Letter #47 (August 18, 2014)

To clarify, I neither ate a dog nor drank a Redbull.

This week sure has been interesting. It went by super fast, so I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened, but I'll do my best.

This week I:

-Was on exchanges both times we went to our Thai investigator's house

-Possibly accidentally stole Redbull from the grocery store

-Biked 26 miles in one day

-Almost had our bikes vandalized by an 80 year old

-Re-started teaching someone that just popped out of no where

-Taught a super-cool high school teacher/motorcyclist the Restoration

-Talked to a lot of dog walkers

And last but not least

-Listened to some dang interesting talks in sacrament meeting

So Sister Fjeldsted is a sister training leader, so we do exchanges a lot. I always stay in the area and she goes to a different area. So this week we went on exchanges twice. We also went to see our Thai investigator twice. Both times, it was me and a different sister. What's funny is that we have another appointment with her is Wednesday, and we're going to be on exchanges again! So our investigator will have seen four different sisters with me in a row! 

When we got home from the grocery store, I reached into one of our bags, pulled out some stuff that we bought, and then pulled out a can of Redbull. What the heck?! I wasn't mine, it was as Fjeldsted's, it didn't fall into our bag out of our member hat drove us's bag. So we have no idea how it got there. We checked our receipts and it didn't show up on either of them. So we don't know where it came from. But it is probably just going to end up in the trash, because nobody needs Redbull.

We got a referral for someone living at the very top of our are yesterday, so up we went into Wonderland (AKA San Marino, the land of the rich people with massive, multi-million dollar mansions). It is all uphill to get there, and pretty dang far. Then we had an appointment pretty much on the other side of our are! So we biked there after lunch. We basically went through every area in our ward boundaries. Hence, 26 miles. That is quite a lot. Usually it's more like 8-10 in a day.

While we were in San Marino that day we went up to Huntington Gardens to see if we could volunteer there. Huntington Gardens is basically a giant, rich people place with a museum argue rounded by this huge, beautiful park. Unfortunately. We found that the Gardens are closed once a week. Which happened to be the day that we trekked all the way up there. So we go to walk back to our bikes and we see this old woman messing with our bikes! We nought that maybe it was illegal to lock our bikes there or something (San Marino has a few strange laws) and at maybe she was reporting it or something. But it turns out that it was an older member in the ward! She recognized our bikes and so left a note in Sister Fjeldsted's helmet that said at we should stop for some water or something. It was so sweet! She ended up feeding us lunch.

So there is this Motel in our area called the Golden Motel. We always seem to meet people around there that live in this Motel that are willing to listen to us. But it's a Motel, so it's kind of sketchy and most people are only there temporarily. So we had started teaching his really sweet couple that is going through a really tough time, but then when we went back they had left because they couldn't afford it anymore or something. We were so sad! So then we were at the motel the other day to go see someone else and we pass the door of the room that they used to stay in. Sister Fjeldsted says "I miss them, I wish that we could have seen them before they left." Lo and behold, we keep walking, and she's standing right there! Apparently they had scrounged up enough money to get a new room at the motel after that day! So we taught them yesterday.

I also taught this really neat lady that we met walking on Saturday when we were on exchanges. She was having some motorcycle troubles and I happen to know someone nearby at used to work on motorcycles. So we stopped to see if we could help. I had her talk to the person I know on the phone and she gets her bike up and running again. So then she sat and talked to us for a while. She looks like she is my age, but she's already a high school history teacher! She was really cool and very sweet. I'm siphoning that we can start teaching her soon.

We met a lot of people through street contacting this week. We have been making an effort to not bike so much so that we can talk to people while we walk from place to place. So we talked to a lot of people that were out walking their dogs. We met a pretty promising man that way the other day. We have high hopes for him.

And then sacrament meeting. Something I love about this church is that everyone is given an opportunity to speak/teach. However, that means that you get some interesting talks sometimes. We had a youth speaker yesterday that started out with "I was told to talk about obedience" and included "and then she was pulverized by a car." He's 12 and the bishop's son. It was quite entertaining, but not quite spiritually uplifting. And then the next speaker was much better, but he got some unintended audience participation. He was talking about how the world is so diverse. There are good people, bad people, shady people... To which a young boy in the congregation yells "SHADY?!" Well, little kids need to learn the gospel too. It sure ended up being an interesting Sunday.

So transfer calls are is Saturday and Sister Fjeldsted and I both feel like we are going to get a call. We don't know which one of us it would be, but we're kind of feeling like one is coming. I really hope not though! I haven't even been here for a full two transfers, so I really don't want to go. And Sister Fjeldsted only has one transfer after this, so it would stink for her to have to be in a new area for just six weeks before she goes home. Whatever happens though, I know that this is the Lord's work and that He will put us where we need to be. I'm just hoping that it's here still.

Welp, I guess that's all for this week! Sorry that this wasn't the most spiritually uplifting email of your life, but some weeks are just like that.

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

~Sister Kretchman

Oh. And I realized that I didn't actually say anything about the dog burrito. I just made a breakfast burrito for lunch and the eggs and peppers and everything ended up smelling like dog in the pan! I said something to that effect and Sister Fjeldsted thought that I was just being dramatic. B then she smelled it and agreed! It tasted fine, but did NOT smell like it was edible. Nasty.

Our bike miles log: