I am in Freeport now, with Elder Pothier from Arizona. He's pretty darn awesome :) Our apartment is super nice- the nicest I've stayed in. The armchair is mine, and I love it. We have a blender and a hand mixer, so I'm going to make some chocolate frosting soon! As far as the area, our pool is kinda in flux right now. We have the smallest area book I've ever seen in my life. That's good, though, because it means we can actually go knocking now! It's a great problem to have, because it's so easily fixed. There's a few old Hispanic women who are less active- inactive, actually, because they're super bitter and angry about something someone did to offend them a long time ago. There's a part of me that just wants to bring the fire and preach Elder Holland-style, and bring the hammer down on them to point out how silly they're being, but the rest of me knows that something like that has to be prompted by the spirit in order to work. The branch also has this really weird belief that caffeine is against the word of wisdom (like, all caffeine- period), and if they see anyone drinking it they judge them hardcore. This is such a big problem that missionaries have brought it to the stake for resolution. It seems like some missionary whose mom absolutely condemned caffeine came through and taught all these members that it's against the WOW. Not cool, because it's false doctrine. We'll see what I can do to help resolve it, though. The branch is fairly small, and I'm back to a weak priesthood. Westbury was great, because it had such a strong priesthood, and pretty much everywhere else has a pretty weak priesthood.
We had Stake Conference yesterday. This makes three weeks since I last took the sacrament, because the week before GC we had SC, too. This one was pretty cool, because we have Flushing in our Stake, which is where all the Chinese and Koreans live and go to church, so a couple people gave their talks in broken English. Elder Richards of the 70 spoke, and in both sessions it sure looked like he was unprepared to speak. He had President and Sister Reynolds speak, and the Manhattan Temple President and his wife, and then, when he got up and was supposed to start talking, he had everyone sing I am a Child of God. Maybe he actually was prepared and was going by the spirit, but all us missionaries feel like he looked pretty flustered. It was a great Stake Conference, though. Every speaker had something great to contribute.
We served in Bishop's storehouse on Saturday. That was pretty fun. Usually when all the orders are filled, the excess (if any) goes to the missionaries, because they can't send anything back. This time we had the biggest surplus anyone had ever seen, which was quite fortunate. We got nine rolls of TP, some hot dogs and hamburgers and buns, cereal, milk, and more apples and oranges that we can handle. It's great- we don't have to shop for very much today! Also, that night a bunch of missionaries got together at Chipotle before the adult session of SC. It was super fun, because I knew most of them. I think I still have some chips and salsa leftover... Yum.
Spencer's taking a girl out for Prom? What? Weird. Make sure to send me pictures! I'm glad to hear that his invitation went well, and was well received. Also- here's something funny. One of the Elders in my district is from Hawaii- Elder Carlson. His folks live a five minute walk from the temple, so when you visited it you probably went by his house. Both his parents teach at BYU-Hawaii.
I actually am feeling a lot better, but this cough just won't let go. I am doing a lot better, though.
As a side note, I think Tyler Farnsworth will fit in great in Peru, having worked with many Peruanos on my own mission. He can expect to eat a ton of really, really good food. Peruvian is one of my favorite types of Hispanic food.
Also, I have to thank Gma and Gpa Hull- they sent me $20 for my Bday.
Well, that's pretty much all from my end of things. Any questions?
With love,
Elder Richard Brandt Hull