I'm glad I could hear about y'alls experience at the temple. That sounds awesome I'm really glad that you got to go with the Bishop and his wife. I bet it was awesome in there, it's one of the most beautiful buildings that I've ever seen. It's funny that you got to do a lot of work for the Pickup line in our family because I was looking at Elder Bowen's Genealogy chart, and on his seventh line back there's a John Pickup in it. We were just talking about it last night. Who knows maybe we're distantly related! (John Pickup is back 8 generations from Sean and had a son named John Pickup, so we are pretty sure he is related to Elder Bowen!)
This week had its ups and downs. We taught Cory more about the Gospel and he is really committed to being baptized. He was keeping all of his commitments and we were developing a really great relationship with him, and all he really had to do was get to church on Sunday to meet the requirements to be baptized. We talked to him on Friday, and he said that he couldn't come to church or the ward fund raiser on Saturday because he was going to be at his Dad's house all weekend. I think he"ll come this next week and everything, but it was pretty disappointing to hear that day. We had to take him off date for now, but he'll be back up to be baptized in April. It did make me a little frustrated when I first heard though. On Friday we had been having no success and all of our investigators wouldn't answer or come to their appointments. We had been riding a lot that day and the day before, and we just didn't get tot each at all. We rode across our area back and forth about 5 times that day and my brake line broke, and Elder Welty's tire popped and so we had to walk some too. It just wasn't a good day for me. I didn't have any luck this week. I'm not mad about it anymore but at the time it made me a little frustrated. Elder Welty was a good example to me and just about the whole day he just didn't worry about it all. I'm usually the person to not worry about anything, and so I figured that when things happen that I can't control even if I'm working hard I should just not worry about it. Being patient with people and myself is something I'm gonna work on this week so that when my luck is down, I can still be happy and have the Spirit with me so that I can enjoy what I'm doing.
Saturday was great though. We had the ward fund raiser which was a talent show with the theme of "I'd pay to see that". Brother and Sister Andersen put it together really well, and a lot of people came. It was so fun to be there and to have a couple of our investigators come too. I was actually in one of the acts. They had a missionary eating contest. Elder Welty and I were on a team against Elder Willie and Elder Bowen. The rules were that one companion eats and the other feeds. The companion eating had to be blindfolded and couldn't use his hands. Then whoever finished the plate first or the most after the time limit was up won, and the winners get to throw pies in the other's faces. I was the eater of course, against Elder Willie. The whole week Elder Willie was talking trash and he thought he was gonna win, but I smoked him SO BAD. We didn't know what we got to eat until after but we had to eat collared greens, pinto beans, grits, and fired liver mush. I literally just opened my mouth and swallowed every bite without even chewing and Elder Willie was apparently like begging Elder Bowen to stop feeding him because he thought it was so gross! There's a video that Brother Andersen will send you, you'll get to see it. I ate the whole plate in no time at all haha. The liver mush was so nasty though... I tried to swallow it without chewing but the corn meal in it was so thick that I gagged on stage a couple times hahaha. It was great though, I love competitions. The activity was awesome and they raised a lot of money for the youth camps this year. The other things they did was High Priest Zumba, and all the old guys in our ward danced to Gangam Style. I laughed so hard it was great. And then also Bishop Fore made a deal with the young men that if they got enough money raised to where he wouldn't outbid it, they could shave his head on stage. So yeah he was bald on Sunday it was great. The ward is awesome here and they're all really funny and normal. It was fun to be at the activity. It helped my week end on a good note for sure.
I love you and I hope y'all have an awesome week.
Love
Elder Bills