little Virgin Mary statue and play drums and pipes and say prayers and swing around lamb meat—It’s quite the sight. During priesthood meeting a parade went by the street outside the church and they were shooting off fireworks and playing snare drum rolls. It was super hard to hear the meeting for awhile.

We found some cool new investigators this week. One’s named Jessica and is a nice girl who is very interested.  The other is named Karina.  She is an atheist but is very interested as well.  We had a few very nice lessons with them both this week. We were going to pick them up this week for church but they weren’t home but as we were walking down the street we heard a noise. Who should that be? Mike, the town drunkard but this time he was surprisingly sober. He was a little nutsy but normal...ish (at the moment). He said he wanted to go to church so, without really thinking, we said "Ok". My comp and I were kinda worried. We asked each other "What do we do? Can he go to church? Is he drunk?" I said a little prayer to just have the Lord take care of it. Once we got to the gate of the church he said, "Oh dear boys, I can’t go in. I’m drunk. God will kill me".  And just as fast as he said that, Mike was gone. He just took off. He’s harmless, really. He’s just goofy.

Jujuy is having the 50th anniversary of having the church established here. They’re gonna have some sort of pageant for it or something—sounds cool. I think I may have already told you but they are rededicating the temple in Buenos Aries in September and Elders Eyring, Ballard, and Christofferson are coming down for it and it will be broadcast to the stake center here. I believe we are going to get to see it. It would be so cool--especially if Elder Christopherson gets up and sings "Old man River"--we can only hope.

Well parentels, that’s about it. Sorry it’s a bit of a short letter it was kind of an uneventful week in some ways—successful but kinda boring. I’m writing a little earlier than normal so sorry if that throws off anything. Can you believe that on Thursday this week I will have completed a pregnancy? 9 months! That’s sick! Time just keeps flying, it’s crazy. Well, I hope you guys have yet another success-filled week! Keep on keeping on and remember that I love you all very much! It’s all good :)

Con amor,

Russ

p.s. A most happy belated birthday to dearest Grandmother Ann! I love you. Keep keeping that Shy Guy cat in line... I mean it! Oh, and thank you so much for the letter!