Fireflies, Parasites, and Summer Nights!

Hello friends and family! 

It's hard to believe summer is actually here! Tomorrow is 11 months out, kids aren't in school anymore, the corn is growing, and I'm still a missionary. It's super weird. 

This week has also been super weird. Monday was spent attempting to wash the dishes with our wonderful poison water. That took a long time. 

Tuesday was the best of days, and the worst of days. We woke up with our bowels absolutely wrecked. Turns out we still got some of the poison... We spent the day on our beds or the toilet. The mission nurse was pretty sure that we had parasites. She had us take some meds in case it was something else, and they worked, so I guess we don't have parasites! Yay! 

So that was why it was the worst of days, here's why it was so great! Right around 6 that night, we got a text from our investigator DJ saying that he'd made us supper. Yes! We weren't able to eat much, but we had been trying to get a lesson with him for a while, so we were super excited! It turned out to be a great lesson, one of the best on my mission. We had prayed about when he should be baptized, and received a strong answer of the 30th. It's amazing how much power comes when you are able to confidently declare the will of God because of what the spirit has told you. I just love being a missionary! 

Wednesday we got back on our feet, bought more water and disposable dishes, prepared for district meeting, and spent the rest of the day finding. That's when I realized that it's summer now. It was so hot, and kids were everywhere, it was surreal. 

Thursday was district meeting, which was great! Had a pretty cool experience there. My phone, which had all my notes and resources for my training, crashed. It must have overheated or something. We were all praying for it to start working. It didn't. 

As the time to start training approached, I could hardly remember any of the details I'd prepared. I was pretty nervous about it... But as I got up there, each part of the training came back to my mind as I needed it, scripture references, page numbers, everything! It was pretty incredible. The spirit is definitely real folks. 

That night we had exchanges with the zone leaders in our area, since Elder Anderson served here a few months ago. I was with him and we visited a bunch of people he'd taught before. It was pretty cool. That night we visited Mark, who was nice to elder Anderson back in February, but "not interested". He let us right in, and started asking some awesome questions! Turns out that he decided to find the Book of Mormon app on his own, and has been reading it since then. It was awesome, we're excited to keep teaching him. 

Friday we did some creative finding, by chalking up the local park. Good times. Then we wrapped up the exchange, and weekly planned. 

Saturday was pretty typical. Taught a few lessons, met a few people, and painted some rocks for our creative finding. Party! 

Sunday was a little disappointing. We had high hopes for Mark and DJ to come to church, but they didn't. It's alright though, cause the fireflies are here! Also, I did numbers outside in the beautiful summer evening. Holy cow, even though the days are miserable, these summer nights make it so worth it! I love Iowa! 

Love y'all! 

Elder Housholder

The pics are pretty self explanatory.