July 30, 2012
It’s Love Bug’s 2nd birthday.
He has been eating strawberries, waffles, raisins and cheerios. Now he is sitting behind me chanting, “Go
Mairkin! Go Mairkin!” (Go American!) We
are watching Missy Franklin swimming the 200 meter freestyle. She makes it into the semifinals. Princess was a little disappointed that Missy was 2nd
in her heat. The next heat has no
Americans. This has no bearing on
Love Bug’s desire to keep chanting the same refrain. Winwin is chiming in now with, “He is getting
annoying.”
August 2, 2012
Thursday already!
This week has been filled with watching the Olympics and working on
finishing a bunch of projects. Peanut changed his mind about not wanting to help me with a power point presentation
and has been tweaking pages to include various animations, color, etc. We’ve
been earning lots of Amazon gift cards with all three computers at work on
swagbucks. I am trying to finish my
books and all school plans for the coming year. It has also been a good laundry folding
week. lol
During the past couple of weeks, Love Bug has perfected a new
favorite phrase. To be sure you get his
drift, he questions, “Hear me?!” Add
this to his insistent “Now!” and “EE up!” (hurry up) and one would think he is
a really pushy kid. But, it is really
quite cute to hear him say all these things.
And no, we do not cater to his every whim although his adorability makes
one want to do so.
Tuesday night I took Peanut and Princess to play soccer with
several friends even though I wanted to stay home and hang out with Dad, who
was actually home, and the little boys.
For my efforts I gained dozens of itchy mosquito bites on my legs. Argh.
But, on the upside, I had a very nice visit with a friend, and we now
can commiserate via text our inclination to scratch. Every cloud has a silver
lining, right?
Winwin likes to keep me updated on scores. We may be watching water polo or volleyball
and he will see a change in the score and let me know, “The bad guys are losing
by three now. They were losing by
two.” He is pretty accurate. I don’t really need to worry too much about
his math skills. At age 4 he is far
ahead of the game. Officially he doesn’t
begin school until next year, but he is in prime teaching mode right now
because he yearns to learn.
August 3, 2012
So once again, I found myself trying to get my scripture
study in with awake little boys. I think
I do a half way decent job of focusing or refocusing on things I am engrossed
in despite distractions. However, there
is just something that tickles the funny bone when you are studying scriptures
about our omniscient Lord and in the midst of this, directly behind me, the two
year old yells, “Pillow fight!” and launches one at his brother.
August 3, 2012
We were all gathering in the kitchen for dinner. Love Bug was right next to the garbage when he
looked at me and questioned, “Spit, tay?”
I said, “You want to spit?”
He says, “Yeah.”
I wondered, “Where did you get that idea from? Your brothers?”
“No. Spit, tay?”
I agreed, “Okay, whatever.”
Upon receiving this consent, he opened the lid to the
garbage can, looked in and yelled, “Ptooey!”
It was hilarious.
Fast forward to the middle of dinner. We were talking about the Olympics and I
mentioned the guy that was swimming and didn’t hear the final lap buzzer and swam
an extra two lengths of the pool. Sticky commented, “Maybe he didn’t hear because he was so focused. He was intense.”
“In tents?” came Winwin’s puzzled query.
August 4, 2012
The Olympics is bringing out more funnies from the little
boys. Here is yet another. We were watching the South African paraplegic
runner warming up. They told a little of
the story of this courageous, legless man.
He is fitted with prosthetic legs so that he can run. When Love Bug saw him, he exclaimed over and
over, “Cute shoes! Cute shoes!”
Tonight Dad and I went to dinner tonight for a date. We tried out a cute little Italian
place. It had plenty of good atmosphere,
the food was yummy if you didn’t eat the salad.
It was nice to get out alone together, something we haven’t managed for
quite some time. This interim post is
making work even longer hours than ever and it will continue probably through
mid September in this way.
When we got home, the kids were all outside playing
mini-disc golf. Dad joined them while I
threw together Sunday dinner. Then I
went out with them until dark. It was
really nice weather and so fun to spend a little family time. Little Frisbees were flying every which way,
getting stuck on the roof, under the cars, in the bushes, in the trees. Winwin made himself the official retriever of
discs and then would throw several at a time back to the rest of the gang. Occasionally someone tried to gather up their
own Frisbee. If Winwin saw them with
this in mind, he would hit his super power speed button and barrel in front of
them to grab it even in their process of bending to pick it up. He managed to get a few tickles and good
natured griping out of the deal. Love Bug held my pinky finger and walked around getting his little Frisbee, then he
would toss it again, pumping a tiny fist when he made a throw he liked.
Princess and I went yard sale-ing again. I had some good finds, but I can’t write
about it here or someone will know one of their Christmas gifts! Princess got to learn that you don’t always
find stuff at the sales.
Missionary Letter:
Overall we had a really stellar week this week. It was funny because we had a lot of different appointments fall through, but almost every time we were able to quickly find someone else to teach, or we set up an appointment to teach them at a later time. It was pretty cool to see how the Lord placed us in the areas we needed to be at.
Monday:
Pday. Good day. Dinner with some members. FHE with another family.
Tuesday:
We helped out with food pantry, and right afterward we headed up to Welch, West Virginia for exchanges. To save on our limited mileage, we took the shortest distance route. That proved to be quite the adventure. We went in and out of Hallows, across gravel and dirt, on a couple of one-lane two-way roads, you get the picture. We arrived safe and sound however.
I stayed in Welch with E. Young, and E. Mitchell went to Richlands with E. Guthrie. E. Young and I did a lot of tracting. It was blazing hot when we started, and dripping wet when we finished. We tracted for about 2 hours, and we were blessed with two new investigators on the very last trailer we knocked on. They invited us in right away, and we taught the Restoration lesson.
On the way home, it was pouring rain. E. Young and I were soaked all the way through. E. Young started telling me about a funny experience when he saw someone get splashed by a car. We were laughing and joking about it, when suddenly we were engulfed by a wave of water from our heads to our toes. We stopped, looked at each other, listened to the car drive away, and just busted up laughing at how Ironic that was.
When we got back to their house, we took dinner, and I threw my wet shirt and socks into the dyer for a while before we headed out to see another of their investigators. It was an eventful day.
Wednesday.
We had a district meeting after which, we exchanged back. One our way home, E. Guthrie and I stopped by the R's. D had started up smoking a little, so she and Ra had been contemplating whether they should wait till she quits before they start attending church again. We explained the importance of church attendance, and described it by saying, "The Church isn't an exclusive clubhouse for saints, rather it is more like a hospital for the sinners." I think it got the point across pretty well.
Thursday:
We taught a couple of different investigators throughout the day, nothing terribly out of the ordinary happened. It was a good solid day.
Friday:
The food pantry was the slowest I had ever seen it since I've been helping out there. Normally we would give out about 150-200 boxes of food in a day, but we only gave away 70 something boxes.
On our way back, we tried to contact some potential investigators. Originally we had planned to see A, but by the time we almost got there, I realized that A wouldn't be home since he was working day shift this week in the mines. That was dumb planning of me! Since we were really close we decided to try another couple of potentials at a different part of the same apartment complex. We parked in a different place than what we normally would've. Right when we got out, we were able to talk to a guy, give him a Book of Mormon, and set up an appointment for next week. The Lord knew where he needed us right at that time.
We had a great lesson with a new investigator later that day. He had tons of great questions which we helped him to find answers to. He wants to read the Book of Mormon, and explore this a little further.
Next we drove out to Honaker, and found out that the investigator we were going to see went to Lebanon to see his kids. (Lebanon is a town just outside our mission) We were kind of disappointed, but because of it, we were able to teach a lesson to a new investigator who already knew two families in the Branch. (The only two who lived out in Honaker.)
Saturday:
We were running late to a couple of appointments, so we stopped by McDonald's for lunch. When I ordered, I tried to make things less expensive by just ordering a sandwich and fries without the drink. Well, that came out to be $5.90 which is really dumb because the combo with the drink included came out to be $5.40. Go figure. I got the combo.
We had another appointment fall through, but because of it, we were able to teach a lesson to M at her grandma's house. She's 9 years old, and has wanted to be baptized for the past year, but has never been able to get permission from her parents to do so. Well when we taught a lesson to her, her mom was also present. Afterwards, we asked her mom for permission, and to our surprise, she said yes. So this upcoming Saturday (Aug 11th) we should have a baptism! Yes! We're super excited, and M is as well!
We were busy the rest of the day with other appointments. Our area has really boomed in the past few weeks. The Lord is really blessing our efforts.
Sunday:
M came to church, and her baptism was officially announced in church for noon on Saturday. We stayed a little longer at church so we could teach M a lesson. We also were able to teach the R's, and we had dinner and a lesson with Ro. It was a good Sunday.
Love ya!
Elder Brayden Connole
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