Week 30, 4-16-2018

Hey guys,

It's been another interesting week out here. A retired couple in one of our wards just came back from a humanitarian mission in Iraq. (Along with young adults retired couples can also serve missions.) Both of them both gave talks during our Sunday services. The gist of both of their talks was that they saw a lot of people in bad situations in Iraq, and that they were so happy to help, but that there are nowhere near enough senior missionaries serving right now to help everyone in need. Apparently, someone holding an authority position in our stake thought that they were sharing an important message because they spoke at both Wakefield and Fairfax ward sacrament meetings. So we had the same two speakers and musical performances in both ward’s sacrament meetings. Elder Roper and I almost literally had the same sacrament meeting twice.

One cool thing that happened this Sunday is that S– and J–  (recent converts) both got callings. (A calling is basically a position of responsibility that you are asked to hold in your ward. These positions are all volunteer and no one makes money from them. Even the full-time leaders of our church are only given an allowance with enough money to live comfortably on.) S– was given the calling to be a primary worker, which means that she will take care of and help teach Sunday school lessons to the children in our ward. And J– was asked to be the building maintenance lead. Which means that he is in charge of making sure that our church building stays clean.

And the real highlight of my week was getting poison ivy. We were helping a lady tear up some ivy in her yard the other day. She told us to look out for poison Ivy. but she didn't think that there would be any on the side of the yard that we were working on. And there wasn't. But I'm pretty sure that there was some in the trash bin that we were putting the ground ivy in to. Elder Roper came out untouched, but I've got it all up my arms. Luckily that's the only place I have it. Well except for a little on my right hand and left knee.

Stay safe and look out for a shiny three-leafed vine. 

From a dead meme. - Eli