Hecka = Not a Word?

Hey! This week was kind of a slow week for me. Maybe not for you guys,
but it has been for me. It's weird to think that tomorrow I've been
out for two months. Anyway this was my week.

Monday: Nothing really special except I got an awesome letter from
someone! I also got a haircut.

Me in the Spoon Room wearing Sister Weibe's SuperBowl Hat

Tuesday: We tried seeing an investigator, but she shooed us away before we could get to the front door. Her husband doesn't want us teaching her. We went to Sister Wiebe's house and she had a geek squad agent troubleshoot her computer. After that happened, she wanted us to get pictures to be her background pictures as a slideshow. I ended up troubleshooting her computer for about a half hour to an hour. It was
nice to be able to do whatever you wanted on a computer; however,
troubleshooting stresses me out, so it seemed like a really long day after that. We saw Humpy. So Humpy always likes to say "one of these days you're gonna catch me with my pants down." AND WE DID! We went to the back door and his whole living room is covered in windows so we saw him pulling his pants up as we were walking by. Now he says, "don't be surprised if you see me naked." I hope that never happens. We got to see Miss Lynda after a month of trying to see her. She has been having a lot of problems with her life. It's just incredible how much she is 
going through. We taught her about opposition and how it is needed in life to know happiness.

Wednesday: We went to district meeting. I talked about not getting my
AA in college, and no one knew what that was. They thought it was
Alcoholics Anonymous. Apparently that is "Californian language." I
also got made fun of for the word "hecka." So apparently no one likes
Californian language. Also, the district leader has to train someone
so I found that kind of funny. Watch, I'm gonna totally train someone
right after I get done with training. That would suck. Anyway we saw a
bunch of people, including a less active, whose wife didn't let us sit
on the other couch because her "babies" were there. Those "babies"
were literally a bunch of stuffed animals. Including a Pokemon,
Gengar. I didn't know an 80 year old woman knew what Pokemon was! We
went to the Page's for dinner. Brother Page and the Colonel made some
good chicken apparently haha. They are a great family.

Thursday: We went with Sister Wiebe grocery shopping and when we went
to her house, we got on the topic of weddings. Sister Wiebe decided to
give us the rundown on how much everything cost back when her daughter
had a wedding. She, and also Elder Ross, told me that when you take
off the garter, you're supposed to do it with your mouth!?!? I've
never been to wedding where they do that! What the heck? I've never
been to wedding where they do that! That would be super awkward! Is
that really a thing?! I don't know.....anyway, we saw a less active
and he is going to court tomorrow for illegal drug stuff. Sorry my
iPad won't spell a word. Anyway, his lawyer called him and he answered
and that's why we know. He basically told him that he had no chance.
So we might not see him again. Then we went tracting and got two new
investigators! We taught them the restoration, gave them a couple of
pamphlets and gave them a BoM each! It was awesome! Then we went to
the Hutchison's for dinner. I never realized that Alyssa lived with
them because her last name is Coursey. Anyway we had dinner and they
played Sorry and Uno with us. It was really fun! They heard about my
Californian language and started making fun of me. They started using
hecka wrong and it was just so funny.

Friday: We went to lunch at McDonald's because we had an appointment
and didn't have time to make lunch. We ate inside and oh my gosh, they
are selling MLP toys there and I guess they had a dvd of it in the TVs
there, but it was on the main menu. So we were forced to hear the
theme song at least 50 times. So much painful memories came back to me
from that. We ended up going to Adairville and we had absolutely no
luck there. We went to Colonial Inn with a less active because "it was
catfish night." The catfish was good, but it was the absolute most
awkward and sad dinner we have ever had. So I guess the less active
was drunk, he was acting weird. Like all he kept talking about was the
catfish, so I thought something was up, but anyway, a guy sits next to
us and he looks like he was not happy. I guess he was the less
active's cousin's husband. He apparently was having a bad day and he
asked for the less active's truck. Apparently he was borrowing it from
him. Anyway, the guy takes the keys and says "I asked you to do one
thing, and that was not drink and drive." The guy leaves, the less
active goes to pay for our food and the less active leaves during our
dinner. I tried cheering him up by saying "hey we were going to try
seeing you next week, is that alright?" He responds with the most sad
voice I've ever heard, "I won't be here next week," then leaves. It
was super uncomfortable. We shook it off by playing dodgeball with the
branch though. It was really fun. They apparently do this every month
at the rec center. It was a very good day.

Saturday: We went to Sister Wiebe's house and helped her put her cat
playhouse together. Someone called us from Elkton and offered to get
us lunch. We got subway and it was super nice of her. We saw a couple
of other people. The rest of the day, we planned a Jeopardy game for
the Sunday School class because we never know what to teach because we
accidentally taught them the entire month's lesson in one lesson. So
jeopardy seemed fun.

Sunday: Sister Wiebe brought her "grand daughter" to church. It's like
her friend's daughter and she spent the night at her house for some
reason. They didn't stay long though. Jeopardy in Sunday School was
fun like I thought. We went tracting in Russellville and Lewisburg. We
went to the Pentecostal church again. This time I recorded some of it
as an audio because I forgot my camera. The preachers voice was
hilarious! Every time he breathed in, it sounded like a "yack"
followed by what sounded like a dog about to throw up. It was great.

So that's my week. We lost 2 investigators this week because they
talked to their preacher and they aren't interested anymore. Sometimes
that's a little hard on me, but I know that not everyone will accept
the gospel. I hope you all have a good week. I encourage you all to
take a look at Mosiah 2:41. It's great and it's super true. Love you
all!

P.S. If anyone knows any other Californian language that I can tell
everyone, let me know!

Elder Craig

ELDER CRAIG, Dog, Sister Weibe, Elder Ross

ELDER CRAIG, Humpy, Elder Ross

"This Place Guarded By Smith and Wesson
No Problems Allowed"
A sign we came across while tracting.

Transfer #1: Complete

Well not really, it ends on Wednesday. Hello fellow friends and
family! It's time for another week of missionary life. Let's see what
Elder Craig has done this week.

Monday: Nothing. Just P day.

Tuesday: We ended up going to Nashville because it was trainer/trainee
day. So we had a bunch of workshops and whatnot. It was very nice.
President Andersen talked a lot about chastity and man there were so
many scriptures that I never even thought of would relate and wowee
zowee. I was really glad to see the MTC district again. Elder Watters,
Hamblin, McFarland, and Cox were so wonderful to see. I got to see
Sister Mortensen, who is in my district, I enjoyed talking to her
about super heroes and stuff. I got to see Sister Christensen too! I
talked to her during the plane ride to Nashville. She is great. I'm
really glad President Coots was able to drive us. The only thing that
was bad was his son was sick. I had to hold up a trash can while he
was puking and take care of him in the back seat. Sister Wiebe called
us during the meeting and she kind of gave up on the smoking program.
The meeting lasted from 8-4. Long day.

The MTC District is back again!
Elder Cox, Elder Hamblin, Elder Watters, ELDER CRAIG, Elder McFarland

Wednesday: We had our last district meeting for the transfer. Elder
Groll is going home. RIP in pepperoni. We went to cheer up Sister
Wiebe, and she wants to keep trying. Just on Sunday. So that she could
get a blessing and ask for help from the branch. We saw Humpy that
day. We asked if he truly believes in the stuff we are teaching him
and he said yes. We tried pushing him to come to church, but he wants
time to think about it. We offered to give him a tour of the church
which he accepted. If we give him a tour of the church, he might be
more comfortable coming. Then we taught seminary. Elder Ross had me
teach 2 Samuel 12-24. I was really pressured to get it all done in
thirty minutes because we were late. Plus the lesson was a bit awkward
because there was a lot of rape talk. So yeah. The youth were great,
but they were getting on my nerves a bit because I needed to teach the
lesson. Alyssa, one of the youth, stole my iPad and wrote some very
nice words on there. It made my entire day, honestly. She steals my
iPad a lot. Then we went to the BoM class and read one chapter and
then an institute teacher came in and started teaching us so much that
I thought he was just sharing the entire gospel to us. I actually
loved listening to him because institute teachers are really smart
(shout-out to Brother Watkins).

Thursday: We saw an investigator and we're teaching him the gospel of
Jesus Christ. We somehow got onto the topic that Heavenly Father is a
spirit. We started to kind of tell him that Heavenly Father has a
body, but he refused to accept it and we just stopped arguing because
we didn't want to offend anyone. We tried tracting people, but they
either weren't interested or weren't home. We tracted into this one
girl who might let us come back, but we will see. Elder Ross and I
talked a lot about weddings and the cost and whatnot during dinner.
Weddings are very expensive. Makes me not want to get married.
Hahahahahahaha yeah right. I'm totally gonna, it sounds awesome.

Friday: Nothing memorable happened except we went tracting and a bunch
of people weren't super interested. And surprisingly, tracting is fun.
I thought it would super depress me, but it's actually a lot of fun. I
almost got a door slammed in my face....so close. I really like
tracting, but I hope we get more investigators than uninterested
people. We gave one guy a pamphlet and he gave us a dvd called
"Searching for Truth," which is a dvd on how to find a true church. We
watched the entire thing over the weekend and wow do they take
scripture out of context.

Saturday: We saw Sister Wiebe and helped her clean house for a couple hours. We are almost done with the spoon room. We saw a potential and taught her a lesson outside of her house. Then we went to clean the church. After that we gave Humpy a tour of the church. Humpy was wearing a gold tooth where his missing tooth was! It was weird. Anyway he really liked the church. We went tracting and found a new potential named Johnny (my favorite Jojo). Then we saw Tim, the guy who was drunk that one time. He was sober and he is actually a really cool guy. He loves Clash of Clans to the bone and works at a magazine printing place I think. He can't come to church because of work, but he admitted that he had Word of Wisdom problems which is good.

Sunday: I gave a talk about Making and Keeping Sacred Covenants.
Apparently it went well. It's weird only talking to fifty people about
it. I felt like the only people who listened were the Abneys. It was a
little difficult writing the talk (mostly because I procrastinated)
but it was good. During Sunday School, Alyssa stole my iPad along with
my notebook and wrote me another message. They always make my day for
some reason because they are funny but also sweet. We contacted a
referral and gave her a Bible and we contacted a potential who are
apparently looking for a church to go to, so that'll be fun. We went
to First Baptist for an evening church. There were only thirteen other
people there. Plus it was boring and I thought the "substitute"
preacher just went on tangents. It was weird.

So last couple of things that I thought would be funny to share. My
companion and I were talking about how Naruto was on Cartoon Network
at one point and he had never heard of it and he just randomly said
out of the blue, "I watched Courage the Cowardly Dog if they made that
an anime." I couldn't stop laughing. Another thing is that he
mentioned that he played a couple of video games before and he
mentioned how he and his last companion had a conversation about what
you use to play video games with. Apparently, his companion was smart
and called it a controller, but my companion says that he calls it a,
and I kid you not, a paddle. Please everyone who is reading this,
please tell me why anyone would call a controller a paddle. It's not
like you can row a boat with it (very effectively) and it's not
usually used as something to beat your kids with, so please enlighten
me, friends and family. And I thought "oh the wii remote make sense
because you use motion controls" but he told me that he played the
SNES first, so I can't even....

I'll have to probably leave early today because I have to see Johnny
at around 5. But it was very nice telling you all about my week. I can
feel my mind wanting to say y'all, but when I try to say it, my mind
also thinks immediately "that's incorrect grammar." So yeah I'm not
sure when I'll say it according to my free will, but I'll let you
know! Can you guys believe it's almost been two months since I've been
out?! It's so crazy! It's going by pretty fast! People have reassured
me though that it goes by much much faster, so I'm half excited about
that. I just wanted you all to know that I love you. I know that
Heavenly Father loves you, even if you don't think so. Remember to
always trust in The Lord. He will guide your path if you lean on Him
and not yourself. Proverbs 3:5-6. I'll talk to you all next week!

Elder Craig

Russellville District 

My current district from left to right - 
Sister Merrell, Sister Mortensen, ELDER CRAIG, way in back is Elder Haley the district leader, Elder Ross, Elder Groll (RIP in pepperoni).The two on the ground are
Elder Anders on the left and Elder Mecham on the right. 

Humpy all dressed up with his gold tooth in.

Elder Ross, Humpy, ELDER CRAIG

Humpy and his wife

Elder Ross and ELDER CRAIG

Sister Wiebe gave us unleavened bread and they are basically the
biggest, most awful crackers you will ever eat!

Hooked on Janice Knapp Perry

So this week, I think a lot happened. I guess you can find out for yourselves.

Monday: Nothing happened. Just P day.

Tuesday: We went to go see Tonya. Brother Abney came with us to kind of give her some people to familiarize herself with when she came to church this Sunday. We taught them the first lesson and we had a fun time seeing them. Then we saw Humpy and taught him about tithing. He said he would commit to doing that, but I'm afraid he meant for the other churches he goes to and not ours because we kind of explained why it would be bad to do it to other churches (because preachers pay themselves with that money), but he never comes to our church. We had dinner that night at the Abney's and had lasagna. And on Tuesday I forgot that I had to prepare for a training at district meeting so the next day was fun.

Wednesday: We went to district meeting, and I didn't realize I didn't have to go every single point in my topic, so I went waaaaaaaaaay too overboard on the subject. It was still good though. After district meeting we went to a restaurant called Mi Garcias. It was the absolute best Mexican food I've eaten! I got a quesadilla with cheese sauce on it and fried rice. It was so good! We helped Sister Wiebe with her grocery shopping after that. She hasn't been doing well with the smoking program but we are going to put our foot down this week. We went to a new referral and she asked for a BoM and she wasn't interested in us, just reading the book. So we gave her a card if she had questions.

Thursday: We rode our bikes around a neighborhood and tried less actives. We were unsuccessful, but I finally figured out why it was hard to ride the bike. It's because the handle bars were low, so we raised them. The only other thing that was memorable was we went to Bowling Green with the President Coots and his family for dinner. I love the Coots so much! Their kids are adorable and rowdy. And I love talking to Sister Coots. She is very easy to talk to and she is really fun. We were going to eat Logan's Road and Grill (i think it's called), but their kitchen wasn't working or something so we went to Ichiban. A Japanese place. There were TVs on and I got to see a Street Fighter V commercial and it made me miss my hobbies, but eh it's okay. I ate some yakisoba and it was delicious. Then we packed for exchanges.

Back on our bikes!

Friday: For those of you who don't know, exchanges on a mission are when either the district leader, zone leader, or assistants to the president ask you to come to their area and help teach with them or when we swap companions. So basically, we went to Nashville to go to the temple. It was awesome! So spiritual! It's so tiny though! Tinier than the Sacramento temple. Like, the church next to it was bigger than the temple!!! To get a better idea of how big it is, it's about as big as the church that I went to back home. It was great though. We also got a new car because they switch them out every something miles. We went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President (APs). I got to be with Elder Danielson. He is a great missionary and I love his personality. Kinda seems quiet but not quiet at all. We went on splits with an 18 year old named Coleman and taught a former investigator. We then went with Brother Mortenson who is the high priest quorum president (i think) and taught a less active. I didn't really teach because I never could tell where Elder Danielson was going with all of his lessons. Then we spent the night at the APs apartment which is too nice to be a missionary's. They have two floors, a balcony, 2 bedrooms and bathrooms, such a nice kitchen and oh so much more! I'm very jealous of them. I apparently needed to bring sheets and pillows and stuff for sleeping. Luckily they had a extra pillow and blanket, but I still slept horribly.

Elder Ross, Elder Morgan, ELDER CRAIG, and Elder Danielson (wearing cowboy boots).

Janice Knapp Perry

Saturday: Still in the APs area. Elder Danielson took over twelve week (training) for Elder Ross and oh my gosh he has taught me so much more than Elder Ross has! He is such a great missionary! I'm jealous of his companion haha. Elder Danielson and I taught this less active the restoration and Elder Danielson told me I have improved since I came to the field. Then we drove home and came home to SO MUCH MAIL! I got three boxes and Elder Ross got two. Two boxes were from Mom and one from Carrie. Then I got a letter from Stacy and Autumn. Thank you all so much for the mail. So much candy.....too much candy....haha it'll last til the end of next winter I'm sure! Then we saw a referral who requested a Bible. We went in and she gave us too much information about her life which is always awkward. She believes that evolution shouldn't be taught in school so she is pretty interesting. She said she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it so we will see her next week too. Her grandson sat in on the lesson too. We taught them the restoration.

My first attempt at eggs.

That's pretty much my week. Besides making eggs for breakfast this morning by myself for the first time, that's it. Enjoy this week everyone! Before I leave, I'll leave you with some pictures of Janice Kapp Perry because yes. Enjoy! The scriptures and prayer really bring you closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I hope you all continue to be obedient to Him. I'll see you all next week! Bye!

Elder Craig

Cooking up some Mac N Cheese!

Elders out tracting.

JKP - My new favorite recording artist.