Sept 14

Hello World! What a crazy week this was! I'll start off with a pretty crazy experience I had this week that probably caused my parents quite a headache. We were biking and found a cool lady to contact, upon taking a book of mormon out of my bag to give to her, I completely forgot to rezip my bag before we biked off... (slaps forehead) It wasn't until our last appointment at 8 o clock fell through that I realized my pocket was open and my wallet was missing.  The next hour was spent biking a good 5 miles or so backtracking and praying we would find it but to no avail. The story does have a good side, however, in that upon speaking with the senior couple about my lost debit and credit cards, they told me I had to call home as soon as possible to tell my parents to cancel them! Hahah and so getting to have that conversation with them over the phone was pretty funny and turned a terrible situation into an alright one. In terms of missionary work, the coolest success story I have for you guys this week is a kid we found named 'I,' or "Rush" if he's on the streets apparently, hahaha we had never met him before our first visit and were referred to him by the elders in the area next to us. We heard he was a member who was 17 but hadn't been to church in years since his mother died. We called and scheduled an appointment and I felt like I really clicked with him. He was so excited to meet with us, and comes from very humble circumstances. To illustrate for you with what he has to live with, a fight broke out about 40 feet from us between these two guys over a parking space, hahah that's how you know you're in the hood apparently. But moral of the story we had a great lesson and guess who came to church this week for the first time in years??? 'I'!!! I was so glad to see him there and I set him up with some of the other young men his age so he had some people to fellowship him. He seemed really happy and I can't wait to meet with him more! Last but not least our pday activity was a hike to Brownsberg! We had to get up at 4:30 hahah but it was worth it to see the view and crazy jungle waterfalls :O I'll attach some pictures so you guys can see but it was amazing!! This week couldn't have gone better and I feel very blessed to be a missionary here right now. Miss you guys a ton and talk to you next week!

Elder Carpenter