Ugly Bread, Vape Cigg, Match Maker Trouble, Heat Exhaustion

So this week went super fast. Like that Tuesday really wacked out my time scale, cause this past week just came and went right on along at eighty miles per hour which is breaking the speed limit since I am pretty sure that if an east coast driver saw our seventy five miles as the limit out west would break out in a heart attack. Ya we only have fifties out here and the occasional fifty five :P. Bleck. Anyways so that P-Day Elder Ballif and myself got pretty bored with what we should do since there isn't much we can do out here and with what our mile situation is so we have come to a new activity of writing stories and critiquing the other. Thus far its been pretty fun! Gets us doing something other than just keeping to ourselves on P-Days :P. I also made the ugliest bread alive on Tuesday. Like its mother would need to put a paper bag over its head at night to kiss it without looking at it. It tasted good though but this time I'm going to give myself a little more time to finish it since I had to wait three hours to put it into the oven since we were a bit short on time. I think that was the reason it was so heavy a mutilated. That evening we went out with our Ward Mission Leader Brother Dayton who is the heart and soul of this branch and really is one of the few individuals who wants to see it grow. Really awesome man and we had a pretty good night together. We went and visited a less active lady Sister Bolden who is about a 65 year old woman who is pretty dang funny. This lesson was a bit strange do to seating arrangement and the history that Bro Dayton and her have. They just chatted up a storm like none other while Ballif and myself just kinda sat on the outskirts as things went along only coming in for the occasion question directed at us about our last name and where we were from. Apparently Elder Ballif is now Brother Beau according to Sister Bolden since she had such a hard time pronouncing it lol. Wednesday was a bit of a bumber for us. We had a lesson and a service planned which both fell through so we just went this way and that way all over the place trying to find an individual to go and teach but over all it was just a bunch of doors with no one really answering so there went ninety miles on our monthly allowance :P however we did set the record for ourselves of having nineteen attempts when knocking doors and such. This branch is the first time that I have ever served around a Senior Missionary Couple the Nelsons who are just fantastic. They took us out and got us Blizzards later that afternoon since we were down that way which was really nice of them. Had a good discussion with them and I get the feeling that they would like us to drop by and visit them every once in a while just to say hi. They work at the Court House digitizing all of the Counties records for Cambridge and such which is pretty cool. They will be heading back home in a couple of months which is really sad since I possibly will be here for their leaving later this fall or early winter. Really hoping that I can stick it out four transfers in an area for once allowing me to actually get to know some people around here :P. Thursday we had Zone Training as we do for every first Thursday of the month and from what I have been told this zone the Dover Zone is one of the wackiest out there in how we do things. First all of the district leaders got up and gave us each a lesson they had prepared and had us do a role play for each of their lessons (I hate role plays :/) before they themselves spoke. There has been a lot going on lately with goal setting and how we go about doing it. Also for interviews which our zone has yet to have we have been asked to write down what we want to become and what our "personal missionary purpose" is and how we plan to go about doing it. Still writing that all down so I'll let ya know about it later. The lessons they had on Goal setting were pretty good which surprised me since most Zone Trainings at least for myself have seemed to have peeked and leveled off on what I get from them. Usually it just seems like a repeat of what I've had since getting out here but this one was really good and I got a lot out of. We had Thursday night a thing called cottage meeting which was really good. Watched a video on the Legacy of the Scriptures (I think) with a recent convert and less active while we ate a slice of apple pie that a member made. It was really good and from what I'm seeing so far out of this area we should have a least two reactivations within the coming months. Friday was definitely the crowning jewel of our week. We met with Scott again and for the first time in years he was almost twenty four hours off of a cigarette. Now Scott is a chain smoker which is quite the feet as you can imagine. He got this new thing called a vapor cigarette which is supposed to have him off of cigarettes completely within the next two to three months... The steam is also flavored so the entire time we were there it smelt like a fruit cocktail hahaha. We had a really good lesson with him about the Holy Ghost and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though he was really jittery since he really wanted a regular smoke bad but luckily for the poor thing there were none to be found in the house. We set him up with a baptismal date for this December, the day of the solstice actually. Then later that evening we had a lesson with Paul, who is such a nice man. Recent convert of almost a year and he is one heck of a shy dude but he does love the missionaries. Very grandmother like but at least hes an individual. He has been going through a really ruff time at the moment and it would seem that some members in the branch don't like the fact that he is single... >.<.... Let it be let it be, O' let it be let it be! First off Paul isn't just the kinda guy that is going to go out and spontaneously love someone and then marry em'. Along with the fact that these certain members are being quite force full about it. Both Elder Ballif and I already knew this but when Paul stated that he knew that the ward was very stand off ish about him since he wasn't apart of their "original herd" this is where we both got pretty angry... Out of the units I've served in so far this is probably going to be the most difficult one to work with. At least for the time being XP. We talked with him though and I guess I really hit off with Paul during this lesson. He felt a lot better with what we talked with him about so I hope that he continues to be strong. Saturday had a really good start but it ended ruff. 90 degrees with humidity and to save miles Ballif and myself parked the car for the whole day and went on a walkin. The really cool experience we had is that we had been walking for a very long time to go to this potentials when out of no where this lady pulls up and asks if we are thirsty. We said not to much but she paid no mind to it and told us her house was a street up and yellow with black shutters and for us to meet her there, she would have a drink ready for us :). Well we get there and she brings out some sprite and we sit down and have a bit of a lesson with her outside. Her name is Jennifer and she is a really nice lady. She's had a bit of a ruff life especially with drugs but she is working on getting off of them with classes and is at the moment trying to strengthen her relationship with God. And she is doing really well at that through family prayer and reading and such ya know? She liked what we had to say to and said she will come to church this not this past sunday but the one coming up this week. Left her with our number and what time our church starts so we will be following up with her this week! :D The potential we were looking for didn't like us anyway, from what Elder Ballif remembered as we got closer, so obviously there was a little more to this walk than meets the eye ;). After that though began our long forced march :P. Over all we walked about 13 miles that day and at ten we stopped at a Royal farms gas station to buy some water and power aid cause I felt like crap :P. Idiot kid here from the desert forgot to bring water with him though he knows better and then just went and got heat Exhaustion :P. Ballif said I looked terrible lol. Anyways we went home after we both cooled off and for the rest of the evening did area book work since we were both so tuckered out and feeling sick. Interesting day it twas. Anyways that about all the news I got for the moment. P.S. So in the car Elder Ballif has a lot of bluegrass gospel music and music from O Brother Where Art Thow that we have been listening to and I remembered just how cool the banjo is... hint hint ;). Being the history buff Ballif is I've learned quite a bit lately :D