The Three Muscatines and the Voyage to Worshington

Dear Apparent Fans,

Remember that both with the 116 pages lost with the translation of the Book of Mormon and my letter, the part we do have basically sums up what was lost. I just told a little story or two that was lost and took up a good portion of time to write and I didn't feel like reiterating.... I may this email, we'll see.

First I'll address a couple concerns Mom asked me about and go from there.

1) It's not that cramped in the apartment with three elders. It's really a good sized place and is about right for three. The only one that really thinks it's cramped is Sister Chapman, who was kind of "wiggin out" when Senor Nelson first moved in about space and clutter. This only really added to the large amount of stress we were under. Sometimes after a hard day's work or on a P-Day where I just want to relax it's hard to smile and say "Sure, I'd love to scrub all the mold from the corners of the walls of the bathroom (that's been there for long before any of us moved in) right now." But it's a blessing that she lets us live there and she's a well-intentioned good sister.

2) This month we have had more meals with members than most missionaries have in a transfer. When I first got here the meal calendar was barely full, but the last couple weeks it's been jam-packed. Like every day and then some somedays. It's awesome, and the meals are almost always incredible. A lot of times we have to cut them off short because we have so many plans. The other two say that the loads of food means that they love us. I like to take all the credit there.

So, updates on the work: things are going...well. We haven't kill each other or any more dogs yet. (Ok, the story about the dog: back when there were two spanish elders here, they had an investigator with a sick dog, so they did everything they could to help. A veterinarian suggested giving it Peptobismol. So Elder Poulsen and Elder Nelson ran to get some and ran back to the investigators' house to admister it to the dog. They burst in, acting in their best EMS ways, and, ignoring the fatal appearance of the dog, tilted its head back and administered the peptobismol with a syringe into its mouth. When they were finished, they let go of the dogs' head and watched, in horror, as it just limply fell to the side. The investigators are still meeting with us, which is good. Good enough story that for their one sentence update in the zone's newspaper it said "We killed an investigators' dog with Pepto Bismol," while ours was "Elder Gates is as green as the forests of Oregen. Or Washington or wherever he's from." Yep, he spelled Oregon that way, something we don't let him forget.) But yeah, things were less exciting this week. We were dropped by the seventeen-year-old kid that seemed promising, and a lot of appointments with other promising investigators has fallen through. So, to skip over the sad parts, I'll update you on the good.

For one thing, Senor Nelson, having learned from a role play that was done during District Meeting this week that was done solely to help him on this matter, successfully committed a couple to marriage and baptism, which was way cool.

We have a baptismal date! Technically, we've had it for awhile, but can't count it until it's less than three months away, and so now we can count it! He's basically a member, he's even come to lessons, he just is waiting for marriage and a time when family can be in town.

I went on splits this week with a member and taught the first lesson basically by myself! Granted, it was to a member because my appointment with Todd, our Dry Mormon mentioned earlier, fell through, but it was still cool.... Won the love of the members there, I guess. They seemed impressed with me. I don't say it to brag, because I'm as surprised at them being impressed as they were with me.

We also took a trip to Washington, or as Iowans call it, Worshington, for district meeting. It was really good and felt like a miniature Zone Conference, since it was half the zone and nearly as spiritual. Afterwards, we went to Pizza Ranch, an awesome buffet place, and pigged out. Last Monday we ran into a Senior Missionary Couple from Nauvoo here in Muscatine at Wal-Mart because they were going to a place nearby to help out at a festival thing. They gave us $40 for lunch, which we used at pizza ranch. I considered it a blessing. We also went to a swinging bridge on the way back that went over a ravine. It was kind of like the ones that you see in Indiana Jones or whatever, but made out of heavy duty cords so it was safe.

OH! I almost forgot! I keep forgetting to mention that we are volunteer coaches at the Y for a 9-10 year old soccer team. I tell you, I would be awesome on a team like that. I'd be a bad goalie, though. Something's scarier about it being kicked instead of thrown. Anyway, we have won our last two games, the first 2-0 and the second 12-1. We rock. The parents love us, too, even, it seems to some extent, the one that seems like her kid's soccer team is her entire life. One said, after telling us we were great coaches, that she didn't know how we had so much patience with them. You kind of want to say "It's the Holy Ghost, want to learn more?" Probably should have, it didn't seem like a good time.

I'm slightly inundated with the letters from everybody. Those who are still waiting for a letter back, please be patient, I'm trying my best. We're pretty busy out here.

And the humidity here isn't bugging me too bad. It's definitely turning into Fall, which makes it easier, and the humidity is just kind of like some parts of washington, especially in the mountains or near the coast.

Ok, real quick story that was left out of last week's email. So we were tracting in a nearby town and when we knocked on one door, a girl in her twenties came around the corner and got really excited, grabbed her bible, and invited us into her backyard, where she began talkingreallyfastkindoflikethisinreallyjumbledquicksentencesthatdidn'ttietogethertoowell. We tried our best to answer her questions and teach her. It was amazing to watch her as she learned, for she considered herself to have studied religion very well. She got upset when we mentioned that the authority had been lost from the earth, saying she didn't think God would allow so many people to have been lost, so I told her about Christ ministering to people in the next life who had not received the gospel and sending forth missionaries to go and do more and about baptisms for the dead, two things talked about in the New Testament (the latter in...thessalonians? and the former in 1 Peter 4:6 and also in 1 Peter 3, in case you were wondering). This really pacified her, which was cool to watch how her whole demeanor changed.

The gospel's true. This work is of God, and while it may not be easy, is lead by God. I know so, and love being a part of it. Keep strong in the truth.

Love,
Charlie