Day 91, Cats Are Dumb

Well, Elder Cottrell and Elder Clawson are no more and it is so sad.
My companion and I mourned together over the course of 3 days as we
awaited the arrival of the chumps replacing them. Luckily the day
after they left, it started pouring rain and we got covered in dirt
while we rode our bikes through the sobbing atmosphere, so that was
comforting.

Dirty Shirts

But anyway, lol, we met these 2 drunk old guys. That was an
experience. They were like, "you're in our barrio (neighborhood), man,
so you gotta learn how to talk like us." Then they taught us how to
say stuff in "Chicano." Haha. He kept telling us that he wasn't smart,
but he was an intelligent guy. Oh boy, drunk old guys think they are
so funny.

Later that night we had our lesson with Graciela. She is the lady with
a baptismal date.  Basically, she is like my Mexican Grandma. Mi
abuelita. Haha she is suhweet. After this lesson she gave us a bag of
potatoes, key limes, and a block of cheese. How random. Haha. She also
went to church yesterday! It was the greatest thing. She enjoyed it so
much and participated the most in Sunday school. The whole time, I was
looking around at all the Mexican ladies like, mmhmmm, I taught her
that stuff. They were all wondering if she was a member. Haha wooo!
She made a lot of friends and was saying that of course she would come
next week. :)

Also, Jerry went again! His 3rd week in a row! He wore a white shirt
and tie and everything and was smiling the whole time (well a majority
of the time). So really we just gotta finish teaching him the lessons
and then he's good to go anytime.

Pero, si the two new missionaries came. Elder Nelson and Elder
Escalera. Both pretty cool. I mean, a little different than the
others, but it is fine. Elder Escalera is a Latino from Puerto Rico,
so that's dope! He speaks decent English, but it's gonna help a lot
with my Spanish, so I am pumped. We get along pretty well. He's a
goon. Lol.

My companion and I experienced the most intense cat battle of all
time. There was only one swipe from the black and white cat. What a
jerk. But really, it was so intense, we were losing our minds. First
of all, the orange cat, ginger, approached the other cat sooo slowly.
Like, it took 5 minutes for it to move 15 ft, so you can imagine... It
sat and they stared into each other's eyes for 10 minutes, until
Blacky couldn't handle it and made a move... But yeah. Neat.

Also I found a Gospel Art Book, so it has like 100 different paintings
and I love it. I can copy the figures and drawings to keep up my
skills. I did a drawing of Ammon that's pretty sweet if I do say so
myself. I'll attach a picture. I am just happy to be able to draw when
I can. It is so relaxing for me.

Ammon's a stud.

I was reading Ether 12 because I love the book of Ether. And it's just
a great chapter. Soooo much faith. And they really focus on having
charity for others. That really is just so important. As a missionary,
there's no way I could be successful sin charity. We all need to focus
on how we treat others and treat everyone with respect, because
everyone deserves some niceness. Este es total.

Anyway, I love y'all and hope you have great weeks.
Be the opposite of a jerk!

Con amor,

Elder Thorkelson

District meeting of 2 with milk, cookies and silly straws.