Hello there family!
Here is a shout out to everyone from California!!!! How is everyone doing? Sorry I didn’t write yesterday it was labor day meaning the libraries are closed and I am not able to email. So in those cases I am able to write on Tuesday at a very random time that meets the schedule of the day.
This past week has been full of all sorts of different things. One thing that went on was that we had the annual grape harvest on Saturday. The church has a huge grape area that we go and harvest grapes every September and they dry them into raisins and then get them packaged. It was a ton of fun. You should see the Hmong and mien people harvest. They are amazing! So fast and very good. Then you have me and elder fox who have a real hard time finding grapes and then all sorts of things happen. I wish I would have brought my camera. I forgot it because we had to get up at 5:30 and I was a little out of it and completely forgot it. But it was fun.
Yesterday for p-day me and elder fox went to another pair of elder’s house and played mormonopoly. Yeah it is exactly how it is spelled. It is monopoly with all sorts of Mormon places. It was pretty ghetto but I just had to laugh especially since it was for a bunch of missionaries! We played two games because the first one went by fast. Elder fox got the green area and had hotels on them quick and then it was all over. He took all three of us out with them then he got the blue section too. So we were doomed. I was the second of the three to get destroyed. I placed third so I wasn’t complaining. The next game was a little longer and was all mine. I started out and got the blue area then I traded and got the green then I got the yellow so I had a whole side. The only problem was that I had no money. But that changed with free parking (or as in the game “blessings”) and the game was mine. So that was a super fun p-day. It was even better because I was able to get 3 watermelons. They were having a sale for 1.50 per watermelon so I got two and then the other two elders gave me one so I was happy!
One other story… on Wednesday of last week we went and visited a less active woman. We talked with her for a bit then her little 4 year old daughter came out and we got to talking with her. She was so funny. She knew both Hmong and English and was pretty much teaching me words that I didn’t know. It kinda made me feel stupid but I laughed as well. We had a good time then we took all sorts of pictures. We took about 36 of them. It was so funny. I’ll attach a couple for you all. But her name was Kristy Xiong. She was the funniest girl! she had her own words for a couple things like Tinkerbell off of peter pan. She called him teeumbell. I just laughed my head off. It was so awesome!
So with the work. It is going alright. There really isn’t much progress yet. The two investigators we have have plateaued but we’re working on them. They’ll come around I know so that’s why I’m good. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about me is that I’m so laid back as a missionary and am cool with what people do. Sometime it drives me crazy but I still shake it off. I seem to be so much different that many missionaries who stress out like crazy. It’s quite funny if I do say so myself. Elder fox is kinda laid back to so that’s really nice.
So last but not least is the food aspect of things. This week was quite boring with food except one day. Me and elder fox ate a Thai pepper. They are tiny things but boy do they pack a punch! I bit into it and then swallowed it and it was good for the first 5 seconds. Then it felt like I had flames through my WHOLE MOUTH!!!!!! It was SO DANG HOT!!! i tried water and that didn’t help and the worst part was that we had to get going so we got on the bikes and my mouth was burning for about the next 10 minutes. It was bad!
That’s it for the food point of things. Just me being a dummy I’d have to say. But I hope everyone is doing really well. Things as you can see are good out here and I’m loving it. The people are awesome the weather is hot but it beats having it humid. At least it is dry!
Just want to say that I love all of you and miss you all tons!
Talk to you next week!
Love
Elder Eddie Holloway