Apartment Upgrade!

New address: 1011 Saint Andrews circle rantoul illinois..........I want to start off by shouting out Aunt Heather and Uncle Seth's family for writing me letters. Email is great but it is awesome to get letters especially when you're not expecting them.

We officially moved into our new apartment so no more black mold. I'll attach photos of the old place but they definitely don't do it justice. When you'd shower moldy paint would fall onto your head and shoulders and I went to clean under the microwave and there was like rainbow mold. The first retard Elders that didn't clean created a domino effect that caused every elder after to not clean because it was already so dirty. The moving assistance came Tuesday and helped us load everything into a trailer, then we would drive 50 yards down the street and put everything back into the new apartment. Somehow I got the washer and dryer both times. The washer didn't drain so it felt like 500 pounds and it was a little rusty on the bottom where my hand was so hopefully my tetanus pulled through. The bathroom in our old apartment was so bad. There is a senior couple who are in charge of the housing and there are always 2 elders stationed with them. The Senior elder, elder Hatfield was so upset from before he even got out of the car because it is a 3 hour drive from St Louis to Rantoul and then he had to scrub the moldy bathroom for like 3 hours. The trailer looked brand new and really nice so I told him it was a nice trailer and he said it is brand new because the 2 elders crashed the other one. One of the housing elders was my companion's first companion in rantoul when he got sent here from Ghana so they were having a grand reunion time. The elder that was here before was wearing a shirt that he had bought in Rantoul and my companion took off his hoodie and he was wearing it as well.  You should have seen them high five and get all giddy!

We went to "amish land" today and ate at an amish buffet. The food was really good and we met some elders there so it was a fun time. After we ate we went to this amish store and I and a couple other elders bought genuine amish straw hats. The amish people here are kind of fake amish because there were cars and farm technology all around. They wear the Pioneer clothes and have horse drawn buggies but some of them have cars and have like nike shoes and stuff and I saw forklifts at the store so I'm not sure they're real. 

This week our area 70 Elder met with our mission over zoom for like and hour and a half for 3 consecutive days and it was pretty spiritual.....my companion and I had various lessons, we read "come follow me" with members a lot because 1. they need fellowshipping, and 2.  it's not like we have insane amounts of new people we are teaching.

....we taught John again. He had cancelled the last couple times but when we met the spirit was so strong....it is annoying, especially with this guy cause he used to be a gangster from east saint Louis but he understands, and I know he feels the spirit and he also said that he knows what we are teaching him is true, and that he's prayed about it, but I kind of feel like he is going through the pride cycle because he is feeling the spirit and reading the scriptures but he's not fully accepting the gospel ya know.......he's out of jail on parole in this program that let's you get out of jail, but you have to live at this church for 8 months....he has like 3 hours of church a day but we feel like as soon as he's done he's going to be done with that church, and us cause he thinks it's just a "good message" even tho the spirit is constantly testifying to him..........

we went back to the alpaca farm and turns out another alpaca died, just got sick and died. We helped her scoop out all the alpaca poop from the barn (that's where they sleep at night because it is to cold outside) and relocated it some place outside like 30 yards from the barn. It's super fun to help her because she actually needs it, and she is also super fun to talk to. I honestly don't know how she takes care of all those animals and works 2 jobs, but she says she likes the way she lives.....

........apparently they are sending missionaries back to mexico who have just over 6 months left so I should be going within a couple months (allegedly)..........adios!

The Unfortunate Burn...

Hello in the cabin. I hope you are all well. This last week has been all over the place. When I go to write my weekly email I feel like I cannot remember anything that has happened during the week. Transfers are on the 18th of december for my mission. Originally they were after Christmas sometime, but President Bell decided that the missionaries that were going home should be able to get home before then to spend Christmas with their families. 

Still no news on when my companion is going back to Ghana, the 1st wave of missionaries is going back December 10th but he wasn't on that list so he could spend another full transfer in the states lol. He has been in Rantoul almost 7 and a half months now. I don't blame him for wanting to leave,  I would like to go to St Louis, but I really just want a real Ward, here in Rantoul we have like 15 active members who drive to the church building up to an hour away. We don't have branch council and the priesthood brethren can't really do much because we are so far apart.....it's tricky for sure....lots of room for growth!

my companion had never seen Johnny Lingo before so I showed him that haha if you haven't seen it go check it out, it is made by the church so it is missionary approved. also more good church videos are "the phone call" and "the mailbox"......I have no idea why those movies were made by the church but they were all made in like 1980 but they're super funny.

We have this one Elderly Sister who calls us everyday to tell us the weather, and we occasionally go over and do service for her like raking her yard or cleaning out her gutters on her roof, or rearranging her shed ......so through all that I still had never been inside her house and this time she wanted us to move some empty boxes and a broken ice machine to the curb. So....that was interesting too.

We went to the Alpaca lady's (Rose) farm hut again. She went away last week for like 3 days and 2 of the alpacas died, her friend was watching them and the friends dog killed a baby alpaca and the the next day she let the girls get too close to the boys and when the chicks are close the boys fight and one was trampled to death so she was super sad. She has a giant trash pile full of her years worth of trash because she lives in the middle of nowhere and the city dump trucks don't come all the way out to get her trash, so she has a giant bonfire like twice a year. If burning plastic is bad for the environment we probably took like twenty years off of the earth's span haha and she had us throw the Alpaca bodies into the flames, I felt like old ben and C3PO burning jawa bodies in star wars episode 4. 

We posted an add on the Rantoul Facebook community page saying we could send people daily bible verses till christmas and we are actually teaching one guy from it now but it turns out he is Gay. We taught him the restoration and he said he believes but then after the lesson he texted us saying we are both super hot, I thought it might be best to stop teaching him but my companion doesn't. He doesn't live in Rantoul tho so we will have to pass off lessons with other elders eventually...........can't think of anything else Adios!!!!!!