March 11, 2020
Well I don't even know where to start this week.
I guess first of all p day was moved to Wednesday this week as you've probably noticed.
But it's been a super crazy busy fun exciting 8 days since I last emailed.
So
on Wednesday a week ago we were planning on having dinner with an
elderly couple that night. And they had told us about this nifty apple
peeler thing they had. And we were intrigued. So they invited us over
that morning to peel apples and make apple pies to have after dinner. So
that was a whole bunch of fun. Elder Milne and I each got to work on
our own pie also and so we started referencing the beloved cooking show
"The Great British Baking Show". And by that I mean we talked in British
accents pretty much the whole time we were working on our pies, saying
things like "Just you wait, I'm going to be star baker" and
"We'll let Paul and Mary be the judge of that." It was pretty funny.
Then later that night we tried the pies. They actually turned out quite
scrummy.
The other exciting thing going on was
that we had our long awaited "Cajun Night" ward party. A bunch of
people made jambalaya and gumbo and there was shrimp. It was great. But
we spent a lot of time this week preparing for that. Much of that
preparation took the form of delivering invitations to people. But that
also involved making a crawdad shaped cake, and also catching live
crawdads for the "Crawdad petting zoo". That by the way started out as a
joke and then we ended up doing it. So that's what we did Monday
afternoon. We went out with Henry, the guy who was behind the whole idea
for Cajun Night, and went to a pond where he was sure we'd find
crawdads. Or crayfish. Or whatever you want to call them. Unfortunately
we only found one. His name is Crawford. And we just hoped he'd survive
more than 24 hours in that little bucket so that he could be put in the
Crawdad petting zoo.
As Crawford contemplated his new life
outside of the pond, we began work on the crayfish shaped cake. Which as
you can imagine, led to many more Great British Bake Off references. We
actually baked the cakes the day before. So basically all we had to do
was just take the 3 cakes and put them together and cut them into the
shape of a crawfish and then frost it. So we did that. We didn't get to
finish it though because we had to leave to go to a lesson (Just wanted
you to know we were still doing lessons and stuff amid all the fun
things). So Henry's family put the finishing touches on the cake.
And
then after the party last night, we took our good friend Crawford back
to his watery home. We released him into the pond and he slowly crawled
out of sight as we sung a super cringy rendition of "God be with you til
we meet again". It was sad to see him go, but now he's home where I'm
sure he's telling his craw-friends and family all about his cray-zy
adventures about the world from whence no Crawdad has ever returned.
In
other news, I got pulled over for the first time ever in my entire
life. It wasn't even my fault either! I'm just kidding I didn't come to a
complete stop at a stop sign it was totally my fault. But it was 9:00 on a Sunday night though in St. Johns, the
city that doesn't even have a stoplight because of how little traffic
it has. So I was being lazy and just slid right through a stop sign
because I figured no one was there and it'd be fine. Except for it turns
out there was someone there. A police officer. The officer was super
cool though. I rolled down the window and he was like "Oh it's the law
breaking missionaries! You don't have any drugs do you?" And we were
like "We have some cookies if you want some?" And he was like "oh I'm
definitely going to have to confiscate those." Then we had to figure out
what the registration looked like because neither of us had ever been
pulled over before. He just gave me a warning which I'm grateful for.
And then he was like "Oh hey I think I'm going out with you Elders on
visits next Tuesday." And we were like "Oh I think that's the other
Elders, what ward are you in?" And he was like "Lyman." And we were like
"Oh yeah that's the other Elders" and he was like "Oh okay, well have a
good night Elders" And then we proceeded to drive the remaining 50 feet
to our house.
In terms of teaching
though, things are going really well. We haven't found anyone new to
teach recently but those that we are teaching are doing well. Its been a
good week.
Here's a scripture to make up for the lack of spirituality in this email:
"And
now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge
of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not
seen, which are true." (Alma 32:21)
In the Gospel, or in
anything, we don't learn everything all at once. Just as the exoskeleton
of a crayfish grows layer by layer, so must our faith grow, layer by
layer, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a
little." Amen.
Have a Crawsome day!
~Elder Oswald
P.S. Pictures
1. How do ya like them apple peeler? (Yes, I know that doesn't make sense.)
2. "It's a bit under proved"
3. Crawdad petting zoo
4. Crawford the Brave
5. Cajun Night
6. A Crustacean Creation
7. The Crawdad Hunter
