FHE Stoopin, rainy dayz, Halloween Party

Well the adventures in the concrete jungle brought some new experiences this past week. Since it's usually house to the steps to the side walk in that order with very few parks in between we have a lot of people that sit out on their steps all day doing funny weird philly things to which we call stoopers. I had my first experience with being one myself Monday night when some members invited us over for FHE and we did exactly that. Since the time being here I've probably gotten to know four members, since the only missionaries that exist to them are the sisters :P. But I'll save my sister rants for another day and at this FHE I learned more about Ward members than I anticipated with some strange traits. Guess there is a man who hates it when you say understand cause it means you didn't fully get the message so when talking to him you must say that you over stand him... :/. God is great, root beer is good, people are crazy! Anyways I don't have to much to write this week since not to much happened but I'll make it as exciting as possible. We had a ton of rain this past week with really cold temperatures so for the first time since leaving Elder Whitaker I took out my coat and put that bad boy on as we went out into the rain. I was on exchanges with our district leader Elder Sutton on Wednesday, which was good though we had very little luck in finding anyone. It mostly ended up being a very long walk doing stop bys and talking to people on the street. One instance was super crazy though! We were at a bus stop and Elder Sutton was talking to a lady when the air got an electric smell and a fizzing sound started. Looked up and about fifty yards from us a transformer on a power line just blew up! It was like a fire work with a shock wave and took out the top side of the pole! All the philly drivers got super confused too since the lights went out and they had to take turns, haha ya four way stops without lights don't work, out this way :P. After that we walked in the rain yay! On Thursday after planning and such we celebrated a past birthday party with the west Elders, Story and Sutton, at the Wasco's house and had a lot of lasagna. It was really good and it had a lot of different cheeses in it but I can honestly say that lasagna without cottage cheese just doesn't taste the same to me. So Moms home cooking and the one other member who made it that way have to be the best in my opinion. And when it comes to lasagna it matters :3. Friday is finally where we had some action and I was quite happy to get some of it. We found a new investigator who's name is Shurika but goes by Reek and gave her a Book of Mormon along with a card that offers a free DVD. We received an actual referral by her on mormon.org for that dvd which is awesome cause I've never seen anyone order anything from it :3. We were also able to get in contact with a girl named Alexis, who is in her teens somewhere, who has an interest as does her mom Madeline. We met with em on Saturday with our recent convert Brandon and that had to be one of the most scattered lessons ever. We went into the plan of salvation for our first lesson and it kinda just crumbled and was rebuilt a while later into with the, Because of Him video. It was a mess but at least it ended alright. See them again on Saturday. Yesterday we were able to come in contact with Elder Barkers old neighbors and had a good time there. She wants to get back into coming to church a bit and we will hopefully get down to the temple sight with them in the near future. Oh hey I almost forgot some things. So we had a ward Halloween party which was pretty legit :3. Had a chili cook off and everything, but I can honestly say I was just there for the food. We also had a very funny primary program yesterday. My goodness it was so disfunctional but it was still good. Lots of kids weren't there, a young couple with their two kids tried to sing but the two kids just fought over who's turn it was with the microphone haha. Never know what your gonna get do ya ?!:3

George's Baptism Group Photo!!

Slow Mo, Gods Dogs, Motorcycle Hurd, We Should Sue

Well I'll be honest this was a really quick week that drove a go cart at five hundred miles per hour when it hit a banana sending it into a spin. Going somewhere but not very productive.... Probly some turtle shells too, but never mind the references, this week was a bit slow. However it did have some noticeable grates to it so I guess that I will write what took place just previous. So we had multiple adventures to the Layton/Brown families house with only one success seeming how they would always invite us over but when we would get there Sean (who is one of the only two males that lives there) would suddenly be either to sick or to tired to come down. However we were able to get all the woman and children there on Sunday and for the first time they stayed the full three hours. Sean stayed outside in the car for whatever reason so I get the feeling that he was pretty bored out there making whatever statement he was looking to make. Tuesday we had dinner with the Wasco family. They are awesome and are looking to come back so with Sister Wasco quitting smoking we will hopefully see her back at church real soon here. They are from South Carolina so they say some funny things. Call tomato sauce red gravy 0.o. On our way home we ended up having a two hour travel time since the bus was dumb and showed up five minutes early with the next one showing up twenty five minutes late :P. A bit aggravating but we were able to speak with a guy from Nigeria named Samway who was really sweet along with Mr. Joe who loved what we were doing, when our bus came he gave us a handshake and rubbed our hand on his head lol. Guess it's for good luck or somethin. Wednesday was an interesting day due to the fact that I don't remember most of it but I do recall that we went to the Giordano's house for dinner and it was crazy! All day it had been down pouring like none other so the kids were hyped up and needed to be kicked out cause you could barely hear yourself think in there. They invited us again for dinner the next day so we went for round two then :3. One thing I'm not liking about this area is that we get fed way to much :P. To many left overs in the fridge and I fear that I'm going to gain back the weight that I lost the past two transfers, guess I'll be kicking up my workouts in the morning a notch ;). Thursday we planned and such before going to the Giordano's again for dinner and this time the kids were getting ready for football and such so we were able to have a really good lesson with them. We have to work slowly since Paul wants things done through the bible first so we have to recheck our research before giving a lesson. Hopefully with how things have been going he will humble up and give the B.o.M. Another try. After that we had a Book of Mormon class which was fun. We are in the King Benjamin chapters and someone brought up the comment of how it's like a straight and narrow road with little paths which we sometimes go down to but we need to get back on the right one. I went off of that comment and related it to how dogs are haha. Leave the trail/goal to sniff something when God has to call us back :3 I had everyone in the room laughing. Last thing for that night is we were waiting for a bus when suddenly there had to be at least 50 to 75 motor biker and dirt bikers just riding up Broad st. We just sat there and watched for like two minutes as they all just revved away haha. Last thing in news is Barker and myself are going to sue septa our bus system :P. Didn't get sacrament yesterday since the bus never showed so we ended up at church about 30 to 45 minutes late :P. Shmeh. Anyways love you guys, playing some b ball today which I fail at but its gonna be fun anyways :3 .

Sneak peek, Case of the forgotten wallet, coherent gators?, George got Dunked!!!!!

Well this week was interesting in the fact that we had quite a bit work out for us in terms of numbers, but over all there are only a few super awesome things to talk about :3. So on Tuesday I went on exchanges with Zone Lord Elder Lundberg and we had a pretty good time up in Frankford. The Frankford apartment has two set of missionaries in it so it's pretty fun also considering one of those elders is elder Seeley who is a nut ball but super fun to be around and a good elder. Anyway, the exchange was good. We did a thing called church finding where we set up a table with stuff on it and just talked to people walking on the street. It was kinda hard seeming how their church building is a store front right next to the elevated subway track so it was very noisy. I myself didn't have to much success but the others did. What was really funny though is that we said just a few Spanish words to a Hispanic guy who then became interested. The next half hour was made up of broken Spanish, Google translate, and miscommunication with the Spanish elders over the phone... :3. We also, later that day, contacted a referral. He and his wife were going to get divorced, but through religion they came back to loving each other so their family didn't split and they became stronger in their relationship together. Had practically Mormon values too so I hope that they will become interested in the church more! So Wednesday was pretty dang cool. We had zone conference and I got to have my first sneak peek ever along with watching my first movie on the mission! We got to see" Meet the Mormons", two days before release and my goodness that was a well made film :D. I don't know if you guys have gotten to see it yet but I'll let you know that it is extremely good. Later this week we saw on Facebook that over all it did pretty well in ratings too, so you'll have to let me know. We had a lesson with a lady named Victoria, who wants to turn her life around, the lesson was very interesting though since she said that she only had a few minutes and then talked to us for about forty five minutes :P. We were also unsure about how coherent she was since just out of random she would start to fall asleep and then make random comments about how she was worried about the cat because it slept so much.... 0.o. Either way we are going back next Friday. Also that night we went to Annie's to give her a blessing since she hurt her back pretty bad. She was doing better but we still gave her the blessing also her sister n sisters kids were there and they said that they would all show up to church this Sunday! The kids did but they are non members so we picked them up as gators :3. So I guess, last if, not least, on Wednesday I was super scared to ask since there is a rule about how only for two weeks after leaving an area can you go and see investigators you worked with get baptized, but I finally bucked up and asked president to which he was totally fine with :D. So last night we got to go and see the baptism of George Callahan from South Philly and he wanted me to speak on baptism so I got to do that :D!! It was awesome!! Finally all married and though his wife is still sick she's no longer in the hospital we were able to dunk the man :3! Got to see a lot of people from South Philly which was cool to! Next week for P-Day we will hopefully be going to see the Rocky Steps and such!

Robin equivalents, philly driving, to many elders in this crib, conference truths

Well, I see that they thought I was bored of the chopped up cornfields of soy n such so they sent me back to the concrete jungle... Literally :3. Yup my areas name is independence east and it is super huge!! However one cool perk is that the temple is in the district so whenever we have an investigator to teach we can take them down there if they do so please :D. Super fleshed out since the time that I left it since the steal work wasn't even complete then... Interior is being worked on and the only steal visible is that of the spires. So my companions name is Elder Barker and he's pretty sweet, though I still don't know to much about him. From Corona California, loves basketball and batman and has a Hispanic girlfriend. He's dry funny, so sarcastic as heck, but a very good elder. However the area book here is ugly as heck so I plan to work on that :P. This is the largest walking area that I know of and haven't really figured it out yet, but that's alright. We have other elders living with us as well since their apartment recently had bedbugs, so they've been living with us since I got here... Cramped but fun and we found out they might be here for some time since the mission is looking to get them a completely new apartment for them... Messy messy :P. My only peeve.... Anyway, on Tuesday we had dinner with a less active family named the Wasco's and they are a group. I had my first experience of Philly driving when Bro Wasco gave us a ride and I have to say that I'm not exactly sure how I still have an arm or leg but I do :3. Philly drivers suck! But dinner was good, though their daughter Sherry scares me a bit... If Robin W. had a slightly taller more chunky form, & was from South Carolina, Sherry would be that girl, literally. The humor here is as dry as heck, I quickly learned which is alright. I'm a fan of fantastic Mr. Fox anyways so all is good. Oh before I forget guess where my companion previous ended up. Back in the same area he had come from (Wilmington), once again a district leader, with Elder Murphy :D! I do worry a bit about that combination though, a bit, since Murphy pulls a lot of shenanigans and jokes and Ballif was very stiff as to what he believed a missionary should be. I loved Ballif but he was stiff and opinionated. Everyone here since I got here has been getting sick and have been trying to do the same to me but I've fought hard with the power of emergency! And then I ran out so we will see how I end up haha. Things have been going well in this area though. Worked with a less active family that we call the LaytonBrown family which is a very interesting group. The house is literally just full of woman who are all somehow related to each other one way or another I don't know but the house is pretty crazy. The one lady has a full on beard 0.o... That one weirded me out but the lesson went ok though they didn't show up like they said they would :P. We also have a very new recent convert of Barkers who is Mr. Stevenson. Now how does one explain him, hmmm. Take that awkwardness of you listening over a conversation tuck and I would have over games, add excitement of Dad watching an amazing last moment basketball play, and then make the topic religion :3... You got that? Ya he is super awesome and super excited. Conference this past weekend was literally like a sports game for him and it was actually pretty sweet to see how excited he is, especially for a 22 year old who goes to temple university. I've had some pretty cool impressions this week, though my street contacting stinks. I find that if I at the very least just go through with it and try to talk with the person, we've had success since they will talk back. I've missed that about walking areas since in the past two areas there hasn't been as much chance just to talk with someone on the streets. Just said hi to a man sitting on a door step since I felt I should and he asked if we had a quit smoking program, so right then and there we set him up with the Frankford elders :3. Sorry things are everywhere. Just kinda thinkin and writing at the same time since my companion never seems to sync and I have no plans :P. So let's see here. We had dinner with a less active named Annie on Friday night. She is from Honduras and Barker has been working with her for some time. Funny as heck and we were able to get her out to a session of conference with us :D. Her son who is about five years old is funny as heck to. Has better hair than Tarzan and rather than saying people he will do something like who are these humans mom? Such a funny and cute kid. Played football Saturday morning for the first time in six months and my goodness am I hurting. It was a blast though, playing it in the rain. I haven't lost my supercharger legs too which Iam quite proud of when playing those games :3. But man the rest of the weekend with conference I could barely move :P. Conference was really good this year... Or I guess it's always good but it just happened and I'm a missionary and pay attention more so I got a lot more out of it. Y'all have any favorites? I'm going to go with Uchtdorf's first one, Quentin's priesthood one, and Bednars right at the very end alog with Monsons priesthood one. All were good I was just very fond of those ones :). Jörgs talk was good too! Goodness this letter is so scattered but it'll have to do.